Finally, pulling with all my strength, I yanked the bloodied nail free. Which brought another howl of pain from Noah, as I let it fall to the roof’s surface. His weakened left arm instantly dropped, dangling uselessly at his side.
Repeating the same agonizing steps, I used the shaft of wood to work the nail out from his other hand. Though by then Noah’s only response was a choked whimper. His freed right arm flopping against his side.
Gasping, I tossed the broken piece of wood to the roof, even as Noah began to fall forward. I reached for him.
Wrapping my own arms around his barrel chest, I gently lowered him to the roof’s wet surface. Lay his head back against the wall, down which blood and rain drizzled in rivulets.
“Help’s coming, Noah. Stay with me, okay?”
But his head fell forward again, chin resting on his chest. He was unconscious.
Hands open, bleeding freely, profusely.
Quickly I snatched the cell from my pocket.
“Lyle! Gloria! Now! The roof. You’ll find Noah—”
Those were the last words I remember saying. Suddenly I was aware of a rush of footsteps splashing behind me, and then felt a searing pain at the back of my head.
And then I felt nothing at all.
Chapter Forty
I only knew one thing.
As my eyes became accustomed to the dim, green-tinged light, I realized I was in some kind of cage.
Coming to, I’d found myself lying on my back on something cold and hard. Though my head ached from where Maddox had struck me, I managed to pull myself up to a sitting position, my hand rubbing the raised bump at the back of my skull.
Forcing myself to breathe deeply and slowly, I struggled to understand where I was. The answers came quickly.
I was sitting on the concrete floor of something big and rectangular, a cavernous expanse with smooth walls lit by enclosed globes embedded at regular intervals. It was a swimming pool. The unused, emptied indoor Olympic-sized pool that had been one of the storied features of this turn-of-the-century mansion. It was in a high-ceilinged, below-ground structure whose length and breadth spanned the entire dimensions of the great house above.
When, years later, the building was converted to a private psychiatric clinic, the administration at Ten Oaks maintained the swimming pool to provide exercise for its patients—until one resident, despite being supervised by a staff counselor at the time, managed to drown himself. The pool was immediately drained, and stayed that way ever since.
By now, my head had cleared enough for me to risk standing, though I was a bit wobbly at first. To maintain my balance, I instinctively grabbed for the wooden sticks that made up the walls of my cage. Smooth, rounded sticks with knobs at their ends, the whole cage reinforced by thick wire mesh with which they were interwoven.
Gripping the bars of my cage with both hands, I swiveled my head around, anxious to get my bearings before Maddox appeared. As I knew he would.
The cage was about six feet by six, enclosing me on all sides except the floor. It had been placed in the far end of the pool, where it gently sloped so that, when filled, it would be the deepest part. Long-empty, the pool was dry and cracked, a huge rectangular space that dwarfed the size of my cage. And made me wonder—
Suddenly, something about the way the rounded sticks felt in my hands made me release my grip. Their smoothness, the pale whiteness, the knobby ends encircled and held by wire mesh…
The cage wasn’t formed by wood. These were…bones.
Human bones.
I staggered back, mouth opened in horror.
Because I knew. I finally understood.
Based on what Maddox had called himself. How he’d referred to himself as an “excitable boy.” Like the title of the song by Warren Zevon. A song about a disturbed teenager who rapes and kills his prom date. And then, after he’s released from a psychiatric facility, he—
The last lyric flickered in my mind.
“He dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones…”
That’s what Maddox had done. Now I knew what had happened to Barbara’s remains. Those he’d stolen from her grave at Bassmore and replaced with a manikin.
He’d built this cage out of her bones.
Stunned, I stared down at my hands, which moments before had gripped her bones like a prisoner grasping the bars of his cell.
Which is what Maddox had done to me. He’d made me a prisoner in a cell formed by my late wife’s exhumed bones. Stripped of whatever flesh had remained, rubbed clean and smooth. Her literal skeleton encasing me.
The horror of it flooded through me, and I doubled over. Bent, heaving, as though to vomit. Tasting the bile in my mouth.
I retched. Cried out. A choked, anguished cry.
I couldn’t stand it, couldn’t allow it to be true…
But it was. And suddenly the whole world seemed to be tilting on its axis. Spinning. A black, unending vortex, into which I felt myself falling…
My legs gave out from under me and I fell to my knees. My head in my hands, I began to slowly rock. Lips moving, but with no words coming forth. Just a low, sibilant moan.
An acid-like, skin-peeling pain enveloped me. Tears streamed from my eyes. At the same time, a pulsating, convulsive shudder tore through me.
I felt like I was coming apart.
Then, from the deepest part of me, I gave voice to a different, terrible, full-throated cry. An angry howl.
Of resolve. Of defiance.
No…! This is what he wants. To break you…
Gasping, spittle dripping from my lips, limbs quivering, I shook off the nausea. Flattened my palms against the concrete floor. Began pushing myself up to my feet. Slowly, falteringly, as if under a great weight.
Until, finally, I rose. Legs wobbling beneath me.
