by Savage, Tom
Holly nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. I wish I could go to bed early, too, but duty calls. After I have champagne with—with them, I’m supposed to put in an appearance at the Town Hall. That’s where I’ll probably be at midnight, when the new year actually arrives.”
Good, he thought. She’ll be out of this house. This evil house. What he said was “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. And you should go to the party. You’re the head of Randall House now, and there are certain obligations.”
“Yes,” she replied. “And I intend to fulfill those obligations.” She kissed him lightly on his discolored cheek. “Happy New Year, darling.”
“Happy New Year, Holly,” he said.
With a last strained, artificial smile, she was gone.
And he was afraid again.
At seven fifty-four, Holly sat at her vanity table, tending to her hair with her grandmother’s silver-plated brush. She had applied a light makeup, and she was wearing her blue, gray, and green diamond-patterned sweater, her pleated gray dress slacks with the big pockets, and boots. When she threw a coat over it, she mused, she’d be ready for Town Hall.
She glanced in the mirror at the bed behind her. The Louis Vuitton suitcase was lying open on the bed, and now it was half full. She would not take much from here with her to Indio. All her light clothing was already there, at her apartment.
Indio. She thought about that, about Ben and Mary Smith and Rhonda Metz, her roommate, and how pleased they would all be to see her. Well, she hoped they would be pleased. She’d left them six weeks ago a middle-class young woman, but she was returning in an entirely new role. It had never occurred to her until this moment, gazing at her reflection in the mirror, that the people in her old life might not be delighted with her new identity.
Suppose they resent me? she thought. Suppose they want the old model back, the woman they knew as Holly Smith? Suppose they don’t like Holly Randall?
Then she shrugged at her image, thinking, No matter. She had changed a great deal in the last six weeks, and in her opinion those changes were all for the better. Not that Holly Randall didn’t like Holly Smith: on the contrary, she loved her. She admired her courage and her perspicacity, her cleverness when faced with obstacles, her absolute refusal to remain always as she was. As she had been. Her exuberance to embrace her new persona, her new fate.
However, she thought as she smiled at the beautiful woman in the mirror, I’m Holly Randall now. Amen.
With that, she cast aside the silver brush, stood up from the table, and left the bedroom. She ran lightly down the hallway, around the gallery, and down the white marble, red-carpeted stairway that always made her feel like a princess. Like Her Imperial Highness, the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna Romanov, smiling sleepily as she followed her parents and her siblings down the stairs to the cellar. To the firing squad.
She arrived in the dining room at seven fifty-nine.
John Randall was uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as he had ever been. He sat at the head of the dining room table, flanked by the two women, being very careful not to touch his chin with his hands. Not that he’d ever been in the habit of doing that, but now that he was forbidden to do it, he felt a sudden, neurotic urge. That’s crazy, he thought, but there it is.
His chin was covered with something by Max Factor that matched his skin tone, courtesy of his wife. It was concealing the black-and-blue mark Kevin Jessel had given him yesterday. God damn Kevin Jessel, he thought again. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be aching all over.
That was the least of his problems, he reminded himself. He’d been warned, on pain of death, not to mention yesterday’s incident at all. Holly was not to know about Kevin’s accusation, or his assault. Helmer had assured them that Kevin would not be around for a while, so they could at least temporarily stave off his telling Holly himself. Perhaps I should pay him, John thought. A few grand would probably buy his silence about the attack, and about Dora.
Dora, he thought. That stupid girl had written it all in her diary. That feebleminded lunatic. John was glad that she was dead.
But now this meal had to be endured. He smiled at the women, who were chatting amiably about some clothing designer he’d never heard of, their light conversation as artificial as their smiles. Well, Holly’s conversation, at any rate. His wife was strangely silent tonight, as if she was thinking about something else, something important. Oh, well …
He would fire the Jessels. He’d already told his wife of his decision, and she was surprisingly amenable. She usually put up an argument against anything he decided to do, but this time she concurred. Good. He would fire the Jessels, get them out of the gatehouse once and for all, and he would call J.T. Tomorrow, New Year’s Day, J.T. would certainly be home. He’d call him and ask for another assassin to get rid of Holly.
