At the Midnight Hour (15 page)

The way he said the words caused a slow blush to heat her face, and her gaze skittered back to the fire. But despite the pulsing race of her blood, she plunged on stubbornly.

“That’s sex,” she managed to say, the words prim but angry, at him, at herself. “And sex may fill your ‘hunger’ but it’s about as lasting as a snack.” She paused for a moment, her voice growing softer. “I’ve never had sex,” she whispered. “My first time, I waited for marriage. I think, maybe, it’s worth it to wait again.”

His face grew dangerously darker. He didn’t want to hear what she said, didn’t want to believe in anything more than the physical. He’d been a fool enough to believe those lines once before.

“That’s fairy-tale foolishness,” he told her harshly, rising off the floor and severing the intimate scene once and for all. “You think sex is merely superficial? You think it means nothing? Let me tell you, Liz, even sex can make your head spin. Shall I demonstrate it to you once more?”

She gasped, swallowing hard as her face paled. The anticipation still simmered in her blood, but she didn’t think she could take two of these lessons in one night.

He laughed mockingly at the look on her face, and strode angrily to the bar. He went to pour himself another glass of brandy, then saw the way his hand shook. With an oath, he slammed the decanter down. Brandy wouldn’t do a thing for the ache in his stomach now.

“Sooner or later,” he said without turning around. “Sooner or later, Liz, you’ll understand what I mean. You can’t fight nature.”

She stood up slowly behind him, grateful for the distance even as she hated it. Would she ever get through to him? Would she ever see anything other than the darkness in him? Yet again, she was painfully aware of the fact that he’d never answered his own question.
Did you kill Alycia?
Funny, he had yet to say no.

She shook her head, and felt the beginnings of a headache throb at her temples. Tomorrow she would make it to the town library. She swore it. She turned, and, not knowing anything else to say, she simply walked out of the room.

Richard felt her leave, and his fists clenched on the bar until the knuckles turned white. He didn’t believe in love, damn it, or any of the rest of her naive drivel. Love was a fool’s fantasy, some ridiculous fairy tale invented by people who wanted to romanticize the baser instincts of life.

There was no such thing.

He would not be led down that path again. He’d learned his lessons, he’d been to the altar of disbelief.

Then his tensed muscles relaxed and a new thought entered his head. He would have to find another tack. He’d handled things too harshly this time. But surely there was another way.

Because God knows, he had to put out this fire raging in his blood. Somehow, some way, he vowed before the silenced library, he would seduce her.

How else was he ever going to forget her?

* * *

She was avoiding him. There was no other way of stating it, Liz thought two days later. She was quite simply going out of her way to avoid the man. Sunday, she’d tried to go into town, only to learn from a dismal Blaine that everything there was closed on Sundays. Rather than try to keep up appearances in front of his gang, she’d sneaked back to her room and hid out like some bandit. And even when the grandfather clock rang out the hour of midnight, she had not, absolutely would not, go anywhere near the library.

By the time Monday arrived and she could once again immerse herself in Andy and their activities together, she was grateful for the distraction.

The truth of the matter was, she didn’t trust herself around Richard. He did things to her senses no man should be allowed to do. She’d thought she was a strong person, firm in her convictions, but somehow, when he looked at her with those smoldering blue eyes... She wasn’t sure she wanted to test that theory.

At least Andy didn’t leave much time for thinking. After two days of Mrs. Pram’s supervision, he was sullen and whiny. Liz had suggested they go outside. Andy had informed her that due to the deterioration of the ozone layer, more than seven hundred thousand cases of non-melanoma skin cancer were diagnosed each year in the U.S. as being sun-related. Therefore, he couldn’t possibly go outside.

Too floored to even begin arguing, Liz had simply nodded. When was she ever going to get through to this child? Just to prove her point, however, she’d devised several in-house games for them to play. Andy had looked suspicious, but he hadn’t come up with any great statistics to get out of them. God knows, he would probably research the matter tonight and in the morning report the number of people who had died of respiratory diseases caused from household dust. Until then, she had him involved in a game of hide-and-seek.

