Emily's Ghost
Page 29
Lee gave her a baffled look, and dopey but pleased with the presence of mind she was showing, she fell back on the stretcher. The paramedics lifted it to the floor of the ambulance. "Wait ... wait," she cried again.
Lee murmured something to the driver and in a voice of gentle reason asked Emily, "What is it now, darling?"
"Maria -- where is she?"
The interior lights of the ambulance threw a ghastly pallor over Lee's face. "She's inside," he said tersely. "They're with her now."
He refused to say any more than that. Before she could question him further, Emily was being whisked away to New Bedford General, the sounds of sirens screaming directly over her head. Once or twice she said Fergus's name, with no response. She was still a little groggy -- but not, as the paramedics speculated, because of a possible concussion. "It's been a rough night," she said with an apologetic smile to the paramedic beside her. Another thought occurred to her. "Is there a BMW following us?"
The paramedic looked out the rear window and came back to her. "Yeah, he's right behind us." He sat silently for a little while, then looked out the window again. "Still coming. Right through the red light. I guess he can get a ticket fixed easy enough," he added, chuckling.
Emily smiled gamely, but she wasn't about to let him engage her in chitchat over the senator. She closed her eyes and played dead until they wheeled her into the emergency room. When she got there she was examined by a staff physician who checked her out and said, "How do you feel?"
"Fine. I'm a little tired, but otherwise I'm fine," Emily answered.
He smiled in a kindly way and said, "Good. Someone will fix up that burn for you." Then he left her for a while, and when he came back he had her knapsack with him. Emily tore it open and saw that the diary was inside, completely soaked—it must've rained while she was in the tower—but still in one piece.
"I think we're going to keep you overnight for observation," the physician said. "You got conked pretty good."
"What? No. I can't. It's out of the question. I feel perfect. You can't make me stay, can you? No. Really. I can't." She looked around, distracted, fully intending to run for it if she had to. "Is the -- the man who gave you this still around?" she asked.
"He's very definitely still around, which is one reason you're staying, young lady. Do you think I want to butt heads with a United States senator?"
"May I speak with him for just a moment, please?" she asked, clutching her knapsack.
In two minutes a nurse ushered Lee into the examining room, and they were alone. Emily was a mess, with her patched-up chest and her burned-out hair, but she tried to put on a bright face. "Hi!" she said in an absurdly chipper voice. "I hear you're trying to have me locked up."
Lee didn't smile at all. He looked haggard, in fact, which made her feel a little better. At least he wasn't any more presentable than she was. "Give it a rest, Emily," he said. "For once in your life, stop seeing every little thing as a battle of wills."
"That's not it at all," she lied. "I know you're concerned, but I really am fine. I want to go home."
"What happened in the tower?" Lee asked. "Did he show up after all?"
"He was there," she said, less chipper now. "I'm not sure what happened, but I know the house has been purged. There's nothing there anymore. I -- I don't think I'll be seeing Fergus again," she added, her voice catching in her throat. "I think whatever force he had, whatever energy -- he used it up fighting the horror that was in there. And it was my fault, Lee," she said mournfully. "He warned me away from Talbot Manor. Now I don't know what's happened to him." The tears began to roll freely; she did nothing to stop them.
"Hey, hey, he's come and gone before. Wait and see, Emily," Lee said, cradling her in his arms. "Wait and see."
Chapter 25
Eventually they let her go. After a little kicking and screaming Emily was turned over to Lee's care with the proviso that she call an ambulance immediately if she ran into a severe headache or loss of motor function in the next twenty-four hours. In exchange she agreed to let Lee drive her home and have one of his staff members hand-deliver her Toyota the next day.
"You drive a hard bargain, Senator," she said, handing over the keys to her car. The funny thing was she meant it.
