The Dark of Summer

by Dean R. Koontz

  Barnaby preferred the kind of employee who'd let the frozen goods be ruined rather than make such a request, but he said it was all right, he'd hold the line. Men like Morby, with Morby's talents and his lack of scruples, were difficult to find.

  He had used Morby twice before in the last two years, both times when a business deal was stymied by a man reluctant to sell his land. In one case, Morby delivered the adversary a rather thorough beating. In the second instance, Morby had burned the man's house to the ground, in such a clever fashion that no one had suspected arson. Not only had this made the potential seller more anxious to be rid of his property, but it made the purchase of the land cheaper for Barnaby, since the value of the house — now that there was no longer a house — could be subtracted from the package offer that Edgar Aimes had made.

  Morby was good. He was dependable, and he could keep his mouth shut. If Sheriff Plunkett couldn't do anything about the squatters at the Niche, Morby could, with more speed and effectiveness.

  “Okay, the ice cream's in the freezer,” Morby said, picking up the phone again. “What'd you want?”

  “Remember the second job you did for me?”

  Morby said, “The house?”

  “That's it.”

  “What about it?”

  “Can you take on a similar contract?”

  Morby thought, then said: “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Short notice.”

  Barnaby said, “But I'll pay a good bonus if this goes right.”

  “It always goes right when I do it,” Morby said. After another long silence, in which he considered his schedule, he said, “Is this another house — and if so, what size?”

  “A boat,” Barnaby said.

  Morby was surprised, but he recovered rather quickly. “You want me to do to a boat what I did to a house, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How big is it?”

  “A lobster boat, maybe thirty-six feet.”

  “This boat — is it in the water, dry docked, in a showroom or what?”

  “It's docked, on the water.”

  “Boats are very hard to work on,” Morby said. “There are so few ways to get in and out of a boat, you see. It's easy to draw a big crowd, and that can mess up an otherwise easy contract.”

  'There shouldn't be anyone on the boat,” Barnaby said.

  “This around here?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose I could do it.”

  “Will you be able to get your — supplies in time?”

  Morby said, “I keep an emergency kit here, so I'm usually ready to go for something like this.”

  “Fine,” Barnaby said. “Now, we should get together, at the usual place, to go over the details.”

  “You can bring the pay then.”

  “I will.”

  “The bonus too.”

  “The job's not finished yet.”

  “It'll be done right.”

  Barnaby hesitated only a second, then said, before Morby could tell him to forget it, “Okay, sure. The bonus too.”

  “When?” Morby asked.

  Barnaby looked at his gold coin watch and said, “It's two-thirty right now. I've some other things to attend to, so — why don't we say quarter past four.”

  “I'll be there,” Morby said.

  They both hung up without saying goodbye.

  When she learned who was calling, Edgar Aimes' young secretary lost her cold and almost impolite tone and put Barnaby straight through to her boss without further delay.

  “Hello, Will,” Aimes said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I'd like to see you, Edgar. We've got some important business matters to discuss.”

  “Has something come up?” Aimes asked.

  “More than a little.”

  Aimes thought a moment and said, “I have to come out your way in about an hour, to show a property along Seaview Drive. I could stop by at say four-thirty and—”

  “That won't do,” Barnaby said. “Edgar, I think this is something we need time to discuss, perhaps over dinner.”

  “Tonight, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Lydia and I were going to—”

  “Cancel it.”

  “Will, I—”

  “I think a dinner discussion between us is far more important than whatever you were going to do tonight,” Barnaby said. His voice was firm and left no doubt that he expected full compliance with his request.

  Aimes sighed. “What's the trouble, then?”

  “I don't want to talk about it now, though I will say that it involves Mr. Morby, whom we've employed in the past, if you remember correctly.”

  “You employed him,” Aimes said. “I have met him only once, and I wouldn't hire him.”