And saw, standing not a dozen feet away from me on the swimming pool’s floor, Sebastian Maddox.
He was still in the black hoodie and jeans, though with the cowl thrown back. His shaved head gleamed under the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling far above us. His eyes aglow.
Maddox took a few steps closer, raising his hands. In one, he held a canister of gasoline. Both its label and the pungent smell proclaimed what is was.
In his other hand was a small canvas bag, containing something whose shape was like that of a bowling ball.
He held it up toward me. Smiling.
“You know what this is, don’t you, Danny?”
I nodded. I wouldn’t say the words.
“But don’t worry, you’ll get to hold it soon. Lovingly, in sad remembrance. Like Hamlet with Yorick. In fact, I was going to leave it in the cage for you to find, but then I had a better idea. I’ll just toss it in with you at the end.” He shrugged. “What can I do? I’m a sucker for the dramatic gesture.”
Still smiling, he lowered the bag to the floor. Then he began unscrewing the cap on the gasoline canister.
“By the way,” he said casually, “in case you’re wondering, your friend Noah is still up on the roof. His hands look pretty bad, but I don’t think he’ll bleed out. Not until I get back up there and help finish the job. I’m thinking maybe I’ll stab him in his side. Like that Roman guard did to Christ with his lance. I think Noah’d like that, don’t you? Kind of completes the whole crucifixion thing.”
I did my best to hide my reaction. Meanwhile, my mind raced. Did Barnes and Gloria even receive my last message to them? To get to the roof and find Noah? All I could do now was hope that they had, and that they were at this very moment coming to his aid.
“Luckily for you,” Maddox went on, oblivious, “Noah’s unconscious, so he doesn’t know that it was you who spoiled the fulfillment of his life’s desire. If it wasn’t for you, he’d have died like he’d wanted. Alone and reviled for his sins. A fitting end that you took away fro
m him.”
Maddox started walking backwards, one measured step at a time, pouring the gasoline in a thin stream from the canister, making a zig-zag pattern on the concrete floor.
I stealthily reached into my pocket for my cell.
It was gone.
Maddox stopped what he was doing long enough to give me a knowing smirk.
“Oh, come on. I took your cell from you when you were out cold. And your flashlight. In case you were thinking of throwing it at me. You know, I’m still pretty pissed about that steak knife you threw in your kitchen. Not to mention how you spoiled my chance to get rid of both the old man and the girl.”
He went back to spreading the gasoline.
“I suppose I’ll get around to them later. Leaving things undone is a sure sign of laziness, and I pride myself on being steadfast when it comes to task-completion.”
Maddox shook the last of the gasoline from the canister. After watching the shining liquid swirl and undulate like a living thing on the concrete, he gazed back at me.
“I’ve waited a long time for this moment, Danny boy. But unlike poor Noah, I am getting to fulfill my heart’s desire. To see you die in a cage of Barbara’s bones. To see you both consumed forever in a lake of fire.”
The phrase brought a flicker of recognition to my mind. He must have seen that reflected in my face.
He put down the empty can and folded his arms.
“Well, maybe you’re not the cretin I supposed,” he said. “Seems you’ve heard of the lake of fire. Spoken of by Plato in his Phaedo. In reference to Tartarus, where the souls of the wicked are tormented for eternity.”
I took a step forward, my face close to the sides of the cage, my own eyes returning Maddox’s unwavering stare. While a single thought burned in my mind.
If Barnes and Gloria had arrived, and were in the building, there was still a chance for my plan to work. But only if Gloria had managed to find the Clinic Director’s office.
For the first time since Maddox had appeared, I spoke.
“So I’m supposed to die in a lake of fire? Here, in a goddam swimming pool?”
“A classic end, don’t you think, Danny? Enveloped in flames in your own private hell, in the basement of the building where you and Noah Frye first met. Another circle completed.”
“Yeah, I get it, Maddox. Symmetry. But that’s only if I stay cooped up in here.”
I abruptly backed up, about to kick out at the bones and wire mesh. To break out of my cage.
Until the gun in Maddox’s hand stopped me. An automatic.
“You’re not going anywhere, Danny. Of course, I’d much rather see you burned alive, screaming in agony, but I’ll settle for shooting you and watching your corpse go up in smoke.”
He kept the gun aimed at my chest. “It’s your torment I want. But it’s your death that I need.”
It was then that I knew I had to risk it. I couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
“You got what you wanted, Maddox.” My voice low, measured. “The truth is, I’ve been in torment since this whole thing started. But the worst torment was to come.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Barbara’s private journal. One she’d been keeping in the last years of our marriage. When things were falling apart between us.”
“A journal?”
I nodded. “Before having to leave my house, I went through all her things. Hoping I’d find something that might help me. That’s when I came upon the journal. I never even knew that she’d been keeping one.”
“Vaguely interesting. But so what?”
“I read it last night, and it devastated me. Because it was all about you.”
He started. “Me?”
“Yes, Maddox. You. It—”
Suddenly, it came. Through the clinic’s extensive P.A. system. Gloria’s strong, clear voice, from the wall speakers.
