“Doc,”
Pete began, “don’t think for a second you’re going to that place on your own
because it ain’t gonna happen, not in a million years.”
Rachel
watched him as he paced restlessly around the kitchen.
“Kat
asked me to look out for you. I said I
would. Now I take requests like that
very seriously,” Pete went on. “And I
honor my word. I know, you don’t have
to tell me, they have tight security up there.
Your friend Alex has started checking my background but she may not have
finished yet and I sure don’t have the all clear. But .. seems to me that fake Hugh doesn’t have the all clear
either an’ he’s inside. His boss is
definitely on the don’t invite list an’ he’s gonna be inside. I figure I got as much right as they do,
maybe even more .. so .. I’m coming with you.”
Rachel
smiled. “I was kinda hoping you’d say
that.”
“Me
too,” Kat agreed.
Pete
nodded slowly. “That’s the Corrigan
women .. always catching me off guard.”
“Pete,
I sometimes surprise myself with what I find I can do,” Rachel commented. “Helping Harry that time .. I believed I
could do it an’ I did, but I was scared.
I won’t lie to you. I was
terrified because I cannot think of anything worse than being burned
alive. But I was also damned angry. Anger can be a driving force for the
good. I’m scared now an’ for a
completely different set of reasons but that is no reason to back off. Those people are my friends an’ I have to do
something. But I’d rather have someone with me than go it alone.”
“An’
anyway,” Kat added, her voice practical, “if Randolph Hitchcock killed the real
Hugh, you have to arrest him. You’re a
cop, you’re the best person.”
“Outside
his jurisdiction,” Pete remarked.
She
shrugged. “You can hold him then till
your friend turns up.”
“I
guess I could.”
“Look
at it this way,” she invited. “It gives
you a legitimate reason for being there.
You’re helping a friend investigate a homicide.”
He
grinned. “I like you, Kat. You’re smart.”
“What
about the fake Hugh?” Rachel inquired.
“Can you arrest him as well?”
Pete
slowly shook his head. “As it stands ..
no. Impersonating someone isn’t a
crime, unless it’s for financial gain or criminal activity. Turning up to do a job like keeping house …
”
“But
he’s done something to the others!”
“Hearsay. In fact, a lot of this is supposition. We need some evidence, Rachel. We’ll only get it at the house. Then, well, it depends.”
She
nodded.
“Hey,
c’mon, cut me a little slack,” Pete requested.
“You might be okay with dealing with the weird, creepy an’ just plain
scary but I live in the real world where bad guys don’t always go to jail. If I can’t get the evidence, I have to let
’em go even when I know they’re as guilty as hell. I gotta deal with facts, Rachel, not pie in the sky wild
theories.”
“Okay,”
she agreed.
Pete
came to sit at the counter again.
“Okay. I guess it comes down now
to planning our response.”
“We
don’t know enough to do that,” Rachel replied.
“I doubt we ever will so .. I’m sorry, but you will have to tolerate
some pie in the sky wild theories.”
“I
got to grips with a fire spirit,” he grinned.
“What’s it gonna be this time?”
Rachel
thought about it. “I’d have to say ..
on the evidence to date .. it’s magic.”
She
ran that thru her head and was astonished it had just come out. It was hardly a scientific thing to
consider. But there again, it wasn’t as
if she didn’t have any experience with the subject …
“At
least,” she qualified, “part of it is magic.
Affecting behavior, especially long established behavior, could be
achieved thru hypnotism.” Rachel shook
her head. “We’re coming at this too
fast, and that could be the biggest mistake we make.”
She
rose to pace, her steepled index fingers held to her lips.
“Let’s
deal with what we know first. Carl
brought by some artifacts. Three of
them. Pottery shapes. Peri didn’t like them an’ we think it’s
because they’re some kinda weapon. A
magic weapon. Anything else, she would
have dealt with it, end of problem. But
this .. she couldn’t come near. When I
called her, she didn’t answer her cell phone.
That tells me she probably couldn’t
answer her cell phone. I think, but I
don’t know, that the weapon’s been used.
We can’t rely on Peri for help.”
Rachel
glanced round. “Okay so far?”
Kat
nodded. “Okay with me.”
“I
guess so,” Pete agreed, wading thru some pretty deep metaphysical water.
