Children of the Storm (4 page)

    He nodded, and he left without making a sound, closing the heavy wooden door as softly as a professional burglar stealing away from the scene of his crime.

    Sonya went first to the single window in her room, a large, many-paned sheet of glass that gave view of the back lawn, the flagstone path, most of the pavilion at the foot of the hill and, beyond that, the white beach and the endless blue-green sea. It was a beautiful view, and she knew she would make it her first stop every morning when she got out of bed, a quick glance at those marvelous skies, at the palms and sand and the breakers rolling relentlessly in toward shore. It was all so clean, so alive, so free of death. Or it seemed to be.

    She remembered the man who had threatened to kill the Dougherty children, and she wondered…

    Next, she went to her dresser and examined her reflection in the oversized oval mirror. Her long, yellow hair had already been bleached a shade or two lighter by the tropic sun, and it would be nearly pure white in a few weeks. Her face was pale, but that could be changed in a few days. For the most part she looked fine, except for the weariness of all her recent travels, which showed in an undefinable film, a thin mask of exhaustion.

    Abruptly, she realized that she had been looking at herself only to discover what kind of a picture she had presented to Bill Peterson, and she blushed anew, though there was no one to see her this time. She felt like a silly young girl struck by a juvenile infatuation, rather than like a mature young woman, and she looked away from her reflection, afraid that she would accidentally catch her own eyes, meet her own gaze and end up laughing at herself.

    Instead, she studied the frame of the large mirror, which was also of red cedar, carved to form two long slim alligators. Their scaly tails touched at the base of the mirror, hiding the sturdy braces that attached the piece to the top of the dresser, while their wide and toothy mouths met snout-to-snout at the top of the mirror. It was a beautiful piece, of excellent craftsmanship-but it was also somewhat sinister.

    She turned away from the mirror altogether and opened her first suitcase, pulled out the carefully folded clothes and began to fill up the hangers in the enormous walk-in closet. She was nearly half finished with her unpacking when the knock came at her door, loud and rapid and insistent. She finished slipping a dress onto another hanger and put that away in the closet before she went to see who knocked.

    When she opened the door, she stepped back slightly, sucking in her breath, wondering whether she ought to slam the door shut again. The man on the other side was positively menacing: better than six feet tall, so broad at the shoulders that- had he been wearing a jacket instead of a lightweight white shirt-she might have thought he was wearing padding. His chest was huge, stomach flat, arms like those of a serious-minded weight-lifter-all corded with muscle, thick and sinewy. His face was broad, his features crude enough to be the preliminary work of a sculptor hacking at a new piece of granite. His eyes were intensely blue and watchful, his nose twisted and gristly from having once been broken and badly repaired. His lips were thin, almost cruel, and were not now curled into either a smile or a frown, but held tight and bloodless and straight, as if he were just barely able to hold down his fury. She could not imagine what he could be furious with her for.

    “Miss Carter?”

    His voice was hard, raspy, and-if a voice could be described by more than sound-cold enough to chill her.

    “Yes?”

    Her own voice sounded small, weak and miserable by comparison, and she wondered if he could sense her uncertainty and her fear.

    “My name's Rudolph Saine.”

    “Pleased to meet you,” she said, though she was not particularly pleased at all.

    He said, “I'm the childrens' bodyguard.”

    “I hadn't heard they had one,” she said.

    He nodded. “That's understandable. The other members of the staff don't know me that well yet, and since they've all been together for years, I sort of fade out of their minds. I only came on with Mr. Dougherty when he had to move down here. And most of my time is spent with the kids, away from the others.”

    “Well, Mr. Saine,” she said, “I imagine you and I will be seeing quite a lot of each other.” The prospect didn't please her, but she tried to smile for him.

