“I think Annie’s grave should have a beautiful tombstone with flowers carved around her name,” I said. “I’ll do that for her, Ned.”
“Sit down. Over there,” he said, pointing to a space about six feet from the foot of the grave.
He sat down on the grave, the rifle pointing at me. With his left hand he pulled off his right shoe and sock.
“Turn around,” he said.
“Ned, I promise you, Annie wants to be alone with you.”
“I said turn around.”
He was going to kill me. I tried to pray, but I could only whisper the word that Lynn had died trying to say, “Please—”
“What do you think, Annie?” Ned said. “What should I do? You tell me.”
“Please.” I was too numb with terror to even move my lips. In the distance I heard the scream of sirens racing down the road. Too late, I thought. Too late.
“All right, Annie. We’ll do it your way.”
I heard the crack of the rifle and everything went black.
* * *
I kind of remember a cop saying, “She’s in shock,” and seeing Ned’s body lying on Annie’s grave. Then I guess I passed out again.
* * *
When I woke up, I was in a hospital. I had not been shot. I knew I was alive, that Annie had told Ned not to kill me.
I guess I was heavily sedated, because I fell asleep again. When I woke up, I heard someone say, “She’s in here, Doctor.” Two seconds later I was wrapped in Casey’s arms, and that was when I knew I was safe at last.
EPILOGUE
When confronted with the admissions Lynn had made to me before she died, Charles Wallingford rushed to cooperate with the investigators. He admitted that he had stolen all the money that was missing, except for what Nick had borrowed against his own stock. The theft was to be his payoff for cooperating in the scheme to send Gen-stone into bankruptcy. Charles’s most stunning statement was that Adrian Garner, the billionaire head of Garner Pharmaceuticals, had masterminded the entire plan and directed every step of what had happened.
It was Garner who had recommended Dr. Kendall as Dr. Celtavini’s assistant and sent her there deliberately to sabotage the experiments.
Garner was also Lynn’s lover and the man Ned Cooper saw in the driveway the night he set the fire. After the mansion burned, Lynn dismissed the housekeepers in order to continue seeing Garner without being observed.
When Garner learned that the cancer vaccine did indeed work, he was not satisfied just to distribute it—he wanted to own it as well. When the vaccine seemed to be a failure and Gen-stone went bankrupt, he planned to pick up the patent on the vaccine for a comparative pittance. Then Garner Pharmaceuticals would own a vaccine that did in fact show great promise, and would in all likelihood prove to be very lucrative.
The mistake had been to have Lowell Drexel pick up Dr. Spencer’s records personally. Vivian Powers’s phone had been tapped. When she left a message for me saying that she knew who had taken the records, she was kidnapped and drugged to keep her from connecting the now gray-haired Drexel to the man Dr. Broderick had described as coming to his office.
Garner gave Lynn the tablet she put in the iced tea Nick drank in the airport coffee shop. It was a new drug, one that did not take effect for a few hours, and when it did, would knock the victim out without warning. Nick Spencer never had a chance.
Since then, Garner has been indicted for murder. Another major pharmaceutical company stepped in and worked out a deal to absorb Gen-stone in a stock exchange. The investors who initially thought they were defrauded now have stock that is worth most of what they invested, but it will be worth a great deal more someday if the vaccine continues to succeed without serious complications.
As I suspected, Dr. Kendall’s niece was the one who passed the letter from Caroline Summers about her daughter having been cured of multiple sclerosis. When it reached Adrian Garner’s desk, he told Drexel to get Dr. Spencer’s records from Dr. Broderick. Now the new pharmaceutical company is bringing in top microbiologists from all over the world to study those records and to try to discover what combination of drugs may have produced that astonishing cure.
It is still hard for me to believe that Lynn not only helped to kill her husband, but also would have allowed Lowell Drexel to kill me that terrible day in the guest house. Lynn’s father has had to endure not only her death, but also the heartbreak and humiliation of the media stories. My mother has done her best to help him, but it has not been easy. As she sympathizes with him, she has to struggle with her own awareness of what Lynn would have done to me to keep me from telling the true story.
Casey knew what I was trying to tell him when I was in the car with Ned and contacted the police. They had been watching the cemetery. They always thought Ned might go back there. When he explained that Patrick was my dead son, and knowing how often Ned went to Annie’s grave, they raced there at once.
* * *
Today is June 15. There was a memorial service for Nick Spencer this afternoon, and Casey and I attended. The Gen-stone employees and stockholders, the ones who had denounced Spencer the loudest, were quietly respectful and attentive when tributes were paid to his dedication and genius.
Dennis Holden was electrifying when he spoke. The picture of him, gaunt and near death, that he had shown to Ken Page and me was flashed on a billboardsized screen. “I am here because Nick Spencer took a risk and injected me with his vaccine,” he declared.
Nick’s son, Jack, was scheduled to pay the final tribute. “My father was a great dad,” he began. Tears filled everyone’s eyes as he said, “He promised me that if he could make it happen, no little kid would ever again lose his mother to cancer.”
He’s clearly the worthy son of a splendid father. I watched Jack take his seat between his grandparents. I knew that with all that had happened, he was blessed to have been granted people like them to care for him.
Then there was a stir as Vince Alcott said, “Nicholas Spencer is believed to have given the cancer vaccine to one other person. She is with us now.”