Andy, being Andy, had never played hide-and-seek. The simplistic rules had caused a sneer from him. How could counting to fifty possibly be a challenge? He thought they should change it to counting to four hundred, calling out only prime numbers. Liz had informed him he was welcome to use whatever method he desired; she was counting to fifty.

Given the size of the house, they’d restricted themselves to hiding only in the main structure. That range was further limited by the fact that half the main structure, namely the two grand ballrooms and a formal study/smoking room, had been shut up. That left them with the kitchen, the foyer, the formal dining room, and of course, the library. Liz had hidden first, settling for the pantry in the kitchen. Andy had found her within five minutes, claiming the pantry was the most logical place for her to have chosen, given her affinity for snacking.

Liz had scowled, but couldn’t see any way around his logic. After all, the main reason she’d selected the pantry
had
been the fact that she was hungry. She’d declared a truce with Andy over two small bowls of strawberry ice cream. To her satisfaction, Andy was coming along nicely in his new appreciation for such simple pleasures as ice cream. His mechanical bites were slowly giving way to something closer to enthusiasm. And this time, he even went so far as to scrape his bowl.

There might be hope for the child yet.

Now it was Liz’s turn, so she stood in the foyer, counting out fifty in her soft lilting voice. At first, she could hear the faint scurrying and scraping sounds of Andy trying to find a good place to hide. Then, there was only the silence.

She finished counting, and raised her head. The last noise she’d heard had been in the direction of the library, so she headed there. She took a first, skimming inventory, looking behind all the furniture. No Andy. Next, she went to the kitchen, where she also conducted a quick search. No Andy there, either. She moved on to the dining room.

But Andy wasn’t in the dining room or the foyer. Growing perplexed now, she started back to the library. Andy was a remarkably bright child, to say the least, what hiding place might he have come up with? Racking her brains, Liz tried to remember all the tricks she’d employed in her own youth. This time her search was much more thorough. She checked behind curtains, under desks. She checked all cabinets, and all nooks and crannies within nooks and crannies.

But after half an hour, all she’d found was more silence. And the worry within her slowly turned to dread.

Where was Andy?

Concerned now, she turned her mind to the problem with earnest. Maybe he’d forgotten their rules and hidden in the shut-up rooms. It was a thin strand of hope, given the fact that Andy never forgot anything, but looking for him there was worth a try.

Liz stepped over the velvet rope that draped across the hallway, and journeyed toward the two ballrooms. The air in the hallway was much colder here, and smelled musty with disuse. Despite herself, Liz shivered. She should have brought a flashlight, she realized. The hallway was growing darker as she moved away from the foyer. Trying to keep her uneasiness down, she put her hand along the cold stone of the wall, and began feeling for a light switch as she walked along.

“Andy?” she called out softly. But there was no reply.

Surely he wouldn’t have gone down this way. Given his tight nerves and skittish demeanor, she couldn’t see the child willingly walking along this dark, damp passageway. Still, he had to be around someplace. Swallowing grimly, she kept walking, her footsteps echoing down the long, dusty hall.

Finally, when her nerves were strung so tight she was afraid the slightest noise would make her snap, her hand came to a light switch. She gratefully snapped it on.

There was a small flicker, then the entire hallway filled with soft, dim light. She should have felt relief, even comfort. But she couldn’t, because for the first time, she could finally see what was around her.

Along both sides of the wall loomed the dark, somber oil portraits of past Keatons. Beneath each one, she could see their names carved in a small brass plate. So it went, all the way down, father, mother, sons, wives, sons, until you reached the end. And at the end sat one lone portrait. An oil portrait that wasn’t sitting so neat and nice on the wall. Instead, the frame hung at a drunken angle, while the painting itself appeared to have been torn out. Now, it littered the broad hallway in little bits of meticulously cut canvas. Liz felt her feet moving of their own accord, drawing her to the destruction. But she didn’t have to journey all the way there to know what the little brass plate would say.

Alycia Wynston Keaton.

