by BETH KERY
“In part, yes.”
“So actually, your long history with Wes has little to do with you ever contacting him. You’re tolerating him because he fits into your plans to drive Madaster crazy with my presence. You’d even put up with one of Elizabeth’s ex-lovers, if it meant getting your revenge.”
“I know that you’re angry with me, Anna. But you’re wrong to think that I resent Wes’s affair with Elizabeth, to this day. I forgave him for it years ago. She made a fool of any number of men, including me. It’s hard to hold a grudge, when you understood what she could be like… the kind of power she could wield.”
That irritated me.
“Wes is having an affair with Valeria, you know,” I said dully.
“I suspected it. After seeing them together. Anna—”
“I need to get out of this sun. I have a headache,” I said, cutting him off.
He caught my hand as I started for the door that led to the kitchen. “Maybe I should take you to the doctor.” He seemed to read the alarm on my face. His forehead furrowed. “Because of your head,” he explained rapidly. “Because you hit your head, and now this headache—”
“It’s not from hitting my head. It’s a migraine. I don’t get them as often as I used to, but I definitely recognize one. Stress can trigger them.”
Stress also can trigger hallucinations and other forms of madness, can’t it?
I forced the vision of the woman in the red Ferrari out of my head with effort.
“Do you still want to leave today?” Evan asked me.
The feeling of his large, dry, warm hand enfolding mine distracted me, making it difficult to gather my thoughts. The truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted at that moment.
“I do. I think.”
He nodded. “I’d like to take you.” He noticed my frown. “I know you need time. I’m not going to crowd you. But let me take you away from here. You need time to think. To process. I realize how much I’ve hurt you. But please don’t send me away from you. I want to be there for you, to answer any questions you might have. To do whatever you need. I’ll do anything to make this right, Anna.”
I made the mistake of looking into his eyes. I sensed his honesty.
But I didn’t trust it.
The pain behind my right eye throbbed. I pressed my fingertips against it.
“I don’t know. Right now, I just need to be alone.”
“Of course. I left the aspirin on the bedside table. Lie down and get some rest.”
I distinctly felt the edges of the letter pressing against my thigh. I nodded and tugged on my hand, needing to get away from him at that moment.
But at the same time, I hated the feeling of my fingers sliding from his grasp.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Once I was in the safety of the bedroom suite we’d slept in last night, I left the curtains drawn. I hurriedly swallowed a couple aspirin, then went over to the seating area and turned a lamp onto its dimmest setting.
I looked first at the bold signature at the bottom of the second page.
Noah Madaster.
A surreal feeling went through me.
I thought of Wes’s report of Madaster’s recent heart attack. This script was not the writing of a frail man. Instead, the large, bold scrawl, screamed vitality and strength… along with something else. Blazing confidence. It reminded me of the sumptuous, unflinching writing in the detailed Madaster family history I’d discovered in the great room. That had been written by Theodore Madaster, Noah’s father. Could the appearance of handwriting be passed on through the genes? Could a confidence so great that it looked like self-righteousness and narcissism be coded in DNA?
My fingers felt chilled as I clutched the pages.
Anna,
My name is Noah Madaster. Knowing my one-time son-in-law as well as I do, I have no doubt that by this time, when you read my name, you will equate it with the devil himself: horns, hooves, pitchfork and all.
I have not had the pleasure yet of meeting you. But I get the impression from my observances that you are not a foolish woman. Nor are you an untalented one. Evan Halifax may try to paint me with his typical slashing, black and white strokes.
But I’ve seen your paintings. I was quite moved by them. I believe that you are more subtle and complex in your rendering of reality than your husband can ever fully comprehend.
I am aware of how Evan has wronged you, leading you to believe that he is in love with you, marrying you under false pretenses, and bringing you to this place in order to exact his revenge on me. I can’t begin to tell you how much this angers me on your part. I’m not sure how much of the truth he has told you at this point. But I can tell you this: Whatever he’s told you is not the truth in its entirety.
