Fade To Midnight (47 page)

“Tonight? But I—”

“Tonight. We get the big family bloodbath all over with. I do not want this fucking freakshow to drag on and on. I am done.”

“But Ava needed Edie for—”

“I don't care,” Tom told him. “My profit margin just took a fucking nosedive twenty minutes ago. I won't stick my ass out any further just because your girlfriend wants to diddle herself some more.”

“Tom, listen.”

“No.
You
listen. Finish it tonight, or the deal is off. I withdraw my support, and you deal with the McClouds yourself.” He focused on a body bag being rolled onto a truck. “Trust me, you don't want to do that. Go get your girlfriend out of the closet before her head explodes.”

Tom hung up. He hoped the dickhead managed to wrangle that crazy bitch into shape fast, because Ava would need to put in some serious X-Cog crowning action soon to sell this fucked-up scenario to the law, and the press. It was spinning out of control.

But Tom was itching to get his hands around McCloud necks. To feel veins throb, eyes pop. See faces turn purple. His heart pounded.

A final gift, to lay on that dark altar. In honor of Dr. O.

D
usk faded to dark while Edie lay there, cuddling Ronnie, who slept like a rock. She herself couldn't hope for sleep, not unless she asked Dr. Katz for some in pill form, and she'd sooner drown herself than do that. Besides, she had to stay sharp. Not that she felt sharp, except in the sense of jittery and jagged. Fragile as crystal.

Kev hadn't called. Of course, he wouldn't have Ronnie's number unless he'd gotten in touch with Bruno. So he'd been missing all day.

Or he wasn't calling her on purpose. Because he'd gotten what he needed, and he was done with her now.

No.
She rejected that voice nattering in her head. She wouldn't be fooled. Not by fear. But neither did she want to cling to a sweet lovely lie, and hide her face from the painful truth. That was no good, either.

There was a TV on the dresser. Edie grabbed the remote and turned it on, just for a little chatter. The silence was so heavy, she felt like she would asphyxiate under it. Local news started to play.

She stared at it, zoning out. The crumpled e-mail was still clutched in her fist. She took a look at the paper, smoothing out the wrinkles.

It was a picture of Des. His eyes glowed, as if a light shown out of them. The effect was chilling. She studied every element, mixing them up, turning them upside down. She wished her psychic ability came with a glossary handbook. Her subconsious mind was so damn convoluted. She had a hell of a time figuring this stuff out.

Des wore a crown in the drawing. Not surprising. She'd always perceived him as the crown prince of Helix. But that empty glow, brrr. He looked like someone possessed. And there were hearts. Bunches of them, like something a lovestruck thirteen-year-old would draw all over her school notebook. Around the signature word of the e-mail,
Des
, she had drawn a larger heart, and behind it, two crossed bones.

The symbol for poison, but with a heart, not a skull. Hmm.

Hearts, like the ones she'd drawn all over her mother's portrait.

Odd, that her mother and her father had both received visits from Des on the days of their deaths. But then again, they probably had both received visits from Des on a daily basis. She was being fanciful.

An image on TV caught her eye. She did a double-take, and jolted upright, upping the volume. It was a photo of the red-haired girl. The one who had come to the book signing. The one she'd drawn.

“…at large, but a manhunt is underway for Craig Roberts, prime suspect in the murder of Victoria Sobel, a Portland University student who was found strangled in her dorm room last night,” said a female newscaster. “Sobel had been involved with Roberts, a local radio disc jockey, for the last few months, according to friends. Roberts was last seen in the Clackamas area…”

The words faded away, drowned out by the roar in her head. So telling Vicky about Craig hadn't saved her. No escape for Vicky.

She flipped off the TV. Better to face the smothering silence than get slapped in the face with how ineffectual she was. She saw Vicky Sobel's freckled, laughing face in her mind's eye, even with the TV off. Tears slid down her cheeks.

She thought about Kev's lurking spider, and her stomach flopped.

But Kev wasn't like Vicky. And neither was she. The thought stirred in the depths of her, beneath the pain and the fear. A quiet voice, not the scolding one. Reminding her of the flat, undeniable truth.

I was right about Vicky Sobel. I always call it right. Always.

It wasn't particularly comforting, but it straightened her slumped spine, even while her chest shook. Tears streamed down her face.

She slid down, butt sliding off the bed and onto the braided rug, shaking with sobs, which was better than that hard, bruised ache in her chest. She hadn't shed tears all day, except for that first shallow explosion, with Bruno, and that had been more shock than anything.

