Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die; The Deep End of Fear (26 page)

"He's your brother," Adrian replied quietly. "If it bothers you, you may ask him yourself."

"Daddy doesn't do what Daddy doesn't want to do," Robyn said, her hips switching. She sounded like a little girl enjoying her brother's discomfort.

Trent turned abruptly and returned to his wing.

"This isn't as good a party as I thought," Brook observed. "I'm going to bed."

Robyn gazed down at Adrian and me, then shook her head, more like an adult now. "Things are getting out of hand, Daddy." She followed her son.

"If you don't need me, sir…"

"No, Louise, good night," Adrian replied.

Mrs. Hopewell started off, then turned back. "About the cat."

"If all of us keep our doors closed, the cat will find a cozy spot by itself," Adrian told her. "We'll put it out tomorrow."

"I shall put Patrick to bed," Emily said.

"No, I want Kate," Patrick protested.

"Darling," Emily replied, "I'm your mommy."

"But Kate puts me to bed."

"Go with your mother," Adrian said sternly.

When the two of them had disappeared, Adrian turned to me. In the harsh lighting he looked years older; for once, he looked like a man who was seriously ill.

"Be straight with me, Kate, and I will keep what you say to myself. Is there any chance you were partially asleep? Is there a chance that you were sleepwalking—dreaming?"

"No."

"You're certain?"

I recounted to him how I was awakened by the sound of Patrick playing the piano, the strangeness of hearing the song Ashley used to play, and what had followed after that. "I was awake for at least fifteen minutes.

"Is there any possibility that it was an accident—that in the dark, someone came up behind you and knocked into you, then didn't want to admit it?"

"It's possible, but I don't think it happened that way. I believe it was intentional."

"Then you must be very cautious," Adrian said. "I'd like to tell you there is no reason for you to fear, but I know my family too well."

"Then you know why I am worried about Patrick," I replied.

"No one will hurt him. My family will hiss and howl, scratch and nip, but they will not seriously harm one another."

"But what about Ashley? What if—"

"Kate, 1, more than anyone, understand your suspicions." He took a deep breath. "After all, I blamed your mother, unable to accept that an event so horrible could have been chance. But it was. It was an accident."

I wasn't convinced, and he saw that.

"Of course, you know you may leave your employment here at any time and I would fully understand. I would make sure you are compensated and help you find another job."

"I'm not leaving."

He studied me for a moment, then nodded. "I'm glad, but be cautious and keep in close touch with me, Kate. Promise me that."

"I will."

Adrian stood up slowly, then held out a hand for me. We climbed the steps together. "Sleep well, if that is not a totally preposterous hope," he said.

"You too. Good night."

I returned to my room and listened to the muffled voices of Emily and Patrick in the room below me. She had closed the door to the stairway that connected our two rooms. A few minutes later, all was quiet. I crept down the steps to check on Patrick. He was already asleep, the night-light casting a pale glow on his face, creating a deceptively peaceful portrait of a child.

Back in my room, I couldn't sleep. I stood at the window, resting my forehead against the freezing glass, my hands on a lukewarm radiator. I ran through the list—Robyn, Brook, Trent, Mrs. Hopewell—trying to figure out who had pushed me. I could have been seriously injured—even killed—if I had broken my neck. I was afraid.

Only the foolish and the dead have no fear.
Had Mrs. Hopewell made good on her warning about the danger of prying into family secrets? Clearly, she and Robyn wanted me out of the house, but perhaps Trent and Brook did too. Why? So they could get to Patrick—or was I, myself, perceived as a threat?

I was starting to believe Sam's theory that Ashley had been lured by a murderer onto the ice. What if Patrick's constant talk of her and the questions I had been asking were beginning to fray the nerves of the killer? Then both Patrick and I were in serious danger, and I was the only one who could do something about it. But what I should do, I had no idea.

Chapter 12

A brilliant blue sky and fringe of glittering icicles was the first thing I saw the next morning. The sun was high, too high. I wrenched around in the bedcovers to look at the alarm clock and felt a stab of pain in my right shoulder: 8:45. Then I saw the note next to my clock: "School has been canceled because of snow. Mr. Westbrook gave instructions to let you sleep. Patrick is with his mother."

