Iron House (12 page)

But he was fast.

Goddamn, was he fast.

She sawed once at the reins, then put her heels in his flank and let him go. His nostrils flared, and his hooves put a thunder in the mud. They reached the end and turned. Ran it again. Her lungs were burning when the Land Rover pushed out of the trees. It was old, with paint scratched through to metal, and Abigail knew who was behind the wheel even before it lurched to a halt. She turned the horse, her hand sliding once along its hot, reeking neck. The animal jerked its head, but she patted it a final time, then walked it to the vehicle, where she found a lean, broad-shouldered man standing at the hood. He was sixty years old, but hard and straight, with large-knuckled hands and the kind of smile you had to look closely to see. But there was no smile this time. He wore khakis and leather boots, a burgundy tie under rain gear the color of moss. Disapproval pinched his features, so that when Abigail leaned from the saddle, she said, “I don’t want to hear it, Jessup.”

“Hear what?”

“A lecture on safety or propriety or how a woman my age should behave.”

“That horse. In this visibility.” Jessup Falls pointed at the horse, his voice tight. “You’re going to break your damn neck.”

“Such language.” Her eyes sparkled, but Jessup was immune.

“You’re going to break your neck and it will be up to me to carry you out of here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. I’m being angry. Jesus, Abigail. That horse has injured two trainers. He almost killed the last one.”

She waved off his concern, and slid from the horse. Rain clattered through leaves and pinged off the truck. “Why are you here, Jessup?”

Jessup’s skin had grown ruddy with the years, his hair thin and white, but other than that, he was the same man she’d known for so long: her driver, her bodyguard. Abigail circled the horse, boots squelching in damp soil. She’d aged, too, but more gracefully. Her skin was lined, but looked more like thirty-seven than forty-seven. Her hair had its natural color. She still turned heads.

“Your husband is up,” Jessup said. “He’s asking for you.”

She slowed as her face angled toward the far hill, where hints of the massive house showed: a slate roof and gabled windows, one of the seven tall chimneys.

“Are you okay?” Jessup’s voice was softer, his anger spent.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Jessup cleared his throat, unwilling to state the obvious: the soaking clothes and the mud, the horse lathered yellow at the neck. Abigail was a fine rider, but this was insane. “Julian, for one,” Jessup said.

“How is he this morning?” She kept her voice crisp enough to fool anyone else. She leaned close to the horse, one palm on the broad, flat plane of its cheek. She wished she had an apple or a carrot, but the decision to ride had been impulsive. Five in the morning. Rain falling in sheets.

“I don’t know.”

“Is he worse?”

“I honestly don’t know. No one knew where to find you, not your husband or the staff. No one. The first place I checked was the stable.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Not that I know.”

She stroked the horse as water dripped from her face. It was colder now that she was off the horse; in the dim light, her skin looked blue. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven.”

Abigail turned to look more closely at his face. She saw that he was unshaven, and that the skin beneath his eyes was dark enough to seem bruised. An image gathered in her mind: Jessup awake most of the night, sitting unhappily beside an untouched whiskey, pacing dark hours in the small room he kept. His worry for Julian would be real, as would his concern for her, and for a moment, she felt deep affection for the man whose own emotions were so obvious. “I should go,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not like that.”

“Like what?” She palmed a streak of mud from her face.

“Barely dressed.” Jessup smiled awkwardly. “The rain has made your shirt quite transparent.”

Abigail looked down and saw that he was right. Jessup retrieved a long, waterproof coat, then stepped forward and draped it over her shoulders. It smelled of canvas, hunting dogs, and burned powder. She reached out an arm to pull the coat tighter, and Jessup caught her deftly by the hand. His eyes settled on the yellow-green marks on her wrist. They were large and finger-shaped. The moment stretched between them, and he said, “When?”

“When, what?” Her chin rose.

“Don’t bullshit me, Abigail.”

She pulled her hand free. “Whatever you think happened, you’re mistaken.”

“Did he hit you?”

“God, no. Of course not. I’d never allow it.”

“He got drunk and put his hands on you. That’s why you’re out here.”