It had finally started to flow. She cried for the father she'd never had, the one she'd never have. No chance to redeem herself now.

She didn't know poor Vicky Sobel at all, but that distant, awful tragedy unlocked the floodgates of her own. By the time it all worked through her system, she felt deeper, softer. Calmer. And very clear.

She was going to trust herself. She was worth trusting. And she was going to fix this mess. She was not going to sit around and meekly swallow this evil, lying, ridiculous bullshit down. No way. No more.

She got up, paced restlessly around in the twilit room.

“Hey.” Ronnie's voice, soft and whispery. “You're here. Good.” She rubbed her bleary eyes.

Edie spun around, dove for the bed, and the two of them lay there, hugging tight. The knowledge twisted and ached inside her, that she was going to have to leave her sister alone again to solve this problem. Some malevolent entity was at work, someone who wished her ill. She had to fight it. She could not be passive and just hope for the best. Truth would not prevail unless it was helped along, vigorously. By her, personally.

She thought about the kidnappers. The banquet. The vials of poison inexplicably planted at her apartment. And now, this. Kev's disappearance. Kev, on that video. Her father, killed. Kev framed.

Just as she'd been framed.

Somebody wanted…what? Money? A mess this big, violence this awful, it could only be about money. Or revenge. Kev was the only candidate for revenge that she knew of, and she had ruled him out.

That left money. Ronnie ostensibly had it, now. But whoever was making this happen was probably not going to leave matters that way.

She buried her nose against Ronnie's shirt, and pondered the spooky sketch she'd drawn of Des Marr, with his empty eyes and his crown. The e-mail to Mom, from Des. The hearts. Poison.

If Ronnie died…the bulk of her father's multibillion dollar fortune went to the Parrish Foundation, to support medical research. Des was on the board of the Parrish Foundation.

But Des? What could he have against her father? The Marr family was immensely rich in its own right. Des was successful, admired, adored. Charles Parrish had liked and respected him. Had mentored him since business school. Something was so strange about it, so twisted. She shivered. Thought about the boxes Kev had mentioned in his text message.

Either Kev was lying, or Des was. She knew who she wanted to believe, but wanting wasn't enough. Certainly not for the police.

“Ronnie? Baby? I'm going to have to leave you for a while,” she whispered. “There's something I need to check on, before it's too late.”

“I'll come with you,” Ronnie said.

She considered it, and regretfully shook her head. Ronnie had to be safer here, surrounded by security personnel, than wandering around with her bumbling sister Edie, with her empty wallet and her borrowed Ruger six-shot. “You can't,” she said, helplessly. “Things are too dangerous. I don't have a plan, or any money. I can't keep you safe.”

“I'd rather be with you than be safe.” Ronnie's arms tightened.

“Please, baby. Just for a while. Somebody's setting Kev up, and me, too. I have to go check some possible evidence. Before it's too late.”

“You?” Ronnie's eyes got big. “Setting up you? For what happened to Dad? But that's nuts. Nobody who knew you would believe that!”

Edie was intensely grateful her father hadn't told Ronnie about the planted vial of poison. “Marta believed it,” she pointed out.

Ronnie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well. Marta is Marta.” Her eyes sharpened. “You look more guilty if you run, you know.”

“I'll look guilty no matter what I do,” she said.

“This is so they can't put you in the nuthouse, right?”

Or worse. She thought of the kidnappers, the cold blade at her throat. “Yeah,” she said. “Something like that.”

“If you run away for good, I want to go, too,” Ronnie said, with quiet intensity. “Don't leave me here. Promise you'll come back for me.”

Edie grabbed Ronnie. “I promise,” she said softly. “I don't know how, but I promise. If you'll promise me something, too.”

“What?”

“Be careful with Des Marr.”

“Why? He's always been so nice.” Then Ronnie's eyes widened. “Oh! I see. Did you do one of your special drawings? Can I see it?”

Edie hesitated, and then pulled it out and unfolded it. Ronnie stared at it for a few moments.

“Yikes,” she said slowly. “Spooky. You don't have any idea what—”

“Nope,” Edie said. “Not a flipping clue. Just please, be careful with him. Don't ever be alone with him. Don't go anywhere with him. OK?”

“OK.” Ronnie pulled a cell phone out of her pocket, and a charger off the desk. “Take this, all right? I won't tell anybody that you have it.”

Edie took it, and realized that it was turned off. Duh. Of course Aunt Evelyn would have turned it off, after they'd dosed Ronnie.

