I twisted the doorknob.
It turned. Thank God, it turned.
I pushed the door open.
"Miranda!"
Not a sound or a movement except for the tumult of the storm.
I darted the flashlight's beam swiftly around the room.
Miranda lay on her back in bed. Her head, the black hair curling sweetly, rested against the white satin pillow. Her eyes were closed. She looked like a child, vulnerable and appealing, deep in sleep.
It took all my strength to approach that bed and grasp a limp hand. Such a small and dainty hand. I uncurled the fingers, lifted up a small brown plastic vial.
Valium.
I tucked the bottle in the pocket of my slacks, then held her wrist and searched for a pulse.
Nothing.
I pressed a finger against the carotid artery beneath her right ear.
It was so hard to tell, with the roaring noise that surrounded me, pressed against me, and the shifting, quivering moan of the walls.
I thought I felt a tiny, almost imperceptible quiver.
I swung around, reached across to the dresser, and grabbed up ah ornate silver-backed mirror. I held it close to Miranda's lips.
Faintly, ever so faintly, the mirror clouded.
I dropped the heavy mirror, slewed around, and ran, the beam of the flashlight swinging madly in front of me.
"Roger! Lyle! Roger! Help! Help, help!"
"Henrie O? Mrs. Collins?" Lyle was midway down the stairs.
"Hurry!" I screamed. "Miranda's ill. I need your help."
Lyle thudded down the stairs, Roger on his heels. They slowed enough to let me lead the way with the flashlight.
In the bedroom I swung the light toward the bed. Lyle took one look and grabbed the slight form up in his arms.
"Bring a pillow and some covers," I told Roger. As they moved, I swiftly searched the warm-up suit Chase had discarded early that morning when he decided to swim, searched it and found nothing. I looked frantically around. The blue blazer Chase had worn the day before… I ran to it. No gun in the
pocket. I danced the light over the chests, the tables. No gun. No gun.
"Come on," Lyle shouted raggedly. "Come on!"
Time to search had run out. Was the gun in that room? Or had someone taken it after Chase died?
But I could look no longer. I took the lead, shining my flashlight up the shadowy hallway. We were almost back at the central hallway, almost there, when the front door sagged inward.
There was no especial noise, or perhaps it simply couldn't be heard above the hurricane-force winds.
One moment we were hurrying forward, only a few feet away from safety; the next a waist-high wall of water rushed inside with greedy sucking noises, sweeping us off our feet, slamming us against the walls.
I went under.
The water was cold. My shoulder struck something hard. A hot, quick pain shot down my left arm. I lost my grip on the flashlight. I struggled to regain my footing, swallowed water, came up choking.
A strong hand grabbed my shirt and lifted me up.
"Hold on to the stairs," Roger sputtered.
I grabbed a baluster, and he turned away and went splashing off into the darkness.
"Oh, Christ, help me," Lyle called, "I've lost her. I've lost her."
I saw an eerie glow deep in the water.
I took a deep breath and ducked down. My fingers closed around the flashlight just as another big surge of water swept in, lifting it and me. When I broke the surface, sputtering, I paddled a few feet and was back to the stairs.
I swung the light swiftly around the entryway.
Vases, picture frames, and satin sofa cushions bobbed in the water. A straight chair, almost upright, floated close enough to touch. I jerked out of the way as a grandfather clock loomed out of the darkness to crash into the stairs, easily snapping that portion of the banister.
Lyle and Roger fended off furniture as they dove down and down, frantically searching for Miranda.
I pointed the beam at the water. There, toward the back of the hall, a glimmer of white…
I held the flash steady. "Lyle, Roger, there she is!"
They both went down and came up together, supporting her between them.
Miranda moaned. She was still alive!
I pulled myself up and over the banister and flopped onto the steps. I was halfway up the steps, but they were already awash.
Holding Miranda and trying to reach the stairs, Lyle fought the deadly current. Roger swam alongside, fending off the bigger pieces of flotsam. The noise was all around us.
I kept the light steady.
At last they reached the stairway. His chest heaving, Lyle came up out of the water, still cradling Miranda in his arms. He clambered up the steps. Roger, breathing heavily, an angry scratch on his face, was close behind them.
