SAVAGE BEAUTY

by Peggy Webb

  After that bombshell conversation, Lily tried to figure out why Wyler would want to talk to her. Was he worried that Clive’s gambling might bring the family to financial ruin and Wyler didn’t know what would happen to him? Or was it something so deeply evil Lily couldn’t bring herself to even think about it? Was the evidence Yancy asked her find behind those closed doors?

  She checked her watch then dropped the key onto her desk and sent a text to her daughter.

  Where are you?

  While she waited for the answer, she changed into jeans, a turtleneck sweater and comfortable shoes.

  Still no answer from Annabelle. Still no answers about anything.

  As she listened for the sound of an incoming text from her daughter and the noise of Graden returning to take Toni to the airport, Lily’s fear spiraled almost out of control.

  She sent a desperate text to Stephen.

  Annabelle is not answering her phone. Why am I not hearing from her? Where are you two?

  When his phone buzzed in his pocket of his black overcoat and Stephen saw the text, he frowned. How like Lily to try to seize control over everything. For a moment, he thought about dropping his phone back into the pocket and letting her sweat and fume. Then he remembered he was supposed to be showing how much he loved her so she’d get over the ridiculous notion of returning his ring and calling off the wedding.

  He’d show her. By the time he finished making her sorry she’d ever dreamed of leaving him, she’d be so grateful for the Allistair heir and his money, she’d be groveling at his feet, begging him for a family.

  Darling, Annabelle and I are shopping, just as I said we would. We want to get to some of your favorite stores before they close. You are special to both of us, and I want to make sure this is your best Christmas ever, a harbinger of many more holidays to come.

  Her text came flying back.

  If she’s with you, why is Annabelle not answering her phone?

  He smiled thinking that, after all, this was perfect. He’d have a record of how wonderful he was, how caring. He sent another conciliatory text.

  She must have laid it down somewhere. It has been a busy day, and we’ve been all over the place, the office, the shed, and the greenhouses. It was such a beautiful day we went back to the manor and had lunch with Clive on the patio. Maybe she left it there. I’m sure it will turn up. If not, I’ll buy her another one. You worry too much, darling. Relax. It’s almost Christmas!

  I’m as excited as a child about this one because I have you and Annabelle.

  Lily’s next text made his blood boil. Give her your phone and tell her to call me. I want to talk to her.

  Lily, you worry too much. Annabelle’s in the dressing room trying on something pretty for Cee Cee. She’s fine! We’re having a wonderful time! I have to go now. The clerk’s heading this way with a big surprise I want to get for you. Have a good evening, darling. I love you extravagantly.

  Proud of himself, he pocketed his phone just as Annabelle headed his way.

  “That sweater didn’t work for Cee Cee. I’m ready to go to the other mall.”

  Before they had left the greenhouse, Annabelle had scrubbed the dirt off her hands at the sink in the corner. But if she thought a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that said Keep American beautiful…stay in bed made her ready for anything, especially to be seen in the company of an Allistair, she had a lot to learn.

  Fortunately, he didn’t care whether she learned the lesson or not.

  “Great,” he said. “Let’s go.” He flashed his smile then escorted her to the SUV and opened the passenger door.

  See. He was such a gentleman he congratulated himself all the way around to the driver’s side.

  As he slid behind the wheel, he briefly considered sending Lily another text, a little P.S. to express his undying love for her and his joy at getting to spend an evening alone with his future daughter. But he didn’t want Annabelle to see him using his phone. She might discover she didn’t have her own, and ask him to stop and let her search for it. Or worse yet, borrow his.

  “I’m thinking about getting Mom a Kate Spade purse?” Annabelle said. He hated the teenage habit of making every statement a question when they weren’t sure of themselves. “Unless it’s too expensive?”

  “The sky’s the limit!” He was trying for jovial and carefree, even youthful, but the look on Annabelle’s face said he’d overdone it. Stephen corrected course. “You don’t have to be on a budget with me or even look at the price tag.”