“The
others didn’t feel anything strange about those pottery shapes. My guess is that they’re not affected. Randolph Hitchcock isn’t there – yet – but
his agent is. The .. new butler
wouldn’t have access to the lab, so he couldn’t .. activate the weapon himself,
but he would have access to the
people. And that explains the change in
behavior. He has some kinda hold over
them. A powerful influence. He got them to make the magic work.”
“How?”
Pete asked. “How’d he do that? Is
it hypnotism?”
“I
don’t think so,” Kat replied. “I was
there. I wasn’t in the same room but I
was there an’ I never saw Derek or Nick or Alex alone with him long enough to
get hypnotized. They wouldn’t let a new
butler do that to them.”
“No,
they wouldn’t,” Rachel agreed. “To a
large extent, successful hypnosis is based on trust between patient and
therapist. Trust like that takes time
to develop. And, to plant a
post-hypnotic suggestion, first you have to have the hypnotic state. Kat’s right. It’s been too fast.
However he’s done it, it wasn’t thru hypnotism. It just had that same effect.”
“More
magic ..?” Pete ventured.
“Possibly. I don’t know, Pete. I can’t get reliable information to work
with.”
“Okay. Let’s assume
it’s more magic,” he said. “He got
control of them, and he used them to make this first lot of magic work.”
“Sounds
about right to me,” Rachel nodded.
“They wouldn’t do it otherwise.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Those
artifacts were in the house several days and no one suffered any ill effects,
not even Peri. When you saw her, Kat,
how was she?”
“Like
always,” Kat replied with a brief shrug.
“So
it wasn’t due to the fact that she was here rather than there which caused her
to have no ill effects. Something
happened, something definite. How about
..?” She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Pete
frowned too. “You say it’s three
pieces?”
“Oddly
shaped pieces too,” Rachel confirmed.
He
took his gun from its holster, opened the chamber, and tipped the bullets onto
the counter.
“This
firearm has more than three pieces but .. if you look at them individually,
they do look odd on their own. Each is
recognizable as being part of a gun .. there again, the gun is a fairly modern
invention; each is harmless on its own – ”
“You
mean the pieces fit together somehow,” Kat cut in.
Pete
put the bullets back in the chamber and closed it. “Sounds about right to me,” he replied, slipping the gun away
again.
“The
weapon was assembled,” Rachel said.
“When the last piece was fit in place .. the magic activated an’ Peri
was put outta action.”
“So
.. to stop it working, we have to ..?” Pete began.
“Find
the artifact and smash it,” Rachel replied. “We do that, Peri can help us with the rest.”
“Okay. Good reasoning, doc. First part of the plan figured out.”
“Except
we’ll have opposition,” Rachel sighed.
“And we don’t want to hurt our friends even though they may be under
orders to kill us.”
“So
.. we have to find the source of the second magic,” Pete responded. “And we don’t know what that is.”
Rachel
paced a little more. “It’s all down to
control,” she said softly. “Hitchcock
wants his revenge on Derek. If the rest
of us fall with him, he doesn’t care.
It’s a bonus. At least, there’ll
be no witnesses. I’d say the source
will be kept close, so it can be easily used.
A plan this intricate with so few participants .. it’s control. Hitchcock is a control freak. I would say .. he doesn’t trust anyone
except himself, and to wait this long between attempts, he has tight control
over his own emotions. He likes to
control others, his environment, his surroundings, his situations. His agent is also being controlled. Thru him, Hitchcock has influence over
Derek, Alex an’ Nick.”
She
shook her head. “The man’s mentally
ill. He needs help.”
“Mom,
don’t even think about it,” Kat said in a flat voice.
“Kat,
he’ll get help, once he’s in jail,” Pete commented. “Seems to me, an’ I’m no expert, that, if he’s been nursing this
for so long, he’s more than mentally ill.
He’s crazy. A certified
wacko. He isn’t living in the real world.”
“But
he is,” Kat argued.
“No,
sweetheart, he isn’t. He’s using the
real world to get him what he wants, but he’s living in some kinda fantasy land
with him right there at the top of the heap.
Everyone else .. just bugs to step on,” he shrugged.
Rachel
was watching Kat to see how she’d react to ‘sweetheart’. Now was not the time to become defensive and
start throwing up barriers.