Kev could have called while it was off. Her heart leaped, her fingers twitched to turn it on, check for missed calls. But not now. She slid it in her pocket, stuffed the charger in the other. “Thanks, sweetie.”

Ronnie sniffed. “I'll charge up my old one. You still remember my last number, don't you? I'll program it in, OK? And call me. Call soon.”

Tears grabbed them by the throat, and it took a good fifteen minutes of hugging and sniffling before she could start to plan. Though plan was really too kind a word for it. This was a blind impulse. A suicidal dive out of the frying pan and into the naked flames.

But it was all she could do. There was no excuse for cowering here like a bunny in a cage, waiting for the walls to close in on her.

She convinced Ronnie to wait in her room, so that she could think a straight thought without blubbering. She stood in the corridor, gathering her wits, her nerve. What to do. Money. Car keys. A way out of here. A place to go. Her list of goals. She hurried to the room earmarked as hers, and rummaged through the jewelry box. She'd opted to keep her valuables here, and there were costly pieces, with good stones that she might be able to sell. She shoved pendants, earrings, bracelets, rings into her pockets. Funny how the jewelry was hers, but she still felt like she was stealing it.

At the bottom of the stairs was Dad's studio. She went in, opened the desk drawer where he'd kept keys. Three of his four cars were parked downstairs, but inside the compound. One set of keys was to a Porsche that was acutally hers on paper, being one of Dad's string-attached gifts. She'd never gotten an opportunity to drive the thing. It was also inside the walls, though, and she was never going to be able to convince the security personnel to open the gate for her to drive out.

She saw a set of keys she remembered Dad using one day when he'd taken some philanthropist friend of his to look at the Parrish Foundation building. A building master key. She thought about the boxes in the library, and slid it into her pocket.

Her next blind impulse compelled her down to the security room. She stood outside the door, which was slightly ajar.

Paul Ditillo's voice floated out. His back was to the door. “…told you that crazy rich bitch hated her dad! She's in it, up to her neck! And if you ask me, she's even more dangerous than that…huh?”

Robert nudged him, eyes darting toward the door as Edie pushed it open. Paul turned, stared. Funny, how that hostility used to bother her so much. Now it was so insignificant. She stared at the banks of TV screens that showed all the vantage points of the security cameras.

Paul cleared his throat. “What can we do for you, Ms. Parrish?”

She groped for a coherent answer as she studied the screens. Four images on each screen. Four different screens. Five seconds for each screen. God, how she sucked at multitasking. “Ah…I was just, um, wondering what your security procedures were, tonight,” she said, lamely. “I wondered what, ah, precautions you were taking.”

Paul exchanged can-you-believe-this-chick glances with Robert while she checked the clock on the computer screen against the watch she had on her wrist. Her watch ran thirteen seconds ahead. The north view appeared when the minute hand was at twelve. Five seconds. Then the south view. Then east. Then west. Back to the top, twenty seconds later. Three cycles of each direction of views each minute.

“We're taking all due precautions,” Paul said. “You have nothing to worry about. Why not just go take a nice little pill and lie down?”

She blinked. Wow. Gloves off. Not that Paul had ever been particularly polite to her, but zowie, that was harsh. Contemptuous.

At the right of the entry were hooks for hanging coats. She recognized the one Paul had worn the other day when he picked her up to go to the salon. Charcoal gray, lined with puffy silver down. Funny, how vivid every little detail was. “Actually, I was wondering if one of you gentlemen would drive me someplace,” she improvised wildly. “I need to run a couple errands, and obviously, it's better if I'm not—”

“No,” Paul said.

His response was certainly no surprise, but she bristled and put on an affronted look. “What do you mean, no?”

“No, meaning you're staying right here, Ms. Parrish.”

She lifted her chin. “You have no authority to keep me here. My father thought he did. But he's not here.”

“Yeah, and isn't that convenient,” Paul sneered. He circled the desks and backed her up with the force of his hostility, right up to the row of coats. She sidled until she was pressed against Paul's coat in the corner, recoiling at his hot, smothering tobacco breath.

She groped delicately behind herself for his coat pocket. Found it. Dug, found nothing.
Shit.

“I'll be honest with you, Ms. Parrish. I'm not real sure who's in charge around here right now.” Paul lifted a thick forefinger, tapped her collarbone with it. “But one thing I am sure of. It isn't you.”

Edie glared back as she scrabbled in the other pocket. There. Zipped halfway up…but the zipper gave. Her hand slid in. Car keys. A wallet. She seized both, slid them into her jeans pocket. Grateful for the corner she was wedged into, hiding her criminal activity.