The Deep End of Fear ds-4

by Элизабет Чандлер

  A door at the opposite end of the hall opened, and quick footsteps crossed it. Robyn and Brook joined the others at the top of the steps.

  "Hey, a family reunion at three a.m. What a great idea!" Brook said. "Let's open a keg."

  "You're ridiculous in the middle of the day," Trent told Brook. "Don't push your luck in the middle of the night."

  "No more ridiculous than you in your red silk designer robe," Robyn responded in defense of her son. I wonder who gave you that?" She gazed down the steps at Adrian and me. "What happened, Daddy?"

  Adrian sat down two steps above me. "Apparently, Kate tripped and fell down the stairs."

  "What was Kate doing?" It was the steely voice of Mrs. Hopewell, who had silently joined the others.

  Adrian gave me a sly wink. "Meeting her sweetheart for a romp in the snow. Or perhaps, Louise, sneaking a piece of that delicious pie you made."

  "Was November with you?" Patrick asked. "He left my room."

  "Who's November?" Brook asked.

  "The cat," I replied. "The orange tabby. Patrick said he found him outside his window, the one by the roof, and let him in. I was going downstairs to get some bait to coax him out of the room."

  "Oh, wonderful," Trent observed, "we have a rabid cat in the house."

  "Just lock your bedroom door, Trent," Robyn responded sarcastically, "and you'll be safe from all ten pounds of him."

  "Darling," Emily said to Patrick, "that cat is dirty. It has diseases."

  "Where is it now?" Mrs. Hopewell asked.

  "I don't know. It brushed past me at the top of the steps."

  "And tripped you," Adrian said.

  "No. It wasn't the cat." I looked him in the eye and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. "Someone pushed me from behind."

  Adrian's blue eyes narrowed. I gazed up at the group standing at the top of the steps, but with the ceiling lights shining brightly behind their heads, I couldn't see their faces.

  "Someone pushed me. I felt a hand against my back."

  Adrian's face became grim. Whether it was because he thought that a member of his household was capable of the act or that I was getting paranoid, I didn't know.

  "Certainly you would have seen someone," Robyn said, breaking the silence.

  "The night lamp is off," Brook observed.

  "Louise?"

  I turned it on before retiring," the housekeeper assured Adrian, "just as I always do."

  I heard the light click of a switch, someone testing the rose lamp. "Well, the bulb isn't burned out," Trent said.

  "Perhaps you were dreaming, Kate," Emily suggested. "Perhaps-" "Ashley pushed you," Patrick interjected.

  His words chilled us to silence. The house itself was quiet, as if the walls and floors were waiting to hear more from him.

  "Ashley didn't want you to put November outside," Patrick went on. "She was afraid he'd freeze. So she pushed you."

  The flesh along my arms rose in tiny bumps. Standing in the schoolroom I had felt as if something were watching me, something that didn't like me. For a moment I actually believed Ashley was responsible.

  You're losing it, Kate, I told myself; it was the cat watching you.

  "Father, Patrick has got to stop this crazy talk," Trent said.

  "He's your brother," Adrian replied quietly. "If it bothers you, you may ask him yourself."

  "Daddy doesn't do what Daddy doesn't want to do," Robyn said, her hips switching. She sounded like a little girl enjoying her brother's discomfort.

  Trent turned abruptly and returned to his wing.

  "This isn't as good a party as I thought," Brook observed. "I'm going to bed."

  Robyn gazed down at Adrian and me, then shook her head, more like an adult now. "Things are getting out of hand, Daddy." She followed her son.

  "If you don't need me, sir…"

  "No, Louise, good night," Adrian replied.

  Mrs. Hopewell started off, then turned back. "About the cat."

  "If all of us keep our doors closed, the cat will find a cozy spot by itself," Adrian told her. "We'll put it out tomorrow."

  "I shall put Patrick to bed," Emily said.

  "No, I want Kate," Patrick protested.

  "Darling," Emily replied, "I'm your mommy."

  "But Kate puts me to bed."

  "Go with your mother," Adrian said sternly.

  When the two of them had disappeared, Adrian turned to me. In the harsh lighting he looked years older; for once, he looked like a man who was seriously ill.