Kat,
however, took it in her stride. He
hadn’t said it in the slightly patronizing tone of a guy meaning ‘listen to me,
I’m gonna be your new Dad’. He’d said
it in the bluntly honest voice of a guy talking to a slightly younger equal. He’d said it in the same voice as he called
her mother ‘doc’. And Kat was okay with
that attitude. It was just a word to
him. It meant nothing.
“I
think you’re right,” Rachel agreed.
“This plan he’s put together .. it’s clever. He’s had a lotta time to think about it. And it’s worked brilliantly. Everything he wanted to happen has
happened. His perfect world is perfect. But it’s also rigid. Inflexible.
It’s covered all the bases but only to this point.”
“But
he has control,” Pete pointed out.
“Sure,
of himself, and the others in that house to a degree, but he can’t control
everything. From here on in, nothing’s
planned. He’s winging it. Bringing them into his fantasy world. There’s only one thing wrong with that –
they’re rooted in reality. They don’t
share his perfect idea. If he intends
to work his revenge by .. suggestion, he’ll have to be very careful because, outside those suggestions, it’s business
as usual for those guys. And the
biggest error he’s made ..? I’m not
there. I’m not buying into his fantasy
at all.”
She
came to the counter and sat down again.
“Kat, could you make some more tea?
It’s time we started thinking how we can toss a little chaos into
paradise.”
*****
“No,
Greg, the house isn’t on lockdown,” Derek replied. “What? Nick told you it
was ..? Strange. No, we’re all fine, thank you for asking. In fact, anyone who comes to the gate, you
can let them thru without question.
Yes, on my authority.”
Upstairs,
Nick examined the guest room and frowned at the wisps of burned rope he
found. He couldn’t explain it and he
didn’t try. He had other matters on his
mind.
He’d
been told to hunt down and kill the intruder.
He’d do that. Only it seemed
this woman named Peri wasn’t an intruder at all. Derek and Alex has said Peri was his wife. That meant she’d come home, not broken
in. It was a major conflict of
interest. His heart said she had as
much right to be here as he did. His
head was demanding he kill the intruder.
The coin had been tossed in the air. Now he was waiting to see which side it landed upon. Heads .. or hearts.
Either
way, he had to find her. If she was an
intruder, he had the advantage in that he knew his hunting ground. But, if she was his wife, she knew the house
as well as he did, including all the places to hide.
“Where
would I go if I didn’t wanna be found ?” he wondered.
In
the control room, Alex picked up the phone.
She pressed out a number and waited.
“Rachel
Corrigan.”
“Rachel,
it’s Alex! There’s an emergency
here! We need you! How soon can you get here?”
Her
face was completely calm, in stark contrast to her voice which was almost
hysterical.
“Alex
.. I’m at least four hours away. If
it’s a medical emergency, call 911, get a helicopter evac to the ER.”
“But,
Rachel, we need you,” Alex pleaded.
There
was a sigh. “What’s happened?”
Alex
blinked. “There’s an emergency, an’ we
need you.”
“Okay,
Alex. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
The
line went dead.
“Is
she coming?” Derek asked.
“As
soon as she can. It’ll be about four
hours,” Alex replied, her voice entirely normal again.
Derek
nodded. “We’d best go back to the
study.”
*****
Rachel
put her cell phone back in her purse and smiled grimly. “That was to be anticipated, I guess.”
“You’re
not four hours away,” Kat remarked.
“They
don’t know that,” she shrugged. “Some
fake emergency just to draw me into the web.”
“You’re
sure it’s fake?” Pete frowned.
“Oh
yeah,” Rachel laughed shortly. “And it
told me a lot. The suggestions being
planted are basic. No one’s thinking
them thru. I can hear it – call Rachel,
tell her there’s an emergency and that she’s needed. Basic. When I asked what
the emergency was .. Alex couldn’t tell me.
She could only repeat her instructions.
You or me, we’d say someone’s fallen, someone’s been shot, they’ve got a
broken leg, they’re bleeding, we’d be able to give details. But she couldn’t, not even the name of
whoever I’m supposed to be treating.”
“So
Hitchcock is an amateur,” Pete ventured.
“No,
you can’t make that assumption,” she replied.