“No.”

“Then why?” Anger sharpened his features.

“I just needed something bigger.” She patted the horse again. “Something clean.”

“Damn it, Abigail…”

She handed him the reins and made it plain that the subject was closed. “Walk him back to the stable for me. Cool him down.”

“Talk to me, Abigail.”

“I’m more of a doer than a talker.”

Jessup’s face showed his displeasure. “Just like that?”

She looked up, and let rain strike her face. “You still work for me.”

“And the truck?” His neck stiffened, and a wounded look settled in the dark centers of his eyes.

“I’ll take the truck.”

She walked to the truck without looking back, but felt him there, unhappy and staring.

“This is not right,” he said.

“Walk him the long way, Jessup.” She opened the door, slid inside. “He worked hard this morning.”

The Land Rover Defender was old, purchased as an estate vehicle in the infancy of her marriage. She remembered the day it was delivered; she was twenty-two years old, and still in awe of her husband. He was two decades her senior, about to run for the Senate and wealthy beyond belief. He could have had any woman in the world, but he chose her over all the others—not just for her beauty, he’d said, but for her elegance and refinement, for the poise she wore like a garment. After long years as a bachelor he needed a face to go with his political life, and she was perfect. When the Defender was delivered, they drove it to the highest point on the estate, a long narrow ridge that looked down on the house and grounds. He’d lifted her skirt, put her on the hood, and she’d thought then that his sweaty hands were the precursors of happiness. But he never looked her in the face as he screwed her; he watched the house and thought of his glory: four thousand acres and a pair of trophy tits. Two months later, he won the Senate seat in a landslide. A year after that, he had his first new girlfriend.

Leaving Jessup with the horse, she drove to the same spot on the same ridge, a slab of granite that had probably been there for a million years. She parked and looked down on the manicured lawns, the stables, and the twin lakes that looked like black glass shot with gray. The grass was colorless in the rain, the forest beyond a hint of dark canopy. Rain muted everything, but the house, rising, looked as tall and massive as it had that day so many years ago. For an instant, Abigail wished she could reach back through time and touch the young woman she’d been, all smooth skin and conviction. She wanted to slap that girl in the face, tell her to pull down her skirt and run like the devil was at her heels. Instead, she pulled out the revolver she kept in the glove compartment. It was heavy in her hand, the metal cool and blued. She looked into the brutish barrel, then at the bullets nestled like eggs in the chambers. She straightened her arm, sighted at the house, and for a moment entertained dark fantasies. Then she put the pistol back where it belonged: in the glove compartment, locked.

She drove down the rough track, gravel clanking on the undercarriage, the shocks worn and loose. Where the forest ended, she turned across a final field, then picked up the main estate road that ran to the stables and the back of the house. She saw Jessup at the stables, then turned for the garage and caught a brief glimpse of the long, impossibly straight drive. At the far end, the gate was a postage stamp of twisted iron.

Abigail drove to the rear door and killed the engine. Inside, she ignored the stares and the hurried movements of the household staff. She turned down a narrow hall, then through the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen, where two cooks looked up, too startled say a word as they took in the long, ill-fitting coat, the mud on her feet, and the ruin of her hair. “Where is Mr. Vane?” Abigail asked.

“Ma’am?”

“Mr. Vane? Where is he?”

“He is in the study.”

“Has Julian eaten?”

The cooks shared a worried glance. “Mr. Vane says no one is to go into that part of the house.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Mr. Senator says—”

“I don’t care what
Mr. Senator
says.” Her voice came too loudly, and she calmed herself. No point in scaring anyone. “Fix a tray,” she said. “I’ll send someone for it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Abigail left the back halls used by the servants and entered the main house, the ceiling soaring above her. She passed window treatments that hung twenty feet to the floor, a dining room table that could seat thirty. She entered the foyer and felt coolness in the air as the ceiling rose forty feet, the stairwell curving around the vast space as it spiraled to the third floor and the vaulted cupola beyond. She climbed the stairs, passing an iron chandelier the size of her bed and portraits of long-dead men who weren’t actually related to her husband. At the first landing, she turned for the guest wing, which was long and broad and rich. Six rooms lined the hall, three on each side. More paintings hung on the walls. Antique sideboards gleamed. A man sat in a chair halfway down the hall. He was middle-aged and fit, with black hair and shoes that caught the light when he stood. He was neither a member of the house staff, nor, as far as she could tell, a member of her husband’s office. His hands were large under thick wrists and snow-white cuffs.

