And he’d glanced up to see the kid’s face pressed against the window of the drawing room as he stood on the porch, peering in.
The horror in those eyes as they took in Stephen and the bloodied body of Sandy Cavelli was clear even through the rain-spattered glass.
He’d leapt into action, dashing for the door and collaring the kid as he tried to get away. If the intruder hadn’t been so shaken by what he’d just seen, Stephen had no doubt that he would have escaped. After all, he had an athletic build and he was strong. But as it was, his shock and fear had undoubtedly slowed him down and it took little effort for Stephen to restrain him long enough to pull out the knife he’d used to kill Sandy.
As soon as the kid saw the blade, he’d started begging for his life.
Stephen had only debated for a brief moment before realizing what he had to do. The kid had seen too much. There was no way he was going to let him go now.
So he’d done it swiftly and effortlessly, slashing the jugular in the kid’s strong young neck and feeling warm, sticky blood gush over his just-washed hands.
He’d wondered, as he dragged the kid’s body into the first-floor closet under the stairs, who he was and why he was here. Not that it mattered, really.
He’d gone back to the drawing room for Sandy, hurriedly dragging her, too, into the closet, dumping her heavy body on top of the other one. He had a lot of cleaning up to do after that, and it had taken him well over an hour to wash the blood carefully away from the front porch and hardwood foyer and drawing room floors. He’d congratulated himself for not getting any blood on the white satin runner, at least. That, he would need again . . . for Liza, and then for Laura.
With a contented sigh, he closes the wedding album and stands. The night isn’t getting any younger, and he’s been looking forward to paying Liza a visit.
Stealthily, he moves across the attic floor to the steps. Then, pocketing the ring containing the special keys to the doors of the guest rooms, he slips down the stairs.
Jennie is running through the deserted shopping mall again, desperately trying to get away, when all of a sudden a freight train slams into the side of the building.
She cries out as everything shudders around her, flinching and waiting for the inevitable. . . .
Then, suddenly, she’s awake, staring into her pitch-black room at the Bramble Rose Inn.
It was just the same old nightmare, she realizes, sitting up and turning on the light on the bedside table.
But the noise of the freight train was real—apparently caused by a sudden blast of wind off the ocean. It continues to batter the old house now, rattling the windows and howling like a mournful ghost.
Still trembling and breathless from her dream, Jennie swings her feet over the edge of the bed and gets up to go to the bathroom for a drink of water. After pulling on her robe, she pads across the chilly floor in her bare feet and reaches for the doorknob.
It’s stuck again, she realizes as she tugs on it.
She remembers what Jasper said about the old wood swelling in damp weather and pulls more forcefully. It refuses to budge.
Then, feeling an edge of panic rising within her, Jennie puts both hands on the knob and tries, with all her might, to open the door.
It’s not stuck, she realizes with a stab of fear. It’s locked . . . from the other side!
“Help!” she screams spontaneously, hoping to wake Liza, whose room is just down the hall. She bangs on the door. “Help! Someone get me out of here!”
Then she realizes that whoever locked the door is possibly nearby and the last thing she should be doing is attracting attention.
She clamps her mouth shut and backs away from the door, her heart pounding furiously as she hears footsteps pounding up the stairs and down the hall toward her room.
There’s a long pause, and then Jasper Hammel’s voice reaches her ears above the incessant sound of the wind. “Laura . . . Miss Towne, it’s me. Are you all right?”
“I’m locked in,” she says in a small voice, shrinking into the shadows at the far end of the room and staring at the door.
“I know, I’m sorry, I . . .” There’s a jangling noise, and then the sound of the locks clicking. The door swings open, and Jasper is standing there, wearing a pair of striped blue-cotton pajamas.
“I must have locked it by accident,” he says, stepping into Jennie’s room, wearing an apologetic expression. In his hand is an oversized key ring. “I was, uh, cleaning in the empty guest rooms earlier, and I somehow must have locked yours instead of one of those.”
