The Blackstone Chronicles (21 page)

Someone was inside, but no one was answering the door.

The phones weren’t working.

And something had been wrong with Jules Hartwick this morning.

Making up his mind, Andrew Sterling stepped back, lowered his left shoulder, and hurled himself against the kitchen door. Though the door held, he heard the distinct sound of wood cracking. On the second try the frame gave way and the door flew open as the striker plate clattered to the floor.

Andrew Sterling stepped into the kitchen.

For a moment everything appeared normal. Then he saw them.

Spots on the floor.

Bright red spots.

Blood red
.

His pulse quickening, Andrew followed the trail of blood through the butler’s pantry, the dining room, the parlor, and into the entry hall.

The trail stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

Andrew paused. Though the house was silent, he felt danger all around him.

Danger, and fear.

“Celeste?” he called. “Celeste!”

“Andrew?” Her voice was muffled, coming from somewhere on the second floor. Racing up the stairs, Andrew called out to her again as he reached the second-floor landing. His words died on his lips when he saw the door to her room.

Nails—three of them—had been clumsily pounded into the wood at a steep enough angle to pin the door to its frame. Andrew rattled the knob, then spoke again. “Celeste? Are you all right?”

“It’s D-Daddy!” Celeste replied, her voice catching.
“He’s—oh, God, Andrew, he’s gone crazy! He’s done something to Mother—”

“Unlock the door,” Andrew told her.

As soon as he heard the click of the lock, he hurled his weight against the door, but the thick mahogany frame was stronger than the frame of the kitchen door had been. By the time the wood finally split away and allowed the door to open, his shoulder was aching and he was panting.

“Where’s your mother?” he said, ignoring the stab of pain that shot through his shoulder as she pressed herself against him, sobbing.

“I don’t know—downstairs, I think. They were at the foot of the stairs, and he—he had a knife, and—”

Andrew suppressed a groan. He’d followed the trail of blood the wrong way. Jules must have taken Madeline down to the basement. “Where is he now?” Andrew asked, his voice urgent.

“I—I don’t know,” Celeste stammered. “He nailed my door shut, then he—oh, God, Andrew, I just don’t know!”

Suddenly Andrew remembered. The lights. It had to have been Jules turning on the lights. If he was still up here—

Both of them froze as they heard footsteps.

Footsteps from above. “He’s on the third floor,” Celeste whispered. “What are we going to do? Did he take Mother up there?”

“The basement,” Andrew told her. “Come on. We’ve got to find her and get out of here!”

Half pulling and half supporting Celeste, Andrew led her downstairs, then into the kitchen. When they were at the door to the basement, he held her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. “I’m going to go down and see if I can find your mother. If you hear your father coming down, go outside.” Fishing in his pocket, he found his car keys. “My car’s in the driveway. I’ll try to
catch up with you, but if I can’t, take the car and get away.”

Celeste shook her head. “No. I won’t leave you and Mother with him.”

Andrew started to argue with her, then changed his mind, knowing it would be useless. “I’ll get back as soon as I can.” Leaving her standing in the kitchen, he raced down the stairs.

He found Madeline in the laundry room. Her dress was soaked with blood, and she lay on the floor, her wrists and ankles bound with duct tape. Another piece sealed her mouth.

Her eyes were closed and she lay still, and for a moment Andrew was afraid she might be dead. But when he knelt down and pressed a finger against her bloody neck, he felt a pulse. Ripping the duct tape from her mouth, he lifted her in his arms and started up the stairs. A moment later he emerged into the kitchen. Celeste, her face ashen, lurched toward him.

“Mama?” she gasped, unconsciously using a word that hadn’t crossed her lips since she was a child. Her eyes flicked to Andrew’s. “Is she—” Her voice failed her and she left the question unspoken.

“She’s alive,” Andrew said. “We’ve got to get her to the hospital.”

With Madeline in his arms, he followed Celeste through the dining room and parlor, and into the entry hall. Celeste was just opening the front door when there was a roar of rage from the stairs.

