The Blackstone Chronicles (20 page)

Yet she was certain that something unusual was happening, for except when the Hartwicks were having a
party, the lights in the rooms they weren’t using were never left burning, any more than they were in her own house.

“Rebecca? What are you doing, child?”

Rebecca jumped at her aunt’s words and instantly dropped the curtain she’d been peeping through. As she turned to face her aunt, Martha Ward’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed in disapproval.

“Are you spying on the neighbors again, Rebecca?” Martha demanded.

“I was just looking,” Rebecca said. “And the oddest thing is happening, Aunt Martha. All the—”

“I do not wish to hear,” Martha interjected, her own words neatly cutting her niece’s short. “Nor do you need to watch. We shall go to the chapel and pray for your forgiveness.”

“But Aunt Martha,” Rebecca began again, “I think maybe—”

“Silence!” Martha Ward commanded. “I shall not be tainted with your sins, Rebecca. Come with me.”

Rebecca, with one last glance toward the curtained windows that looked out at the house next door, silently, obediently, followed her aunt to the chapel. As the Gregorian chants began to play, she knelt before the altar and the glowing candles whose heat and smoke seemed to draw the very air from the room. Her aunt began mumbling the prayers, and Rebecca tried to close her mind to whatever might be happening next door.

It’s none of my business, she told herself. I must remember that it is none of my business.

Madeline Hartwick came to the bottom of the stairs. Her husband’s eyes were still fixed on her, and in the brilliant light of the chandelier suspended from the ceiling of the
great entry hall, she could see clearly the hatred emanating from them.

“Go back to your room, Celeste,” she said, once again steeling herself to betray none of the fear that was suddenly coursing through her. Whatever had happened to Jules—whatever madness had seized him—had worsened in just the few minutes she’d been away from him, and though she refused to betray her terror to him or to their daughter, she had to protect Celeste. “Lock your door. You’ll be safe there.”

For the smallest instant she was afraid Celeste was going to ignore her words, and when she saw Jules’s gaze flicker toward the stairs, she uttered a silent prayer.

Leave her alone! If your madness demands a victim, take me!

As if he’d heard her unspoken words, Jules’s eyes fixed once more on her. In the silence that followed, she heard Celeste’s door thud shut and, a second later, the hard click of the lock snapping into place. “What is it, Jules?” she asked softly. “What is it you want of me?”

Without warning, Jules’s left arm snaked out, spun her around, and clamped her against his chest. At the same instant, she saw the blade of the knife glimmering in the light of the chandelier, then felt cold steel caress her neck with a touch as light as a feather.

A deadly feather.

She froze, her nostrils flaring, every muscle in her body going rigid.

Then she felt Jules’s hot breath on her neck and smelled the whiskey he’d been drinking all through the day.

“I could kill you,” he whispered. “All I have to do is pull the knife across your throat. It would be easy, Madeline. And you deserve it, don’t you?”

When she made no reply, his grip on her tightened, and she felt the blade of the knife etch her skin. Her mind raced and she began speaking, the words boiling up out
of some well of defense she hadn’t known she possessed. “Yes,” she heard herself saying. “I didn’t think you’d find out. I didn’t think you were smart enough. But I was wrong, Jules. I should have known I couldn’t fool you. I should have known you’d find out. And I’m sorry, Jules. I’m so very, very sorry.”

She began crying then, and let herself go limp in his violent embrace. Once again his grip on her tightened. He steered her across the entry hall, then through the parlor, the dining room, and the kitchen. Then they were at the top of the stairs leading to the basement. Madeline gazed down the steep flight at the concrete floor below.

“Lies!” she heard Jules whisper harshly in her ear. “All of it has been nothing but lies, without so much as a teaspoon of truth!” He released her, the knife dropping away from her throat as he hurled her away from him. Madeline reached out frantically, groping for the wall, the banister, anything that might stop her as she pitched forward.

There was nothing.

As she plunged headfirst down the stairs, the fear that had been rising within her broke through the dam of self-control she had struggled to hold intact. A scream of terror erupted from her throat, shattering the silence in the house, only to be cut off a second later as her head struck the concrete floor.

As Madeline’s body lay broken at the foot of the stairs, Jules—his right hand still clutching the knife—slowly descended to the basement.

In the Hartwick mansion at the top of Harvard Street, all that could be heard was an eerie quiet.

A silence as deep as the grave.

A
ndrew Sterling punched Celeste Hartwick’s number into the keypad of his portable phone for the third time, and listened with growing worry to the continuous ringing at the other end of the line. The line had been busy when he’d first dialed her number fifteen minutes ago, but when he’d tried again, he’d gotten no answer. It made no sense: he was sure Celeste had been planning to have dinner with her parents tonight. Why was no one answering the phone? The memory of Jules’s strange behavior at the bank that morning only increased Andrew’s mounting uneasiness. Following the tenth unanswered ring on Celeste’s line, he hung up and dialed the operator. After waiting thirty seconds he heard a laconic voice inform him that “that line is currently out of order, sir. Would you like me to connect you with repair service?” Unwilling to get involved in what he suspected would turn into an impenetrable bureaucratic maze, Andrew hung up.

He pulled a parka on over the flannel shirt into which he’d changed after leaving the office an hour ago, and, gulping down the last bite of the microwaved pizza that had served as dinner, he went out to his five-year-old Ford Escort—all his bank salary could support in the way of a car—and prayed there was enough tread left on the tires to let him get up Harvard Street to the Hartwicks’ house.

