Children of the Storm

by Dean Koontz

  She blinked in surprise and, for a moment, thought that he was kidding her. When she saw that he was not being funny, that he was perfectly serious, she said, "How on earth should I know?"

  "When he grabbed hold of you-you'll remember that you said he grabbed you several times during your tussel under the arbor-did he always use the same hand?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Can you remember a single incident? The first time he grabbed you, was it with his left or right hand? Which shoulder did he take hold of, Sonya?"

  She shook her head. "I can't say."

  "Try."

  "It was so dark, and the whole thing was such a nightmare of grabbing, hitting and clutching that I can't remember anything about it-except the chaos and terror."

  Saine nodded and looked away from her. He faced Peterson, seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment, folded his big hands together on top of the table, and said, "Bill, where were you between eight-thirty this evening and-say, ten o'clock?"

  "On the Lady Jane" Peterson said, without hesitation.

  "What were you doing there?"

  "Bedding down for the night."

  "You have a room in Seawatch," Saine said.

  "And, as you know perfectly well, I almost never use it, except to store my things. If the weather isn't bad, I always sleep in the forward stateroom on the Lady Jane."

  "Why?" Saine asked.

  "I like it there."

  "Why, though, when you have such excellent quarters here in the main house, do you choose to sleep in the cramped stateroom of a small boat?"

  "It's not so cramped," Peterson said. "And it's air-conditioned. Besides, I'm a man of the sea, not of the land. I was raised on boats by parents who were sea lovers, and I've worked most of my adult life on one kind of vessel or another. On the other hand, you're a man of the land; you're perfectly comfortable in a big house, in your own room. We are different types, you see. Rather than four plaster walls, I prefer the slap of waves against a hull and the smell of open water."

  "You make it sound quite attractive."

  "It is," Peterson said.

  Saine said, "Eight-thirty is an early hour to turn in. Do you always go to sleep so early?"

  "I didn't say I was asleep."

  "To bed, then."

  "Often, yes." Peterson leaned back, as if he were no longer angry with Saine, as if he were only bored. "I turn on the radio to a good FM channel, usually something from Puerto Rico, maybe Jamaica. I like to read. Music, a book, a few drinks."

  "This was your routine tonight?"

  Peterson nodded. "It was."

  Saine unlocked his fingers and looked directly at the younger man. "What book were you reading?"

  Peterson told him, title and author. "You want me to recount the plot for you?"

  "That won't be necessary," Saine said. "What abour your drinks? What were you having?"

  "Gin and tonic."

  "How many?"

  "Two."

  Saine got up and began to pace, his big body like a caged animal in the confines of the bright, sanitary kitchen. He said, "Could anyone vouch for you?"

  "Not that I know of. I was there alone, and I didn't see anyone after supper."

  Saine nodded and turned away from Peterson, as if the man were no longer important. He looked, instead, at Leroy Mills, pursed his lips and said, "What about you?"

  "I was in my room," Mills said.

  He did not look up from his hands, which held each other nervously, and his voice was subdued. Sonya thought his manner might spring from some underlying guilt or merely from a shy nature. It was impossible to tell which.

  "Were you in bed early, too?" Saine asked, an undeniable note of sarcasm in his voice.

  Mills looked up quickly, shook his head quite vigorously, as if not only to deny the alibi Saine had just given him, but as if, also, to indicate that he wouldn't be satisfied with telling anything but the truth. "I was writing letters, Mr. Saine. I wrote two letters and was on the third-when Miss Carter came home and all the excitement began. Then I had to come down here, to talk with you."

  "Letters? To whom?" Saine asked. He stopped pacing and stood before the small man, looking down on him.

  "To my family," Mills explained. "I wrote to my sister, Rose, in Oregon, about her new baby. It's her first. And I wrote to my brother in New York. The third letter was to my mother. She lives with my brother, but I always like to make her letter separate, to let her know she's important to me." He looked down at his hands again.

  "Your mother's still alive then?"

  "Yes, Mr. Saine. She's quite old, but she gets around pretty good."

