Winter's Edge

by Anne Stuart

  They'd never discussed just how much of a marriage it was going to be, and he'd assumed that sooner or later they'd get around to sex. To make those grandchildren his father had wanted so damned much.

  But as things had gone from bad to worse, and she'd flung her lovers and her hatred in his face, his own mixed longing had chilled. He'd always wanted her. But he'd been just as determined not to have her.

  And now it was too late. He'd spent a night in her bed, doing at least some of the things he'd dreamed about when he'd had no control of his fantasies. And he wanted to do more.

  He wasn't going to. He was getting the hell out of there, long enough to cool down. To come to his senses. To figure out what the hell was going on here.

  Because it was finally getting through his thick skull that something was happening around here. Nothing was as it seemed. In the last few hours his life had turned upside down.

  If he'd been wrong about Molly he could be wrong about a great many other things. Like whether or not she'd been pushed into the cellar. Like whether someone was really out to hurt her, as she'd insisted.

  Something had been nagging at the back of his mind, some hidden scrap of memory. He wasn't going to sit around on his butt and wait to see what happened. He was going out to find a few answers himself. Just to assure himself that she wasn't in any kind of danger.

  When he got back maybe he and Molly could come to some sort of amicable agreement. She could go where she wanted, do what she wanted.

  Anything to get his peace of mind back.

  And by the time spring rolled around he probably wouldn't even think about her more than once a day.

  All day long.

  When Molly returned to the kitchen she looked at the inhabitants with new eyes. Mrs. Morse was cleaning with a violence, her stern and spare body radiating disapproval. Toby was staring out the window, an odd, abstracted expression on his face, the sunlight reflecting off his wire-rimmed glasses, and Uncle Willy had just come down, hung over as usual, the orange hair combed with its usual finicky neatness, his eyes pale and bloodshot and weary.

  "Well, well, Molly," he murmured as he poured a cup of Mrs. Morse's excellent coffee. "You're looking absolutely stunning this morning."

  "Afternoon," she said absently, staring at all of them in turn.

  "I've already told her so," Toby announced in a playful voice that still held a slightly possessive edge.

  Uncle Willy thumped Toby on the back. "Sly young dog," he said approvingly. "Don't miss a trick, do you? Ah, well, when I was your age…"

  "Where's Aunt Ermy?" Molly broke in suddenly.

  "Ermy?" Willy repeated, befuddled. "I don't know, my dear. She should be around somewhere."

  Molly drew herself together with a monumental effort. "I believe the police might be coming by later. They'll probably want to have a word with all of you."

  The silence was absolute, as the three other inhabitants of the kitchen stared at her in horror that might have been mixed with guilt.

  Mrs. Morse spoke first. "You'll not be saying something's happened to Patrick?"

  Uncle Willy snorted bravely. "Not him. He's got nine lives, that one has." His face remained a ghastly white, despite the determined smile. "What are you talking about, Molly? Why should the police be coming here?" he demanded. "Have they…have they discovered something new about your accident?"

  "I doubt it," Molly said, sipping casually on her cold and bitter-tasting coffee. "I think they want to find out who's been poisoning me."

  Uncle Willy's cup slipped out of nerveless fingers and crashed back onto its saucer. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. "Well," he said finally, his normally affected voice high-pitched and squeaky. "Well."

  Toby had already moved to her side, laying his soft, gentle hands on hers in tender concern. Hands so different from Patrick's strong, demanding ones. She pulled away firmly. "This isn't true, is it, Molly?" His voice was low and impassioned. "If it is, I swear to God I'll kill him!"

  "Now who do you think you're talking about?" Mrs. Morse demanded in a blaze of fury, slamming down another pot and marching across the room, hands on her hips. "You have one hell of a lot of nerve, my boy, if you think you can come around here, playing up to your so-called best friend's wife, and slander him behind his back. Patrick wouldn't harm a hair on that girl's head, and well she knows it!"