    “Yes,” he said. He looked at her carefully, as if scrutinizing a possibly dangerous insect, apparently decided she had no sting. “I'd like to talk with you about the chidrens' safety-some Do's and Don'ts, if you want to call them that.” He had moved his lips, but he had still avoided smiling or frowning, almost as if those expressions were completely beyond him. Sonya found him too sober and serious to be at ease with.

    “I'm just unpacking-” she began.

    “I won't take long.”

    “Well-”

    “I want to get some things straight, between us, right from the very start.”

    She hesitated a moment more, then stepped back, holding the door, and said, “Come in.”

    Rudolph Saine sat in the largest of the two easy chairs in the room and nearly filled it to overflowing. He gripped the cedar arms in his hands, as if he were afraid the thing might start to fly at any moment-or as if he thought he might have to get up in a great rush and launch himself at some enemy or other.

    Sonya chose the edge of the mammoth Polynesian bed and said, “Now, Mr. Saine, what should I know?”

    He said, “You must never take the kids anywhere without calling me first. Every time you venture away from the house, you must be certain that I am with you.”

    “Sounds simple enough.”

    “Even if you're only taking them out to the pavilion,” he elaborated, “I want to go along.”

    “I'll remember that.”

    “I feel they're safe within the house itself, during the daylight hours anyway, but I never feel comfortable when they're outside.”

    “I can understand that.”

    “Even when they're
in
the house,” Saine went on, “I'm right there with them about half the time -or I'm within sight of them, or within earshot if they should call for me.”

    Sonya supposed Saine's diligence was admirable, but she wished that he wouldn't go on about it so, for it only served to remind her what Bill Peterson had told her on the boat, earlier. She was trying to think about the vitality of the Caribbean, the bright future she had, the good times that awaited her. She did not want to face the fact that death might have followed her from the north into this sunny land.

    She said, “Rest assured, I'll not take them anywhere without you.”

    His thin lips seemed to grow even thinner. He said, “I sleep next to their room, and I usually remain awake until four in the morning, for it's between two and four that most people choose to break into a house. I sleep from four until eleven, and I'm up and ready for duty by noon. I'd appreciate it if you could limit your excursions, away from the house, to the afternoons or evenings.”

    “No trouble,” Sonya said.

    “Thank you.”

    “Anything else?” she asked, getting up, trying to imply by her movement that she wasn't anxious to hear anything else, even if he were not finished.

    “One thing.”

    “That is?”

    He hesitated, looked away from her for the first time and, then, gaming resolution from some source she could not guess, looked back again and said, “Occasionally, Miss Carter, you might think that it isn't necessary to call for me-so long as another member of the staff is with you and the children. I want you to understand that no one else can take my place in this respect. You must always call for me, no matter who on the staff offers to accompany you in my place. And if, for some reason, I am not available-should it be my day off, or should I be on the mainland for some other reason, you must cancel your plans and remain with the children in the house.”

    She felt that chill along her backbone again, like a fingernail of ice slicing her flesh.

    “Do you understand?” he asked.

    “Yes.”

    “I would appreciate it if you didn't tell the rest of the staff what I have just told you.”

    Quietly, her voice nearly a whisper, though she had not meant for it to be so low, Sonya said, “Then you don't trust them?”

    “No.”

    “None of them?”

    “None.”

    “Then you think that those threats might have been made by someone within the household?”

    Saine stood up with fluid grace, like an uncurling cat despite all his muscles. He towered over her, and he looked capable of handling anyone who might try to harm the children.

    He said, “Perhaps.”

    She said, “Is there anyone you suspect especially?”

    “Everyone.”

    “Even me?”

    “You too.”

    She said, “But I didn't even know the Doughertys when they were having all this trouble.”

    He said nothing.

    She was determined to press the issue. “Well? How can you think I might be the guilty one?”

    “I did not say I could show
how
all the suspects came to be suspects in my mind. My personal form of judgment does not operate according to the normal standards of law, Miss Carter. In my personal, private, mental court, everyone is guilty until proven innocent.”