Jennie only stares uneasily at him for a moment, then nods. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all right.”
“I’m so sorry,” Jasper says again, sliding the ring over his wrist and rubbing his hands nervously. “You must have been so startled . . .”
“It’s all right,” she says again. “Really.”
With a final apology, he steps back out into the hall and shuts the door behind him.
Jennie waits until she’s heard his footsteps retreat back down the stairs to the first floor. Then she goes over and locks the inside bolt again . . . unsettled by the thought that it doesn’t matter—not really.
Jasper, of course, can unlock it any time he feels like it. He just did.
And as for what he said about mistaking her room for one of the empty guest rooms . . .
She’s well aware that the doors to the empty rooms are kept open and unlocked. Isn’t that what Liza told her earlier?
Liza.
Strange that she didn’t hear Jennie screaming.
Biting her lip, Jennie unlocks her door again and slips quietly out into the dark hallway. It’s deserted, and she knows Jasper is back downstairs because she heard him go, but she still can’t get past the strange but distinct feeling that someone is lurking nearby.
Don’t be paranoid, she commands herself. Who on earth would be doing a thing like that? And why?
But as much as she knows it doesn’t make sense, she can’t seem to shake her anxiety.
Wrapping her robe more tightly around herself, she hurries to Liza’s door and knocks quietly. When there’s no response, she knocks again, calling, “Liza?” in a hushed voice.
No reply.
She hesitates there, considering knocking or speaking more loudly. But that might bring Jasper Hammel up the stairs again.
Shaking her head she tells herself that Liza is probably just a deep sleeper, like Laura. Her twin sleeps through blasting alarm clocks, ringing telephones and doorbells, everything.
And anyway, there’s the noise of the storm, Jennie remembers, as she becomes aware, once again, of the pounding rain and ceaseless wind howling outside the old inn. It probably drowned out the sound of her screams earlier, and the knocking now.
Slowly, Jennie retreats down the hall to her room and locks her door again. Then, feeling slightly ridiculous, she quietly pulls a straight-backed chair from the desk across the floor and wedges it under the doorknob.
Trembling, Jennie stares at it for a moment, wondering what she’s trying to protect herself from. The only person who might ever want to hurt her is dead.
But you’re not supposed to be Jennie right now. . . . You’re supposed to be Laura.
And who knows how many enemies flighty, irresponsible Laura has made?
Trying not to think about the most obvious one—her sister’s ex-husband, Brian—Jennie goes back over to the bed. She slips beneath the blankets again, leaning her back against the headboard. Bringing her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms tightly around them and stares at the lilac-patterned wallpaper, vowing not to let herself fall asleep again tonight.
Stephen is trapped in Liza’s room, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
He stands with his back flat against the closed door, listening for another sound from the hallway. A few moments before, he heard Laura Towne go back to her room and close the door, but he can’t help thinking it was a close call.
What if h
er knocking had woken Liza?
Not likely, thanks to the Seconal, but there’s always a chance. . . .
Stephen presses his fingertips against his throbbing temples and tries to calm himself, glancing toward the bed for reassurance that his sleeping beauty is still sleeping.
Even in the darkness, he can see the blond hair on the pillow, the pale, creamy skin of her bare arms against the eyelet bedspread.
He had barely been in her room for a few minutes when that Towne woman had started screaming for help. Stricken, he’d realized that she’d found herself locked in.
Thank heaven for Jasper, who had come rushing up the stairs just as Stephen opened Liza’s door and peered out into the hall. He’d wordlessly handed the key ring to Jasper, who had nodded his understanding and hurried toward Laura’s room, which had grown curiously silent.
There was nothing for Stephen to do but close Liza’s door again and wait as Jasper went to Laura’s aid. He’d listened with relief as he’d heard Jasper’s spur-of-the-moment explanation, followed by his retreat back to the first floor.
