Mania (20 page)

“Pack a weekend bag,” Sara said. It was ten-thirty in the morning, and she had already been out for coffee. She sat down on the side of the bed with an expectant smile on her face, waiting for Nick to open his eyes. Ever since seeing Barnes a few days before, Nick had not only been sleeping through the night, he had been waking up later and later. He was taking the tranquillizers Barnes had given him, and the doctor had put him on a couple of other medications as well. Nick was looking rested again. The insurance money had come through on Sam’s life insurance policy, and Nick was feeling safer, more comfortable in his skin.

He rolled over in bed. Sara’s weight on the mattress had disturbed him, and her voice was slowly penetrating his consciousness. He woke with a bewildered smile on his face, shielding his eyes from the soft sunlight streaming into the room.

“You opened the curtains,” he said to her.

“It’s time to get up,” she said. Sara looked around the bedroom they had been sharing for the past weeks. The sunlight revealed a huge mess. “It’s time for a little change of scenery.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Pack a weekend bag,” she repeated, “and you’ll see.”

In Sara’s car half an hour later, Nick twisted around to make certain he had tossed his heavy black wool sweater onto the backseat. Sara had told him they were heading up to her parents’ cabin on San Juan Island in the Puget Sound. Two weeks before Christmas, it was going to be cold. Sara slowed the huge car down. They were heading south on Highway 5 toward the private airport at Renton, the tall buildings of downtown Seattle whizzing by on either side of them. “My parents are going to be there,” Sara said solemnly.

“What?”

Sara took his hand. “I want this relationship to mean something,” she said, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze before letting go.

Nick was thunderstruck. The thought of seeing Jason Hamlin sent a small frisson of panic shooting through his chest, and once again he twisted around, this time to double-check that he had packed his pills. An image of the brown plastic bottle with the handwritten label filled his mind. He told himself that he had definitely packed the various medicines. It would be silly to check. Reaching backward over the seat anyway, he pulled his small suitcase from beneath his heavy wool sweater and unzipped the center pocket.

“Nick?”

He ignored her. His heart was racing. He couldn’t find the black toiletry bag where he had stowed his medicines. He had been certain that he had packed it into the center pocket, on top of his running shoes.

“I thought you’d be happy,” Sara said. “I thought maybe it would help if you got to know my parents better. To stabilize everything, I mean. And I’m sure they want to get to know you, too.”

Nick tried to slow himself down as he searched his suitcase. He didn’t want to alarm Sara any more than he already had. “I—don’t worry,” he said. “I am glad.” He unzipped the side pocket, then pulled out a few of the T-shirts he had packed, at last unearthing the small black toiletry bag. Taking a deep breath, he twisted back around. Closing and then opening his eyes, he concentrated on his heart rate the way Barnes had counseled when he felt a panic attack approaching. “I am glad, Sara,” he repeated, measuring his words. “You have no idea how much it means to me that you trust me with this—and that you want me to spend time with your family.”

When Nick closed his eyes, an unbidden image filled his head.
The knife that had killed his brother, protruding from Sam’s chest, his own fingers clamped around its handle
. Blood was seeping from the wound around the entry point of the long, shiny blade.

Startled, he opened his eyes. This was the first hallucination he had experienced in the last couple of days. He turned toward Sara to replace the vision with her face. Concern flashed in her eyes, but her gentle confidence reassured him. “I just don’t want to make a mistake with them,” he said.
You murdered your own brother
. Nick paused, gritting his teeth, trying to erase the voice echoing inside his head.
The knife was still on the ground when Ferry left
. “This is a big step, and I haven’t been well. You know that. I don’t know whether I’m ready.”

“You’ve been doing so much better,” Sara said. “You can do this, Nick. I know you can.”

He smiled at her, watching her profile as she drove. To some extent Nick knew she was right. If this relationship was going to go anywhere, it was now or never. He took a deep breath and turned to face the windshield again, watching the road as Sara pulled off the highway into Renton. His head was clear. Sara was absolutely correct, he would be fine.

A few minutes later, they were pulling up to the small airport on the south side of Lake Washington, where a small fleet of seaplanes was berthed along wide wooden piers, bobbing like toys in the calm waters of the bay. Nick stepped out of the car. The air was crisp and cool and salty, and he made a pledge to himself to remain calm and focused, grounded in the present.