  “Nevertheless, you see why I'd like to have dinner with a nice, reliable couple, like you and Lydia. In a public place, where we're sure to be seen — say between eight o'clock and one in the morning, somewhere that we can have drinks and make an evening of it.”

  “I understand,” Aimes said.

  “How about the Kettle and Coach?”

  “That would be ideal. It's what we've done in the past, on nights when Mr. Morby was working.”

  “Exactly,” Barnaby said. “Shall Elaine and I meet you there, then? Say at eight-thirty, in the cocktail lounge.”

  “We'll be there,” Aimes said.

  Again, both men rang off without saying goodbye.

  Just as Gwyn was finished with her lunch and gave the tray to Elaine, a knock sounded on the closed bedroom door. A moment later, the door opened, and Will Barnaby looked in. “How are you today, Princess?” he asked Gwyn.

  She smiled and said, “Better.”

  He came over and sat on the edge of her bed, took one of her damp hands in his. “I told you it wasn't as serious as you thought it was. All you needed was rest, plenty of rest.”

  “I guess you were right,” she said. But his presence brought back the memory of the ghost, the footprints on the beach, the broom marks, her whole illness. She said, “Have you called Dr. Recard, Uncle Will?”

  He said, “I called him first thing yesterday morning, even before you'd gotten awake.”

  “What'd he say?”

  “That you were to rest, really rest. If you aren't feeling better in a week, then you're to go see him. I'll take you there.”

  She relaxed. “He didn't think it was serious enough to — put me in a hospital somewhere?”

  “No, no,” Will said. “Just get lots of rest.”

  “I've been doing that.”

  “Except for your walk on the beach yesterday,” he said.

  “I'm sorry about that.”

  “You should be,” he said. “You knew you weren't supposed to be up and around yet.”

  “I didn't mean to upset anyone,” Gwyn said. She turned her head and looked at Elaine, who was smiling down at them, holding the bottle of sleeping tablets.

  “Let's forget about yesterday,” her uncle said, patting her hand. “I'm sure you won't do anything like that again.”

  “I won't, I promise.”

  “Good,” he said, letting go of her hand. “Now, I'll talk to your aunt for a minute, if I may, and give you a chance to recover from that feast you just finished.”

  He stood and took his wife's elbow, led her through the door, closed the door after them, and walked her several paces down the hall.

  In a whisper, she said, “What's wrong?”

  He told her, succinctly, about the squatters at Jenkins' Niche and about his phone calls to Morby and Aimes. “So,” he concluded, “since we have to be out in public tonight, for an alibi, I thought we might as well move up the schedule with Gwyn. We'll make tonight the final act with her.”

  “But we agreed, originally, that she could use another day of sleep, to wear her down.”

  “If we're out of the house tomorrow night, too,” Barnaby said, “it may look a little strange. We c
an't very well go out to dinner with Edgar twice in a row, to talk business.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Therefore,” he said, “you won't be giving her another sleeping pill today. She'll have to be wide awake for the festivities tonight.”

  Elaine said, “If you'd been only five minutes later than you were, I would already have given her a tablet.” She clenched the medicine bottle tightly in her right hand. “But don't worry about a thing, darling. I'll take care of her from here on out — and I'll be damned glad to get this over with a day early.”

  “You think she'll crack tonight?” he asked.

  “With what Penny is going to do to her?” Elaine asked. “There just isn't any doubt, so far as I can see. She's on the verge of a complete breakdown already. She hasn't the will power to refuse a sleeping pill any more, and she seems even anxious to sleep. With tonight's little show, she's going to lose what control she has. By the end of the summer, you'll have been appointed to manage her trust.”

  “I think so too,” he said. “Well, you get back to her, while I tell Groves what's going on.”

  “Then you can be ready tonight?” Barnaby asked.

  Penny Groves stubbed out her cigarette and said, “I'm ready right now, as far as that goes.”

  “Nervous?”

  Groves answered for her: “Penny and I are professionals; we're never nervous about a performance.”