  “Wow! Really?”

  “Really. Today you’re going to learn what it’s like to be an Allistair.”

  Her grin was huge. She thought he meant that as a harbinger of her future.

  If he hadn’t had his hands on the wheel, he’d have rubbed them together. All his plans were falling right back into place, just as he knew they would.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lily watched from her window until the car carrying Graden and Toni passed through the security gates and turned in the direction of the airport. Then, filled with apprehension and dread, she went to the east wing and turned the borrowed key in the lock. The massive door swung inward, and she blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim interior.

  Row after row of file cabinets filled the room.

  Where was Wyler, and why would Toni make up such a story? Maybe Lily could find a light switch and then find something in the files that would prove or disprove Yancy’s theories about Clive and Graden.

  She spotted a door at the far end of the room and made her way through the archives. Suddenly it swung open, and a blaze of light silhouetted the man in the doorway.

  “You came.” His voice was rusty and old-sounding. He was tall, and he wore a loose sweater that bagged around his thin frame.

  “Wyler?” He nodded. “I’m Lily Perkins. Your wife said you wanted to see me.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led her into a spacious living room with stark, white walls. It was filled with plush velveteen sofas and chairs in olive and gold that would have looked glamorous in the nineteen eighties but now had the worn look of outdated furniture. Eighties-style lamps cast shadows across Wyler’s face, softening the lines and sagging skin of age. It was easy to see he’d once been a handsome man. It was also easy to see the resemblance to Stephen.

  Without a word, he pulled out a chair for her facing a massive portrait of Clive in his prime. Apparently the elder Allistair had turned gray prematurely. With his mane of hair and his fierce expression, he put her in mind of a marauding lion. Why on earth would anyone want to look at that every day?

  Wyler stood gazing at the portrait, lost in it. He wore an expression of unutterable sorrow. Had he forgotten she was there?

  “Wyler?” He didn’t look her way. “Mr. Allistair.”

  He turned his head toward her, his eyes tragic. “Death devours all lovely things.”

  “I got your note. I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

  He put his finger over his lips in the classic shushing motion, then crossed the room and took down Clive’s portrait. The wall behind it was covered with writing in both pen and pencil—names, snatches of phrases, bits of poetry. There were a few rusty-colored smears that looked like dried blood.

  He crooked his finger at her. “Come closer.”

  She’d forgotten to ask Toni if Wyler was dangerous. What was the true nature of his breakdown? What were the lasting effects?

  As she moved closer, she could see a pattern to the scribbles. This appeared to be some sort of timeline. She started reading at the top.

  Clive chopped off his finger with a carving knife.

  Poe’s Raven, black tea rose. An evil plan.

  Elizabeth, a yellow floribunda rose. Consolation. “There are left behind living beloveds.” Oh, Mama, dead, dead, dead.

  The entry was followed by a smear of blood. Chills ran through her. “What is this?”

  “Read.”

  Heaven and Earth,
red Grandiflora rose, all the blood, all the bones.

  Song of a Second April, white tea rose, a lesson:, death creates beauty.

  Indifference, pink floribunda, 3 roses, one girl.

  With growing fear, Lily continued to read. She lost count of the number of roses Wyler listed, followed by either a cryptic message or a quote from a line of poetry. He was methodical in his use of quotation marks to distinguish between the two.

  About a third of the way down the list, she came to a message that stopped her cold.

  The Vanishing Red, oh the cruelty of Clive’s lessons, the horror of creation, the unbearable guilt, the tragedy of losing the greatest love of my life. I killed the girl to make the rose. I will never forgive myself.

  She stepped back from the writings and covered her mouth to hold back her terror.

  “Don’t be afraid.” His voice was gentle. “I won’t hurt you. I didn’t save Toni. I want to save you. And I want you to save me.”

  “It this true? You murdered a girl to create a rose?”

  “Yes. Clive taught me. It’s the Allistair family secret to our roses.”

  She raced to grab the wastebasket, and leaned over it, heaving.