We were almost to the top when the entire staircase shuddered beneath us. With a rending crack the bottom two-thirds of the stairs crumbled away from the wall.
Where we had been there was nothing but swirling water and jagged, jabbing pieces of wood.
Betty stood waiting for us on the landing. Whimpering, she stared past us at the sucking, hissing, foaming water.
"Betty." I was so glad to see someone who would help. "We've got to hurry. Mrs. Prescott is very ill. We need to get her warm. Could you get some towels and a couple of blankets?"
I wished I knew what more to do. Should we try to induce vomiting? But she was unconscious, and there would be a danger of choking. WTiat was needed-if it wasn't already too late-was a stomach pump and possibly a blood-cleansing apparatus. All we could safely do now was keep her warm.
We carried her into the music room. Trevor was sprawled on a long sofa. He lurched to his feet. "My God, what now?" He smelled like whiskey, but his voice wasn't as slurred as it had been earlier and his movements were assured.
"An overdose." I shooed the wet and bedraggled men over to a corner. Trevor poured mugs of broth for them. I wondered if I'd ever have a chance to tell Rosalia what a good job she'd done in bringing up supplies.
When Betty came in, carrying a good half-dozen towels, Valerie and I stripped off Miranda's sodden nightgown and gently dried her off.
"We've got to wrap her in something warm." I started for the hall.
"Don't go out there," Roger cried. "The whole wing may go anytime."
"I'll hurry." I threw it over my shoulder. I dashed
through the upper central hall and ran down the corridor-the sloping corridor-to my room. I grabbed a cotton robe for Miranda and some dry clothing for me. Back in the music room we slipped my robe around Miranda and tucked her into a blanket on one of the mattresses Lyle and Roger had brought.
It was nice to have a task to cling to, something to think about besides the pounding of the rain and the slam of the winds against the house and the gun that I should have found. With each surge of wate
r the central part of the house shuddered.
How much more could this wounded structure withstand?
It wasn't until we had Miranda as comfortable as possible and I had ducked into a dark corner to dry myself off and re-dress that I paid any attention to the room and its occupants.
Rosalia knelt at the foot of Miranda's mattress, her hands gently smoothing the blanket. Valerie sat beside the mattress, holding one of Miranda's limp hands in hers. Enrique remained hunched by the window. His eyes were closed, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. Trevor leaned against the piano, but his head was up and he was listening. I could feel his fear all the way across the room. Roger and Lyle huddled under blankets. Each held a mug in his hands.
God, yes. Something hot to drink, to fight the chill that bit deep into my bones. I was halfway across the room to the table with its array of thermoses when I suddenly stopped.
"Burton. Where's Burton?" I looked at Betty.
"I hunted for him, Mrs. Collins. Just like you
told me to. I went to his room" -she pointed toward the other wing-"and I checked Mr. Prescott's study, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I called for him and then I was going to go downstairs. I didn't know where he could be, but I wanted to find him and ask him to come here like you told me to and I got to the top of the stairs. That's when you were bringing Airs. Prescott up the steps. If I hadn't waited for you to come up the stairs, I would have gone down and I would be in the water."
Damn Burton. He wouldn't be any help, but this was by far the safest place to be.
"I can't see any reason why he would have gone downstairs," I said briskly. "So he's up here somewhere. We've just missed him. I'll go to his room. Why don't you take another look in the study? Did you have a flashlight with you?"
Betty shook her head.
I gave her a flashlight.
It only took a minute to cross the hall-at a greater slant now-and check the secretary's room. When I opened the door, I knew immediately that he wasn't there. A window had blown in, shattering glass across the bed. Waves of rain swept inside, drenching the spread and the carpet.
My flashlight beam danced from the bed to the dresser to the desk. I walked that way and saw the briefcases he'd stuffed with folders sitting open on the desk. They, too, were wet, the luxuriant leather sodden.
As I watched, a black snake curled over the lip of one briefcase. The reptile lifted its head, looked toward me.
I stumbled backward. The light flickered from the desk to the windowsill. A cottonmouth oozed over the sill. I aimed the flash down between the bed and the window. A tangle of snakes quivered, a dark shivery mass on the floor. A water moccasin, with that identifiable pit-viper mouth, slithered from beneath the bed.