  "You're lucky to have her with you, yet," Saine said, ignoring the two thousand miles that separated mother and son. "Most men our age are without much family, unless they've married and started one of their own. My own mother's been dead three years."

  "I'm sorry," Mills said, looking up. He appeared to be really hurt at Saine's loss.

  The bodyguard caught himself, shook himself from his reverie and began to pace again.

  Sonya was amazed by the little scene which had just transpired, for it revealed to her a side of Rudolph Saine's personality which she had not thought existed. He had always seemed hard, tough, brutal, formidable, reliable, capable-any of a hundred similar adjectives. But never before had he appeared to be at all emotional or sentimental, not until this brief exchange with Leroy Mills. She saw now that Saine was a man of contradictions, of many parts, with an outlook that was far larger in scope than she would have guessed.

  "No one to verify your letter-writing story, I suppose," Saine said at last.

  "No one saw me," Mills said.

  "Of course."

  "But if you want, Mr. Saine, I can go upstairs and get the letters to show you."

  Saine shook his head, wiped a hand over a face suddenly weary. "No. They prove nothing. You could have written them earlier in the day, or even yesterday."

  "I didn't, Mr. Saine," Mills said.

  Saine shrugged.

  He turned to Henry Dalton who stood rigid and apparently disinterested, by the kitchen door, almost as if he were a sentry. "And what about you?" Saine asked.

  "I was right here, in the kitchen, with Bess," Henry said. If he had not been in a bad mood today, this entire affair had certainly helped to put him in one. His voice was sharp and waspish, his whole attitude indefinably antagonistic.

  "Doing what?" Saine asked.

  "Washing dishes."

  "Isn't that part of Helga's job?"

  "Yes," Henry said. "But she wasn't feeling so well tonight, and she went upstairs to lie down. She was probably asleep through all of this. She wasn't out in the gardens, that's for sure." He cast a glance at Sonya that made the girl feel as if he held her responsible for the entire mess.

  "I didn't believe she was," Saine said. "You've forgotten that, tonight at least, I'm only interested in the men here."

  "What has that interest gotten you so far?" Henry snapped. "I see no clues."

  "Nor do I," Saine admitted.

  "It isn't anyone in this house," Peterson said. "It's someone else, an outsider."

  "How has he gotten to Distingue?" Saine inquired.

  "The same way all of us did," Bill said. "By boat, of course. He could have come in after dark, in any sort of sailboat, beached it in any of a hundred places along the shoreline."

  "Perhaps," Saine said.

  Though her throat hurt considerably whenever she spoke, and her headache flared up with each word as if words were marbles that rattled around inside her head, Sonya said, "Have you given careful consideration to the Blenwells, Rudolph?"

  Saine looked surprised. He said, "You told me this was a strong man. Both Walter and Lydia Blenwell are old-"

  "I'm referring to Kenneth Blenwell," she said.

  Saine frowned.

  He said, "I doubt very much that he's our man."

  "How can you be sure?" She was remembering, all too clearly, her fir
st and thus far only encounter with that tall, dark, brooding young man. She remembered the way he smiled at her, his vehement dislike of the parrots and his threats to kill them one day-and she was also remembering how strong his hand had been on her arm when he was guiding her across the lawn and up the steps of Hawk House.

  "Why would Ken Blenwell travel all the way to New Jersey to harass Alex and Tina?" Saine asked.

  "We've already decided the man we're after is mentally ill. We've already said he doesn't need reasons," Sonya observed.

  "Still-" Saine began.

  Bill Peterson interrupted him. "Besides, Blenwell has good reason, in his own mind, to go to New Jersey, after the Doughertys. He wants to own Distingue, all of it, both houses."

  "What would murdering the kids gain him, toward that end?" Saine wanted to know.