I could imagine the thick fingers of Mrs. Hopewell forming the short, square letters, then turning off my alarm clock. The thought of her creeping into my room and watching me while I slept made me wriggle my shoulders—a painful mistake. When I climbed out of bed and checked myself in the mirror, I saw what looked like a purple map of Norway and Sweden on the right half of my back, Finland on my arm.

Putting on a turtleneck and sweater took some care and time. I pulled on a pair of jeans, figuring that Patrick would be eager to go out in the snow.

When I pushed back my lower set of curtains, the brightness made me blink. Everything below was white, evergreens and hedges dolloped with snowy meringue. After the shadows of last night, the pure light seemed almost unreal.

I descended the steps to Patrick's room, then entered the second-floor hall, pausing to study its layout. It would have been easy enough for Robyn, Brook, or Mrs. Hopewell to follow me across the hall ast night to the top of the stairway, since the exit to the wing where they slept was just beyond Patrick's bedroom door. But Trent, whose wing was on the opposite side of the house, also had easy access. The exit to his wing was on a short hall that ran next to the main staircase. Of course, Emily and Adrian's room was on the main hall, its doorway fairly close to the steps.

Preoccupied with the immediate problem of putting out the cat, I had made it easy for whomever had come up behind me. I tried to remember if I had seen the night lamp shining on the landing between the two floors when I was still on the third floor, walking toward the schoolroom. But I had been so caught up in the eeriness of hearing the song Ashley had once played, I hadn't noticed anything else.

The raised voices of Emily and Robyn drew me back to the present. When I arrived on the first floor, I saw them face-to-face outside the laundry room, near Robyn's wing. Patrick stood next to his mother, holding his hands a distance behind him. Brook leaned against the frame of the laundry door, drinking a cup of coffee, surveying his mother, who was dressed in her barn clothes.

"This is outrageous." Robyn's voice shook with anger. "He's a horrid child, a wicked boy. You should be ashamed."

Emily didn't respond; apparently, she wasn't.

"If it makes you feel any better, Mother," Brook said,
"I'm
ashamed—that I never thought of such a prank," he added, grinning. "And I'm sure Emily will be very ashamed—as soon as she stops laughing. Patrick, you're a little turd, dumping the manure through the hay chute. Of course, Mother is now a big turd."

Robyn shot her son a look.

"What's 'turd' mean?" Patrick asked.

"It's a piece of manure," Emily told him.

I surmised that Robyn had been tending one of her horses, standing beneath a stall's hay chute, when Patrick dropped down a smelly pile from the manure heap. It was tempting to laugh, but if Patrick thought the prank was funny, he might try it again. At the moment he wasn't looking very contrite.

"I don't know what possessed you to do such a thing, Patrick," Emily said. "I don't want it to happen again."

"Oh, it won't," Robyn responded, her eyes flashing. "If I catch him near the barn, I'll rub his face in a pile til he suffocates."

Brook cheerfully saluted me with his coffee cup. "Good morning, Kate. Come join our family fun."

Patrick turned around, but Emily reached for his arm and held it tightly. She and Robyn, locked in glares, didn't acknowledge me.

"That child needs a strap across his backside," Robyn continued. "I'm going to talk to Daddy. He will straighten out Patrick."

"Forty-two years old and still tattling," Emily observed scornfully. "When are you going to stop pretending that you're Daddy's girl? He has a wife now and a little boy."

Robyn's lips trembled. She turned on her heel, entered the laundry room, and slammed the door behind her.

"I'll get your robe, Mother," Brook called, then leaned toward me. "I wonder how long she would stay there if I forgot?"

I didn't reply, and he headed through the door to their wing.

"Come, Patrick, we should wash your hands again," Emily said.

He sniffed his fingers, then nodded in agreement.

She still hadn't acknowledged me. Perhaps she was miffed that I hadn't been at the bam to stop Patrick, but I wasn't the one who had turned off my alarm clock.

"Sounds as if there's a problem," I remarked quietly.