Evan has made a terrible misjudgment, Anna. One that even he, sitting in his self-erected throne of judgment, doesn’t understand.
I have seen the way you look at him, while you two were up at the overlook. I saw my daughter look at him in much the same way. I know, more than anyone, the effect Evan Halifax can have. He poisoned my Elizabeth against me. Sadly, I know he’s likely been doing the same to you. His web around you is thick, but I hope not impenetrable.
I realize that you must be in very much pain right now, learning what you have about your marriage. But I beg of you. Don’t leave Les Jumeaux without coming to see me, as soon as possible, in the South Twin. Come today, if possible.
You have only learned half of the truth, Anna. As an artist, you’re struggling to see the whole landscape. But Evan can’t give it to you. I can. I have discovered something that is of vital importance to both of us.
Come quickly.
Noah Madaster
I sat still for a stretched moment after finishing the letter, staring off into space. Who had told Noah that I’d found out I looked like Elizabeth Madaster? Wes via Valeria? The librarian, possibly? The librarian had seemed to know Elizabeth well. For all I knew, she also was an acquaintance of Noah’s as well, and had called him to tell her story about my visit at the library.
I didn’t trust Noah Madaster. I couldn’t trust much of anything associated with Evan and Les Jumeaux at that point. But my distrust of Madaster didn’t come from Evan. Not entirely, anyway. It came from the feeling of his gaze on me, when I’d been up at the overlook. It came from the vision of his bloody fist of rage.
(He’s dangerous. He’s a cancer. Never underestimate him. But you have to face him.)
It was my voice in my head… but it wasn’t. Some note in it was off, familiar and yet different, somehow. I didn’t have the energy to puzzle it out at that moment.
I got up and went over to the pile of clothing Evan had brought in for me. I secreted the letter between a couple T-shirts.
As an artist, you’re struggling to see the whole landscape. But Evan can’t give it to you. I can.
Evan had said that Madaster was subtle in his manipulations. I wasn’t kidding myself. I recognized the cleverness of his mentioning my art to convince me to his cause. Somehow, he’d intuited the exact language to sway me. Both Evan and he had targeted that vulnerability in me.
Ever since Evan had singled me out on that dating site, I’d felt as if my senses were only half operating. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite focus on the truth. Before yesterday, part of my refusal to see reality had been my own denial. Some psychological reflex had kicked in, willing me to see only the fantasy of my picture-perfect marriage to Evan versus reality.
But now the stage and the sets had been ripped down. The horror and pain of seeing the truth had happened right in front of my eyes. I wouldn’t flinch from that pain anymore. I wanted to see the entire picture.
No matter how ugly that portrait was.
When I opened the bedroom door, I did so silently. I crept down the hallway, wincing at the slightest squeak on the
wood floors.
Evan would go ballistic if he knew I planned to visit South Twin.
I don’t know what I expected when I lifted the heavy wrought iron knocker on the South Twin’s front door. But it wasn’t that Lorraine Madaster would be the one to respond. It seemed strange, to see her within the confines of a house.
She looked afraid when she saw me standing there, her filmy blue eyes sprung wide.
“It’s okay, Lorraine. It’s just me, Anna. From next door.”
“You should go.” Her voice sounded hoarse, like she didn’t use it much.
I started when she reached and pushed me back on the shoulders—hard. I lost my balance.
A shout that was almost a roar emanated from above us. I regained my footing only to see Lorraine freeze in the process of shutting the door in my face.
“Let her in, you imbecile. Don’t you dare touch her again!”
Lorraine now looked terrified. Regret swamped me. I rushed forward and touched her upper arm, stroking her to try and soothe her.
“It’s okay, Lorraine,” I whispered. “Please don’t be afraid. I just came over for a quick chat with him.”