Hamlin gripped Nick’s sweaty hand in his own larger, dry hand so tightly it was uncomfortable. Nick understood that he hadn’t been expecting anyone with Sara. “Nice to see you again,” the silver-haired man said. Nick sensed his disdain. “We met at the gala, didn’t we? Nicholas Wilder, isn’t it?” Hamlin locked eyes with Nick, daring him to mention the meeting in his office.

“It’s Nick,” Sara said, answering for him.

“How nice of you to join us, Nick,” Sara’s mother said. About to climb into a small seaplane and head for a tiny island a hundred miles away on the Sound, she was dressed in Ferragamo and Chanel. Her face was perfectly made-up. “You can call me Jillian,” she said, extending her hand. Her fingers were cold from the brisk weather when she offered them loosely to Nick.

“It’s a beautiful day for flying,” Hamlin said. He led them down the length of an old wooden pier lined with small de Havilland seaplanes. In the distance across the water, the city of Seattle rose on one side, glistening in the sun. On the other, the homes lining Lake Washington were dwarfed by the range of mountains hovering behind them. The elegantly dressed man raised his face toward the sky. “Hardly a cloud in sight. No wind today. We’re going to have an easy flight.”

“We do this every year this time,” Jillian said. “Two weekends before Christmas, to open the house up for the winter. As far as I can remember, this is the first year we’ve actually had sunshine. Usually it’s raining. A couple of years ago, it was sleet and snow.”

Hamlin stopped at the end of the pier, where a larger, two-engine plane was waiting for them. “It’s only a half-hour flight,” he said. “Thirty-five minutes. But it’s a lot nicer when the weather’s good.”

“Do you fly the plane yourself?” Nick asked.

“Jason’s a good pilot,” Sara said.

“I’ve been flying since I was a kid,” Hamlin said. “I was flying before I was driving.”

“Jason is from Vancouver originally,” Jillian informed him. “Their family had a house on the islands up there, and they used to fly in and out all the time.”

“It gets so it’s in your blood,” Hamlin said. “Nothing like a good takeoff and landing on the sea.”

Nick excused himself to make a call while Hamlin was conducting his inspection of the plane. Shielding himself from the wind behind the wall of a small steel shack on the side of the pier, he keyed Daly’s number into his cell phone. “I just thought you’d want to know,” he said after the editor picked up, “I’m about to leave Seattle with Hamlin.”

“What?” Daly sounded surprised. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the airport in Renton. It’s okay, Laura. I’m with Sara. We’re flying together, all four of us. Sara, me, Hamlin, and Jillian. We’re going up to one of their houses.”

“They invited you to San Juan Island?”

“Yeah.”

“You think you can handle this?”

Nick dropped his eyes, squeezing the phone against his ear. “It wasn’t my idea, but I’m okay.” He glanced over at Jason Hamlin. The wind picked up, whistling in the phone’s mike. “I figure now that I’m here, maybe I’ll press him a bit about Van Gundy.”

“Take it easy, Nick.” Nick was aware of the woman’s distress. “Forget about the paper for a few days. Just take care of yourself.”

Ten minutes later, they were ensconced in the small plane. Hamlin and his wife sat up front in the two cockpit seats, Nick and Sara in the seats behind them. The rotors turned over, and, engines buzzing, they taxied away from the dock. Despite how calm the water was, the plane bounced up and down and sideways like a boat as it cruised toward the buoy marking the beginning of the strip on the bay used as a runway. Hamlin was talking on the radio, seeking clearance from the tower. Nick took a quick look over his shoulder at the next row of seats, where they had stashed their bags, making certain one last time that he had his suitcase and the pills inside. “Are you okay, honey?” Sara asked in a loud whisper.

Nick wanted to reassure her. “I’m fine,” he said, realizing as he spoke the words that he actually was. “This will be fun.”

“I’m glad the weather is so good,” Jillian said, turning to look at them as the plane approached the runway. Hamlin was beginning to adjust the throttle for takeoff. Nick guessed that she had overheard Sara’s concern. “It will make for a nice flight. Have you flown in a small plane before, Nick?”