"She's the problem," Emily retorted.

I walked with them toward the kitchen.

"Daddy said I shouldn't wake you up, Kate."

"That was kind of him, and of you, too," I replied. "Speaking of kindness, that was a rather mean thing to do to Robyn."

"I was just playing," he said, then glanced at his mother, as if expecting her to defend him.

"Would you have liked Robyn to dump the manure on you?" I asked.

He grinned. "I wouldn't care."

Of course not—I was talking to a little boy.

I pushed open the kitchen door. "The point is, adults don't like it, and you know that."

"He's just a child," Emily protested.

She would be saying that when Patrick was thirty-five. I felt as if we were replaying a drama that this house had witnessed before: Corinne had always defended Ashley, undercutting Joseph when he would discipline her.

"You had better use the utility sink," I told Patrick. "Did you clean up the mess you made in the barn?"

"No."

"The grooms can do it," Emily said. "I'm sure they already have."

A nice thing to teach a child, I thought: Misbehave, make a mess, and others will clean it up for you. I wasn't letting Patrick off the hook so easily. "Then you owe both Robyn and the grooms an apology."

Patrick's brow furled, just like his mother's. "It wasn't my fault!"

"Whose fault was it?"

"Ashley's. She told me to do it."

Emily sighed. "I thought we weren't going to talk about Ashley anymore."

Patrick stretched his hands over the sink, and I pushed back his sleeves—Emily didn't want to touch anything that might stink. "When someone tell s you to do something that you know is wrong, Patrick, you should say no."

I did," he whined, "but she dared me."

"If Ashley dares you again, come and tell me—or your mother," I added quickly, for the color was rising in Emily's cheeks. I wasn't trying to take over her role, but he was only a child, and someone had to teach him.

Patrick scrubbed and dried his hands. I turned to Emily. "Do you think it would be a good idea if Patrick wrote notes of apology to Robyn and the grooms?"

"You're asking me?" she snapped. "Why bother? You'll have him do whatever you want. And if I question it, Adrian will defend you." She picked up a copy of the morning paper and walked off, her flat snakeskin shoes clicking.

"All right, Patrick, let's go upstairs and start those notes."

He looked at me defiantly. "No."

"Sorry?" "I won't."

I studied him for a moment. His blue eyes shrank as he stared back at me, their lids tightening. The skin on my face felt cold. He looked like Ashley when she'd bore into me with one of her looks. No, like any child—I told myself quickly—it was simply the way children's round eyes appear when they become defiant.

"You have made a lot of extra work and trouble for Robyn and the grooms," I told him. "You owe them an apology."

"You can't make me do it."

I gazed at him until he turned his face away.

"No, I can't," I agreed. "And if you want to remain upstairs for the rest of the day, that is fine with me. My shoulder hurts. I don't want to play in the snow that much."

He turned back, the defiance gone from his face.

"Did you hurt it when you fel down the steps?" He laid his hand lightly on my arm. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"It's not too bad."

"Maybe you should put your arm in a sling," he suggested.

"No, nothing is broken."

"You could take some aspirin," he said. "It's locked in the cupboard in my bathroom. I'll get you a soda to drink with it."

"Thank you, but no," I replied, puzzled by Patrick's sudden concern for me. A turn of his head and his mood had shifted dramatically. It was as if he were two people in one.

Shaking off an uneasy feeling, I started up the steps. He followed quietly and, when we reached the schoolroom, sat down to write.

Later that morning I carried the notes of apology downstairs. Ideally, Patrick should have hand delivered them, but I didn't want to push our luck with a second trip to the barn and perhaps another confrontation with Robyn. I gave the grooms' notes to Roger, who was heading toward the barn to finish plowing. I placed Robyn's note in her mailbox outside the office door. As I turned away from the mahogany boxes, a woman emerged from the office.

"You must be Kate," she said, then held out her hand in greeting.

The woman was pretty, in her late sixties, I thought, with pale blond hair that had the molded and sprayed look of someone who went weekly to a salon.

"I'm Elaine, Adrian's personal secretary. I work part-time now, once or twice a week."