They left the hospital at midnight and drove through rain-slicked streets littered with downed tree limbs. The thunderstorm had been extraordinarily violent, with sixty-mile winds and a ferocious display of lightning; Emily hadn't been aware of any of it. She wasn't very clear on what she'd experienced in the tower, and after a halfhearted attempt to explain it, she gave it up and closed her eyes. She needed desperately to sleep.
The next thing she knew, Lee was shaking her gently awake. "We're home," he murmured in a low voice.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes drowsily. "Lee, the media are going to have a field day over tonight. What will you do?"
His arm was on the seat behind her; he looked calm, almost cavalier, considering his career was officially in a shambles. "I dunno. Punt, I guess."
She laughed sadly and shook her head, wincing from even that small effort. "Boy. You must curse the day you took me to that séance."
"Nope. I still bless the day I found you."
She thought he was being ironic, but in the darkened car there was no way to be sure. It was impossible to tell him how grateful she was that he tracked her down to the tower. She sighed and said, "I have to admit, Maria gives new meaning to the concept of ancestor worship. She could have killed me, Lee," she added. "You saved my life."
"Yeah, but did you notice? I had to take a number to do it," he said with an ironic smile. "You had a hell of a guardian angel in there."
"So to speak," she said with a bleak smile. "What's going to happen to Maria?"
"I expect they'll keep her for observation. The husband's been contacted; apparently there's a history of schizophrenia in her family."
Lee began to get out of the car, but she didn't want him to see her to her door; she wasn't sure why.
"Get some sleep," he said, brushing her lips gently with his. "I'll call you tomorrow."
Once Emily had cleaned herself up and got into her pajamas, sleep became just another enemy to have to fight. She popped the soggy 1863 diary into an oven set on low and began monitoring it carefully while she made a pot of double-strength tea. Then, while the diary was drying and the tea was brewing, she turned her computer on. The screen, pale and blank and endlessly patient, stared back at her.
Somehow this wasn't the way it was supposed to be. She'd always assumed that when the time came, Fergus would be looking over her shoulder and she'd be having a beer and he'd be putting in his two cents' worth. But he wasn't over her shoulder; after tonight he might not be anywhere. It was a dismal thought. How could she write the story without him?
And if he was around, but just not showing himself? Then she didn't want to write the damn story anyway, because once the story was published he'd leave her forever, and that was an even worse thought.
"My God, Fergus," she cried, tipping her chair back on its hind legs. "I'm paralyzed. What if I have writer's block? Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?"
She laughed softly to herself, glancing at the sofa, half expecting to see Fergus appear there, and at the television, half expecting it to turn on by itself. She got up and poured herself a cup of tea and went over and opened a window and felt cool, clean air wash over her aching burns. She went back to her computer. And looked at the sofa and then at the television. It had begun to sink in. Her time with Fergus was over.
There was nothing left now but to free him once and for all. Blinking back tears, washing down the lump in her throat with hot Darjeeling, Emily began to type out her best guess about who murdered Hessiah Talbot.
Newarth, Massachusetts, is a town that time would like to forget. We can't let that happen. We can't, because a hundred years ago its citizens played fast and loose with an innocent man's life. It's time to set the record straight.
Just before dawn Emily was ready to lay down what she knew, and what she'd deduced, about the night of Hessiah's murder:
When Hessiah Talbot arrived home after the Silver and Gold Ball, she was in high spirits. The handsome and dashing lieutenant had danced nearly every dance with her, and together they'd sent the rest of the company into fits of gossip. The younger women were jealous, but the older men were relieved: Their daughters were safe, at least for the night, from Lieutenant Dale Culver's charms.
The crystal necklace that Hessiah wore to the ball was a gaudy, impossible trinket, just the thing a flashy military man might pick up in a bazaar on his travels overseas. Even after she had changed out of her ball gown into her dressing gown, Hessiah kept on wearing the necklace. It was so like Dale Culver, who after all was so unlike the rest of the stuffy, boring men in Newarth.
