Blood Kin (33 page)

Bailey waited. Daniel didn't answer. Surely, she thought, he must have heard the boat motor. “Daniel!” Her voice came out more of a croak than a shout. She was getting sick. Funny, but her throat wasn't sore. Other than a little nausea, she was just sleepy.

“He must be in the attic,” Grace said.

Bailey looked at the stairs. They seemed to go straight up, and all she wanted to do was sit on the bottom step, lean back, and wait for Daniel to bring his “find” to her. “I thought he was finished in the attic. He told me the next thing he had to do was replace a windowsill at the back of the house.”

Grace tugged at her arm. “No, that's where he told me he found it. He probably can't hear us. We may as well go up.”

Bailey noticed that the older woman still had the green case in her left hand and wondered what it was. The steps seemed terribly steep, taking all the energy she had to ascend them. She used the polished cherry banister for support.

“Daniel!” Grace called again. “Yes, he's up there,” she said when she reached the second-floor hall. “I hear him nailing something.”

Bailey listened. She didn't hear anything but the ragged sound of her own breathing and their footsteps on the wide maple boards. If anything, the house sounded empty.

“I swear, you city girls are weak as kittens,” Grace said. “Wouldn't be if you'd had to work like I did. Up at five, milk two cows before breakfast, walk to school, and then—like as not—hoe weeds out of the corn until supper after walking home.”

They walked past bedrooms and a bath in the upper hall. At the end of the passageway were two doors, smaller than the others, opposite each other. On the left, three narrow steps led to a board-and-batten door opening to the attic stairway. Grace pressed the hand-wrought brass thumb latch. “You don't see many of these. Elizabeth told me that one of those antique dealers was always after her to sell it to him. Can you imagine the nerve? Wanting to buy the hardware off your doors?” She motioned to Bailey. “You go on ahead of me.”

“No, I think I'd better use the bathroom first. My stomach feels woozy.” She glanced back down the hall. “I think I—”

Grace stepped back, unzipped the long case, and pulled out a rifle. “Do as you're told!”

Bailey's mouth gaped. She stared first at the weapon and then up at Grace's face. Her features were almost smooth, almost expressionless. Bailey shivered. “I don't . . . don't understand. . . .”

Grace lowered the muzzle of the rifle until it touched Bailey's midsection. “Up those stairs without
another word, Beth Tawes, or I'll put a hole through you from here to Judgment Day.”

“What?” Grace's voice seemed distorted. Had Bailey heard what she'd thought she'd heard? Had the pastor's wife called her by her dead mother's name? “What did you call me?”

Grace poked her hard with the barrel of the rifle. “No more backtalk out of you. I'd just as soon shoot you here and now.”

“Shoot me? But . . . why?” The torpor that had gripped Bailey melted away. All she could see was the gun and the glint of hate in Grace's eyes.

“All right, Beth, have it your way.” Her finger tightened on the trigger.

“No! No! I'm going!” Bailey half ran up the first steps. She stumbled, caught herself, and made her way up the narrow, winding staircase to the shadowy attic. “Daniel!” she cried, darting away and trying to take shelter behind an upright beam. “Daniel? Are you—”

“Shut up! He's not here, you little fool.” She motioned toward the west end of the attic. “That way.”

“Please . . . I don't understand. Why are you doing—”

Grace squeezed off a shot. The bullet whizzed past Bailey's head and tore through the shingles overhead. Bailey gasped.

“Why? Why?” Grace's voice mocked her. “You should have stayed away. I warned you. Everyone tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. Now, whatever happens, you've no one but yourself to blame.” She came toward Bailey, the rifle raised so that the muzzle pointed toward the center of her chest.

“It was you.” Bailey glanced frantically around for some way of escape. “You're the one who shot at us yesterday.”

“A little late to figure that out now, isn't it?”

Step by step Grace backed her toward the last room, the place where Daniel had found her mother's big trunk. Everything seemed to be as it had been the first time Bailey had seen the attic, but the dust and cobwebs were gone. Daniel had swept the floors, polished the small windows at the ends of the house until they gleamed, and arranged the boxes and furniture neatly along the walls.