    “I see.”

    He went to the door, opened it, turned and looked at her with those piercingly blue, blue eyes. “Since you will be nearly as responsible for the children as me, Miss Carter, I suggest that you adopt my own pessimism. Trust no one but yourself.”

    “Not even you?”

    “Not even me,” he said.

    He stepped into the corridor, closed the door and walked quietly away, the deep-pile carpet soaking up his footsteps.

    Sonya had lost her enthusiasm for unpacking.

    

    The front dining room was fully forty feet long and twenty wide, containing an enormous china closet, the longest dining table that Sonya ever had seen, and a liberal sprinkling of
objets d'art
- paintings, metal sculptures, glass and marble figurines in both exquisite miniatures and larger sizes, elaborately hand-carved candlestick holders in various dark woods-which somehow made the place seem cozier and less formal than its heroic dimensions might otherwise have made it. The table was set with expensive wedgewood china and decorated with fresh floral centerpieces-miniature pompoms, blood roses, chrysanthemums- all against a royal blue linen tablecloth that gave the place settings a cool, relaxed feeling.

    Eight diners, well-spaced from one another, sat around the large table, four members of the staff and four of the family. Bill Peterson, Rudolph Saine, Leroy Mills and Sonya sat along both sides of the table, in company with Alex and Tina Dougherty, the two children. Joe Dougherty and his wife, Helen, sat at opposite ends of the table, for an effect, Sonya thought, that was almost baronial, despite the friendly atmosphere and all that was done to make her feel at ease.

    Joe Dougherty was a tall, lanky, easy-going man, with a deep voice that would have made him a natural for the voice-over in almost any television commercial. He had sandy-red hair that was full over his ears and curling at his collar, a splash of freckles across his nose and cheeks. His smile had made her feel welcome immediately.

    The fact that Sonya had never even met her new employer before accepting the position and making arrangements for the journey to the Doughertys' private island was the single thing that Lynda Spaulding, her roommate, had found the most irksome. “How can you go that far to work for people you've never even seen, never even
talked
to on the telephone, never written to? How in the world do you know if you're going to like them? You probably
won't
like them. And even if you find that you can endure them, how do you know they won't take an immediate dislike to you? Suppose, after a couple of days, they decide that you're just not right for them or for their kids, or something, and they let you go? All that time you'll have wasted, all that money for airplane fares, ship fares!”

    Patiently, trying not to show her anger, Sonya had said, “Mr. Dougherty's paying all my travel expenses.”

    “Yes, but that wasted time if they-”

    “I'm sure, if for some strange reason, we don't hit it off well, Mr. Dougherty won't quibble about paying my return fares and giving me a handsome check for severence pay. You keep forgetting, Lynda, that he's a millionaire.”

    “I still think this is a mistake.”

    If Sonya had wanted to be truthful with the Spaulding girl, she would have had to agree that the whole situation was just a bit unusual. However, she knew that a single agreement, on even a matter that was basically inconsequential, would only give Lynda more confidence, more fuel to carry on her pessimistic tirades, her heated role as a doubting Thomas. And Sonya had had quite enough of these one-sided conversations, for they showed her more about Lynda Spaulding than she really wanted to know. So she worried in private.

    Joseph Dougherty was an alumnus, one of the most distinguished alumni, of Sonya's own university. Regularly, he donated rather large sums of money to the school to help in the construction of this science lab, or that students' lounge, or this sculpture garden… Naturally, when he required a tutor for his two children, he preferred to hire someone who was also a graduate of his alma mater, and he turned the selection of that someone over to Dr. Walter Toomey, the Dean of Student Personnel and a personal Mend of the Dougherty family.

    When she had been called to Dean Toomey's office, at the end of August-she had been a full-year student, finishing four years of work in only three years, and she had thus been completing her education in August-she had not known what to expect-but she had certainly never anticipated that the conference involved an offer of employment from a millionaire!