There was no trace of the beautiful blonde anymore. The pieces were slashed so tiny, reconstruction would be impossible. Liz could only stare at the ragged pieces with growing horror. It was as if the person who had done this had been trying to obliterate her completely, to stamp her out beyond repair.

The destruction was so total, the anger so complete, that Liz felt it.

Cold shudders raced through her uncontrollably. Instinctively she sensed the truth. The person who had murdered Alycia was still out there, the rage still burning dark and bitter in the musty halls. Who else could have done such a thing as what she saw before her?

And unbidden, his picture rose to her mind.
Richard.
Richard sitting in the library with his cold, controlled eyes. Richard twirling his brandy glass while his eyes darkened with unholy secrets.

Could the man who touched her with such passion be capable of such violence? Her fingers rose to tentatively touch her lips, as if searching for some proof in the memory that would tell her irrevocably, no, Richard was not such a man. But the truth was, she didn’t know. She had seen him cold, and she had seen him angry. And she didn’t know just what he was capable of.

Had Alycia?

There were no answers in the dark hallway, only the drafts of an old cold wind that chilled her soul. After all these years, this house still clutched its secrets. And in these long dusty hallways, it kept the anger, as well.

She moved back down the hall in earnest.

Andy, she had to find Andy. Where was the child, where could he have gone?

And once again, the terror was back. She had to find Andy, and she had to find him now. He couldn’t be in the ballrooms, there hadn’t been footprints in the dust, she realized belatedly. Therefore, he could only be in the study, or perhaps he had been in the first rooms and she just hadn’t realized it. Nodding to herself to keep calm, she turned back, calling out his name as she went.

“Game’s over, Andy,” she said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice as her panic grew. “You can come out now. You win.”

But still there was only silence.

She searched the study. She searched the library, the kitchen, the foyer and the dining room. She went from room to room, crying out his name, and at long last, begging him to come out.

But still there was no sign of the little boy.

Completely panicked now, she went up to the rooms. The hour was growing late, darkness falling with steady swiftness, but she couldn’t find a trace of anyone—Blaine, Jillian, Parris, Greg. They were all gone, and so was Andy. The house appeared to be completely deserted.

Except, of course, for the left-hand tower.

She had to tell Richard, she thought instantly. She couldn’t find Andy anywhere, and he knew the old house much better than she did. He would know where a child might disappear or become trapped. She had to believe that, had to believe that Andy was somewhere in this old mansion and in a matter of minutes, they would figure out where.

Her midnight eyes tight with the strain, she fairly ran up the left-tower steps. She didn’t even pause at the top, but pounded on the thick wooden door with fierce determination.

It was opened immediately.

“What do you want?” Richard demanded. But his voice trailed off as he saw her face. It was completely ashen, her blue eyes huge and bright with panic. Something was wrong, horribly wrong.

“What happened?” he asked, a thousand and one emotions racing through him before he had a chance to feel even one. The dread settled hard, and suddenly he knew. “It’s Andy,” he whispered.

She could only nod, fighting her way through the knot of panic in her stomach. She had to remain in control. If she could just keep her thoughts clear, they would figure this all out. It would be okay. It had to be.

“We were playing hide-and-seek,” she managed to get out. “He was supposed to hide only in the main structure, in the open rooms. But I’ve looked and looked and looked, and I can’t find him anywhere. I’m sorry. I’m so terribly sorry.” She had failed, failed miserably. Andy and Richard had both trusted her, and she had failed them both.

Richard frowned, some of the tightness leaving his chest. “He’s probably just in his room,” he said.

She shook her head. “I looked there a moment ago. He wasn’t in.”

“Well, did you call for him, tell him that the game had ended? You know how clever he is, he probably just came up with a really good spot so that you missed him.”

“I called,” she whispered. “I told him the game was over. He never appeared.”

Richard’s face froze, the tightness returning to his chest. He could feel the beginnings of an uncommon emotion, and he fought against it: worry. The child was somewhere in the house, he repeated to himself, clinging fast to his rational mind. They simply needed to deduce where.