Nick felt Sara take his hand. “This is my first time.”

“You’re in for a treat on a day like today,” Jillian said. “It will be beautiful. And once we’re there, it will be a real pleasure to have the sun. Do you play tennis, Nick?”

They reached the beginning of the runway, and Hamlin straightened the plane, then opened the throttle. The sound of the two engines became a deafening roar, and the small cabin was filled with a sudden rush of cold wind. Forgetting her question, Jillian turned forward to look out the front window. Nick watched the water skim by on either side of them through the blur of the aircraft’s rotors. The plane’s movement became less choppy as it picked up speed, then its pontoons broke free from the surface, and they were airborne.

Sara squeezed Nick’s hand as the city of Seattle gradually came into view. Within a few minutes they were flying at a dizzying altitude, the inlets and bays and mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest spread out beneath them in a patchwork of blues and greens. Hamlin eased up on the throttle, and the engines quieted back down. They cut a straight line north over a mass of land that disintegrated into the small, craggy islands dotting the Puget Sound.

“Pass me that flight path, would you, Jillian?” Hamlin said to his wife, pointing at a printout on the seat next to her.

Jillian turned back to face Nick and Sara after handing the paper to her husband. “We weren’t expecting anyone with Sara,” she said to Nick. “Normally it’s just the three of us. You’re a welcome surprise.”

“It’s a small house,” Hamlin added with false modesty, briefly facing them, too. “But there’s plenty of room.”

“And plenty to do,” Jillian said. “The Wheelers tell us the fishing has been pretty good this year. I don’t know if you like to fish or hunt, Nick. Jason is a big game hunter.”

“The Wheelers are the caretakers,” Sara explained. “They live there year round and do a little farming on the estate.”

“I can’t pry Jason away from his fishing pole,” Jillian said, still looking at Nick. “He even guts his catch, which is more than I could do. But you look like a good outdoorsman yourself, Nick. You look like you could handle a gun and a knife.”

Once again, the image of his hand on the handle of the knife protruding from Sam’s chest erupted into Nick’s mind. He was kneeling next to the body, and he could feel the knife’s steel blade plunging into the flesh and bone of his brother’s chest, parting his ribs, piercing his heart. A shadow shifted next to him in the darkness.
Had someone else been there, too?

Nick became aware of Sara’s soft hand on his, gently tugging him back into the present. The plane’s engines were whining, but the cabin was quiet. Jillian was facing forward, looking out the front. Beneath them, the landscape had changed, dominated by the sapphire expanse of the Pacific. Nick had no idea how long he had been out.

A few minutes later, Hamlin eased off the throttle, trimming the flaps, preparing to land. “There it is,” Sara said, leaning against Nick, pointing toward the largest of the islands poking through the flat surface of the water. Nick glanced at her, wondering if it were possible that she hadn’t noticed his blackout. She leaned forward, excitement animating her face. “Our house is the one just there,” she said. “The one with the gray roof, all the way at the top of the island, where the land juts out like a small peninsula. There, do you see it?”

The house was huge, even from this height. It consisted of three or four structures set on a gigantic emerald lawn stretching from a thick grove of trees down to a sandy beach. There was a long, narrow pool in front and then behind it a tennis court and a parking lot dotted with a few cars and a small truck.

“Jason will land the plane in the water there, just in front of the beach,” Sara said. Nick noticed the long pier stretching out into the water from the craggy shore, a huge yacht berthed on one side of it.

“I was expecting a cabin,” Nick said.

“Isn’t it romantic?” Sara pulled him against her.

“It’s beautiful.”

Hamlin twisted around to say something at just that moment, and Nick saw him lower his eyes, following Sara’s arms down to his thighs, where she had buried her hands. A small burst of revulsion flitted across the powerful man’s face. Flustered, he jerked back around, unable to remember what he had been about to say. “We’ll be down in a couple of minutes,” he announced instead. “Make sure you’re strapped in, Nick.”

At dinner that evening, the Wheelers prepared freshly caught salmon, homemade bread, and winter vegetables from the Hamlins’ gardens. The meal’s aroma wafted pleasantly through the warm house, drawing everyone downstairs. The afternoon had been so still that they sat down to the table with the windows open. From outside, they could hear the waves lapping the edge of the beach and the call of sea birds flying in gyres over the nearby coastal cliffs.