“Bastard!” Jules bellowed. “How dare you come here?” He was standing halfway up the stairs, the knife clutched in one hand, and what looked like some kind of necklace dangling from the other. His face was twitching, and his eyes, burning like coals, seemed to have sunk deep into his head.

For one brief instant Andrew was frozen in place, but then he met Jules Hartwick’s insane gaze. “I’m taking
them away from here, Mr. Hartwick,” he said very quietly. “Don’t try to stop me.”

“Traitor,” Jules Hartwick snarled. “Fornicator. Adulterer. I should kill all of you. And I could, Andrew. I could kill you as easily as I cut the whore’s throat.” He started down the stairs, moving slowly, his eyes never leaving Andrew.

Celeste, still at the door, stared in horror at her father. There was nothing left of the man she’d known only yesterday. The person who was advancing toward her now, spittle drooling from one corner of his mouth, his hair matted to his scalp, his eyes glittering insanely, bore no resemblance to her father at all. “Hurry, Andrew,” she said. “Please.”

Pulling the front door open, she stumbled out into the snow and ran for Andrew’s car. Andrew, still carrying Madeline’s unconscious body, strode out onto the porch, then turned back to look at Jules once again. He was at the foot of the stairs now, and starting toward the door.

Wordlessly, Andrew turned and hurried out into the night. By the time Andrew got to the car, Jules had emerged onto the porch. “Liars!” he shouted. “Prevaricators! I’ll kill you all! I swear, I’ll kill you all!”

As Andrew laid Madeline on the backseat, then slid into the front seat next to Celeste, Jules stumbled down the driveway toward them, bellowing curses, the butcher knife held high. Celeste put the car in gear and began backing out of the driveway. Jules lunged toward the car, but it was too late. He sprawled out onto the driveway, facedown, then pulled himself to his knees.

“Celeste, wait,” Andrew said as Jules stared mindlessly into the glare of the headlights. “Maybe we’d better help him. Maybe—”

But Celeste kept her foot on the accelerator, backing the car out of the driveway, then slewing it around so it was pointed downhill. “No,” she said as she started down
the steep slope. “That’s not Daddy. That’s not anyone I know.”

As he watched the car disappear into the snow, Jules Hartwick let out one more bellow of rage. The fingers of his left hand closed on the locket, and then, with a howl of frustration, he hurled it after the departing car.

And as the locket left his fingers, his mind cleared.

The paranoia that had robbed him of his sanity drained away as suddenly as it had come over him.

But the memories of what he’d done did not.

Every word he had uttered, every accusation he had made, echoed in his mind. But what horrified him most was an image.

An image of Madeline, crumpled at the bottom of the basement stairs, her neck bleeding, her body broken.

Sobbing, Jules Hartwick staggered to his feet. He lurched down the driveway, the hand that had held the locket only a moment ago now reaching out as if to call back the car that was carrying away everything he’d ever loved. He stood in the street, watching until it completely disappeared, then turned and began walking the other way.

A moment later he too disappeared into the snowy night.

“L
iars! Prevaricators! I’ll kill you all! I swear, I’ll kill you all!”

Although muffled by the closed and curtained windows of Martha Ward’s chapel, the furious words still cut through the soft drone of Gregorian chants, startling Rebecca Morrison out of the reverie she’d fallen into as her aunt’s prayers droned on. Her knees protesting painfully as she rose from the kneeling position her aunt always insisted upon, Rebecca moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside just far enough to get a glimpse of the house next door.

Every light had been turned on; even the tiny dormers in the roof glowed brightly through the falling snow. A car—Rebecca was almost certain it was Andrew Sterling’s—was backing out of the driveway. For a moment Rebecca wasn’t quite sure from where the shouted words had come, but then Jules Hartwick suddenly appeared in the glare of the car’s headlights.

He was lurching down the driveway. Through the swirl of falling snow Rebecca could make out the contortions of his face.

And see the knife he held in his hand.