Then, just as Stephen was about to give up on Liza for tonight and slip out of her room, he’d heard Laura’s door open, and then her knocking and whispering.
Clearly, the woman is suspicious . . . or, at the very least, concerned enough to want to discuss it with the other guest.
You should just get it over with, Stephen tells himself, clenching his fists and setting his jaw grimly. It’s getting too dangerous.
But then he turns to look again at Liza on the bed. And he exhales raggedly, struck by how innocent and unsuspecting she looks as she sleeps just a few feet from her worst enemy.
He makes up his mind. This isn’t something to be done in a rush. It’s something that needs to be savored.
He’ll stick with the plan.
Sighing softly in pleasure, Stephen stealthily moves across the floor to stand beside Liza’s bed, reaching with one hand for the edge of the eyelet bedspread, and with the other for the already taut fly of his trousers.
Keegan wakes from a nightmare in a cold sweat and looks around disoriented.
He realizes that he’s on the living room couch, sprawled in an uncomfortable position, still holding the television remote control in his hand. The last thing he remembers is thinking about Jennie and wishing Laura would call him back, but knowing that if she hadn’t yet, she probably wouldn’t until tomorrow.
Keegan sits up and rubs his eyes, then glances at the television, where a real estate infomercial is blaring away at ear-shattering volume. He points the remote control at it, hits the power button, and zaps the screen into dark silence.
There.
Now, at least, he can think.
Jennie . . .
In his dream, he had been struggling to reach her as she screamed for help, balancing precariously on a narrow raft in the middle of the storm-tossed ocean.
Hold on, Jennie, he kept calling to her. I’m coming. I’ll get you. Just hold on!
The dream was so incredibly real that Keegan can still hear the roar of the waves—and Jennie’s piercing screams.
“Dammit, Jen,” he says aloud into the empty room. “Where the hell are you? Why do I have this feeling that you’re not okay?”
Keegan checks his watch. Just past three A.M. He debates for a moment, then reaches for the phone. If Laura’s pissed that he’s calling her at this hour, he’ll be pissed right back at her for not calling him the moment she got home.
And if she’s still not home . . .
Well, he’ll have to figure out what to do next. Because he definitely has to do something.
After dialing the familiar number, Keegan listens to the phone ringing and then, just as he’d anticipated, the answering machine picking up again.
“Damn,” he says, and slams down the receiver.
For a few minutes, he sits there, staring off into space and trying to figure out what to do.
Then, his mind made up, he stands abruptly and heads for the bathroom to take a quick shower before setting out.
In his first-floor bedroom, Jasper rolls over noisily on the narrow, lumpy mattress and punches the pillow beneath his head.
He wonders what Stephen is doing upstairs in Liza’s room.
No, you don’t wonder. You know. He’s looking at her, probably touching her . . .
Jealousy bubbles up inside of Jasper as he squeezes his eyes shut against the image of Stephen with a woman . . . Stephen with someone else.
Oh, Jasper’s no fool. He knows Stephen has been with women since he came along. And even though he believes Stephen when he promises that they mean nothing . . .
He’s still troubled by the knowledge and haunted by unbidden images that fill his thoughts, especially at night.
At least now, Jasper tells himself, Stephen is taking steps to rid himself of those women for good.
He still remembers his own excitement when Stephen had first revealed his plan nearly a year ago. It seemed too good to be true . . . just like what had happened to Lorraine.
Jasper thinks back to that horrible February day—Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it?—when Stephen was all set to marry Lorraine. He’d actually asked Jasper to be his best man, promising him, secretly, that things between them wouldn’t change.
I just need a wife to keep up appearances, he’d told Jasper. You know, for the sake of the business. You understand how it is.
Jasper had acted like he did, because he didn’t want to disappoint Stephen. He didn’t see any point in reminding Stephen that he, Jasper, hadn’t bothered to keep up appearances in his own life. No, he’d gone straight to his parents as soon as he realized he was in love with Stephen and he’d told them the truth.