As night fell, the weather abruptly changed. Clouds gathered above the island, and the surf crashing onto the shore swelled to a roar. A cold north wind began to blow, sporadically at first, tossing the white curtains into the dining room, then more steadily. In the center of the table, the candles flickered and burned sideways, sending small plumes of black smoke into the air. Catharine Wheeler hurried into the dining room to pull the windows shut as it began to pour.

“Well, so much for our game of tennis tomorrow,” Jillian commented over the sudden downpour.

“We wouldn’t have been a match for you and Jason anyway,” Sara said.

Hamlin took a large sip of his wine and cleared his throat. “You’re not much of a drinker, Nick,” he said, nodding toward Nick’s untouched glass.

Nick smiled uncomfortably. Barnes had told him to avoid mixing alcohol with the different medications he had prescribed. “No. I guess I’m not.” An image of the bottle containing the tranquillizers came to mind, and Nick felt a prickly hunger for one of the pills.

“Go on, try it,” Hamlin encouraged him. “I think you’ll find it a pretty excellent glass of wine. It comes from a little winery I bought a few years ago down in Napa, California.”

Nick picked up the glass and examined the wine.

“You don’t have to,” Sara said, cautioning him.

“I want to.” Nick raised the glass to his lips and took a generous swallow.

“So?” Hamlin asked him.

Nick set the glass carefully back down on the table. He realized that he had hardly been able to taste the wine. It felt acidic on his lips, dangerous. “It’s good.”

Hamlin almost snorted. His contempt was obvious. “You hardly touched it.”

“Really, Nick, you don’t have to,” Sara said.

Looking from Hamlin to Sara, Nick felt a lightheadedness washing over him. Still, he was lifting his glass, about to take another sip to appease his host, when a voice whispered something in his ear.
You drank vodka the night you killed Sam.
Nick looked sharply to his side, wondering who had spoken, then, recovering himself, realizing that there was no one there, set his glass back down.

“Really, darling,” Sara said, disturbed, placing her hand over his. “There’s no need to do anything you don’t feel comfortable doing.”

Hamlin raised his eyebrows. He looked first at Sara, then at Jillian. Nick understood that he had been surprised to hear his stepdaughter call him
darling
. “You know, Nick,” he said, “Sara hasn’t mentioned you to us once since the night of the fund-raiser. Has she, Jillian?”

Jillian returned her husband’s stare with an icy gaze.

“Forgive me for being so blunt”—Hamlin said, turning on Nick again—“but why don’t you tell us a little about yourself. I don’t know much about you.”

“Jason!” Sara objected. “You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to, darling,” she said to Nick, subtly stressing the diminutive. Then she faced her stepfather. “It’s not polite to grill him like that.”

“That’s okay,” Nick said. “I don’t mind answering.”

“You see?” Hamlin said. “He doesn’t mind. After all, he doesn’t have anything to hide, does he?”

Nick felt dizzy, then all at once overcome with anger. He understood why Hamlin didn’t want him to mention their meeting in his office. The man could barely conceal his unnatural interest in his stepdaughter.
But why was Nick letting him get away with it?
He tried to assess whether his sudden outrage was reasonable, but he couldn’t seem to separate it in his mind from the dizziness he was feeling. He shot a look across the table at Hamlin, trying to master the chaos of his thoughts. A spurt of panic gripped him by the throat. He didn’t want to lose control of himself again. Not now. Not here. “Why are we playing games?” he managed at last, trying to keep his voice calm. “You know exactly who I am. You know I work for the
Telegraph
. You’ve even spoken to Laura Daly about me.”

“You work for the
Telegraph
?” Jillian supplied politely, trying to steer the conversation to calmer waters. “That’s right. I remember you telling me that the night we met, at the gala.”

“I speak to Laura two, three times a week,” Hamlin said steadily over his wife, staring Nick down. “Your name has never come up.” He smiled, aware that Nick was foundering. “So what’s the paper got you working on? You say you’re a photographer, right?”