With this resolve, he smiled again at the two women and drained his wineglass.
It was eight fifty-two.
Holly felt that she couldn’t keep smiling much longer. She was tired of being polite to these people, when all she wanted to do was scream at them. Scream, and throw something.
She wished Kevin were around, but the gatehouse had been empty when she’d checked it on her way home today. He would be at the hospital with his parents, she assumed, waiting for midnight. He would celebrate the new year with them, of course, but she wanted him here. She wanted to lean against him, bury her face in his chest. Maybe even tell him everything.
These people are my real parents, she imagined herself telling him, and now I have to leave. I’m going back to Indio for a while. She imagined herself telling him this, and she imagined his strong arms around her, stroking her, and his voice assuring her that everything would be all right. She thought about his Irish grin, his powerful legs, his naked magnificence. She had never seen a more beautiful man—with the possible exception of her father.
She glanced over at her father, at John Randall. Yes, she could understand a little more about the woman across the table now. Men who looked like this—particularly rich ones—were worth a great deal of trouble in a woman’s life. Odd, she thought: trouble is exactly what they always seem to bring. It was one of a thousand reasons she sometimes wished she’d been born male. But she was a woman, and a beautiful one, and now she was rich. She was going to be fine, just fine.
The three of them were going to meet again in the library at ten o’clock, for an early toast with the Dom Pérignon Mr. Wheatley had placed in the refrigerator there. She wondered if she could talk them into Town Hall. It was worth a try, she supposed. But her mother was acting very strangely tonight, very quiet and distracted. She wondered what the woman was thinking.…
She smiled again at her handsome father and her silent mother. Nine o’clock.
The countdown continued.
Kevin Jessel was sitting in his father’s hospital room, watching his parents sleep. Da was in bed, an intravenous hookup attached to his arm with white tape, and Mother was dozing in a chair. The steady, wheezing blipping from the various life-sustaining machines beside the bed were the only sounds in the room.
His father was out of danger, but Dr. Bell had taken Kevin and his mother aside in the waiting room and told them the whole truth. His heart had been severely taxed, and there was some mild brain damage as well. The next attack, when it came, would most likely be fatal.
Kevin sighed. It was all rushing in, one thing after another. His only solace was that John Randall and his formidable spouse were probably not authorized to do the hiring and firing at Randall House; otherwise, he and his family might very well be looking for a new place to live. But Holly would not fire them, not after Kevin explained what John Randall had done.
John Randall. Well, Kevin would wait. He would bide his time, at least until after he had spoken to Holly. After that, John Randall was in serious trouble. He and his simpering wife would rue the day they met Kevin Jessel.
Holly. He wanted to see her, now, tonight. There was something
he wanted to tell her, to make clear to her. After long, careful consideration, he had decided that now was not a good time for him to embark on a love affair. He had thought about it a great deal while he sat in the cell. His fascination with her had been doused by the subsequent events in his family, not to mention hers. There was an irony here, certainly: after years of chasing rich women, he was now turning one away. He was not sure how he could explain this to her, but he had to try, and soon.
He sighed again. No. He would stay away from there, as Pete Helmer had instructed. For now, anyway. He would stay here and toast the new year with his mother. The friendly nurses, who giggled together whenever they saw him, were keeping a bottle of Taylor on ice for him. He wished his father could join them, but it was not a chance they dared take. Besides, Da would probably sleep right through midnight.
Kevin settled back in his chair, glancing at his watch. Nine forty-seven. He would be here, in this chair, for a long time. Oh, well …
He was still there less than an hour later, when the paramedics arrived at the hospital with Holly Randall.
Holly came out of her bedroom at nine fifty-eight. She’d finished packing for Indio, even though it was still four days away. She hated putting things off to the last minute. She was ready now.