“I was weak. I’m sorry.” Her ragged, broken whisper was unlike anything I’d heard from her while she rambled about in the outside world, wild and a little fierce. In here—in the South Twin—she was cowering and helpless. A prisoner. A feeling of profound sadness went through me. I knew instinctively she was seeing Elizabeth when she looked at me.
I squeezed her shoulder softly, my pity amplifying at the realization of how bony and thin she was. I needed to do a lot better than a sandwich a day.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing.” The desolation on her face didn’t ease.
“I understand,” I said gently. “I understand how difficult it was for you. I’m safe now. You don’t have to worry anymore. And… ” I swallowed thickly in the midst of my dissembling. “I forgive you.”
Part of me was stunned that I said it. But then I saw relief break over her thin, ravaged face, and I knew why I had.
Lorraine had known, deep down, what Noah Madaster was doing to their only child. She’d believed she’d been powerless to stop it. And so she’d consigned herself to waking up to a fresh hell every day of her life. I understood in that moment that Lorraine’s madness was an escape from Madaster. But it was an escape from the monumental guilt of a mother who could not—or would not—protect her child, as well. I cringed inwardly, recognizing the pit of pain and despair inside her.
Inside this house.
In the distance, I heard the sound of someone descending the stairs rapidly. I looked behind Lorraine, and peered for the first time into the South Twin.
It was darker here than in the North Twin. Heavy drapery covered every window that I could see. It was laid out differently, as well. The first thing that I saw was an impressive mahogany grand staircase almost immediately outside of the entry foyer. It wasn’t Y-shaped like the one in the North Twin.
This one went straight up.
Straight down.
The staircase was so steep, I couldn’t see the top of it. But surely that’s where the shout—Noah’s shout—had come from. I pictured him sitting impatiently at the top of the stairs in his wheelchair, the shadows clinging around him.
It was Noah’s nurse who currently descended the steep steps. She stopped around halfway down the stairs, a frown plastered on her face. She beckoned to me. I gave Lorraine another stroke of reassurance and started to move past her. Lorraine grabbed my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong.
“Be careful on the stairs. They’re more dangerous than a knife,” Lorraine whispered heatedly. And then I saw it: a knowing, malicious gleam in her rheumy eyes. I started. Seeing the blank surprise on my face, Lorraine gave a small nod, affirming the flash of truth I’d seen.
Lorraine Madaster wasn’t the helpless pawn I’d imagined. It played out in my mind’s eye like a film clip: the frail, forgotten woman with a lifetime of regret, loss, and hatred boiling inside her. She creeps up behind Noah Madaster.
(Not so weak in that moment, was I?)
I started. It’d been like Lorraine had said the words, but her mouth hadn’t moved.
Madaster had been talking on the phone in that loud, firm, superior tone, oblivious to everything but whatever he was demanding of the person on the other end of the connection.
She hated the sound of his smug, authoritative voice. Years of suppressed rage exploded to the surface.
A mighty push.
And the all-powerful Noah Madaster was falling and falling, his body breaking before her gleeful gaze.
I blinked, cutting off the imagined film clip.
Only it wasn’t my imagination. I knew that, somehow, as I stared down at Lorraine’s flushed face. Noah’s fall had been no accident. Lorraine had been the one responsible for Noah Madaster’s spinal cord injury.
Just like Evan, she’d wanted revenge. And she’d gotten some measure of it. But he’d lived. Why hadn’t Madaster punished her for pushing him?
“He doesn’t know,” Lorraine whispered as though she’d read my mind. She pointed to her temple, her face full of madness. “His head got broken a little on those stairs, too. Not as much as his back. But enough to make him forget.”
“Miss. If you just walk away from her, she’ll leave you alone.”
I threw a frown over my shoulder, fuming. That Nurse-Bitch had made Lorraine sound like an annoying dog.
I gave Lorraine another shoulder-squeeze. “I’ll be okay,” I said softly.
