by Thea Devine
She gathered the bundle of warm, pulsating cat fur into her arms. God, what would she ever have done without Emily?
Meuw. A tiny little protest, hardly enough to take note of. She needed this contact, she thought; Emily was the only one who could assure her that everything would be all right.
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Emily broke loose suddenly and jumped down on the floor.
Ooww.
Now what?
She sat on her haunches, facing the door. Ooowivw. Listen ...
What? What?
Oooowww. . .
Oh God, she knew that chilling howl. It meant come now.
I'm coming,
She jumped up, her heart pounding with fear. Lujan .. . ?
Emily ran out of the parlor. She followed cautiously, careful to make sure the hallway was clear.
Up the steps, no one coming . ., down the upper hallway, so suspiciously empty—her knees shaking, her hands boneless.
Owww. Emily sat right down in front of Hugo's door and looked at Jancie over her shoulder.
I can't.
Mrooww. You have to . ..
But Charlotte would be there. And it wouldn't take thirty seconds for her to reach for the bell pull and summon everyone else, and Lujan would surmise the worst reason why she had come.
Qoowwxv. You have to go in.
She knew it; she had a strong feeling of foreboding, heightened by the ghostly, rolling marble that had paralyzed her, and all the accusations leveled against her tonight.
And Emily was so adamant—what if that woman Charlotte weren't there?
Mrrroow—NOW. . .
She reached out her hand, tentatively grasping the doorknob as if it were burning hot. Turned it. Let herself into the crypt-cold room.
The cold empty room. Charlotte wasn't there.
But something else was: a pillow, over Hugo's face—
Dear God—no, no, NO . ..
Owwww. ..
"NOOOOOO . . ." She cried out, she screamed it in concert with Emily's mournful howl. She grabbed the pillow off his face, but even she, in her anguish, could see that Hugo was dead, his face blue, his body stone-cold.
Thundering footsteps, that she heard as if in the distance.
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moment later, Lujan and Kyger burst into the room, followed by March, Bingham, and Mrs. Ancrum.
And there she stood, by Hugo's bed, the pillow still in her hand, and tears streaming from her eyes.
Everyone stopped in shock. It was like a tableau, everyone poised in motion, no one knowing quite what to do.
And when she finally looked up at Lujan, she knew it was really the end of everything—there was just nothing else to be said.
Emily moved first, leaping up onto the bed and throwing herself, claws first, at Lujan.
Jancie reacted instinctively, throwing the pillow in Kyger's face, and wheeling toward the door made a mad dash out of the room, not even thinking she would get farther than the stairs.
She heard Lujan's voice shouting after her, heard March and Kyger arguing.
She turned toward a light flickering down the hallway, not thinking—just seeking safety anyplace where she could close a room and lock it.
—Olivia's room?
How could this be?
The door was ajar—lamplight flickered from within, a shadow moving on the walls. The ghost? Who stole the album and diamonds, who was stalking the family, and who watched her all the time?
She pushed open the door with icy cold hands.
"... Father. . . ? "
Chapter Twenty
He was searching the room. Things had been tossed on the bed, on the floor, he had rifled Olivia's desk, gone through her papers, the few books she had on a shelf, torn down the curtains, ripped apart her bed, and at the sound of Jancie's voice, he stopped, turned, and said, just as casually as if they had met on the street, "Hello, daughter. I got tired of waiting."
She was so shocked to see hirn, she couldn't move, couldn't speak. She hadn't seen him in years, and she was stunned at how he had aged—his features were sunken, his body was thin and slack, and he was slightly hunched over. If his face were not so familiar, she wasn't sure she would have recognized him at all.
Except for the eyes. The eyes were still there, hot, glittery, greedy with the lust to get what he wanted. His face was flushed as well, from his exertions, and he straightened slightly as he heard footsteps pounding down the hall.
"Hmph. The gathering of the clan."