She knocked on her mother’s bedroom door. After a moment the door was unlocked and opened, and her mother stood before her in the beaded red dress she’d worn at the birthday party.
“Aunt Cathy,” Holly said, “I’m going into town in about an hour, to the party at Town Hall, and I was wondering if you and Uncle John would like to come with me.”
Her mother, Constance Hall Randall, blinked, assessing this.
“Why, yes,” she said at last. “That might be fun. I tell you what: you go down to the library and tell John. I’ll join you in about fifteen minutes. If I’m going out in this weather, I’d better change into something warmer.”
“Okay,” Holly said. “I’ll tell him.”
Her mother closed the door, and a second later she heard the little click of the lock. Then Holly proceeded on her way to the stairs.
Constance sat at her vanity table, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She had quickly changed into her long-sleeved, navy blue velvet dress. Not that it mattered, she thought. Oh, well …
She thought about her daughter, Holly, and John, and all of the events of the last six weeks, culminating in Kevin Jessel’s shocking accusation. It was all closing in on her. It was all coming to an inglorious end.
She had made her extraordinary decision hours ago, in the car on the way back from town. Now she had to act on it. She’d gotten through dinner, and she’d spent the last hour here, in her room, writing. Now, she would join her husband and Holly in the library. After that, she would come back up here and finish it.…
She reached for a Kleenex and wiped the useless tears from her unnaturally darkened eyes. Her false brown eyes that concealed the blue, as the dye in her hair concealed its true shade. The props, the small details that had kept her from spending the rest of her life as Constance Randall, prisoner.
As she stared in the mirror, Jane Dee came quietly into the room behind her, followed by Jim Randall. They stood behind her, one on each side of her, grinning. With a little cry, she swiveled on the vanity stool to confront them, only to find the room behind her empty. Yet she fancied she could hear their laughter hanging in the air. With a little shrug, she turned around again.
It’s time, she told the desperate woman in the mirror. It’s time for all of this to end.
But she would put it off a few more minutes. With a sigh, she reached for a lipstick and began repainting her already perfect lips.
Holly paused at the bottom of the stairs, gazing around. The servants had all left in the van half an hour ago, and Uncle Ichabod would be asleep by now. The big house on the headland was silent. The snow was falling outside, cutting them off further from the real world, the world a few hundred yards down the road. She and her parents were alone in Randall House. They might as well be the only people in the universe, she thought.
Oh, well, she told herself. It’s time for a toast.
With that, Holly moved forward across the checkered tiles toward the library door. She arrived there at precisely six minutes after ten o’clock.
Her father was waiting for her.
Exactly seventeen minutes later, Ichabod came suddenly awake and sat up in bed. He was groggy from the sleeping pill he’d taken an hour ago, groggy and disoriented. But he was certain that something had awakened him. A loud, sharp noise of some kind, a noise that had reverberated through the house. A noise like—
A gunshot, he thought, and then he nodded in sudden understanding. He’d been dreaming of his sister, of his family years ago, when he’d served in the army in Italy. He’d been dreaming of a confrontation between the Allies and the occupying Germans in the little village where he’d been stationed. He’d shot a man that day, killed him. The sound he thought he’d heard had probably been in his dream.…
He rolled over and drifted back to sleep. He was awakened for a second time, some ten minutes later, when he heard the sirens outside the house. He sat up in bed again.
This was not a dream. This was real, very real. The wail of several approaching sirens filled the room, and he could now see the flashes of red and blue and white lights against the drawn curtains at his windows.
He stood up from the bed and made his unsteady, drugged way over to the door. He moved slowly down the hall to the top of the grand staircase, where he stopped abruptly, suddenly awake, arrested by the shock of the sight that met him.