  "He hasn't killed them yet," Bill Peterson pointed out. "But his threats to kill them brought the whole Dougherty family running for the 'safety' of Seawatch, which might have been exactly what he had in mind. With them so close, his threats could be carried out quite easily. And if Alex and Tina were killed on Distingue, Joe Dougherty would unload this house and his share of the island so fast your head would swim to watch. And because he's offered the best price and would be a fast buyer, Ken Blenwell and his grandparents would become sole owners."

  "I think Bill's right," Sonya said.

  Saine shook his head. "Maybe. I still don't think so. Blenwell is too level-headed, too-"

  "What are you protecting him for?" Bill suddenly asked. He let go of Sonya's hand, pushed his chair away from the table and got to his feet, his anger giving him a nervous energy that bristled almost visibly all over him. "You put members of the Dougherty staff to the most grueling kind of questioning, intimidating them, letting them know you suspect each and every one of them, but when it comes to another very likely suspect outside the family, you grow lenient and doubtful."

  "Call it intuition," Saine said.

  "Bull. I've never seen you operate on intuition yet," Peterson said. "You've got reasons for dismissing Kenneth Blenwell from the list of suspects. I just wish I knew what those reasons were."

  "What are you implying?" Saine asked, reddening.

  Bill hesitated a moment too long before he said, calmly, "Nothing. I wasn't implying anything at all."

  The scarlet color drained slowly out of the bodyguard's face, like water from a keg tap, and the tension in his broad shoulders slackened and disappeared altogether. "I'm just doing my job," he said. He was not offering any excuses, but explaining the situation to a bunch of inattentive children.

  "Of course you are," Bill said. "I'm sorry, Rudolph. It's just that I keep thinking what someone wants to do with those two kids"-he motioned with his hand toward the small dining room off the kitchen where, out of sight, Bess and Helga were playing with the children-"and I want to start hitting someone, anyone. And now, when he almost kills Sonya-"

  "I know, I know," Saine said. "We're all on edge, and we all have a right to be. But I'm the one best qualified to investigate things like this, no matter what any of you may think of my methods."

  Bill nodded. "And now," he said, "shouldn't we get Sonya to bed? She's going to be stiff as a board in the morning; she'll need all the sleep she can get."

  "By all means," Saine said.

  "I can get there on my own," Sonya said.

  Peterson said, "Nonsense." He helped her from her chair and made her lean on him as they walked out of the kitchen, down the corridor and up the main staircase.

  At the door to her room, Bill said, "Sonya, are you certain that you're all right? You look awfully pale. If you want me to, I can get the Lady Jane going and run you over to the family doctor on Guadeloupe, have you there and back in a jiffy."

  "I'm a nurse, remember? I know what I'm doing." She smiled at him affectionately, pleased by his obvious concern. "I've got a bruised throat, which will take a couple of weeks to go away completely. And I've got a splitting headache. But a few aspirins and a good night's sleep are just the medications I need for both complaints."

  "Sure?"

  "I am, yes."

  He looked directly into her eyes, so evidently concerned about her that she was, for a moment, disconcerted. "I didn't want to see you get hurt, Sonya. I never thought you'd become so awfully involved with this thing."

  "It's hardly your fault," she said.

  His face grew tight and angry. "That madman said it was the children he wanted. Why come after you?"

  "He didn't come after me," she reminded him. "I stumbled across him in the garden. He was probably looking for a good observation point; you can see the children's bedroom windows from that part of the garden. When he realized he'd been seen, he panicked. That's all."

  He leaned forward, putting one arm protectively around her, and he kissed her, tenderly, on the lips, dizzying her for a moment before he pulled away again.

  "I don't want to see you hurt," he repeated.

  "Don't worry, I won't be," she assured him. "I don't intend to go for any more walks, alone, at night. Not until this thing is over and done with, anyway."

  "Good."

  To change the subject, partly because she was unsettled by his kiss and partly because she was not up to any tender intimacy just now, she said, "Do you think Joe and Helen will be in California by now?"

  "For hours," he said.

  "Will Rudolph call them?"

  "Yes, on the radio-phone, relayed from Guadeloupe. It's really a shame that we have to disturb them now, when their vacation's just begun. They'll want to come right home."