  Apart from breaking her heart, she thought wryly. "Mrs. Morse is right, Toby," she said aloud. "What's between Patrick and me is no one else's concern."

  Mrs. Morse nodded with grim approval. "You listen to her, young man. If I didn't know better I'd get awfully suspicious of the way you're trying to throw the blame on Patrick."

  "This is all nonsense." Aunt Ermy spoke sternly from the kitchen door, her tiny, piglike eyes glistening avidly. "What's all this about Molly being poisoned?" She looked at Molly with an expression of heavy solicitude that was almost believable. "That was a nasty blow you took on your head, and I think you must be suffering delusions of persecution along with your amnesia. Heavens, no one would want to poison you! Now, you just put that idea out of your head and we'll call the police and tell them it was all a mistake."

  "I'd love to do just that, Aunt Ermy, if it weren't for one simple thing," Molly said in her calmest voice. "It's Dr. Turner's idea that I'm being poisoned, and it's more than a stray fancy. There was arsenic in my bloodstream."

  "Then you took it yourself, for the attention it would bring you," Ermy said flatly, the look in those tiny eyes hostile. "No one in this house would try to kill you. We all love you."

  Molly's deadly calm turned into a slicing rage. "Of course you do," she said bitterly. "You're just dripping all over with concern, aren't you? There's something going on here, and if my memory wasn't such a total blank I could figure it out. But I'll remember. Sooner or later it'll come back to me, and I'll have the answers."

  Her words hung in the air like a palpable threat. And she found herself wondering if her angry words had just sealed her fate.

  The police arrived a half an hour later. Molly had taken refuge in her bedroom, and when she heard a car pull up she ran to her window, hoping against all possible hope that it was Patrick. She felt more than a twinge of dismay as she recognized her old friend, Lieutenant Ryker, as he climbed out of the gray sedan.

  She was downstairs in time to open the door for him. "You're looking a lot better, Mrs. Winters," he greeted her, stepping into the hall and looking around him with calm, professional detachment. That detachment made her uneasy.

  "I'm feeling much better," she said with deceptive politeness. "Why are you here? I would have thought the local police could have handled this."

  "I'm sure they could have," he answered in his clipped, emotionless voice, "but they decided it was more my concern than theirs. And rightly so. Sergeant Stroup came along to represent their interests."

  Molly's eyes flickered over the man standing behind him, recognizing the leering animosity with faint despair. It only needed this, she thought wearily.

  "Is your husband here, Mrs. Winters?" Ryker continued smoothly. "I'd like to have a few words with him."

  "I'm afraid not. He doesn't even know about this…this poison business. He left here before I woke and I don't think he's expected back until tomorrow."

  "And could you tell me where we could get in touch with him?" There was absolutely no reason for her to be bothered by the simple questions. But she was.

  "I'm afraid I have no idea," she finally answered, her voice stiff. "Perhaps Mrs. Morse might know. I assume you'll want to talk with her?"

  "All in good time, Mrs. Winters, all in good time," he said in that chilling tone. "Suppose you take me to a nice quiet place where we can talk, and we'll get this business over with as quickly and painlessly as possible."

  He didn't appear to be the kind of man who wished to avoid causing pain, but there weren't really any options. She led him to Patrick's office to begin one of the most harrowing half hou
rs in her life.

  Every answer she gave to his sharply barked out questions, every statement she made, was pulled apart and delved into as if she were on the witness stand. He patently believed not one word she said, yet Dr. Turner's evidence was impossible to refute. Through it all she was conscious of Stroup's smirking, leering presence, his damp, slightly bloodshot eyes lingering over the leather chair she sat in and the antique desk with the same covetous intensity that he directed at her.

  She answered Ryker's tersely worded questions calmly and rationally, keeping her voice level, and in the end he was forced to concede defeat. He hadn't been able to make her cry, as he'd all too obviously wanted, and blurt out the truths of all her so-called crimes. She stared across the desk stonily.