I felt her grip fall off my wrist. Steeling myself, I walked toward the stairs.
I passed the nurse, not even sparing her a glance. All my attention was focused like an arrow on the presence I sensed at the top of the stairs. As I neared him, nausea flared in my stomach. It was very dark, and I couldn’t quite make him out in the shadows.
Keep back, I ordered that encroaching panic angrily. I won’t let him see me afraid.
I stopped ten feet from the top of the stairs.
“Turn on I light, or I’m not coming up any farther,” I said.
There was a pause, in which I thought I heard his breathing above me. There was a rasp to it, as if there was liquid in his lungs. But his voice had been strong and hard earlier when I’d heard him shout down the stairs at his wife.
“Turn on the light, Ima. She’s not used to this dark old house the way we are.”
I felt Ima rumbling heavily up the stairs behind me, her disapproval wafting past me. A moment later, a light illuminated the landing on the second floor. It was an old, elaborate wrought iron chandelier, I saw. My gaze zoomed to Noah Madaster.
His wheelchair looked too small for him. Not to small for him, I realized. Too small to hold him.
Noah Madaster was an intimidating giant of a man, I recalled Evan saying. That hadn’t changed, spinal cord injury or not. He was tall and thin, but far from frail. He must have been very muscular, once. Now he’d faded to a kind of wiriness.
Electric wiriness.
The thought popped into my brain as I met his blue-eyed stare. An idea came to me that he’d been manically powerful in his youth, his electric personality finding focused outlets in multiple directions. When his injury had stilled him, he’d somehow channeled that feverish, frightening energy inward.
Now he seethed with it.
His hair was a thick, blondish-gray mane, a shocking reminder of his former virility. Light colored whiskers dusted his chin, jaw, and upper lip. His face… I found myself compelled by it. Repulsed by it. I didn’t know which. It was like a skeleton with a wax covering, only his eyes glaring furious, electric life. The only other feature that wasn’t bone-like on his face was his lips, which were surprisingly full.
I realized a silence had descended as we inspected each other.
&
nbsp; He grunted, as though passingly satisfied with what he saw.
“Follow me,” he said. His hand moved on a control on the arm of his chair. He whizzed backward, and then forward down the hallway. I realized the hand he used to power the wheelchair was bandaged. It was the fist he’d used to punch through the window.
Noah led the way, his nurse following, and me trailing along in the back.
(This is how it always is with him. He must take the lead in all things. Subordinates must fall behind.
Only a Madaster can lead. That’s his mantra.)
I’d given up even questioning where my thoughts came from. I would marginally accept them until they proved wrong.
Madaster paused outside two curving metal doors. He punched a button, and the doors slid open to reveal an elevator.
A very small elevator.
Madaster adroitly backed himself in, and Ima followed. I just stood in the hallway while they both stared out at me. I can’t get in there, I thought. It’s too small, and I’ll be too near him.
I’ll suffocate.
I felt a pressure tightening around my throat. I opened my mouth to tell them to send the elevator back down after they’d gone upstairs, when I saw the little smile on Madaster’s fleshy lips.
He knew what I was about to say. He saw my fear.
I walked into the small, circular elevator, holding his stare. I think I held my breath for the entire ride upward. When the car came to a halt with a slight jarring sensation, he made a deep, raspy sound in his throat.
I realized he was chuckling at my show of defiance.
The door opened. I backed out of the elevator so fast that I ran into the wall in the hallway. The jolt popped the held air out of my lungs. Madaster got off, Ima following him. I once again brought up the rear in our bizarre little parade through the dark hallways of the South Twin.
“Bring us something to drink, Ima,” Madaster ordered when we crossed the corridor into a large, circular room. It was blindingly bright after the darkness. I saw banks of windows that looked out onto the brilliantly blue lake and mountains in the distance. One of them was blacked out with the cardboard they’d inserted into it after Madaster had punched through the glass.