She watched, transfixed, as he stumbled toward the retreating car, then collapsed into the snow.

As he rose back up to his knees, howling like a wounded animal, then staggered away, Rebecca’s mind raced.

What had happened next door?

Had Mr. Hartwick killed someone?

Who had been in the car?

Call someone.

She had to call someone.

Her fingers releasing the edge of the curtain, she backed away from the window, only to find herself facing her aunt.

Martha, eyes shining with the rapture of her prayers, was glaring furiously at her. “How dare you!” the older woman said in a furious whisper. “How could you commit the very sin for which you were praying for forgiveness! And in the chapel!”

“But something’s wrong, Aunt Martha! Mr. Hartwick has a knife and—”

“Silence!” Martha commanded, holding her finger to her niece’s lips. “I will not have the chapel vilified by your gossip! I will not have—”

But Rebecca heard no more. Brushing her aunt’s hand away, she hurried out of the chapel and made her way to the front parlor on the other side of the foyer. Picking up the telephone, she was about to dial the emergency number when she hesitated.

What if she was wrong? Her mind echoed with everything she’d been told over the years, first by her aunt, then by librarian Germaine Wagner, then by almost everyone she knew:

“You don’t understand, Rebecca.”

“No one expects more of you than you can do, Rebecca.”

“It’s all right, Rebecca. Let someone else worry about it.”

“Now, Rebecca, you know you don’t always understand what’s happening.…”

“Just do as you’re told, Rebecca.”

“You don’t understand, Rebecca!”

But she knew what she’d seen! Mr. Hartwick had been holding a knife and—

“You don’t understand, Rebecca! You don’t understand.…”

Her hand hovered over the telephone. What if she was wrong? It wouldn’t just be Aunt Martha who would be angry with her, then. It would be the whole town! If she called the police and got Mr. Hartwick in trouble—

Oliver!

She could call Oliver! He never told her she didn’t understand, or shouldn’t worry about something, or treated her like a child. Picking up the telephone, she dialed his number. On the fourth ring she heard his voice. “Oliver? It’s Rebecca.”

Oliver Metcalf listened carefully as Rebecca told him what she’d seen. As she talked, he recalled Ed Becker’s visit to his office that morning, when the lawyer had hinted that Jules Hartwick was behaving strangely. Though Becker hadn’t quite come out and said so, it had sounded to Oliver as if Jules was having a breakdown. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he told Rebecca now. “I want you to call Ed Becker. He’s Jules Hartwick’s lawyer. Tell him exactly what you’ve told me, and don’t worry about what he might think. Whatever’s happened at the Hartwicks’, he’ll help. All right?”

“But what if I’m wrong, Oliver?” Rebecca fretted. “Aunt Martha always says—”

“Don’t worry about what Martha says,” Oliver assured her. “If you’re wrong, no one but Ed and me will know, and all you’re trying to do is help. Just call Ed, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Finding Ed Becker’s telephone number on the Rolodex he kept on the kitchen counter, he repeated it twice for Rebecca. He was about to hang
up when he heard something in the background. “Rebecca? Do I hear a siren?”

“There’s one coming up the street,” Rebecca told him. “Just a second.” He heard her put the phone down, then, increasingly clear, the wail of a siren. Then he heard Rebecca’s voice on the line again.

“It’s the police,” she said. “A police car just pulled up in front of the Hartwicks’.”

“All right,” Oliver said. “Call Ed Becker. I’m leaving right now. I’ll see you in a little while.”

Hanging up the phone, Oliver grabbed his parka from the hook by the door to the garage. He was pulling it on when the phone rang again. This time it was Lois Martin.

“Oliver,” she said, “Andrew Sterling and Celeste Hartwick just brought Madeline to the hospital. Apparently, Jules tried to kill her. Tried to slash her throat.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Oliver groaned. “Is she all right?”

“I hope so.” Lois sighed. “She’s lost a lot of blood and they don’t know yet about internal injuries, but they think she has a chance. The nurse called me. I’m going over now to see what else I can find out.”