I whirled around, ran toward the door.
The snakes were fleeing from the flood, seeking sanctuary wherever-they could.
I could imagine them crawling over the house, under the eaves, onto the roof.
I hurried out the door, slammed it behind me.
And that's when the scream rose, high and hideous.
13
The tip of Burton's tongue stuck out between his teeth.
I saw that first.
We arrived at the study at the same moment and clustered in the doorway-Roger, Trevor, Lyle, and I -our flashlights aimed at the motionless figure sprawled on the floor between the desk and a bank of filing cabinets. The top drawer in the middle cabinet was pulled out.
Betty huddled against the wall, just inside the door, trembling. "He must have been there all the time," she whimpered, raising terrified eyes to us.
I looked at my watch. A quarter-past ten. I'd set out to look for Miranda and sent Betty in search of Burton for the first time about an hour earlier.
The maid pressed back against the wall. "Last time I just poked my head in the door and called.
Nobody answered and it was all dark. Then I heard you calling for help, Mrs. Collins, and I didn't even think about him again." She looked down at the flashlight in her hand. "But this time I had the light and I saw his feet."
She swung the cone of light to the highly polished brown leather tassel loafers, then along Burton's body to his face. He was lying chestdown, but his face was turned toward us, resting on his right temple and jaw. So the poked-out tongue, blood thick at the tip where he'd bitten himself, was easy to see. But this time it wasn't a taunt. When Burton's assailant struck him down-and the bloody misshapen swelling behind his left ear was easy enough to see-the blow had jolted Burton's head forward and the reflexive movement of the floor of his mouth had thrust his tongue between his closing teeth.
"Oh, God," Trevor moaned.
I was the first to break out of our frozen tableau.
In a couple of strides I reached Burton. I knelt by him and with a ghastly sense of deja vu picked up a limp hand to seek a pulse.
Lyle followed. His flash revealed the drops of blood spattered on Burton's downy stubble of blond beard.
"He's still alive." But his pulse was slow and erratic. I wondered how far the hematoma had spread, how much pressure was being exerted on the brain. Burton needed medical care immediately.
"If the Coast Guard comes…" I didn't finish. Any reasonable chance of rescue had ended when the storm struck.
Roger dropped down beside me. "Could he have fallen, hit his head on the desk?"
I gave him a level look. "How?,What do you suggest? Practicing a backward flip without a pool? Levitation gone wrong? Look at him. He's lying in the wrong direction to have fallen and struck anything."
Roger's face reddened. "I thought maybe he lost his balance, something like that."
I didn't bother to answer. Instead, I swept my light in a gradually widening circle around Burton.
Nothing is ever new under the sun, of course, but I thought this might qualify as a highly unusual means of attack, the kind of weapon that would delight even jaded police reporters.
The slender marble statuette of Aphrodite had been flung away. A -white gash scarred the gleaming parquet floor. The artwork had skidded, scoring a several-inches-long path, then lodged against the clawfoot of a spider-legged table. Blood and flesh and hair clumped on the three-inch-square bronze base.
I remembered watching Chase's hand close around the base of a statuette. I lifted the light, swept it across the mantel. The statuette was one of a pair. Its twin was still in place.
But the most telling evidence of all, the most meaningful, was the unstained beige cotton washcloth, thick and fluffy, lying a scant inch or two from Burton's polished loafers. I understood its significance immediately.
Roger pointed at the statuette. "Oh, God, look at the blood."
Lyle looked instead at the still, crumpled slight
figure. "Why him? Why the hell go after him? Chase, yeah, somebody
might have a reason."
As you, did, I thought, As you did..
"But Burton? That's weird."
"Yeah, somebody's crazy, crazy as a loon." Trevor's self-control cracked. "Listen, don't anybody come near me." He was backing out into the hall. "Do you hear, don't anybody come near me!"
He was close to collapse, the collapse of a man who'd never in his life faced danger or horror. I turned toward him. I could only dimly see a shape behind the shaking flashlight. "Trevor, we're all going to stay together from now on. Don't worry. We'll take care of one another."
Dead Man's Island Page 25