Of course, his parents had disowned him on the spot. His father had told him to get his “pansy ass” out of the house and never come back.
Jasper hadn’t.
Had never wanted to, or needed to.
His home, from that day on, had been with Stephen. Stephen, who’d been generous enough to put Jasper on his payroll as an assistant. Jasper had been only too happy to be at Stephen’s beck and call.
He was the one who had made the funeral arrangements for Stephen’s mother, handling all the messy details since there was no body to bury.
Aurelia Gilbrooke had unexpectedly jumped off the Tappan Zee Bridge in the wee hours of the morning, leaving her Mercedes idling in the breakdown lane and a suicide note tucked under the floor mat.
Or so everyone thought.
Only Stephen and Jasper knew the truth. It was Jasper who, roused out of bed after midnight by a distraught Stephen, had helped him dispose of his mother’s bloodied body in the garden. And Jasper who had come up with the suicide story. And Jasper who had donned Aurelia Gilbrooke’s favorite blond wig and fur coat with the hood—just in case anyone happened to glance into the Mercedes as he drove it from the Connecticut estate to the bridge, with Stephen trailing along behind in his own car.
Luck had been with them that night, and no one had seen Jasper abandon the car on the bridge, then hop into Stephen’s Cadillac for the trip back to Connecticut. And since Aurelia had been such an unstable, miserable woman, no one had ever suspected what had really happened, either.
No one except Stephen’s father.
But Andrew Gilbrooke had gone completely off the deep end when he’d figured it out, first flying into hysteria and then slipping into a catatonic state from which he had never recovered. Now he spent his days in a mental institution, staring off into space with a trickle of drool spilling from his slack lips.
Everyone thought poor Andrew, who had always been emotionally frail, couldn’t handle the loss of his wife. No one ever realized that what he couldn’t handle was the knowledge that his only child had killed his own mother.
Jasper, of course, understood why Stephen had done what he had, although they’d never discussed it, not before Amelia’s death and not after. But he had always speculated that the mother-son r
elationship was twisted. Apparently, Stephen had finally just snapped.
And, luckily for Jasper, the same thing had happened with Lorraine.
As he waited in Stephen’s rose-laden brownstone that February day, he’d outwardly wondered, along with the minister and wedding guests, where the groom had gone and why the bride hadn’t shown.
But inside, Jasper had been hoping, praying, that Stephen would do to Lorraine what he had done to his mother.
And that was exactly what had happened.
Again, Jasper had helped Stephen come up with a story. Lorraine, they had told people, had simply gotten cold feet. That much, of course, was the truth.
She had taken Stephen’s car, they said, and all her luggage and left the city for an unknown destination. They didn’t report her disappearance to the authorities, of course. And by the time the car was located months later, in long-term parking at LaGuardia, most everyone had forgotten about the curtailed Gilbrooke-LaCroix nuptials.
Everyone, except Jasper.
He has long since forgiven Stephen for feeling like he needed a woman to keep up appearances, for not wanting the world to know that he, Jasper, was his one true love.
But he has never forgotten.
In the back of his mind he occasionally wonders, with a sharp little pang, whether Stephen really meant it when he promised that the two of them will sail away together for good, just as long as Jasper helps him with his plan.
Of course he means it, he tells himself now, flipping restlessly again on his bed.
But he can’t help wondering why, if he’s the only one Stephen really cares about, he’s going to so much painstaking trouble with these three women. And why Stephen insisted that Jasper drug them with their dessert so that he would be able to creep into their rooms unnoticed after they’ve gone to bed.
After the way Stephen had hollered at him when he’d called the mansion earlier, Jasper hadn’t dared to tell Stephen that Laura Towne had barely touched her dessert. Which meant that she wasn’t drugged.
Which was obviously why she had unexpectedly awakened to find herself locked into her room.
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