Book of Shadows (30 page)

“Joseph—”

“He won’t get back in time to help you. My grandfather is smart. He made sure Joseph Bess won’t get back in time.”

“You’re a
changeling.”

Gina nodded. “I will do anything to save my village. We are taught that nothing is more important than our people.”

“No one attacked you in school, did they?”

Gina smirked. “It was easy. I said I was attacked and everyone believed me. I said the man did certain things to me, nothing real bad, and even the doctor believed me. It was easy. I was substituted for her. Just as my people killed Joseph Bess’s wife, so that the one person who might have noticed even a slight change in the real Gina would be out of the way. Gina’s father had never been around enough to know her that well.”

“Where is the real Gina?”

Gina shrugged. “Dead. She died quickly. But you won’t. You and Bofil. My grandfather has to kill you both tonight, then bring the book back to our village by tomorrow to save my mother and my brother.”

Marisa took a step forward. “Bofil? Anthony Paul Bofil?”

“He’s a changeling, too, but he’s no longer one of us. He wants to be an American. He wants the book for himself, to help him break away from us. My grandfather will burn him, too. But first he will burn you.”

“Edith! Edith!”
Marisa ran towards Bess’s bedroom.

Throwing the door open, Marisa looked down. Edith Gupta lay on her stomach on the floor, the hair dryer near her face. Her wet hair clung to her skull and there was blood on her neck.

Marisa backed away slowly, then looked for the telephone. She found it. The cord was cut.

She ran into the living room in time to see Gina pull a shopping bag from under the couch, then run towards the front door. Marisa raced after her, caught her and spun the child around, throwing her to the floor. Gina shrieked, leaped up and clawed at Marisa, scratching her arms and neck. Marisa slapped her, then shoved her to the floor again. As Marisa touched the scratches on her neck, Gina looked up at her with hatred.

“He’s outside in the hall. Both of them are. They have keys and you can’t get away.” The child spat on Marisa’s leg.

Backing away slowly, her eyes on Gina, Marisa reached the door, turned and looked through the peephole.

She saw them. A stocky man, dark hair and gray suit. And the tall woman. The man had dyed his hair, but it was him. The pearl-studded silver bracelet was on his left wrist.

Gina was on her feet. “No telephone and no fire escape. And you can’t get out the front door. I hate you. I hate you because you want to kill my mother and my brother!”

“I don’t—”

“You do!”

“It was an accident! We didn’t mean to go to the village. We didn’t mean to take the book!”

Gina shouted, “Hu Gadarn! Hu Gadarn!”

Someone tried the door knob.

Marisa, her head light with fear, grabbed a chair and ran to the front door, shoving the chair under the doorknob as securely as she could.

Gina charged her, desperate to knock the chair away but Marisa grabbed her and threw her back into the apartment.

Marisa shouted, “I’ve got your granddaughter in here! I want you to know that!”

In the hallway, Rupert Comfort spoke softly to his wife. “It has to be me,” he said. “Your arm isn’t strong.”

“Rupert
—”

“We have no time. The policeman will return soon.
We
have planned for an emergency such as this. Give me five minutes then enter the apartment.”

“Be careful.”

Their hands touched and then the stocky man was gone, heading toward the roof.

Dragging Gina across the floor, Marisa threw the child into a closet and slammed the door. Quickly grabbing another chair, Marisa shoved it under the knob. Gina banged on the door with her fists and shouted in a foreign language, her words filled with a chilling intensity.

A terrified Marisa looked around. She was trapped and she was going to be burned alive. There was no escape.

Why hadn’t they come through the front door? What were they waiting for?

She ran to the kitchen, yanked open a drawer and dropped it to the floor. After picking up a kitchen knife, she ran to Bess’s bedroom. Made desperate by fear, Marisa clung to straws. Joseph kept his gun in his bedroom closet, high on a shelf so Gina couldn’t get it. Maybe he kept a second gun there. Maybe.

But she remembered the shopping bag she’d seen Gina with. The child had found the
Book of Shadows
and if there was a spare gun she’d probably found that too, and hidden it. Gina didn’t have it on her or she would have used it. But then she wouldn’t have killed Marisa. That was something her grandparents had to do.