"It's nice to meet you."

She reached into a folder she was carrying. "I have a phone number that was requested by Patrick."

I glanced down at the square of paper she handed me, surprised. "Sam Koscinski?"

"He said Sam was his friend." Her eyes brightened with amusement. "Patrick has the same demanding way as his father when he wants a phone number pronto."

"He demanded it?" I wasn't amused at the idea of a seven-year-old talking to an adult as if she were his employee. It was so easy to turn a sweet kid into a brat.

"Well, thank you. Thank you very much." I slipped the paper in my pocket and climbed the steps to the third floor.

I had left Patrick playing a game on his computer and, upon reaching the last flight of steps, expected to hear pinging sounds against a background of music. When I heard an electronic voice asking repeatedly Hey,
want to play?
I quickened my pace toward the schoolroom. He wasn't there.

"Patrick?"

I checked the playroom, then hurried to my room and downstairs to his. He was nowhere in sight. I listened for footsteps above my head, in case he was hiding, then returned to the third floor to search the two storerooms.

"Patrick? If you're hiding, I want you to come out now."

Nothing in the two rooms appeared to be disturbed. The old hockey sticks, deflated basketball, and other sports equipment lay in the same places as before. The furniture was coated with dust and bore no fingerprints or streaks.

I wavered between anger and fear.

He is playing games with me, being a brat, there is nothing to worry about, I told myself. But after the incidents of the last few days, all I could think of were the dangerous things Ashley had dared me to do when Joseph and my mother weren't around—jumping off a shed roof, wading into the bay during a storm, making a fire by the pond. I debated whether to go immediately to Adrian. If Patrick was simply playing a hiding game, and I created a ruckus by having everyone search for him, he and I would both regret it.

I hurried downstairs to check the coat closet. His snow jacket was gone, though not his boots. I rushed to the kitchen door and saw a set of small footprints leading away from it. Without pausing to put on a coat or boots, I raced out, following the prints. When I got to the orangerie, Patrick's path suddenly veered around a bush, and a second trail appeared. The snow was above my ankles, so it was difficult to see the actual paw prints, but I was sure they were a cat's.

"Patrick?" I shouted.

I couldn't tell if the cat led the boy or the boy led the cat, but both routes were headed toward the tennis courts and the pool beyond it. The evergreen screen around the courts and pool obscured my view. I rushed on, passing the wall of spruce close to the pool, then stopped short.

Patrick stood on the diving board, at the very end, looking down. Far below him was the concrete floor of the pool, covered by a layer of snow and ice.

The cat sat by the steps, watching him.

I called softly to Patrick, afraid I would startle him.

He didn't look up. Continuing to call his name, I walked toward the deep end. For a moment I thought he saw me—clearly, something had caught his attention. He lifted his head. Then he began to jump up and down on the end of the board.

"Patrick, don't! Stop!" I screamed.

He continued bouncing. If he fell and struck his head or neck, he'd kill himself.

I rushed around the corner of the pool and climbed up on the board. The sun glared off the ice below, nearly blinding me as I made my way along the board. Patrick kept jumping, swinging his arms to propel himself higher, landing precariously on the edge. I felt seasick, the flexing board dropping and rising beneath my feet.

I had to think fast. If I caught him from behind, he might lose his balance and throw mine as well. But calling his name drew no response. As soon as I reached him I sat down on the board, straddling it, for the lower my position, the easier it would be to stay on the board. I reached up and grabbed him by the waist. Pain shot through my injured shoulder as I jerked him back against me. "Patrick! Don't fight me."

He pulled forward to get away from me. I yanked him back. "Be still!"

At last he stopped resisting.

The easiest way to get back to the pool's deck was to crawl, but I wasn't about to let go of him and tell him to follow. Who knew what instructions he heard besides mine?

"Don't fight me," I warned, then slid back on the rough surface of the board, pull ing him with me. I continued to slide back and pull him toward me, slowly making our way to the pool deck. As soon as my feet touched the cement, I climbed off the diving board, then struggled to remove Patrick. On solid ground again, he wrenched away from me.