  "Be straight with me, Kate, and I will keep what you say to myself. Is there any chance you were partially asleep? Is there a chance that you were sleepwalking-dreaming?" No.

  "You're certain?"

  I recounted to him how I was awakened by the sound of Patrick playing the piano, the strangeness of hearing the song Ashley used to play, and what had followed after that. "I was awake for at least fifteen minutes.

  "Is there any possibility that it was an accident-that in the dark, someone came up behind you and knocked into you, then didn't want to admit it?"

  "It's possible, but I don't think it happened that way. I believe it was intentional."

  "Then you must be very cautious," Adrian said. "I'd like to tell you there is no reason for you to fear, but I know my family too well."

  "Then you know why I am worried about Patrick," I replied.

  "No one will hurt him. My family will hiss and howl, scratch and nip, but they will not seriously harm one another."

  "But what about Ashley? What if-" "Kate, 1, more than anyone, understand your suspicions." He took a deep breath. "After all, I blamed your mother, unable to accept that an event so horrible could have been chance. But it was. It was an accident."

  I wasn't convinced, and he saw that.

  "Of course, you know you may leave your employment here at any time and I would fully understand. I would make sure you are compensated and help you find another job."

  "I'm not leaving."

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "I'm glad, but be cautious and keep in close touch with me, Kate. Promise me that."

  "I will."

  Adrian stood up slowly, then held out a hand for me. We climbed the steps together. "Sleep well, if that is not a totally preposterous hope," he said.

  "You too. Good night."

  I returned to my room and listened to the muffled voices of Emily and Patrick in the room below me. She had closed the door to the stairway that connected our two rooms. A few minutes later, all was quiet. I crept down the steps to check on Patrick. He was already asleep, the night-light casting a pale glow on his face, creating a deceptively peaceful portrait of a child.

  Back in my room, I couldn't sleep. I stood at the window, resting my forehead against the freezing glass, my hands on a lukewarm radiator. I ran through the list — Robyn, Brook, Trent, Mrs. Hopewell-trying to figure out who had pushed me. I could have been seriously injured-even killed — if I had broken my neck. I was afraid.

  Only the foolish and the dead have no fear. Had Mrs. Hopewell made good on her warning about the danger of prying into family secrets? Clearly, she and Robyn wanted me out of the house, but perhaps Trent and Brook did too. Why? So they could get to Patrick-or was I, myself, perceived as a threat?

  I was starting to believe Sam's theory that Ashley had been lured by a murderer onto the ice. What if Patrick's constant talk of her and the questions I had been asking were beginning to fray the nerves of the killer? Then both Patrick and I were in serious danger, and I was the only one who could do something about it. But what I should do, I had no idea.

  Chapter 12

  A brilliant blue sky and fringe of glittering icicles was the first thing I saw the next morning. The sun was high, too high. I wrenched around in the bedcovers to look at the alarm clock and felt a stab of pain in my right shoulder: 8:45. Then I saw the note next to my clock: "School has been canceled because of snow. Mr. Westbrook gave instructions to let you sleep. Patrick is with his m
other."

  I could imagine the thick fingers of Mrs. Hopewell forming the short, square letters, then turning off my alarm clock. The thought of her creeping into my room and watching me while I slept made me wriggle my shoulders-a painful mistake. When I climbed out of bed and checked myself in the mirror, I saw what looked like a purple map of Norway and Sweden on the right half of my back, Finland on my arm.

  Putting on a turtleneck and sweater took some care and time. I pulled on a pair of jeans, figuring that Patrick would be eager to go out in the snow.

  When I pushed back my lower set of curtains, the brightness made me blink. Everything below was white, evergreens and hedges dolloped with snowy meringue. After the shadows of last night, the pure light seemed almost unreal.

  I descended the steps to Patrick's room, then entered the second-floor hall, pausing to study its layout. It would have been easy enough for Robyn, Brook, or Mrs. Hopewell to follow me across the hall last night to the top of the stairway, since the exit to the wing where they slept was just beyond Patrick's bedroom door. But Trent, whose wing was on the opposite side of the house, also had easy access. The exit to his wing was on a short hall that ran next to the main staircase. Of course, Emily and Adrian's room was on the main hall, its doorway fairly close to the steps.