“His fantasy world is incredibly detailed. He’d be able to give you chapter an’ verse. It’s that control element again. If he’d made that suggestion, Alex would’ve
repeated it faithfully, giving more detail than was necessary. She didn’t, so that tells me it’s probably
the butler an’ that Hitchcock hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Mom
… ”
“Yes,
sweetie?”
“Can
I talk with you in private?” Kat asked.
Rachel
glanced at Pete.
“Hey,
go ahead,” he nodded. “Are you folks
hungry? Only I missed out on
lunch. I can see what I can find in the
cupboards an’ start fixing something .. an’ you can go talk in private.”
“I’m
starved,” Rachel agreed. “Kat?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Pete.”
“No
problem.”
Kat
took Rachel into the pool house. “What
is it?” Rachel inquired.
“I’ve
been thinking. About Peri.”
“She’s
in my thoughts too, honey. I can’t help
her till I’m over there.”
“I
know that,” Kat replied. “But .. how
did Randolph Hitchcock know the weapon would work on her?”
Now
Rachel understood why Kat had asked for a private moment. This was Enforcer related.
“I
don’t know.”
“No
one there would’ve told him,” Kat persisted.
“Who else knew she was .. special?
Who could want to her hurt her like that?”
Rachel
could think of only one possible name.
Her shoulders dropped with damning realization.
“She
said Randolph was working with William,” Kat concluded softly, confirming
Rachel’s worst suspicion.
If
Hitchcock was a master planner, William Sloan was better. And she was about to pit her wits against
both.
*****
“It’s
a nice enough day .. for San Francisco,” William commented. “Let’s walk up to the house.”
Randolph
nodded. “An excellent suggestion. Give ourselves time to savor the moment of
arrival. If something is really worth
having, it should make you ache with expectation. A little pain is always a good sign of a big reward.”
William
said nothing as he set off along the edge of the road. In his opinion, a little pain meant
something had gone wrong somewhere. His
face wore its customary expressionless mask.
Behind it, he was thinking hard and fast. He needed time so he’d suggested walking.
He
had reached one very definite conclusion about Randolph Hitchcock. The man might appear jovial and benign, but
he wasn’t. He was sane. Not the ordinary kind of half frantic sanity
the rest of the world’s inhabitants had and in which they led their lives. No, his was the kind of sanity reached after
enduring insanity to such a degree that the mind shut down and retreated into a
dark corner where it muttered quietly to itself. It was the sanity on the other side of complete madness. Randolph stood alone on a towering mental
plateau, swept by bitter winds and enjoying no sun. Ordinary sanity could be questioned. This sanity was extreme, absolute. Cold. Without emotion and
empty of hope. The image Randolph
projected was a cruel façade.
And
a mind that sane was capable of anything.
William knew he was in trouble.
*****
“I
don’t know what this Peri lives on cos I couldn’t find much,” Pete remarked as
they came back in. “I’m doing TV
dinners. There’s more liquor than food
in this house.”
“Peri
isn’t here all that often,” Kat replied.
“She lives on the island, with Nick.”
Pete
didn’t react to this because he’d seen Rachel’s face. “Whatever it is, it sounds like bad news,” he commented. “Are we back to the drawing board with the
plan?”
Rachel
sat down and put her head in her hands.
“Kat .. pointed something out to me,” she replied, her voice slightly
muffled. “We believe Hitchcock has an
ally. Now Hitchcock is a very smart guy
but this other one … ” She sat
upright. “Machiavelli could’ve taken lessons.”
Pete
turned to the microwave and removed the first plastic tray. He put the second TV dinner in and reset the
machine.
“Whoever
he is, he’s only human. Despite what
Hitchcock believes, no one’s perfect.
Push in the right place at the right time, they fall over,” he shrugged.
“Not
Sloan. He is so well balanced, it’s
impossible to find a chink in his armor.”
“All
right.” Pete put the tray in front of
Kat. “You can’t knock him over. Has to be a way. There always is.”
Rachel
laughed shortly. “I’ve never found
one.”
“That’s
cos you’re a doctor an’ not a cop. If
you can’t knock ’em over, get ’em on your side. Bribe him.”
“With
what?” Rachel exclaimed.
“What
does he need?” he shrugged.
“Sloan
doesn’t need anything. His loyalty is
to himself. The one thing he might want .. I can’t give him.”
“What
does he want?” Pete asked. He heard the
microwave ping and he retrieved Rachel’s meal.