"What—?" Her lips were stiff, her life was over—what was her father doing here, and in Olivia's room, of all places? Or had he gone to another room first?
Her heart stopped. Time stopped. Edmund's patience had n-
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nally worn thin. He had come to take his own revenge in the only way he knew how, and the diamonds be damned.
"What are—" her voice sounded rusty in her own ears, "you doing here?"
He shrugged. "Doing your job, daughter. Getting to the bottom of things, finally. You made me wait too long, I'm afraid. Had to take things into my own hands. Thought you might be too—preoccupied . . . Ah—the progeny . . . Lujan, I take it?"
Jancie shot Lujan a terrified look. He motioned for her not to speak.
"Edmund?"
"The one and same, my boy. So sorry about your father.”
"Are you?"
"Oh, absolutely. He was my dearest friend once upon a time. It was my greatest gift to help him find peace."
Shock reverberated through the room.
Edmund? On the premises, on the grounds, stalking Hugo, making more plans, plans that didn't include Jancie . . . plans to take over Waybury one murder at time?
Jancie felt sick. Edmund—how long had he been in England? In Hertfordshire?
"Well," Edmund said, "isn't this cozy? I'm meeting my son-in-law for the first time, and we're here in Olivia's place—Olivia, the love of my life—did you know, my boy? Oh, and is that Kyger behind you, there?"
It was March, actually, but he nodded yes at a signal from Lujan.
"You look nothing like him—or her. But—Hugo was ever one to sow wild oats. Now, me—I was always focused on one thing only—working the mines, making our fortune. But do you know what? The son of a bitch married Olivia before we even got on the ship. Married her, got sons with her, got us to Kaamberoo, got all those stones from the pipes, and then he tried to kill me ..," He trailed off for a moment, comprehending that this was as familiar a story to Lujan as it was to Jancie.
"Well, be that as it may, here I am, Hugo is dead, Jancie is Carried to you, and eventually all this will be mine. That was the Plan, that was my scheme—Jancie and I would take it back, bit
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by bit, piece by piece, and somewhere, in the process, find the fortune your father stole from me.
"So ... if you gentlemen will excuse me . . ."
He was deranged. Jancie saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. The waiting was over for Edmund. The moment he pressed that pillow down on Hugo's face, his reason had snapped, and everything he had done in innocence and revenge turned to murder and madness.
Jancie didn't know where to begin. Lujan kept motioning for her not to move. The silence in the room expanded and grew deafening. Edmund stood there, as if he were waiting for them all to leave so he could continue his search.
Time stopped. Edmund shrugged and turned to Olivia's armoire. Lujan took a step forward, which must have sounded like a gunshot to Edmund, because he whirled, a gun in his hand, and aimed it right at Lujan.
"My dear boy. You could have been my boy, you know? My poor deceased wife could only get a girl. She died in childbirth, you know. I hope Jancie produces sons—if not with you, with ... someone. Your brother, perhaps? Yes, I think so—since I'm about to kill you."
"Don't add this to the litany of sins you've committed," Lujan said. His voice was cool, calm, neutral. "It was you, wasn't it? At the
town house? Poisoning my food? Loosening the cinch? Spooking the horse?"
"Subtle, wasn't it? I really liked the symmetry of both you and Hugo dying by virtue of being thrown from your horses. But I never get what I want. I wanted my diamonds and I never got them. I know he had them. I know he hid them. I know he never could have spent all of them. Jancie?"
"I never found them," she said shakily, another lie.
"Hugo knows."
"No. His secrets died with him, Edmund, and you are the one who killed them."
Edmund let off a shot that blasted into the ceiling. "NO! No. That son of a bitch left me for dead. Do you think a man ever forgets that? So I left him for dead. An eye for an eye—finally- Jancie couldn't do it. A son would've done it. A son wouldn't have left me burning up in India all these years."
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He was crazy—absolutely crazy. How could she not have known? "Father—" Even though she knew it was no use.