Men like Thomas Dayton, her cousin. Hessiah found Tom as dull as toast. For as long as she could remember, Tom Dayton had been part of the scenery -- solid and efficient, like the gateposts in front of the manor. She wondered again why Henry Abbott was pressing her to reconsider her rejection of Tom's proposal.
Granted, Henry Abbott, an old friend of her father's, had always taken a special interest in her welfare. But she couldn't understand why he'd push her into a marriage that had nothing to recommend it but money. Money wasn't everything to her. The mayor, who'd been a charmer in his own day, ought to have known that. Besides, Hessiah had all the money she needed; her brother Stewart gave it to her.
No, Hessiah much preferred someone who could make her laugh, and Lieutenant Culver was very good at that. They'd laughed together over the fuss poor Cousin Tom made when she turned him down. And they'd laughed over the temper tantrum Henry Abbott threw when he learned that she'd turned aside a stodgy provider for a penniless charmer. It was funny, as far as Hessiah was concerned. Besides, who said the mayor could run her life?
That was her brother's job. And Stewart did it well. All her life.
Emily stopped and went over to the oven where she slipped a hot mitt over her hand and took out the diary. Two hundred degrees seemed about right; the pages were drying out slowly, from the outside in. She was able to catch a dry edge and peel each page carefully back, but it hardly mattered. The ink had run in random squiggles all over the place. The secrets of 1863 were as safe now as the secrets of 1867.
Fire and water. It seemed almost mystical, yet Emily believed more than ever that there was nothing mystical about the diaries. They'd been written by a woman who had been horribly unlucky in love -- as a wife, a mother, and a lover. Celeste de la Croix had married a man who was cold and driven, then had a baby by another who was hot-blooded and driven. Two of her children were murdered.
And the third got away with the crimes.
All her life Stewart had been obsessive about Hessiah. In his aloof and cynical way he doted on his sister. He wanted her for himself, this charming, saucy moppet wrapped in ruffles and with ice in her veins. Unquestionably they were kindred spirits, very much like their father. The difference was that John Talbot's obsession, the textile mill, was socially acceptable, whereas a brother who wanted nothing more than to keep his sister in his thrall -- that presented a series of problems.
The first of them was James Talbot. Alone among the children, James must have been much like his mother Celeste. With his gentle, sweet face and big brown eyes, James was the sensitive one. To him his baby sister was a fragile, adorable creature. He liked to do things for her, like bringing cool drinks to her in the summer. Every time he did such a thing he ran a risk. One summer day not too far into his life, his luck ran out. It was nothing at all for six-year-old Stewart to shove him down the well.
If his parents suspected anything -- and Celeste undoubtedly did, because the matter was kept out of the local newspaper -- they kept it to themselves. Stewart was left to kill again another day. When he twisted the neck of Hessiah's kitten, which she had offered -- not even in affection -- to a member of the staff, Stewart never thought twice about it. The kitten was just another obstacle, with neither less nor more significance than his brother James.
There were other obstacles, of course. The only daughter of the richest man in town was bound to be harassed with proposals of marriage. Stewart was surprisingly successful in fending them off, convincing Hessiah to turn away suitors, encouraging her in her many pointless infatuations. (He also bribed her shamelessly to stay at home. There was enough money to keep her amused, although after John Talbot's death it began to slip away at an alarming rate.)
But Lieutenant Dale Culver was another matter. To Stewart, of course, he was just another pretty face. All things considered, Stewart preferred military men to court his sister; they tended to move on before things could get too serious. But this time something went awry. Maybe it was because Hessiah was aware that her debutante years were behind her. (Certainly Henry Abbott didn't mind reminding her; no doubt there were whispers behind her back as well.)