“To
be back in charge.”
“And
you can’t swing that?” He put the food
in front of her. “Eat.”
“I
wouldn’t want to,” Rachel replied with a shudder. “The bad ol’ days.
Getting rid of him was tough. No
one would appreciate him being reinstated.”
“You
can’t bribe him. Can’t get him
off-balance. Can you blackmail him?” he
wondered, putting his own meal in the microwave.
Rachel’s
eyes widened. “He knows more secrets
about me than I could ever know about him!”
“Threaten
him then,” he suggested as he switched on the machine and watched his food
start to slowly turn.
“Again,
I ask with what?”
“Doc,
I don't know! I don’t know the
guy. I don’t know what makes him
tick. Why is he helping this Hitchcock? Friendship?
Shared goals? What? You’re the psychiatrist here. What d’you think is behind this ..
association? Eat.”
She
picked up a fork and drove it into the lasagna.
“I
wouldn’t say friendship,” she said after a moment. “The two personalities are, to a degree, very alike. Hitchcock doesn’t trust anyone but
himself. Sloan’s the same. Hitchcock wants revenge for a specific,
single incident. Sloan .. I don’t
know. He an’ Derek have a long
history. Once, way back , they were
friends .. an’ then it cooled to mutual tolerance, and the reason for that only
they know. He could want revenge in
general. It could, therefore, be a
shared goal. Seeing Derek go down.”
“How
does that fit in with Randolph being a control freak?” Kat inquired. “Having an ally. Wouldn’t that mean sharing control?”
“Yes,
it would,” Rachel agreed slowly. “And
he wouldn’t do it. Kat, you’re a
genius!”
Kat
smiled.
Rachel
had been so overwhelmed by the knowledge that Sloan was involved too that the
obstacles had grown into a mountain range.
Kat’s question had shown they were just a mirage. She felt the fog shred and flee away.
“Hold
on a second,” Pete said, sitting down with his meal. “These two very smart guys who, I guess, are capable of running
rings around each other, have decided to work on this project, each for his own
ends. Who’s in control? Hitchcock, or Sloan? Someone’s gotta be top dog.”
“Hitchcock,”
Rachel declared. “Somehow, he’s gotten
Sloan into the web. He’s being
controlled just as much as everyone else .. and probably by the exact same
method.”
“Magic,”
Pete stated.
“Look,
if Derek Rayne can be .. enchanted an’ told to turn on his friends, so can
William Sloan. Derek has a very strong
personality. He doesn’t bend very far
and, under duress, he’d rather break than bend even a little. William’s personality is equally as strong
but much more flexible. To give you an
idea,” Rachel went on quickly, “if you said to Derek you wanted to .. come work
for the Foundation, he’d be cautious, ultra conservative, and he’d probably
turn you down. Sloan would ask what’s
in it for me? If you gave him the right
answers, you’d be in. Then he’d find
something for you to do. Hitchcock, in
all likelihood, approached Sloan with some kind of invitation, maybe completely
unrelated to Derek, and Sloan, as usual, thought what’s in it for me? He could even have considered using
Hitchcock in some way to get at Derek.
He would have met with him .. an’ been pulled in.” She glanced at him. “That’s the kinda people we’re dealing
with.”
“Okay,”
Pete accepted. “So Hitchcock’s top
dog. Sloan’s the lesser partner. How do we drive a wedge between them?”
“There’s
only one way,” Rachel replied. “Tell
Sloan the truth. If there’s one thing
he hates, it’s the knowledge that he’d being used.”
*****
“Where’s
Mr Boyle?” Richard asked.
“I
haven’t seen him,” Derek replied. Alex
shook her head.
“Have
you completed your tasks?”
“We
have,” Alex confirmed. “Rachel should
be here in less than four hours.”
“Excellent,”
Richard nodded. “That will make Mr
Hitchcock very happy indeed.”
“Hugh,”
Derek began.
“Yes,
Dr Rayne?”
“I’m
hungry.”
Richard
sighed. “Go and fix yourself something
to eat. You, go with him.”
Obediently,
they rose and walked out.
I
suppose I have to let them have food, Richard thought. Personally, I don’t care if they starve, but
Mr Hitchcock would not be happy.