Holly was lying on her side on the black and white tiles at the base of the stairs, and she was vomiting. That local kid, Toby Carter, knelt behind her, his arms around her waist. He was apparently forcing her to be sick. The German shepherd, Tonto, stood near them in the Great Hall, watching. As Ichabod stared, several people, led by Pete Helmer, ran through the open front door and dashed across the tiles to kneel beside Holly and the boy.
When he could think, when he could move again, Ichabod rushed forward down the stairs.
Holly lay back on the tiles, vaguely aware of the hands reaching out to her, touching her. She’d been sick, she knew: she tasted vomit in her mouth. But she could not open her eyes.
There were sharp voices all around her in the Great Hall. She thought she was in the Great Hall, at any rate. She’d staggered out of the library a few minutes ago, after she’d dropped the phone receiver on the floor.
The phone receiver, she thought. I called the police. I spoke to Pete Helmer.…
A wave of pain burst in her stomach, and she was sick again. She’d been poisoned, she remembered that much. The Dom Pérignon …
Then she was floating through the air. Several pairs of strong arms were lifting her up from the cold marble floor and moving her across the foyer toward the front door.
The last thing Holly Randall felt was the freezing cold as the snowflakes fell down on her upturned face. Then, in a final burst of pain, she slipped into unconsciousness.
The call had arrived at the station at ten thirty-two, and a startled Debbie had immediately handed him the phone. Pete Helmer had heard a sound like ragged gasping, followed by a whisper. It was Holly Randall.
“Please …” she breathed. “Please come to Randall House … poison, I think, in … champagne … my uncle … dead … she … she left and went upstairs … gunshot … hurry, please hurry. Oh, God, I think I’m dying.…”
Those words had been followed by a sharp crack and a clattering sound, which Pete would later identify as the receiver landing on the wood floor of the library.
He’d moved immediately, shouting instructions to Debbie as he ran. She’d acted quickly and efficiently. By the time his squad car roared past the crowded Town Hall, he heard the distant sirens from the ambulances as they rushed to join him at Randall House.
The front door had been standing wide open, and th
e first thing he saw as he entered the house was the macabre scene at the bottom of the stairs. Holly Randall lay there vomiting, and Toby Carter, of all people, was holding her. The dog stood nearby, watching, and an old man in a bathrobe with a huge birthmark on his face was at the top of the stairs, staring.
Within seconds, Pete and the paramedics had relieved Toby of his post. Holly was whisked away on a stretcher, and Toby and the old man with the disfigured face had jumped in the back of the ambulance with her. The dog had tried to go, too, but a sharp whistle from the boy had stopped him. The shepherd stood in the drive at the base of the front steps, watching the ambulance scream away.
Then Pete had gone into the library. Two more paramedics were there, working on John Randall, who lay on his back on the floor. He was not responding to their ministrations, and after a few moments they stopped. John Randall was obviously dead, a shattered champagne glass on the floor beside him. He, too, had been sick.
Pete glanced around the room. Another glass lay on its side on the coffee table, a stream of champagne emanating from it. The receiver was on the floor by the table. There was a big, mostly full bottle of Dom Pérignon on a tray next to the base of the phone. A single, full, untouched champagne glass was on the tray beside it.
Pete shook his head, grimacing, putting the awful scenario together in his mind. Then, remembering Holly Randall’s gasped words on the telephone, he left the library and went quickly up the stairs.
He tried two other doors in the wing to the right of the stairs before he found the locked one. He went back to the top of the stairs and called down, relieved to see that Hank and Buddy had finally dragged themselves from the party at the Town Hall. The Two Stooges came up to join him, and it took the combined shoulders of both of them to force the bedroom door.
A gunshot, Holly had whispered on the phone, and she had been right.
Mrs. Randall was lying on the carpet beside her vanity table, a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver in her outflung right hand; he recognized the gun from yesterday’s incident with Kevin Jessel. There was an enormous splash of red on the wall to her left, dripping down, darkening as it dried. Mrs. Randall would not be needing the paramedics: most of her head was no longer attached to her body. It lay in several pieces on the floor beside her.