  Preoccupied with the immediate problem of putting out the cat, I had made it easy for whomever had come up behind me. I tried to remember if I had seen the night lamp shining on the landing between the two floors when I was still on the third floor, walking toward the schoolroom. But I had been so caught up in the eeriness of hearing the song Ashley had once played, I hadn't noticed anything else.

  The raised voices of Emily and Robyn drew me back to the present. When I arrived on the first floor, I saw them face-to-face outside the laundry room, near Robyn's wing. Patrick stood next to his mother, holding his hands a distance behind him. Brook leaned against the frame of the laundry door, drinking a cup of coffee, surveying his mother, who was dressed in her barn clothes.

  "This is outrageous." Robyn's voice shook with anger. "He's a horrid child, a wicked boy. You should be ashamed."

  Emily didn't respond; apparently, she wasn't.

  "If it makes you feel any better, Mother," Brook said, "I'm ashamed-that I never thought of such a prank," he added, grinning. "And I'm sure Emily will be very ashamed-as soon as she stops laughing. Patrick, you're a little turd, dumping the manure through the hay chute. Of course, Mother is now a big turd."

  Robyn shot her son a look.

  "What's 'turd' mean?" Patrick asked.

  "It's a piece of manure," Emily told him.

  I surmised that Robyn had been tending one of her horses, standing beneath a stall's hay chute, when Patrick dropped down a smelly pile from the manure heap. It was tempting to laugh, but if Patrick thought the prank was funny, he might try it again. At the moment he wasn't looking very contrite.

  "I don't know what possessed you to do such a thing, Patrick," Emily said. "I don't want it to happen again."

  "Oh, it won't," Robyn responded, her eyes flashing. "If I catch him near the barn, I'll rub his face in a pile till he suffocates."

  Brook cheerfully saluted me with his coffee cup. "Good morning, Kate. Come join our family fun."

  Patrick turned around, but Emily reached for his arm and held it tightly. She and Robyn, locked in glares, didn't acknowledge me.

  "That child needs a strap across his backside," Robyn continued. "I'm going to talk to Daddy. He will straighten out Patrick."

  "Forty-two years old and still tattling," Emily observed scornfully. "When are you going to stop pretending that you're Daddy's girl? He has a wife now and a little boy."

  Robyn's lips trembled. She turned on her heel, entered the laundry room, and slammed the door behind her.

  "I'll get your robe, Mother," Brook called, then leaned toward me. "I wonder how long she would stay there if I forgot?"

  I didn't reply, and he headed through the door to their wing.

  "Come, Patrick, we should wash your hands again," Emily said.

  He sniffed his fingers, then nodded in agreement.

  She still hadn't acknowledged me. Perhaps she was miffed that I hadn't been at the bam to stop Patrick, but I wasn't the one who had turned off my alarm clock.

  "Sounds as if there's a problem," I remarked quietly.

  "She's the problem," Emily retorted.

  I walked with them toward the kitchen.

  "Daddy said I shouldn't wake you up, Kate."

  "That was kind of him, and of you, too," I replied. "Speaking of kindness, that was a rather mean thing to do to Robyn."

  "I was just playing," he said, then glanced at his mother, as if expecting her to defend him.

  "Would you have liked Robyn to dump the manure on you?" I asked.

  He grinned. "I wouldn't care."

  Of course not-I was talking to a little boy.

  I pushed open the kitchen door. "The point is, adults don't like it, and you know that."

  "He's just a child," Emily protested.

  She would be saying that when Patrick was thirty-five. I felt as if we were replaying a drama that this house had witnessed before: Corinne had always defended Ashley, undercutting Joseph when he would discipline her.

  "You had better use the utility sink," I told Patrick. "Did you clean up the mess you made in the barn?"

  "No."

  "The grooms can do it," Emily said. "I'm sure they already have."

  A nice thing to teach a child, I thought: Misbehave, make a mess, and others will clean it up for you. I wasn't letting Patrick off the hook so easily. "Then you owe both Robyn and the grooms an apology."