  “He learned with his own finger.” Wyler spoke matter-of-factly and with almost no inflection, as if he were discussing the weather. “Human bones and blood make perfect bone meal and blood meal for the roses. The hair adds amazing nutrients to the fertilizer. The discarded parts make liquid gold.”

  “The compost pile?” Her legs wouldn’t hold her. She sank onto the sofa, still holding the waste basket against her chest. Her horror was now a living, writhing thing inside her, growing bigger by the minute.

  “Yes.” He pointed to the wall. “There’s more.”

  “I can’t read any more of this. I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

  She leaned back against the sofa while Wyler hurried into an adjoining bathroom. He came with a wet washcloth, sat beside her then swabbed her throat and her face.

  As he worked he continued the tale of horror in that toneless, emotionless voice. He told how Clive drugged the girls and took them in the dead of night, how one girl could create many roses, how he kept them alive in underground rooms connected to a secret passage in the library and accessed by removing the slim volume of poetry by Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems.

  She’d almost discovered the secret passageway. Except for Clive yelling at her, she would have. All their secrets and lies piled in on her. The weight of it almost knocked her to the floor.

  “Are you feeling better now?”

  How could she possibly feel better? She’d just learned that Clive was a serial killer, and he’d taught his son Wyler to do the same.

  Suddenly the truth slammed her with the force of a three-hundred pound linebacker.

  “Was Cee Cee here the whole time I searched for her? Underground?”

  “Yes.”

  She leaned over the wastebasket and lost her lunch. She felt almost detached, as if she were going into shock.

  Pull yourself together. She had to call the police. She had to get out this room and get some air.

  “How did Clive manage to handle Cee Cee? Did Graden help him?”

  “No. Graden is not involved, and Clive didn’t take the girl.” The truth pierced her like a javelin hurled into her heart. “Stephen did.”

  Terror shot her off the sofa where she could do nothing but turn in circles. She barely heard Wyler saying, “Stephen’s rose-girl creations are all on the wall. You need to finish reading.”

  “It can’t be.” She repeated this over and over, a woman gone suddenly mad. “He’d never do such a thing.”

  “Stephen is like Clive. He thrives on it. He tells me the details to torture me. He thinks I’m weak. He bragged what beautiful roses Debbie Waycaster and Cee Cee would make.”

  Galvanized, Lily sprinted toward the door, yelling for Siri to call Detective Yancy.

  As she reported the murders and the killers, she tried to be brief but thorough. She tried to catch her breath as she ran and talked at the same time. If Debbie Waycaster was still alive, she was likely in the underground bunker.

  “Get a search team to Allistair Manor, and hurry! Debbie may still be alive.”

  “You’re absolutely sure about this?”

  “Positive.” Lily thought she was going to be sick again. Stop it. Stop it. You don’t have time to be weak. “I’ll need a search team to meet me at Dr. Jack Harper’s clinic, too. Stephen has taken another girl.”

  “Who?”

  “My daughter.”

  With the cops on the way, Lily bolted from the east wing, leaving the door wide open. As she raced to her Jeep, she yelled, “Siri, call Jack.”

  She was already behind the wheel when he answered his phone.

  “Hey, you. What’s…”

  “Jack! Stephen is the one who took Cee Cee and now he’s got Annabelle!”

  “I’m on my way.”

  She almost wept with relief. Jack never questioned her, never second-guessed her decisions. He always raced to her side to help.

  “No. I’m coming to you. He took her shopping.” She glanced at the clock on her dashboard. It was already past seven.

  Did Stephen even take her shopping, or was Annabelle in the underground bunker now, waiting to become a rose?

  Lily braked so hard she slammed against the steering wheel and startled the guards at the gate. Should she go back or go forward?

  “Ma’am?” A guard rushed from his station and stood beside her window. “Are you okay?”

  Get it together.

  She lowered her window. “Yes, thank you. I thought I’d forgotten something, that’s all.”