Sunshine streamed though the hand-blown panes of glass and illuminated the whitewashed walls and the honey-colored floorboards. People didn't die in attics that looked like this, Bailey thought crazily. Not on sunny afternoons. Not in a castle turret that any child with an imagination would love to make a secret playground. In every movie she'd ever seen, monsters lurked in the shadows and stalked their victims amid peals of thunder, downpours, and howling winds.

“Hurry up!” Grace ordered. “I don't have all day.”

“Please,” Bailey begged. “Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to you?”

“You know perfectly well what you did,” Grace said quietly. “You tried to steal my life. My Matthew. You tried to make people believe nasty things about me—about my family—when it was always you.”

Bailey nearly tripped over something on the floor. She glanced down and saw that it was
The Pink Fairy Book
. Books, papers, and photos were scattered around the trunk. The domed lid hung open.

“Get inside.” Grace didn't shout. She didn't laugh. She might have been telling Bailey to pass her the salt, but the calm request was more frightening than any crazed cackling.

“In the trunk?” Bailey froze. Next to the window stood a can of gasoline. “What are you going to do to me?”

Grace smiled. “I'm going to make certain you don't cause any more trouble, dear. None at all. You're going to suffer a terrible accident.”

Bailey shook her head. “I can't do it. I won't.”

“You wanted this house so badly. I'll let you have it.”

“No.”

“I haven't the time for hissy fits. You're going into the trunk dead or alive, miss. It really doesn't matter.” Grace smiled thinly. “And I'm going to burn this house down around you.”

“You'll have to shoot me first. I won't let you put me in that trunk.”

“Fine, have it your way. You always did.” Grace glared at her. “Little Miss Perfect.”

“I'm Bailey, not Beth. You don't know anything about me or my life.”

“I know you well enough that I tried to bury you and that bitch of a mother of yours alive before you were born. Don't you remember? You must have heard her begging for your life.”

Bailey raised her hands, palms out, and took several steps back. “Grace, please. You don't want to do this. Not really.”

“Oh, but I do. I got the best of her. I smashed her over the head with a shovel and pushed her into one of those caved-in graves out in the old cemetery on Creed's road. There were still pieces of the coffin in the bottom. I didn't see any bones, but I'm sure they were there.”

Bailey shook her head. “I don't believe you. You couldn't—”

Grace smiled. “Couldn't I? You should have heard her screams. I had to keep hitting her to make her stop, but she tricked me. She pretended to be unconscious. But when I turned my back on her, she crawled up out of that hole and hit me in the knee with a brick.”

Pride surged through Bailey. Beth had fought to protect her.

“I limped for weeks afterward,” Grace continued in a monotone. “Your mother was sneaky that way. Stubborn little whore—too stupid to die. She almost broke my—”

Bailey flung herself onto the floor and rolled behind the big camel-back trunk. Grace fired the gun and glass shattered. Bailey seized a book, hurled it at Grace's head, and scrambled to her feet to run.

There was a thud as the heavy volume of fairy tales struck the older woman on the left cheekbone. Grace staggered back, then lunged forward and swung the rifle at Bailey. The barrel struck her in the left shoulder and she nearly fell again, but she kept moving and dodged behind an oversize wing chair. The rifle cracked again. Chair stuffing flew.

Grace rushed forward. Bailey dove, not away, as Grace expected, but straight at her, under the gun. She grabbed Grace around the hips, knocking her to the floor. For seconds they struggled, wrestling, hitting, and kicking before Bailey smashed her balled fist into Grace's face. Grace hit her back just as hard, but Bailey was beyond pain. She caught a handful of hair and slammed Grace's head down against the floor.

Grace groaned. Bailey tried to snatch the rifle away, but Grace lay across it, pinning it down. Bailey turned and fled for the stairwell.

“Run! Run, you little fool! See if you can outrun this!” Grace shouted.

The gun boomed again, but Bailey didn't hesitate. She ran for all she was worth. She was halfway down the attic steps to the second floor when Grace fired from the top landing. This time Bailey felt a sharp sting in her upper left arm. One foot slipped and she fell, sliding down the remaining stairs to the hallway below. Grace pounded after her.