Actually, sir, we’re working on a piece right now about the Washington State EPA. About how they awarded you a contract to clean up Elliott Bay, and how coincidentally you killed a story about a man named Van Gundy. And how the police didn’t arrest Van Gundy when they raided the massage parlor down on Fourth Avenue, and how now Van Gundy’s conveniently dead. The only thing holding us back from running what we’ve got is the stranglehold you have on Laura Daly’s throat.

Nick struggled to maintain his composure. As much as he wanted to stand up to this man, he wasn’t capable of a confrontation. The room was spinning. “Yes, I’m a photographer. I work on assignment.”

“One word from me,” Hamlin pointed out, “and you’d be unemployed.”

“Like I said,” Nick agreed, “I work for the
Telegraph
. You own the paper.”

Hamlin continued to stare at him, even after Nick’s eyes had dropped to the table. “You’re not Sara’s usual cup of tea,” he said, when Nick remained silent. “Like I said, forgive me for being blunt.”

“Jason, really,” Jillian said.

Sara twisted in her chair, glaring at her stepfather, opening her mouth to defend Nick.

“That’s okay,” Nick said again, touching Sara’s hand to still her. “I don’t mind. I don’t know what Sara’s usual cup of tea is, Jason, and I don’t really care.” He didn’t stop to think. “I’m in love with her.” The words had leapt from his mouth, and when he heard them echo in the room’s sudden silence, his face flushed red. Nick had never told Sara that he loved her before.

“That’s enough now,” Jillian said quietly.

Next to him, Sara turned in her chair, placing one hand on Nick’s shoulder, the other on his thigh. She waited for Nick to face her, and when he did their eyes connected. Sara’s lips parted, but she was too overcome to speak. Her eyes fell, glistening with unexpected tears.

Hamlin picked up his glass of wine and drained the remainder of its contents, then reached across the table and poured himself another. “I don’t know about
enough
. Maybe Nick here would like to hear what Sara’s usual cup of tea is. Eh, Nick? There have been a few, let me tell you.”

Sara raised her head and shifted in her stepfather’s direction. “That’s enough,” she said, minting her mother’s words with a note of finality.

“Enough of this conversation,” Jillian concurred. “And enough of that wine, Jason.”

“You think so?” Hamlin picked up his glass and swallowed a mouthful. “It’s only seven-thirty, Jillian. We’ve got a long night ahead of us. You play cards, Nick? Bridge?”

Nick’s hands were on the table. He didn’t seem to hear Hamlin’s question. “Excuse me.” His chair scraped loudly on the floor behind his knees, nearly tipping backward as he stood up. An image of Sam lying prone on the asphalt, his own hand clasping the knife jutting out from his brother’s chest, had once again overwhelmed him.
The blurry shape of another person was emerging from the blackness next to them
. Forcing himself back into the moment, Nick grasped the edge of the table, steadying himself. “I think I’ll step outside for some air.”

“Suit yourself.” Hamlin laughed, unable to sheathe his derision. “You’re my guest. The house is yours.”

The dining room, lit in the romantic glow of the candlelight, reemerged in front of Nick’s eyes, and he took a few halting steps toward the doorway leading to a side porch where in the summer the family sometimes took its meals.

“Wait for me, darling,” Sara said. “I’ll join you outside in a minute.”

Nick pulled the door open and let himself outside, taking a deep breath of the cool, sea air. The rain was falling in sheets beyond the overhang of the roof, and a faint mist enveloped the porch. It was cold, and the deluge roared in his ears, but it felt good to be outside, away from Hamlin.

Sara waited until the door had closed behind Nick to speak her mind. Still, sitting down on an upholstered teak bench on the porch, Nick was able to hear her every word. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said to her stepfather. “You don’t know how cruel you’re being.”

“He’s not worth the shoes on your feet, Sara,” Hamlin shot back.

“That’s my business, Jason. You heard what he said. He’s in love with me.”

“And you?”

There was a long pause.

“I don’t think it’s any concern of ours,” Jillian said, “what Sara thinks of him.”

“Yes,” Sara said at last. “I do love him, if you want to know.”

“He’s a pussy,” Hamlin said scornfully. “You’re not in love with him,
darling
, and you know it.”

“You don’t have any right to judge him,” Sara said. “You don’t have any idea what he’s been dealing with.”