Or maybe it was because Hessiah Talbot had fallen in love for the first time in her empty, frivolous life. Probably the handsome lieutenant never looked back once he'd left Newarth the morning after the ball. But Hessiah took him for the real thing. That's why she wore his bauble to the Silver and Gold Ball; that's why she kept on wearing the necklace after she had tossed her expensive gown aside for the night. Her maid might have noticed the new sparkle in her mistress, but her maid had been dismissed the day before, the latest in a long line of servants who'd come and gone through Hessiah's dressing room. There were no witnesses to the argument that ended Hessiah Talbot's life.
Emily shook herself free of her self-induced trance. She was aware of a crick in her neck and of increasing pain from the burns. Her head ached from a dizzying lack of sleep, but she wanted desperately to finish the story. Then, in the morning, she could rush it to Phil, who fortunately was suffering from a summertime shortage of copy.
So she took two aspirin and did a few stretches and made another pot of tea. Somehow the sleeve of her pajama hooked on the spout of the ceramic pot, pulling it off the Formica counter. It fell to the floor with a crash, breaking into a dozen pieces. The teapot had been a pretty thing, bright yellow, with cobalt flowers in an oriental design. Emily stared at the fragments -- and broke into uncontrollable sobs.
For the next ten minutes she cried, not for the broken teapot but for the night of fear and agony she'd just lived through. And afterward, when she felt calmer, she sat down at her computer to finish the story.
At first it wasn't even an argument. Her brother dropped by her bedroom, as he always did after Hessiah returned from an evening out. Stewart had been at the ball only briefly, but he'd seen enough. "What a little idiot you are, darling," he'd told her with a charming smile. At any other time, over any other man, Hessiah would have laughed and traded insults with her brother. But tonight she was still walking on clouds, and Stewart's cynical affection was unacceptable. Her retort was angry, cruel, and defiant.
But Stewart decided that he'd had enough of his increasingly hard-to-manage sister. She was costing him far too much: in money, in devotion, in heartbreak. When he pulled the heavy chain sharply around her neck, it wasn't even in anger. He had simply had enough. His one emotional indulgence was to take the hated trinket from her neck and hide it away in the house. After that he continued on his way to a card game with the rascally set he sometimes visited. And after that, Fergus O'Malley came creeping into the house, bent on thievery.
But nothing else.
It was done. Whether she was right or wrong was for other powers to decide. All that remained for Emily was to print the story out and see that
it was published. With a pounding head and a heavy heart she dragged herself off to bed and didn't awake until the doorbell sounded off like a fire alarm in the morning. She tripped and staggered to the buzzer and a minute later opened the door to a young and earnest aide of Senator Alden's.
"Oh, cripes, I came too early." The aide, no older than a college freshman, was clearly embarrassed. "Your car's parked up the block. Here are the keys."
"Wha—what time is it?" she asked him woozily, holding out her hand for the keys. She was having a tremendous problem focusing.
"It's not eight yet. But the senator said he wanted the car here early for you. I guess I got a little gung ho," he added with a loopy grin.
It looked loopy to Emily anyway. She took the keys but then promptly dropped them on the floor.
When she bent over to pick them up, she went tumbling head over heels.
****
By the time they rushed her to Mass General, Emily was barely conscious. Her thoughts came and went in bits and pieces. She tried several times to speak, but the best she could do was to mumble, "Have the publish ... paper ... now."
The surgeon on duty had been told that Emily was a journalist. "Don't worry, Emily; you have lots of publishing left in you," he said, shining a tiny flashlight into each of her eyes.
He turned and gave some instructions to a nurse to call in a neurosurgeon while Emily was put on an IV solution and her vital signs were monitored. A few minutes after that she heard the neurosurgeon order an emergency CAT scan.
She didn't like the sound of things at all. By now she could barely open her eyes. She tried to ask questions, but all that came out was a jumble of syllables. The neurosurgeon was hovering over her; his voice was crisp, urgent. "We may have to evacuate the hematoma," he said. It sounded like a military maneuver. She became frightened, far more frightened than she'd ever been in Talbot Manor.