A few flakes of snow drifted down as the Escort’s
engine coughed into reluctant life. By the time Andrew pulled away from the curb, a sharp wind had come up. The light dusting of a minute or two earlier was rapidly developing into a heavy snowfall. He’d gone only a block when the night filled with a swirling white cloud that cut visibility down to a few yards. As the wiper struggled to keep the windshield clear, Andrew crept toward North Hill, praying that the Escort would find the power to make it up the snow-slicked grade of Harvard Street.

It seemed to Celeste as if hours had passed since she’d heard her mother’s muffled scream, cut off almost the instant it had begun.

Oh God! Had her father hurt her mother?

Maybe even killed her?

But that couldn’t be possible—could it? Her parents adored one another! But as she stood rooted to the floor behind the locked door to her room, images of her father flashed through her mind.

This morning at the breakfast table, his eyes burning with jealousy as he hurled insane accusations at her mother …

This afternoon when they’d come home and found him drinking in his den …

A few minutes ago at the dinner table, accusing not only her mother, but herself as well …

Insane! It was all insane!

He
was insane!

Rattling the doorknob to be certain the lock was secure, she went to the window and peered out into the night. Snow was falling rapidly now, and though she could still make out Martha Ward’s house next door, and even the VanDeventers’ across the street, no lights showed. But maybe if she yelled, someone would hear
her. She struggled with the window, finally managed to lift it, then began wrestling with the storm window outside. But what was the use? Every house on the street had storm windows, and even if she succeeded in opening hers, her voice would be all but lost in the snowstorm.

Out!

She had to get out! If she could just get to the garage and her car—

Her heart sank as she remembered that her mother’s car was still sitting in the porte cochere. Even if the snow hadn’t made the driveway impassable, her mother’s car did. But she could still get to a neighbor’s—
someone
had to be home; if not the VanDeventers, then in the house next door. Martha Ward never went anywhere except to church, and Rebecca went only to the library.

She went back to the door and pressed her ear against it, listening.

Silence.

Her fingers trembling, she twisted the key in the lock. When the bolt clicked back, it seemed unnaturally loud.

Again she listened, but still the house was silent.

Finally she risked opening the door a crack and peered out into the wide corridor.

Empty.

She stepped out of her room and started toward the top of the stairs, then heard a door close downstairs. Celeste stopped dead in her tracks, close enough to the head of the stairs that she could gaze down into the entry hall below.

Her father appeared from the dining room. Even from where she stood, Celeste could hear him muttering to himself. His clothes were smeared with blood. When he abruptly stopped and looked up as if sensing her presence, his eyes seemed to have glazed over.

“Whore!” he said, his voice rasping as he spat the word at her. “Did you think I’d never figure it out?”

He was at the foot of the stairs now. Celeste gasped as
she saw him lunge forward, taking the steps two at a time. Panic galvanizing her into action, Celeste fled back into her room, slamming the door and throwing the lock, then collapsing against the thick mahogany panel, her heart pounding.

Only as she heard her father grasp the knob and rattle the door did she realize her mistake. Instead of retreating back to her room, she should have fled past it to the back stairs. By now she’d be out of the house and into the street.

She’d be safe.

Instead she was trapped in her room like a rat in a cage.

How could she have been so stupid?

Her father stopped rattling the doorknob, and once again silence fell over the house. Celeste remained where she was, her heart pounding. Was he still out there? She didn’t know. The seconds dragged on, turning into minutes. Should she risk unlocking the door and peeking out? But then, even as she reached for the knob, she froze. She could feel him on the other side of the door, feel his insane rage as palpably as if it were seeping through the wood to engulf her.

“Daddy?” she whimpered. “Daddy, please. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what’s happened to you. I love you, Daddy. I love—”

Her words were cut off by something—something hard and heavy—striking the door. The force of the blow, transmitted directly through the wood, was sharp enough to startle her into jumping back from the door, and as she stood staring at it, trying to fathom what was happening on the other side, she heard the sound again.

Pounding!

He was pounding with a hammer!

Trying to break the door down?

The pounding stopped for a moment, then began again,
and suddenly Celeste realized that he wasn’t trying to break the door down at all!

He was nailing it shut.

A wave of hopelessness overwhelmed her. The phones were gone, the snow was too heavy and the neighbors too far away for anyone to hear her calling for help.

Stupid! How could she have been so stupid?

Andrew Sterling automatically steered into the skid as the Escort slewed to the left, threatened to spin around and slam into a parked car, then found its traction again. Making no further attempt to keep the car on the right side of Harvard Street, he nosed it slowly up the hill. The snow, packing under the pressure of the tires into a slick glaze of ice, kept threatening his control of the vehicle. By the time he could finally make out the gate to the Hartwicks’ mansion, his body was knotted with tension and his hands ached from gripping the steering wheel too hard. But at last he was able to turn the car into the driveway. Leaving it close to the gate, he got out and started toward the house, which was blazing with light. Even as he watched, more lights came on on the second floor, but when he mounted the steps to the front porch and rang the bell, there was no response.

But someone was home.

Madeline’s Cadillac was under the porte cochere, and someone had been turning the lights on upstairs.

He rang the bell again, waited a few more seconds, then tried the knob. The door was locked.

Pulling the hood of his parka up, Andrew tramped up the driveway, slogging through the drifting snow, which by morning would block it completely. Banging as hard as he could on the kitchen door, he called out, but his words sounded muffled even to himself, and he was sure they would be utterly inaudible to anyone inside the
house. He started to turn away in order to go back to the front door, then changed his mind.