*****
“Okay,”
Rachel said. “Now that we’re figured
our way thru this maze, we can attempt to put a plan together.”
“First
thing – Kat stays here,” Pete said.
“Absolutely,”
Rachel agreed. “Kat, you won’t argue
with me, will you?”
Kat
thought about it. “On one condition.”
“Shoot,”
Pete invited.
“One
of you call me to tell me what’s happening.”
“Deal,”
Rachel promised. “Second thing – if we
haven’t called by .. tomorrow morning, you call Pete’s detective friend an’
tell him where he can pick up Randolph Hitchcock. You tell him that he murdered the real Hugh Satterley.”
Pete
dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of business cards. He flipped thru them and passed one to
Kat. “That’s his direct line, okay?”
Kat
nodded. “Okay.” Now she felt involved. She had a task of her own.
“Third
.. I go into the house alone,” Rachel said.
“Doc,
we have already covered that! No way!”
Pete argued.
“Listen,”
she countered. “I didn’t say you
couldn’t come with me. I know the
house, I know where to go to avoid them.
You don’t. I don’t want to labor
the obvious an’ I sure don’t wanna worry anyone,” Rachel went on, squeezing her
daughter’s hand, “but they are expecting me.
Just like we’re making plans for them, you can be damn sure they’re
making plans for me. They’re not
expecting you to turn up, so they won’t make plans. You’re more than my back up, Pete. You’re the ace up my sleeve.
I’ll go in, an’, if something happens to me an’ I don't come out, it’ll
be up to you. If we go in together an’
we both get caught in the magic … ”
Rachel shrugged uncomfortably.
“How
long do I have to wait outside?” he asked, his voice resentful.
“I
don’t know yet. Thirty minutes. An hour.
Maybe even two. We’ll decide
that when we’re there.”
Reluctantly,
he nodded. “What do I do?”
“Same
as me. First, we have to find the
artifact which has sidelined Peri an’ smash it. I know she’ll be on my
side.”
“How? She could get suckered into the web
herself.”
“Then
why go to all the trouble of getting the weapon into the house thru Carl Chang
and enchanting the others so they’ll assemble it?”
“It
won’t work on her,” Kat said. “That’s
why they knocked her out first – so she couldn’t stop Randolph Hitchcock doing
nasty things to the others.”
“That
answer your question?” Rachel asked.
“What
is she? Some kinda superhero?” Pete
wondered.
“Just
a super-strong personality,” Rachel replied, grinning.
“You’d
like her,” Kat added. “She .. knows how
to deal with bad guys.”
“I
think what Kat is trying to say without making me scold her is, to be blunt,
Peri kicks ass,” Rachel translated.
“Too
right,” Kat laughed.
“Okay,”
Pete accepted. “Any idea what this
weapon looks like?”
“The
only people who have seen it assembled aren’t going to describe it to us,”
Rachel replied. “But … Kat, can you see if you can find some paper
an’ a pen?”
“Oh
.. I know where those are,” Pete said, sliding off his barstool and going to a
drawer. “Found ’em when I was searching
for food.” He returned and put the
requested items on the counter.
“I
only saw them once,” Rachel remarked with a brief shrug as she drew quickly,
“but they looked like this. They’re
plain terracotta, no markings. Just odd
shapes, an’ about this size.” She
pushed the notepad toward him. “Imagine
them put together somehow. A three
dimensional odd shape.”
He
nodded. “All right. Would this be hidden away somewhere?”
“I
hope not,” Rachel responded.
Pete
angled his head. “Doc, we’re done with
the pie in the sky wild theories. We’ve
moved into my area now – facts. Hopes are all very well but they don’t put
money in the checking account.”
Rachel
sighed, knowing he was right. “It could
be in the lab. It may be somewhere more
open. I mean, now it’s been used .. and
we have no idea what actual effect it’s had .. it could be useless.”
“No,
Mom, that isn’t right,” Kat said. “If
it was useless now, Peri would be able to do something. It has to be still working. Smashing it is right.” She took the notepad from Pete and gripped
it hard, opening herself to whatever images came to her.
Rachel
swallowed as she saw her daughter tense, her head jerking back several
times. Pete frowned but said
nothing. He’d seen police psychics at
work before.
“What’d
you see?” Rachel whispered.