  "That's best, isn't it?"

  "I guess," he said. "Though there isn't anything that either of them can do."

  He bent, kissed her again, more quickly this time. "Have a good night," he said.

  "I will."

  She watched him walk away toward the stairs, then stepped into her room, closed and locked her door.

  The darkness was empty and still.

  She did not turn on the lights, but walked across the room to the largest window.

  For a long while, she stood there, very still, staring at the palm trees and the lawn and the night sky and then distant sea beyond, fingering her throat, swallowing with difficulty, trying to penetrate the shadows for a glimpse of some watcher.

  Eventually, she realized that there was no one there.

  Only then did she draw her drapes and turn on the lights.

  * * *

  TWELVE

  Half an hour later, refreshed and relaxed by a hot shower and a couple of glasses of cold tap water that quenched some of the fire in her throat, she had pulled back the covers and was getting into bed when someone knocked at her door. From the solid, forceful, rapid pounding, she knew that it was Rudolph Saine, though she could not imagine what he might want to ask her now. Surely, he had covered everything, earlier, in the kitchen. Wearily, resigned to the fact that she'd have to wait a bit longer before ending the night, she turned her back on the bed and went to see what Saine wanted.

  "Yes?" she asked, when she opened the door.

  She was wearing a high-necked, oriental pa-jama which covered her bruised throat, and she felt less self-conscious than she had earlier.

  "I'm sorry to bother you," Saine said. But he was clearly not sorry, for he was only doing his job, still, and he was not the sort of man to apologize for what duty necessitated.

  "I wasn't asleep yet," she said.

  He nodded. "There have been new developments within the last half hour, things I thought you should know about."

  She felt that she probably didn't want to know, no matter what these new developments were, but she also knew he was going to tell her anyway, even if she would prefer to remain ignorant.

  He said, "Of course, we have no conventional telephones, as you know them, here on Distingue. When we wish to place a call, we contact the marine operator on Guadeloupe, by means of our radio-telephone which is kept upstairs, in Mr. Dougherty's st
udy. The Guadeloupe marine operator then dials the number we want, in a conventional manner, and makes a patch between the mainland line telephones and our radio-phone. It sounds very complicated, but it is really quite simple and efficient, as it would have to be for all the business Mr. Dougherty has to do by telephone. It's more expensive than normal telephone service, but Mr. Dougherty hardly worries about expense."

  Relaxed a moment ago, Sonya felt a minimum of tension slowly creeping back into her, like dirty water. Rudolph Saine was usually a man of few words, direct and to the point. In offering this long explanation of the radio-phone, he seemed to be avoiding, for as long as possible, some ugly bit of news.

  "Though the radio-telephone is simple and efficient, it is also-vulnerable," he said. "It does not function well during bad weather, and not at all during a major seasonal storm. And with a single hammer blow, anyone could mangle enough of its insides to make it useless." He cleared his throat and delivered the bad news: "Someone has done just that. They smashed a number of tubes- which I might have been able to replace from our stores. But they also wrecked much of the printed circuitry, which I can't repair without expert help."

  "Who?" she asked.

  "The same man who attacked you, I presume. Or someone who's working with him."

  "How could he get into Seawatch, clear up to the third floor where the radio-telephone is?"

  Saine smiled sourly. "If he lived here, that would be no problem at all: a flight of stairs, an unlocked door..." He shrugged.

  "Then you're still convinced that it's a member of the household staff?" she asked.

  "Yes. But I'm not overlooking other possibilities. If there is a stranger on Distingue, he could have entered the house in a number of ways, located the radio-telephone and demolished it while I was questioning everyone in the kitchen."

  "How would he even know about its existence?" she asked.

  "He would know that no telephone lines are run to small islands like Distingue, and he would also know that a man like Mr. Dougherty would require constant communications with the outside world. Even a psychotic can reason out something like that." He seemed, by his tone, to be castigating himself for allowing anyone to get at the radio-phone, as if he should have been at two places at once, in order to prevent such a disaster.