  “Good. Tonight, then.”

  Elaine came back into the room and dropped the bottle of sleeping pills into the pocket of her bellbottom slacks, the top still screwed on tight. She fluffed Gwyn's two pillows, straightened the covers and said, “Now, you try to rest, dear.”

  Gwyn looked at the bulge in Elaine's pocket made by the medicine bottle, looked at the empty nightstand and said, “But don't I get a sleeping pill to help me?”

  She could feel the dreams receding, growing cold, streaking out of her reach…

  “Dr. Cotter said that you're not to have too many of them,” Elaine said, making up a convenient lie.

  “One more won't hurt.”

  “Doctor knows best.”

  “But I can't sleep without them.”

  “Just rest, then, dear.”

  “But—”

  “Really, Gwyn, it'll be best to wait until tonight, at bedtime, before taking another. Now, if you close your eyes and don't worry yourself about the pills, I'm sure you'll doze off.”

  Gwyn was not so certain about that. She was so exhausted that her weariness was no longer a contributing factor to her sleep, but an obstacle to it. Her eyes, though gritty and burning with fatigue, would not stay shut, but popped open like shutters if she hadn't the tablet to help them stay down.

  “Oh, by the way,” Elaine said, “Will and I are supposed to go out this evening, for a dreadful little business dinner with associates. It's not going to be much fun, so if you—”

  “Oh, no!” Gwyn said, rising up onto one elbow. “Don't stay at home because of me. You've done too much of that already. Besides, I'm feeling much better than I was.”

  “You haven't been hallucinating again, have you?” Elaine asked, delicately. “No — ghosts?”

  “None,” Gwyn said, forcing a smile. That wasn't too much of a lie, really. In two days, the only encounter she'd had with the ghost was the short visitation the night before, when it had attempted to get her to take an overdose of sleeping pills. Her visions were tapering off.

  “I thought you hadn't,” Elaine said. “But I wanted to hear it from you before I decided whether we should leave the house tonight. Well, if you're sure you'll be okay, I'll tell Will not to cancel out on the dinner.”

  “I'm fine,” Gwyn assured her, not feeling fine at all. However, now her ailments seemed physical more than mental, and she could cope with that— she thought.

  “Also, if it's okay with you,” Elaine said, “I'll tell Grace to make you a supper that can be heated, then give her and Fritz the night off so they can take in a show they've been wanting to see.”

  “I'll do fine on my own,” Gwyn said.

  “Oh, I wouldn't leave you entirely alone,”

  Elaine said. “Ben will be in the house. He'll look in on you from time to time, and he can give you your sleeping tablet around eleven.”

  In the downstairs study, when he had finished talking with Penny and Ben, William Barnaby removed one of the watercolors from the wall, revealing a small safe, which he opened with a few deft twists of the combination dial. Inside the safe were a few important papers, most of which were only duplicates of others he kept in a safety deposit box downtown. There was also a savings account passbook and a neatly bound bundle of cash.

  He took out the passbook first and looked at the bottom figure: $21,567. It was a pitiful amount, for it represented the last immediately available funds of what had once been a multi-million dollar fortune… So much money had gone down the drain in the last decade or so. Of course, he and Elaine enjoyed living high; but there had also been a few real estate deals that hadn't panned out like he'd thought they would. He had almost a million tied up in seafront property now, of course. But unless he was able to get the money to develop that land as he intended, he would lose considerably when he resold it.

  Angry and nervous, he shoved the passbook into the safe again, took out the bundle of cash. It contained slightly more than seven thousand dollars in small bills. He peeled off two thousand dollars to pay Morby, thought a moment and then added another five hundred as a bonus. Morby might be expecting an extra thousand, but he wouldn't turn the job down if he got only half that much.

  Barnaby returned the remainder of the cash to the safe, closed the small, round metal door, spun the dial, tugged on the chromium handle to be sure that it was locked, lifted the watercolor from the floor and hung it where it had been.