“Peri. She’s very sick, Mom,” Kat replied
softly. “Derek an’ Alex … They look so empty. Like they’ve been brainwashed. And I saw
Hugh, the fake Hugh, putting this on the table in the foyer. It’s like .. y’know those 3-D models of a
tetrahedron or something? It looks
kinda like that.”
Rachel
nodded. “All right. It’s in the foyer. Should be easy enough to get in, go straight to the table, pick this
thing up, an’ smash it. Could you tell
where Peri was?”
Kat
shook her head. “It was pretty
dark. Lots of old stuff laying
around. Maybe the basement.”
Rachel
nodded again. “Okay. Well … ”
She looked at Pete. “I think
we’re about ready to make our move.”
“What
about the second, er, magic thing?” he asked.
“I
don’t know, Pete. I’ll have to wing
it. I know most of what’s in that
house. I should be able to recognize
something not meant to be there.”
“I
don’t,” he said bluntly.
“Let’s
concentrate on freeing Peri. Then,
whatever happens to us, she’ll be able to work unaffected.” She rose.
“Ready?”
“I
guess so,” Pete agreed.
*****
Nick
saw the door leading up to the attic was slightly open. He eased the opening wider with the toe of
his boot and braced himself ready for an attack which never came. He peered up into the darkness.
An
intruder. An assassin. A wife.
He
crept up the stairs and listened at the closed door. He heard nothing. Carefully,
he tried to open the door but something was wedged against it on the other
side.
This
attic had no windows or skylights.
There couldn’t be a view of anything.
A sniper would have one tough job picking off someone coming up the
drive.
An
intruder wouldn’t hide like this. An
assassin would set up somewhere more accessible. Whoever was barricaded behind this door wasn’t either of those
things.
Nick
had been told to hunt down the intruder, so he went to look elsewhere. He left his wife alone.
*****
“Yes,
sir. You’re to go on up to the house,”
Greg said. “Dr Rayne’s authority.”
“Thank
you,” Randolph beamed. “Come along,
William. Not much farther now.”
They
passed the gate and continued up the drive.
“You
see?” Randolph invited. “All obstacles
have been removed. Derek has give his
personal permission for us to enter his estate.”
“This
isn’t a genuine victory,” William remarked.
“This isn’t beating him at his own game. It isn’t matching wits, Randolph. You tried that once .. and you failed. The most this can be is a Pyrrhic victory. It’s shallow, won by trickery.”
“So
was the Trojan war finally brought to an end after ten years of bloodshed,”
Randolph cheerfully agreed. “I really
do not care whether this is a genuine victory or one brought about by trickery,
William. I will have won, and that is
all which matters.”
“What
of the others?” William asked. “They
were never there when Alicia was killed.”
“No,
they weren’t. But they were there six years ago. Derek is their Precept, the head of their
family. Do you honestly believe they
would allow me to live out my remaining years in peace if I killed him and
spared them? They would devote every
ounce of strength, every resource at their disposal, to hunt me down and punish
me. I cannot let them live,
William. It pains me, it really does,
but .. it must be all or nothing.”
William
nodded thoughtfully. “And what are your
intentions toward me?” he asked mildly.
“My
dear fellow, you will be allowed to take as many artifacts from this house as
you desire in full payment for your very generous service, and then I will have
Richard drive you to the airport so you may fly home to Patricia. Did you think I would have you killed as
well?”
“The
thought had crossed my mind,” William admitted.
Randolph’s
gentle eyes twinkled with merriment.
“We trust each other, as much as we can anyway, because we have both
served this monster called the Legacy and we have both escaped its clutches. We know the value of secrecy and we know how
to keep our mouths shut, don’t we?”
They
rounded the last corner of the drive and paused to survey the house. William considered the other man’s last
words to be little more than a veiled threat, and he felt his heart sink. He was almost out of time and, this time, he
could not rely on Derek to do the noble thing or Nick to be ready with a well
aimed bullet. William would be alone
with a coldly sane maniac and a butler who wasn’t a butler and people who
didn’t know who they were anymore.
Randolph
clasped his hands together and held them to his heart. “I have dreamed of this moment for .. so
many years,” he whispered, his voice choked.
“And now the dream is real. I
will have my revenge and my poor, sweet Alicia can finally find rest.”
He
turned to William and smiled. “Shall we
go?”
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