“Good morning, Mrs. Vane.”

His tie was the same navy as the rug, his gaze as flat as the floor on which it lay. Yet, the eyes moved: up and down, light blue and steady. She let him have his look. Stories circulated about her, she knew; and her appearance this morning would no doubt make for another one.

She could not care less.

“Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Sleeping, I assume. The senator deemed her unfit to watch over his son.”

“The senator deemed?”

“He dismissed her three hours ago.”

She tilted her head, her own face as hard as his, her eyes just as appraising. “Do I know you?”

“Richard Gale. I work for your husband.”

“That was not my question.”

“We’ve never met.”

“But you know who I am?”

“Of course.”

She weighed his appearance even further: wide shoulders and narrow waist, the first hint of creases in the skin of his neck. He stood perfectly still, light on his feet and amused. Abigail recognized the arrogance common to men of a certain physical quality. She’d seen it often in military officers and in field agents prized by the intelligence community. Years ago, she’d found such men exciting, but she’d never been as wise in her youth as she’d imagined herself to be. “Are we going to have a problem?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. You’re cleared to go in.”

“Cleared?”

“On the senator’s list.”

She frowned. “What is it, exactly, that you do for my husband?”

“Whatever is required.”

“Are you a federal agent?” He blinked once, and kept his mouth shut. “A private contractor,” Abigail concluded.

“I work for your husband. That’s really all I’m obligated to say.”

“Is my son under guard?”

“He’s not tried to leave. He’s—”

“What?”

Gale shrugged.

“Let’s get a few things straight, Mr. Gale. My son is not a prisoner. This is his home. So, if he wishes to leave this room, you may call me or his father, you may follow him if you must; but if you lay a hand on him or try to restrain his movement in any way, I’ll make you regret it.”

“Senator Vane left strict instructions.”

“Senator Vane is not the one of whom you should be frightened.”

The humor drained out of his eyes.

She stepped closer.

“The senator has concerns that I do not: appearances, for one, lawsuits and reporters and voters. His worries are larger than his son, so he does foolish things, like make you sit in this hall with a responsibility you cannot possibly handle. But that’s not my problem. I’m a mother of one son, that son. Do you understand me?”

“I think so.”

“No, Mr. Gale, you don’t. If you did, you’d be leaving at a fast walk and praying that I forget your name.”

“But, the senator—”

“Don’t fuck with my son.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, step away from the door.”

Abigail brushed past and opened the door that for three days had shut her son off from the world.

Three days of doubt and uncertainty.

Three days of hell.

She crossed the threshold and closed the door. Inside, the dark was a shock to her eyes, a blackness that was nearly complete. Heavy curtains hung over windows that opened to the lakes below. No lamps burned. Warm air pressed her skin as she put her back to the door and dug deep for the courage to force a smile before turning on the lights. She was a mother first, and found the weight of Julian’s collapse nearly unbearable. Wounded and unsure, he’d been a delicate child from the first, a boy prone to night terrors and doubt. Yet, she’d worked hard to make him whole, first for months and then years, until fixing the broken parts of Julian had become her resolve and her religion. She’d given all she could: education and activity, love and patience and strength, and in many ways it had worked, for as weak as he was, as scarred and bereft, Julian had always found the will to endure. He’d overcome the trauma of his childhood, the loss of his brother, and the mark of long years at Iron Mountain. He’d become an artist and a poet, a children’s author, successful in his own right. To the world at large, he was a man of deep feeling and nuance, but in his heart, Abigail knew, Julian remained little more than a shattered boy, the brittle precipitate of the things he’d endured. It was a secret they kept, dark matter buried deep.