  "All right, that will be all for now, Mrs. Winters." He leaned back in Patrick's chair affably. "But I suggest you stay close to home for the time being."

  "It seems to me that home is about the most dangerous place for me right now," she said in a cool voice. "But I suppose I really have no choice in the matter."

  "No, I suppose you don't," he answered. "Could you ask William Winters to come next please, Stroup? I don't think we'll be bothering Mrs. Winters any more today."

  Thank God for that, she thought as she left the room, brushing unshed tears of anger and humiliation from her eyes. The only consolation in the miserable affair was that Willy and Ermy would have to go through the same thing. Though there was always the chance Ryker would behave toward them with at least a trace of charm.

  She saw him before he left, his arms full of little bottles and packages, Stroup's beefy arms similarly encumbered. "We'll be leaving now, Mrs. Winters," he said coolly, his colorless eyes distant and unfathomable.

  "What are all those?"

  "Samples, samples. We want to see how the poison is being administered, if, indeed, it is. According to your information and that of your relatives, these are things only you could have eaten and drunk in the past four days. We should come up with some answers pretty soon."

  "And in the meantime…?"

  "In the meantime, I'd be careful, if I were you, Mrs. Winters. Very careful."

  Molly wandered into the living room and poured herself a glass of ginger ale. If ever she needed a stiff drink now was the time, and she wondered wistfully when her ban on alcohol would be lifted. There was no one in sight—she thought she could hear a heated discussion in the kitchen, and she had no desire to join in. One of these people was trying to kill her, had tried three times. Once with the poison, twice with her so-called accidental falls. She wondered if Ryker found those accidents suspicious. He'd been far too quick to dismiss them—doubtless he thought she imagined them as well.

  Dinner that night was an uncomfortable affair. Toby stayed and stayed, far longer than anyone wanted him to, watching out of pale, brooding eyes, and helped polish off the roast chicken and tomato casserole Mrs. Morse had fixed. Molly had helped with the dinner preparations.

  She didn't for one moment suspect Mrs. Morse. She simply wasn't taking chances on letting any of the food out of her sight for even one moment.

  Apparently Lieutenant Ryker hadn't been any more tactful with Aunt Ermy's dignity, for she spent the entire evening in a state of towering indignation. Of all the possible suspects, Molly would have preferred Aunt Ermy to be the guilty one.

  Except that the poisoning had begun before Ermy returned home. So had the fall down the cellar hole in the burned-out stable. No, it didn't seem as if Ermintrude was the villain, even if she was patently unlikable.

  It seemed forever before Toby was ready to leave. In desperation Molly walked him to the front door. One of her many mistakes. Before she knew what was happening his arms were tight around her and his hot, whiskey-laden breath was in her ear, urging her to do all sorts of things, including leave the house and spend the night with him. The very thought disgusted her, not from an actual dislike of Toby, but more because of her helpless longing for last night and for Patrick. Who'd made love to her, finally, and then left her.

  She pushed Toby away with an unnecessary vehemence. "Please, Toby," she said angrily, straightening her clothes,

  "Please, Toby," he mimicked bitterly. "You used to care about me. You used to say I was your only real friend. Remember when we'd talk about going away together? Leaving here, leaving Patrick and all those others: I don't know what's happened to you. I'm only trying to help you. I just don't think you should be alone here tonight with them."

  "I thought you decided that Patrick was the guilty party," she said. "In that case I'm perfectly safe with Aunt Ermy and Willy."

  "There's no way of knowing who's to blame," he said darkly, making a grab at her. She dodged him neatly.

  "Listen, Toby, of course you're my friend. I like you very much," she said wearily, backing away from him. "But I'm too tired to play post office in the hall of my husband's house. I think you should go home and go to bed and try to get over this…infatuation or whatever it is."

  "It isn't an infatuation. I love you!" he whispered urgently, obviously affronted. "You promised me…"

  "Toby, I don't remember," she said, desperation creeping into her voice. "Whatever I said, whatever I did, whatever I promised. I simply don't remember it."