"Useless. Making me wait all these years ..."
"Three years, Father."
"Nineteen years, daughter. From the day you were born, you
were meant to give me back my life. And what did you do? Frittered time away at that stupid boarding school, came here and played la-di-dah companion to Olivia, as if you were some kind of daughter to her, married the son of my enemy—fit right into the life at Waybury and couldn't find a place for me—couldn't find anything I wanted, I needed. Always excuses. Couldn't find anything here, there's nothing there . ., suggesting what?—maybe I was wrong, I imagined he tried to blow me up? I imagined the loss of memory, the loss of a fortune?
"No, my girl—you got too comfortable, too fast with these thieves, and the end result was what I should have done at the first—come here myself, wrested the truth from Hugo, and killed the lot of you. Which I will make up for now. Lujan first. .."
He lifted the gun. Lujan tried to rush him, but Edmund was prepared: he sidestepped Lujan's hurtling body, and grabbed Jancie and pulled her in front of him.
"Now we find out what a daughter is good for," Edmund said. He pressed the barrel of the gun against Jancie's neck. "There we go—that's a more docile Lujan. You—Kyger—" Speaking to March, who looked terrified. "Step in the room. You're next, you know. Then Jancie. Yes, my dear. Even you. Blood will not save you."
Time froze again as March edged his way into the room, his eyes on Lujan only. Tailing him came Emily, silent as fog, but only Jancie noticed her slipping in and curling around March's feet and into the shadows.
Everyone was focused on Edmund, on the gun, on the awful realization that Edmund was mad and perfectly willing to kill them all.
Except that Lujan was unnaturally calm, and—where was Kyger?
"Father—" she tried again, knowing it was futile. This had been a plan, too, a long-conceived plan he had carried out in stages, probably from the time she married Lujan. He'd gotten
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tired of waiting. He thought she had betrayed him, and been seduced by his enemies. "—I would have given this all up and come to India to be with you," she whispered brokenly.
"Who wanted you there? What else were you good for but that for which Lujan used you? Don't place so much importance on your role in this, Jancie. You won the golden ring. I hope you enjoyed these few months of your misbegotten marriage, when you totally forgot about me."
But she'd never forgotten about him. Everything she had done was motivated by him, by her desire to find justice for him.
She shot a desperate glance at Lujan. She hadn't told the whole truth about the diamonds, she thought. Maybe that—
But no, Lujan shook his head. One stone would not make up for all the lost years and his lost mind.
Jancie felt the gun barrel move to her head, felt her father's arm tighten around her midriff. Saw Lujan's stance shift slightly, saw March move subtly to one side, saw Emily out of the corner of her eye, felt that pulsating moment of portent just before something was about to happen.
She heard the ominous click by her ear, felt Edmund's unsa-tiated fury, saw Lujan incrementally move again, saw Emily crouched just by Lujan's feet, saw a shadow just outside the bedroom door, felt her mortality, her madness, her utter defeat...
And in that instant, several things happened simultaneously— Kyger crashed in through the window, Emily jumped, digging her claws into Edmund's leg, March fell on the floor, Lujan wrenched her away from Edmund, and a shot rang out from the doorway.
"You!" Edmund's last words as he fell, his eyes on the doorway, the smoking gun, and Bingham, paper-thin, disapproving, his unexpected angel of death.
******************
"God, what a mess," Lujan muttered. It was worse than that because he had so maligned Jancie, had been so suspicious or tier, could readily believe that she was a liar and a cheat because s was Edmund's daughter, the man in the background, the thre s the unseen menace, the danger to them all.
And what was he? The scheming son of his traitorous tat The only one whose hands were wholly clean was Kyger. He was a goddamned saint.
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And Kyger was in love with Jancie still.
And in spite of everything that had happened, so was he.
What?
He looked across the dining room table at Jancie. She look drawn, haggard; her face was paper white, her hands shaking still.