Stunned, Bailey clawed her way to her feet. Pain shot down her spine.

“I put you in the grave twice,” Grace said. “This time you'll stay there!” She lowered the rifle again.

Bailey grabbed the barrel, pushed it to the side, and yanked, nearly pulling the weapon out of Grace's hands in the process. She twisted and rammed into Grace's knees, knocking her down again. Grace clung to the rifle, trying to strike her in the head with the stock. It glanced off her injured arm, and Bailey winced at the force of the blow.

Grace used the rifle as a brace to climb to her feet and tried to aim. Bailey wanted to run, but this time the big woman blocked the exit to the main staircase. If she tried to escape into the nearest bedroom, Grace would trap her before she could get a window open. Blood, hot and sticky, ran down Bailey's arm and dripped off her hand in a steady rivulet. Strangely enough, it didn't hurt. It felt numb. But she was suddenly tired again and wanted to sit down.

“Die, you slut!” Grace screamed.

Bailey ducked behind the attic door. Wood exploded, but the shot missed her. She snatched up a broken piece of the board and hurled it at Grace. It struck the woman full in the nose, and blood flew. Bailey whirled, tore open the door to the back servants' stairs, and fled down to the kitchen.

Cursing, Grace came after her. At the bottom of the twisting staircase, Bailey didn't bother with trying to find the latch in the semidarkness. She threw her good shoulder against the door and burst through into the kitchen to see Will running into the room.

“Run!” Bailey screamed. “She has a—”

Will leaped in front of Bailey as Grace came down the stairs and fired. Bailey recoiled in horror. She stared down at a small red stain growing on the front of his shirt.

“Go!” Will bellowed. “Get the hell out of here, Bailey!”

She darted toward the back door. When she looked over her shoulder she saw Grace still advancing toward them, leveling the rife, but Grace had to come through Will to get to her. He was upright, charging Grace, when she fired again. This time Will went down.

“I'll get you, you whoring bitch!” Grace called. “Don't think you can get away from me!”

Will grabbed Grace's ankle and jerked it. “Run!” he shouted.

Bailey flew out the back door and across the porch. The gunshot echoed through the house. Tears blinded Bailey as she bolted headlong toward the nearest outcropping of trees. Will was dead. She knew he was dead, but she kept running. It was all she could do.

“Come back here!” Grace screamed from the back step.

Bailey felt as though she were slogging though knee-deep mud. She was breathing hard, each step an effort, when abruptly the ground came up to hit her. She felt herself sinking down, down; the sleep that had threatened to overtake her finally . . .

 

“Get up! You're not dead yet. But you will be if you don't do as I say.”

Bailey opened her eyes.

Grace stood over her, the muzzle of the rifle hovering only inches from the bitch's face. “Get on your feet.”

She poked the girl hard in the forehead with the gun barrel. “Get up, or die there. I've no more time to mess with you.” Just before she'd shot him for the last time, Will had said that Daniel was coming. He might have lied, but she couldn't take the chance. She had to get away as quickly as she could, but not without the girl.

She realized now why it had been so hard to be rid of Beth Tawes, why she hadn't lain quiet in her grave—why she'd haunted her all these years, and why her bastard had come back to spoil everything. It had to end where it started—at the cabin. She jabbed her again. “Get on your feet, and get down to the boat.”

Bailey got up on her hands and knees and then climbed to her feet.

“I've got a full clip in here. Ten more shots. Don't make me waste any more than I have to on you.” Grace motioned toward the dock. “Go on. We're going for a ride. Not far. Your last one.”

“Will! Will!” Daniel knelt on Elizabeth's dining room floor and pressed his fingertips against the older man's throat. A trail of blood had led Daniel from the bottom of the kitchen stairs to Will's prone body. He wasn't certain whether Will was dead or alive. He wasn't cold, but if Will was breathing, it was very shallowly.

The bullet holes were from a .22, not the deer gun. Daniel clung to that thought as he kept trying to find a pulse. He'd borrowed an eighteen-foot skiff belonging to Josh Thompson. It was an older boat, not as powerful as Emma's or Grace's, but it had gotten him to Will's, where he'd hoped his friend could advise him where to start looking for Grace and Bailey.