Marty and Rhoda Bikorsky walked onto the stage, their daughter, Maggie, between them. Rhoda was the one who stepped forward to the microphone. “I met Nicholas Spencer at St. Ann’s Hospice,” she said, fighting back tears. “I was visiting a friend there. I had heard about the vaccine. My little girl was dying. I begged him to give it to her. I brought her to him the day before he died in the plane crash. Even my husband didn’t know about it. When I heard the drug was worthless, I was so afraid that we’d lose her even sooner. That was two months ago. Since then, the tumor in Maggie’s brain has shrunk a little more every day. We don’t yet know what the final outcome will be, but Nick Spencer has given us so much hope.”
Marty held up Maggie to let the audience see her. The child who had been so fragile and pale when I saw her six weeks ago now had color in her cheeks and was putting on weight. “We were promised we’d have her till Christmas,” Marty said. “Now we’re beginning to believe we’ll get to see her grow up.”
As people filed out of the service, I overheard someone repeat what Maggie’s mother had said. “Nick Spencer has given us so much hope.”
Not bad for an epitaph, I thought.
SIMON & SCHUSTER
PROUDLY PRESENTS
Nighttime Is My Time
MARY HIGGINS CLARK
Turn the page for a preview of
Nighttime Is My Time. . . .
The definition of an owl had always pleased him: A night bird of prey . . . sharp talons and soft plumage which permits noiseless flight . . . applied figuratively to a person of nocturnal habits.“I am The Owl,” he would whisper to himself after he had selected his prey, “and nighttime is my time.”
1.
It was the third time in a month he had come to Los Angeles to observe her daily activities. “I know your comings and your goings,” he whispered as he waited in the pool house. It was one minute of seven. The morning sun was filter
ing through the trees, causing the waterfall that spilled into the pool to sparkle and shimmer.
He wondered if Alison could sense that she had only one minute more of life on earth. Did she have an uneasy feeling, perhaps a subconscious urge to skip her swim this morning? Even if she did, it wouldn’t do her any good. It was too late.
The sliding glass door opened, and she stepped onto the patio. Thirty-eight years old, she was infinitely more attractive than she had been twenty years ago. Her body, tanned and sleek, looked good in the bikini. Her hair, now honey blond, framed and softened her sharp chin.
She tossed the towel she was carrying onto a lounge chair. The blinding anger that had been simmering inside him escalated into rage, but then, just as quickly, was replaced by the satisfaction of knowing what he was about to do. He had seen an interview in which a daredevil stunt diver swore that the moment before he began to dive, knowing that he was risking his life, was an indescribable thrill, a sensation he needed to repeat over and over again.
For me it’s different, he thought. This moment before I reveal myself to them is what gives me the thrill. I know they’re going to die, and when they see me, they know, too. They understand what I am going to do to them.
Alison stepped onto the diving board and stretched. He watched as she bounced softly, testing the board, then positioned her arms in front of her.
He opened the door of the pool house just as her feet lifted from the board. He wanted her to see him midair. Just before she hit the water. He wanted her to understand how vulnerable she was.
In that split second, their eyes locked. He caught her expression as she plunged into the water. She was terrified, aware that she was incapable of flight.
He was in the pool before she had surfaced. He hugged her against his chest, laughing as she flailed about, kicking her feet. How foolish she was. She should simply accept the inevitable. “You’re going to die,” he whispered, his voice calm, even.
Her hair was in his face, blinding him. Impatiently he shook it away. He didn’t want to be distracted from the pleasure of feeling her struggle.
The end was coming. In her craving for breath, she had opened her mouth and was gulping water. He felt her final frantic effort to break away from him, then the hopelessly feeble tremors as her body began to go limp. He pressed her close, wishing he could read her mind. Was she praying? Was she begging God to save her? Was she seeing the light that people who have experienced near-death moments claim to have seen?
He waited a full three minutes before he released her. With a satisfied smile he watched as her body sank to the bottom of the pool.
It was five minutes after seven when he climbed out of the pool, pulled on a sweatshirt, shorts, sneakers, a cap, and dark glasses. He had already chosen the spot where he would leave the silent reminder of his visit, the calling card that everybody always missed.
At six minutes past seven he began to jog down the quiet street, another early-morning fitness buff in the city of fitness buffs.
Bernard Vidal
MARY HIGGINS CLARK is the author of twenty-nine worldwide bestsellers. There are more than seventy million copies of her books in print. She lives in Saddle River, New Jersey.
BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK
The Second Time Around
Kitchen Privileges
Mount Vernon Love Story
Daddy’s Little Girl
On the Street Where You Live
Before I Say Good-Bye
We’ll Meet Again
All Through the Night
You Belong to Me
Pretend You Don’t See Her
My Gal Sunday
Moonlight Becomes You
Silent Night
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
The Lottery Winner
Remember Me
I’ll Be Seeing You
All Around the Town
Loves Music, Loves to Dance
The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stories
While My Pretty One Sleeps
Weep No More, My Lady
Stillwatch
A Cry in the Night
The Cradle Will Fall
A Stranger Is Watching
Where Are the Children?
BY MARY HIGGINS CLARK AND CAROL HIGGINS CLARK
He Sees You When You’re Sleeping
Deck the Halls
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Mary Higgins Clark
Originally published in hardcover in 2003 by
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ISBN: 0-7434-1262-1
ISBN 13: 978-0-7432-0634-1 (eBook)
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The Second Time Around Page 27