“Oh, God, what a mistake I’ve made,” she said, the words echoing off the tiled walls of the underground enclosure. “What a terrible, terrible mistake.”
Maddox squinted at me in confusion.
“Isn’t that—?”
“Yes,” I said firmly. “It’s Gloria Reese. I gave her the journal. Told her to read it.”
“Why, for Christ’s sake?” His own voice rising.
“Because I don’t want to be the only one in torment, you son of a bitch. I don’t want to be the only one suffering.”
His face was twisted by sheer incomprehension. Meanwhile, Gloria’s words droned on, filling the concrete expanse as though a voice from the grave.
“I never should have married Danny. It was Sebastian, all along. Right from the beginning. I loved him as much as he loved me, but I was too blind to see it. Too foolish to know my own heart.”
Maddox blinked furiously. “Wait a minute, this isn’t real. It’s some kind of—”
“When I think of the things I said to him, I’m filled with shame. Yelling at him on the street. Calling him ‘Mad Maddox’ in the school cafeteria. All those spiteful, hurtful things I said. And all he wanted was to declare his love for me.”
I called to Maddox from within my cage.
“It’s no trick, Sebastian. It’s her journal, all right. How would I know she called you ‘Mad Maddox’?”
“She…she might’ve told you…” His voice quavering.
“You know that she didn’t. Remember, I didn’t even know you existed until a week ago, when you showed me the video of you and Joy Steadman. Barbara never once mentioned you when we were together. But now, thanks to this goddam journal—”
“Shut up!!” Maddox had lowered the gun, his head tilted up. Listening to Gloria’s slowly rising voice, the bristling of emotion threading through it.
“Sebastian was everything a woman could want. Handsome, strong, brilliant. And he could have been mine. What a stupid, unthinking bitch I was! How I’ve ruined my life!”
“It’s her…” Maddox’s own voice had softened to a harsh whisper. “It’s…I can hear her in the words…”
“Instead, I’m married to Danny. My father was so right about him. How unsuited he is for marriage. Stubborn, self-absorbed. Arrogant. That’s the irony. Against my father’s wishes, I married a man who’s exactly like him! And it’s a living hell.”
Maddox raced up to the cage, eyes ablaze as he smiled at me. Sweat glistening on his forehead.
“See, Rinaldi? She hated you! She finally realized she never should have been with you, when she could’ve been with me. She did love me. Me, not you!”
“But everything’s going to be all right. The way it should have been. I checked, and Sebastian’s being released from Buckville in three weeks. I just have to last three more weeks with Danny, until my true love—my real, true love—gets out of prison. Then I can divorce Danny and run back to Sebastian. If he’ll even take me back, if he doesn’t hate the sight of me. Oh, God, please let him still love me! Like I love him. Then, at last, we can be together. The way it should’ve been. The way it will be. I know it. I love him! I love him so much—”
Suddenly, her voice fell silent. A silence so stunning and total that it seemed to reverberate off the walls.
I stared at Maddox’s wide, crazed eyes through the cage separating us.
“That’s it,” I said coolly. “The end of the journal.”
“But you heard her.” A pained, horrified grin. “She loves me! She wants to be with me! You know what this means?”
“Yeah. It means you killed the only woman who loved you.”
Grin vanishing, his brow screwed up in agony, eyes burning with intolerable pain at the realization of what he’d done.
As I’d hoped. Instead of challenging Maddox’s delusion that Barbara had loved him, I’d used what he thought were her own words to confirm it. To h
ammer into his brain, like the nails he’d driven into Noah, the awful consequences of his actions.
Now I gazed mercilessly at that shattered face, a rictus of mad grief. Each of my words a punishing blow.
“Her murder, Maddox. And everything you’ve done since then. All a mistake. A horrible mistake. Because she loved you and you killed her. Ending the life you two could have had together.”
He stepped back, mouth working, soundless lips trembling.
“With the woman whose head is in that bag at your feet…”
As though in a trance, he peered down at the canvas bag on the concrete floor, encircled by eddies of gasoline. The smell of the liquid now permeating the whole room.
The gun dropped from his grasp.
“No…I…Oh, God, oh no! I…”
He staggered back another few feet, hands clasping the top of his head. As though to keep it from exploding.
That was my chance. I reared back and kicked at the wire mesh. Once, twice. The gate swung open, bits of bone and twisted wire hanging loose from the mesh.
Barbara’s bones…
Another wave of nausea convulsed me, as the image seared itself into my brain. Piercing, penetrating. Shattering.
But I fought against it. Pushed it down. To be replaced by an anguished, inchoate rage.
In two strides I was on Maddox, and we collapsed, fiercely grappling each other, to the wet floor. Gasping, I tried to pin him down. But he was as strong as he looked, and managed to push me off. As I fell back, barely staying on my feet, he rushed me, raising his fist.
It was a clumsy blow, but a powerful one, and it sent me reeling. Then he backstepped, hunkering low, eyes filled with a hatred I’d never witnessed before.
I saw something else, too. For Sebastian Maddox, there was nothing to lose now. No turning back.
Head Wounds Page 31