Marisa stood on tiptoe, her hands pushing and pulling clothes away from the shelf and finding no gun.

She turned from the closet and was going to race from the bedroom, when she heard it. Someone was at the bedroom window.
How?
How could anyone be outside that window eight stories up from the ground and no fire escape and nothing to stand on but inches of ledge?

But someone was at the window.

From the left, a hand was flat against the window, the palm pressed tight against the glass. There was a thick silver bracelet on the wrist.

Marisa screamed.

Rupert Comfort raced across the roof, then leaped onto the roof of the building next door. From here he climbed down the fire escape until he could see part of the lighted window belonging to Joseph Bess’s apartment. He could only see it from an angle, but he was sure it was the one. Looking up at the moon, he held both arms over his head in a silent prayer, calling on his gods to give him strength for this last task.

Then he climbed over the fire-escape railing and without looking down, stepped onto the narrow ledge eight stories up from the ground. He faced the building, stomach against bricks, face turned to the side, fingers
d
igging hard into the cracks between the bricks. There was room for the tips of his feet, no more.

But he was a Celt, the descendant of warriors, and he had once been the finest athlete in his village and his gods were with him.

There was pain in his fingers and the sharp edges of the bricks tore his flesh and his legs were trembling with tension but he made his way along the ledge with agonizing slowness, his mind thinking just in terms of inches. One inch more, one inch more.

Only the woman remained. And when she was dead, the book would be his and his daughter and grandson would live.

His left foot slipped, but his fingers gripped the bricks and his foot found the ledge again. He continued toward the lighted window.

Outside in the hall, Rowena Comfort looked at her watch. Thirty seconds more. She held the keys in her right hand, her eyes on the watch but her mind on her husband. She prayed for his life.

Inside the bedroom, Marisa saw him. He was outside on the ledge and almost in front of the window, moving carefully, making sure his fingers had a purchase, his feet were on firm ground. He had raised the window a few inches, but that wasn’t enough. Now he was almost directly in front of the window, coming from the left and trying to raise the window higher.

Marisa looked around, then grabbed Edith Gupta’s hair dryer and rushed to the window. Turning her head to the side to avoid flying glass, she swung the hair dryer like a club, aiming the blow at the man’s head and sending glass into his face.

His hands went to his eyes and he lost his balance and disappeared and then he was falling and screaming.

Marisa, her wrist bleeding, ran from the bedroom to the living room in time to see the front door open then stop as it pushed against the chair. Gina, locked in the closet, was yelling in that foreign language and Marisa, terrified, backed up. The chair gave way, fell, and the door opened and the tall woman entered swiftly. Marisa ran to the bathroom, slammed the door and locked it.

Out of breath, she put her ear to the door and listened. She heard whispers and then someone tried the door, turning the knob slowly.

More whispers.

Marisa looked at her empty hands. She’d dropped her knife and had nothing. Turning on the light she looked around. The bathroom was small, with a toilet, bathtub, and a basin. Marisa tore open the door to the medicine chest, pulled bottles and tubes out then slammed the door. In panic, she pulled towels off the rack and threw them around. Nothing.

Someone kicked at the bathroom door.

Marisa screamed.

More kicks.

Marisa looked around. The door was giving way.

She saw it. A bathroom scale. Picking it up, she stepped to one side of the door and then it splintered and Rowena Comfort crashed through, losing her balance and trying not to fall and Marisa, hands high overhead, brought the scale down with all her strength onto Rowena Comfort’s temple. The tall woman dropped to the floor and Marisa struck her again and again.

Dropping the scale, Marisa staggered into the living room.

The front door was open and there were footsteps coming toward Marisa, who closed her eyes and dropped into an unending blackness.

When she awoke, she was on the couch and Joseph Bess was looking down at her.

There were two uniformed policemen in the apartment with him.

Bess touched her cheek. “You okay?”

Marisa nodded.

Bess said, “We found the man downstairs. He’d dyed his hair to get past the police. It’s almost as if he knew there were cops around here looking for him. Did he or the woman kill Edith? I guess Gina’s okay. She got away, right?”

Marisa said, “Gina killed Edith.”