  Patrick's brow furled, just like his mother's. "It wasn't my fault!"

  "Whose fault was it?"

  "Ashley's. She told me to do it."

  Emily sighed. "I thought we weren't going to talk about Ashley anymore."

  Patrick stretched his hands over the sink, and I pushed back his sleeves-Emily didn't want to touch anything that might stink. "When someone tells you to do something that you know is wrong, Patrick, you should say no."

  I did," he whined, "but she dared me."

  "If Ashley dares you again, come and tell me-or your mother," I added quickly, for the color was rising in Emily's cheeks. I wasn't trying to take over her role, but he was only a child, and someone had to teach him.

  Patrick scrubbed and dried his hands. I turned to Emily. "Do you think it would be a good idea if Patrick wrote notes of apology to Robyn and the grooms?"

  "You're asking me?" she snapped. "Why bother? You'll have him do whatever you want. And if I question it, Adrian will defend you." She picked up a copy of the morning paper and walked off, her flat snakeskin shoes clicking.

  "All right, Patrick, let's go upstairs and start those notes."

  He looked at me defiantly. "No."

  "Sorry?" "I won't."

  I studied him for a moment. His blue eyes shrank as he stared back at me, their lids tightening. The skin on my face felt cold. He looked like Ashley when she'd bore into me with one of her looks. No, like any child-I told myself quickly-it was simply the way children's round eyes appear when they become defiant.

  "You have made a lot of extra work and trouble for Robyn and the grooms," I told him. "You owe them an apology."

  "You can't make me do it."

  I gazed at him until he turned his face away.

  "No, I can't," I agreed. "And if you want to remain upstairs for the rest of the day, that is fine with me. My shoulder hurts. I don't want to play in the snow that much."

  He turned back, the defiance gone from his face.

  "Did you hurt it when you fell down the steps?" He laid his hand lightly on my arm. "Does it hurt a lot?"

  "It's not too bad."

  "Maybe you should put your arm in a sling," he suggested.

  "No, nothing is broken."

  "You could take some aspirin," he said. "It's locked in the cupboard in my
bathroom. I'll get you a soda to drink with it."

  "Thank you, but no," I replied, puzzled by Patrick's sudden concern for me. A turn of his head and his mood had shifted dramatically. It was as if he were two people in one.

  Shaking off an uneasy feeling, I started up the steps. He followed quietly and, when we reached the schoolroom, sat down to write.

  Later that morning I carried the notes of apology downstairs. Ideally, Patrick should have hand delivered them, but I didn't want to push our luck with a second trip to the barn and perhaps another confrontation with Robyn. I gave the grooms' notes to Roger, who was heading toward the barn to finish plowing. I placed Robyn's note in her mailbox outside the office door. As I turned away from the mahogany boxes, a woman emerged from the office.

  "You must be Kate," she said, then held out her hand in greeting.

  The woman was pretty, in her late sixties, I thought, with pale blond hair that had the molded and sprayed look of someone who went weekly to a salon.

  "I'm Elaine, Adrian's personal secretary. I work part-time now, once or twice a week."

  "It's nice to meet you."

  She reached into a folder she was carrying. "I have a phone number that was requested by Patrick."

  I glanced down at the square of paper she handed me, surprised. "Sam Koscinski?"

  "He said Sam was his friend." Her eyes brightened with amusement. "Patrick has the same demanding way as his father when he wants a phone number pronto."

  "He demanded it?" I wasn't amused at the idea of a seven-year-old talking to an adult as if she were his employee. It was so easy to turn a sweet kid into a brat.

  "Well, thank you. Thank you very much." I slipped the paper in my pocket and climbed the steps to the third floor.

  I had left Patrick playing a game on his computer and, upon reaching the last flight of steps, expected to hear pinging sounds against a background of music. When I heard an electronic voice asking repeatedly Hey, want to play? I quickened my pace toward the schoolroom. He wasn't there.

  "Patrick?"

  I checked the playroom, then hurried to my room and downstairs to his. He was nowhere in sight. I listened for footsteps above my head, in case he was hiding, then returned to the third floor to search the two storerooms.