  She fastened her seat belt. She’d help nobody by crashing through the windshield. Then she floor-boarded the gas pedal and shot off, leaving the guards gaping after her. She broke every speed law in Ocean Springs. When she spun the Jeep into the driveway at the clinic, she saw Jack waiting outside.

  She screeched to a halt, and he jumped into the passenger side. Suddenly, she didn’t know where to search. She’d made it to Jack, and she’d finally run out of steam.

  “Lily?” He studied her then put his fingertips on her pulse. “Tell me everything you know,” he said quietly.

  As she talked about her discoveries in the east wing, his face couldn’t mask his horror.

  “He said he was taking Annabelle Christmas shopping.” Lily was so terrified she couldn’t think straight. “Oh, Jack, why did I let her go with all those girls missing and Cee Cee’s kidnapping unresolved?”

  “You couldn’t have known, Lily.” Jack hadn’t let go of her hand, and she hung on. “Call him again and see if he answers.”

  Her hands shook so badly, he took her cell phone and scrolled through her contacts. Then he punched call and handed the phone back to her.

  The ring tone was eerie, as if the phone were in a secret tunnel where mutilated girls waited out their pitiful lives, knowing their grave would be a compost pile. She felt as if her own blood were being drained away.

  Jack reached for the phone and listened to the hollow ring. Then he ended the call and scrolled her contacts again.

  “I’m calling Annie,” he told her. “Just in case she found her phone.”

  “She won’t answer. He took it. I know he did.”

  Jack was shaking his head and saying, “No answer,” when police cars with flashing blue lights turned into the parking lot.

  Finally, they could begin the search. If she clung to the guilt that her daughter was missing because she had chosen a monster to be Annabelle’s father, she’d never be able to get out of the Jeep.

  “Lily, look at me.” Jack cupped her face. “This is not your fault. Okay?” She nodded. “I’ve got your back. We’ll find her.”

  When they got out of her SUV to make a plan for the awful, desperate search, Lily sent a silent prayer winging upward that they’d find her daughter before it was too late.r />
  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Christmas packages Stephen loaded into the back of his car had cost him a small fortune. He considered it a reasonable price to ensure his legacy.

  Annabelle was standing beside him in the parking lot of the second crowded mall they’d visited in downtown Biloxi. He’d taken her there to shop in case Lily decided to join them. They wouldn’t have been hard to find in Ocean Springs. But she would never think to look for them across the bridge. Although she’d turned out to be overbearing and controlling, she didn’t have a suspicious bone in her body.

  He almost chuckled at how easy it had been to hide Cee Cee right under her nose and use her for the Margaret without Lily knowing a thing. She was gorgeous but gullible, a quality he’d sensed in her from the beginning.

  He congratulated himself on that, too. She’d give him a handsome son, and when her usefulness was over, she’d make the most amazing rose in the Allistair collection. He almost salivated at the thought of burying his face in her silky hair and then shaving it off for his creation. There’d never been a rose in the world like his Savage Beauty. And unless Lily lived long enough for him to create two roses from her, there never would be another.

  He turned to her daughter, smiling. “Are you ready to go to Mary Mahoney’s to eat?”

  “I don’t want to eat at a fancy French place. Why don’t we grab a couple of hot dogs and go home so I can show Mom what we got for Cee Cee?”

  The ungrateful urchin. Couldn’t she show the least modicum of gratitude?

  “I don’t eat hotdogs. When I dine out, I always eat at an upscale restaurant.” He walked toward the front of the car, and she lagged along behind. Deliberately, he decided. “Besides, we made a plan on the way over here. If you’re going to be successful, you have to learn to follow through with your plans.”

  He opened her door, an indication that he was not going to stand in the parking lot arguing with a teenager. Fortunately, she crawled inside.

  She was quiet as he drove toward the art district on Rue Magnolia, but he was seething. By the time they arrived at the historic restaurant, he was too angry to appreciate the wrought-iron balcony railings and the brick-paved patio shaded by ancient live oak trees dripping in Spanish moss.