They were waiting for Kyger, who, with March, had taken on the task of removing Edmund's body from Olivia's room.
In love with Jancie .. . this was not the time to be ruminating on love and life. And certainly in his life, he never, ever allowed that word to intrude in his consciousness.
They had more important things to deal with, anyway. Where to bury Edmund, for one thing. Although it would be a just irony to inter him on the grounds of the house he had coveted for most of his life.
Maybe he'd rest easy then.
"Why did Father say that?" Jancie said suddenly. "As if he recognized Bingham?"
"Didn't you think Bingham was about the last person to be our family's avenger?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything."
He made a decision. "We'll bury him here, Jancie. Maybe he'll rest in peace."
Tears stung her eyes. "Thank you." And he'd banish her. Nothing could expiate her sins, not even her father dying for them.
"Jancie ..." His voice was low. "It's not your fault." He could forgive anything at this point. His stalker was dead, could threaten his family no more.
His family. Jancie.
"All right. I'd like to believe that. I'm not so certain that's so."
"We'll start over. We'll..."
Kyger burst into the room. "The deed is done. We laid him out in the tack room rather than in the house. It seemed right."
"That's fine. We'll bury him here."
"What!! Have you gone mad?"
"I don't know. It seems fitting somehow."
"Jesus. Fine. It's too late to start an argument with you. We should get some sleep."
All right. We'll figure out the rest in the morning. Jancie?"
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"I can sleep on the sofa," she said dully. She didn't know quite where she fit in now, the daughter of a man who was a murderer.
"Come upstairs with me," Lujan said. She was so obviously glazed wlith shock; she couldn't know what she was saying, or even what she thought. It was too much to take in tonight and no time to try to analyze what it was about.
Even he felt a little dazed by it all. "Come . . ." He held out his hand. "Come to bed."
It was a house of shadows that late at night. And of spirits and retribution. And still-unsolved mysteries.
Edmund was the key to some of them. But Edmund was dead now. Dead. She kept saying that to herself as Lujan made her lie down, clothed, and covered her over, and then settled himself in a chair to keep watch over her.
Edmund was gone, but had she ever had Edmund—a father— really? Or had she always been
this puppet, her strings pulled from thousands of miles away while she willingly believed in the innocence of her quest?
The questions were imponderable. Her culpability would drive her mad, and then there was no question but that Lujan would divorce her.
Cold comfort there, but a fitting ending to her betrayals and lies.
Edmund is dead.
Had she imagined the rest?
Somehow in the netherworld of sleep, she was back in Olivia's room, scrabbling under the bed. She could feel the stones in her hand, the warmth of Emily by her side, meuwing and scratching.
The album was under the bed just where she'd left it under the footboard. Good. She had them both now—the stones and the photographs. She could show everything to Lujan and then he would believe her, and they could start all over again.
She wriggled out from under the bed, and sat with her back against the footboard. She had to make sure the pictures were there. With her free hand, she opened the album. Yes, yes. All the photographs—eight, maybe in all. Just as she remembered. Baby Gaunt. One-year-old Gaunt. Older Gaunt, older brothers, younger Hugo, Gaunt streaked with dirt and clutching pebbles in his hand . . .
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And there it was—the crickling, marbley sound of something rolling down the hallway.
Awake or asleep—?
Rolling, rolling, in her consciousness forever, she would hear that hard marble sound of something rolling down the hallway.
Another one dropped, rolling. Stopped—no, that was real, what she was hearing—not a dream . ..
No, a dream . . .
She didn't know if she was awake or asleep, but that stone kept rolling in her head, in her brain, on the floor—in the room, maybe—
Or she was going mad. Maybe she had inherited the madness, and she would hear that marbley sound in her head forever . . .
No. She was awake. Distinctly awake, and she could hear the heavy tread of someone walking down the hallway.
At this hour of the night?
No—a dream. She swung out of bed, certain she was in the midst of a dream, and padded out into the hallway without her shoes.