“What’s a kid like that got to deal with, Sara? He’s too busy making ends meet to look in a mirror, let alone to get his arms around a girl like you.” Again, Hamlin’s derisive laughter rattled through Nick’s consciousness. Standing up from the bench, he approached one of the windows and peered back into the candlelit dining room. Jason Hamlin was holding his glass of wine over the table, leaning back in his chair to flaunt his mirth. His teeth were dazzlingly white beneath his silver mustache, his rigid shoulders square above the back of the chair.

“His brother was murdered last month,” Sara said, biting the words off as venomously as she could.

Nick watched the smile fade from Hamlin’s face. The man could have won an Oscar.

Jillian looked at her daughter in surprise. “Last month?”

“Wait a minute,” Hamlin said. “What did you say his name was? Wilder?”

“Yes. Nick Wilder.”

“His brother wasn’t Sam Wilder, was he?”

“Yes, he was.”

Hamlin shook his head. “I’ll be damned. His brother was working for a company I’m about to take public. Matrix Zarcon. I remember the day he got killed. Stabbed to death by that bum. The Street Butcher, right?”

“So you should give him a break.” The outrage was gone from Sara’s voice.

“I should say so,” Jillian agreed.

Hamlin took a large gulp from his glass, considering it pensively before setting it back down. “You’re a fool, Sara.”

“You’ve had enough to drink now,” Jillian said.

“No,” Hamlin growled. “I mean this seriously, Jillian. Sara. You’re a fool to seduce a boy like that.”

“I don’t think this is any business of ours,” Jillian said.

“You and I both know this kid’s nothing more than the flavor of the week, ” Hamlin said. “The only difference is this time you’re playing nurse to a wounded, lovesick child. Mark my words, Sara. No good will come of it.”

Outside, Nick turned from the window. He left the porch, walking away from the house into the freezing rain.

Sara found Nick on the beach an hour later, after the rain had let up. The sky had emptied, and a huge round moon was hiding behind a few gigantic stray clouds, searing their edges fiery white. “I was worried about you,” she said, approaching him, taking him gently by the hand. “You’ve been gone for a long time. You just vanished.”

“I needed some time to myself,” Nick said. “Time to think.”

Sara looped her arm under his elbow. “You look better,” she observed.

Nick realized that she was right. At least temporarily, the fresh air had cleared his head.

“Why don’t you come inside? It’s getting late. It’s been a long day.”

Nick continued walking along the beach, as though he hadn’t heard her. Hamlin’s words had hit their mark, and Nick wasn’t able to stifle his growing insecurity. “Why do you stay with me, Sara?”

She didn’t respond. She tightened her grip on his arm, pulled him closer to her.

“Your stepfather is right,” he said. “I’m a total mess.”

She stopped, twisting him around to face her. Circling him with her arms, she slipped her hands beneath his shirt, caressing him. “I’m yours, Nick,” she said. “No one else’s.” She found his lips with hers. The last thing he saw before he began to kiss her was her eyes, sparkling, radiant in the moonlight. She had the most beautiful eyes, Nick thought, that he had ever seen.

They were walking up the lawn, halfway back to the house, when they heard Hamlin and Jillian’s voices, raised in anger.

You can say what you want, Jillian, but you know as well as I do that there’s nothing to this. She doesn’t love him. I don’t even know what she sees in him.

You’re a sick man, Jason.

Why, because I don’t want Sara dicking around with some asshole?

Listen to yourself. You’re jealous, aren’t you?

She’s your daughter, Jillian, I’d have thought—

Exactly. She’s my daughter, Jason. My daughter.

Sara wrapped her arms around Nick once again. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “You might not understand this. But I’m really glad you’re here.”

The scrape of a door being unlatched echoed across the lawn, and a bright yellow light spread over the grass nearly to their feet. A large silhouette filled the door frame. “Is that you?” a male voice asked.

“Yes, Todd,” Sara said.

“Catharine’s got the room made up, Ms. Hamlin,” Todd Wheeler said. “The third bedroom on the hallway—the one with the double bed—like you asked.”

“Perfect,” Sara said.

Her voice faded into silence, and Nick realized that Hamlin and Jillian had ended their argument. He became aware of the sea lapping the shore behind them.