Bess said nothing.

Marisa said, “I can prove it. Bofil. He’s one of them. He’s the changeling who was after the book.”

Bess’s anger was barely controlled. “Marisa, where’s Gina?”

“She’s not here? I—I locked her in the closet. Joseph, I’m telling you she’s one of them.”

“Marisa, cut the shit. Where’s my daughter?”

Marisa sat up. “I think I know where she’s gone.”

“Which is?”

“She’s got the book and has to return it to the village before tomorrow, before her mother and brother are burned alive. Before that, she has to kill Bofil. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the Comforts didn’t tell her to do that in case something happened to them.”

Bess eyed her with something close to contempt.

Marisa said, “She’s there. At Bofil’s apartment. I know she is.”

“Marisa, where’s my kid?”

She pushed his hands away. “Damn you! Damn you!”

A shocked Bess flinched. The two uniformed policemen turned to look at her.

Marisa forced herself to keep her voice low. “You think she’s your daughter. Well, she’s not. She would have killed me, but that was a privilege her grandparents reserved for themselves. And don’t look at me as if I’ve finally flipped out, because I haven’t. One of those two, the man or the woman, had keys to this apartment—and what do you bet they’re Gina’s keys? Go on, check. Meanwhile, get away from me. I am sick and tired of people not believing me. If you still think Gina’s your sweet little child, then you’ve got nothing to worry about, have you?”

She stood up. “Did I make up the three dead people here? Or the dead Puerto Ricans in Central Park? And what did you find when you went running out of here a few minutes ago? Well, damn it, tell me!”

Bess looked down at the floor. “Let’s go see Bofil.”

Anthony Paul Bofil turned the
Book of Shadows
around in his hand, then looked at Gina, who sat beside him on the bed. “You were right,” he said. “I called a friend who tells me there’s been some trouble down at Sergeant Bess’s apartment. My god, it’s incredible, isn’t it? I mean, one woman does all that damage. Two of the village’s finest go up against her, and she just wipes them out. You didn’t know the Comforts well, did you? No, I don’t guess you did. I would imagine you’re, too young, too new to have gotten close to those two relics.”

Bofil snorted. “They had to go. I ought to send Miss Heggen a dozen roses for easing my troubled mind. For a time there, I had a few nervous moments. But thanks to Miss Heggen, the future looks bright and from now on whenever her name is mentioned I shall greet it with a hushed reverence and think of her with loving kindness.”

Gina said, “Those two men out there, are they your bodyguards?”

Bofil nodded. “It made no sense to challenge the Comforts with a teaspoon. The men I hire know enough not to ask questions. They’re not paid to think or become bothersome. Well now, what becomes of you? You can’t go home again, as they say. Daddy Bess has probably received an earful by now, courtesy of Miss Heggen.”

“I was going to ask you if I could stay here with you. At least until I can make arrangements to get back to the village.”

Bofil’s hand was on her knee. “I’d like that, Gina. I’d like you to stay with me for as long as you want to. I’ve always had a fondness for you. We could have a nice time together. Yes, we could.”

The night manager turned the key and the doorknob, but it was Joseph Bess who pushed past him to be the first into Anthony Paul Bofil’s apartment.

“Gina! Gina!”

With Marisa and the night manager watching, the detective raced across the sunken living room and up a staircase leading to the second floor of the duplex. Then Bess was gone from sight. But they heard him opening doors and calling his daughter’s name.

The night manager forced a smile. “Just as long as Sergeant Bess realizes he’s the one who’ll have to explain all this to Congressman Bofil, I really don’t mind his being here.”

Marisa, numb with shock, said nothing.

The night manager, intimidated by Joseph Bess, continued to talk nervously. “It’s exactly as I told the both of you downstairs. Mr. Bofil appeared to know the child, since he did tell the doorman to send her upstairs.”

He looked around. “I haven’t the slightest idea where they are now. If the doorman says they haven’t left the building, well, I just don’t know what to tell you. I still don’t like the idea of entering Congressman Bofil’s apartment without his authorization. Our clients do prize their privacy, you know. I hope Sergeant Bess knows full well that he’s assumed complete responsibility for whatever comes of this.”