  He stared at her, his face shrouded with hurt. Without another word he turned and left, slamming the heavy door shut behind him.

  Molly leaned against the door in exhaustion, and if it wasn't for an odd impulse she would have left it at that. But, for some reason she drew back the little curtain beside the door. Toby was standing by his car, staring up at the house, and there was the oddest expression on his face. A look of strange intensity that was illogically frightening.

  And then it was gone, and he climbed into his car. It must have been a trick of the light, or a figment of her imagination, Molly told herself, moving back from the window.

  But she was unable to shake the eerie feeling that danced over her shoulder blades, as she pictured Toby's face.

  The bitch would die. Not tonight, much as she deserved it. Tomorrow, when there was time to plan.

  She'd die in pain, struggling, calling for help. The life would be choked out of her, and no one would come to her rescue. They would find her body the next morning, eyes open and staring. She would be punished.

  And she would accept that punishment, that sentence of death, gratefully.

  Chapter Fourteen

  « ^ »

  Molly woke up early the next morning, her stomach calm. Whoever had sprinkled arsenic in her food had obviously thought better of it now that the cat was out of the bag. Unless, of course, her poisoner was simply gone from the house on unexplained business.

  The old stone house was silent and still as she tiptoed through the halls, bundled in a warm blue wrapper, her bare feet moving noiselessly on the wooden floors. It was Mrs. Morse's day off, and it was up to Molly to make the coffee and muffins this morning if she expected to have any. As a matter of fact, it was just as well—at least she was safe from an accidental seasoning of rat poison.

  The muffins were just out of the oven, the sun was rising higher in the early morning sky, and she was sitting cross-legged on the counter, wiggling her toes in the sunshine when he walked in the door.

  He clearly hadn't been expecting to see her so early. He stopped dead, and they stared at each other across the shadowy kitchen with only the dawning light in it. She set down her coffee cup with great care.

  "Good morning, Patrick." Her voice was astoundingly even. "When did you get home?"

  "Just now." His husky voice sent chills down her spine. He came over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee, and his nearness seemed to set off all sorts of reactions inside her, reactions that she wasn't sure if he was quite immune to. And then he spoke.

  "I've come to a decision," he said in a flat, unemotional voice. "I'm letting you leave here. You can go anywhere you want while we wait for the divorce to be final. Nevada and Mexico are known f
or fast divorces—why don't you take a little vacation and speed things up?"

  She stared at him in numb surprise. Then, without thinking, she picked up the cast iron muffin tin and hurled it at his head. He dodged it easily, and it fell with a terrible clanging noise, muffins scattering over the slate floor.

  Before she had time to move he had caught her wrist in a tight grasp, the long, strong fingers biting into her flesh. There was a fury about him, held strongly in check, that matched and overwhelmed her own anger, and she was suddenly afraid. He looked like a man who had reached the end of his endurance.

  "There's been enough of your tantrums around here, Molly," he said in a low, angry voice. He yanked her down from the counter and she stumbled against him. "Now go pick that up and put it back where it belongs."

  There was no way she could resist, no way she could defy him. Without a word she did as she was told. When he finally released her she backed away from him towards the door, ready for a quick escape if need be. "You enjoy forcing your will on helpless women, don't you?"

  He didn't even have the grace to look ashamed. "The day you're a poor, helpless female will be the day hell freezes over," he said shortly. "I'll get your good friend Toby to drive you to the airport this afternoon."

  "I'm not going."

  "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "Simply that I'm not going," she answered with deceptive calm, holding the trump card. "I doubt I'd be allowed to, anyway. Interesting things have been happening while you were off with Lisa Canning this time."

  He didn't bother to deny it. "What interesting things?"

  "Oh, not much," she said with mock calm. "Someone's been poisoning me, but apart from that life has been going on as usual."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" There was no play-acting in the shock that paled his tanned face. Before she could answer him the telephone rang harshly through the quiet house.