  He went to the bar cabinet behind his desk, got out a bottle of Scotch whiskey and poured himself a double shot: neat, with no ice and no water. He drank it down fast, for he needed the boost it gave him. It was a busy afternoon — and it was going to be an even busier evening…

  The rest of that day passed slowly for Gwyn. She dozed off and on, for ten or fifteen minutes at a stretch, waking each time with a start, not knowing what had frightened her, never fully recapturing her pleasant dreams of a life that never was and could never be. She tossed and murmured when she slept, skirting those desired dreams, coming even closer to horrid nightmares. When she was awake, her bones ached, and every joint felt arthritic. Her eyes were too tired to allow her to read; thus, the minutes ticked by in agonizing half-time.

  She thought of asking for a pill again, but she knew that Elaine would say no. And she knew, too, that so much medicine, so much unnecessary sleep, was not good for her. Yet, she desired it…

  Hour by hour, her nerves grew more frayed.

  She began to think of Ginny again.

  The ghost…

  Her naps became fewer and farther between, only five minutes long now, and always turbulent. Each time that she woke from one of them, she remembered every detail of the mini-nightmare that plagued her. It was always the same one: she was by the sea, with the dead girl, being dragged into the crashing waters against her will, too weak to resist, too weak to cry out, most assuredly doomed…

  BOOK FOUR

  EIGHTEEN

  A few minutes past eight o'clock that evening, Ben Groves knocked on Gwyn's bedroom door, then shouldered it open, bringing her supper on the familiar sickroom tray.

  She sat up, aware that she was not looking her best, and she brushed self-consciously at her tangled yellow hair.

  “Sleeping beauty,” he said.

  Morosely, she said, “Hardly. I haven't had a shower today, and I know I must look like a witch.”

  “Not at all,” he said, putting the tray on her lap and adjusting the two sets of tubular steel legs that supported it on the mattress. “You are lovely, as usual.”

  “And you're a liar,” she said.

  “Hav
e it your own way,” he said. “You really do look nice. But that's neither here nor there. The important thing isn't how you look, but how you feel, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So how do you feel?”

  “Not hungry,” she said, looking down at the food.

  He laughed and said, “I'm afraid you don't have any choice about that. I got strict orders from Mrs. Barnaby to see that you eat it all. And I'm not to let you start the dessert until everything else is gone.”

  “Have Uncle Will and Elaine left for their dinner engagement yet?” Gwyn asked, picking up her fork and studying the tray for the least offensive looking dish.

  “A few minutes ago,” Ben said.

  “Good,” Gwyn said. “I was worried that they wouldn't go. Aunt Elaine has been so good with me, almost too good. I was afraid she'd reconsider at the last moment so she could stay here and look after me.”

  He sat down in the easy chair where Elaine usually sat, and he said, “She feels you're recovering nicely.”

  Gwyn nodded and forked buttered noodles into her mouth. They had little taste, but more than anything else she had eaten in the last day and a half. She worked at the dish until she had emptied it, which seemed to take forever. Recently, she felt as if her entire lif e consisted of sleeping and eating, and that only the former was not an arduous task.

  “I hope your illness didn't have anything to do with the sailing we did the other day,” Groves said, when she had begun to eat the warmed chicken breast on the largest plate.

  She looked up, surprised. “How could it?”

  “I don't know,” he said. “But you seemed to get sick right after that, so I thought perhaps—”

  “Hasn't anyone told you what's wrong with me?” she asked.

  “Why should they?”

  Gwyn considered this a moment. She should have known that neither Uncle Will nor Elaine would gossip about her to the help, yet she had automatically assumed everyone in the house knew about her ghost. She was relieved that Ben, at least, had been kept in the dark.

  “Believe me, Ben, I really enjoyed being on the Salt Joy with you,” she said. “It was the nicest day I've had in a long time. My illness has nothing to do with that.”