by Diane Hoh
“Carl,” she whispered, bending close to him, “I have to go get some help. But I’ll be back, I promise. I’ll be back, and get you out of here.”
“I don’t think so,” a low, gravelly voice said from the top of the stairs.
Gasping, Reed lifted her eyes.
She could see only an outline, but it was enough. A mass of unruly hair, the long, black skirt.
McCoy.
She had grown tired of waiting.
She had come for Reed.
Chapter 22
THE FIGURE STANDING AT the top of the stairs was a blur of light and shadow. But Reed could see that the hands were holding something. Her eyes strained to make it out.
The notebook. The hands were holding the new manuscript. Betrayal.
The low, gravelly voice began speaking. “Now, we have to do this right, dear. You must say,” and Victoria McCoy’s voice began reading: “ ‘I trusted you. I admired you, respected you. I trusted you. And all the time, you were the one … I defended you to others … and now you … ,’ and then I interrupt you.” One finger tapped the open manuscript. “It says so right here. And we have to do it correctly.”
Reed gripped Carl’s hand tighter. Was there any other way out of the cellar? If not, they were trapped.
The figure descended one step.
Reed sat frozen on the cold, hard floor. Carl made a small, muted sound.
“And then I say,” McCoy continued, “ ‘But I am giving you a place in history. Can’t you see that? I am making you the heroine …’ ” She stopped reading then, saying harshly, “You do want to be the heroine, don’t you, Reed?”
“I just want to get out of here,” Reed said angrily. She didn’t let go of Carl’s hand. It was so lifeless. She was afraid he was dying right before her eyes.
“You’re not going anywhere.” The black skirt swished down the rest of the steps and their captor moved out of the shadows and stood over them. Reed refused to look up. She wouldn’t give McCoy the satisfaction. “I don’t want you to leave. It’s rude to leave before your host wants you to. Don’t you like the accommodations? I did my best to make them pleasant, Reed. But you can’t do much with the cellar in an old house, you know. Our place in California has a very nice basement, much more comfortable than this one.”
“You mean hostess,” Reed said rudely. “You said host. I would think a famous writer would use the right word.”
“I did use the right word,” came the answer, but the voice was no longer low and gravelly. It was no longer Victoria McCoy’s voice. It was low and resonant, the voice of a poet as it echoed throughout the darkness.
And Reed’s head came up and her eyes took in the graying wig as it was pulled from the shoulder-length dark hair, saw the long black skirt ripped away from the jeans underneath, saw the skirt tossed aside and puddled in a corner.
She was not looking up into the face of Victoria McCoy.
She was looking up into the face of Victoria McCoy’s son.
Rain had returned.
But not to save her.
“Rain?” Her own voice quavered. She let go of Carl’s hand and stood up. “What’s going on? Why … what is Carl doing down here? He’s very sick. The air down here … it’s foul … he needs fresh air.”
He wouldn’t let Carl die. Not Rain. He wouldn’t.
“Oh, yes, I would,” he said, reading her mind. “Of course, you thought McCoy had dumped him down here, didn’t you?”
“No, I …”
“Of course you did. Exactly what I had in mind. The woman is mad as a hatter, right, just like Poe says? I suppose he brought you here. My mistake. Never should have brought him with me when I paid my nightly visits to my tenant here.” He gave one of Carl’s legs a casual kick. Carl groaned softly. “Poe likes it down here. He gets very excited when he knows we’re going to visit Carl in his little hideaway. But,” he smiled at Reed, “you two don’t seem happy with it.” He sighed. “Too bad. I’m afraid you’re going to be here a while.”
Reed backed up a few steps, until her back came to rest on one of the old beam supports, a thick, wooden floor-to-ceiling post. It shook when she leaned against it, and small chips of wood fell to the floor.
Everything fell into place then. Looking at Rain’s almost-perfect face, she realized that the eyes were cold and empty. Why had she never seen it before?
Because you didn’t want to, her inner voice answered.
“No one ever stole anything from this house, did they?” she asked Rain. “It was you. You took the things, knowing your mother would think her assistants were stealing. Why? Why would you do that?” It made no sense. He had seemed so kind, so considerate of his mother.
“Well, think about it,” he said calmly, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “I made it look like they were stealing from her and snooping through her things. She had a fit and fired them, which I knew she would do. Naturally, they thought she was seeing little green men. Which was, of course, my goal.”
“Why? Why would you want people to think your mother is crazy?”
“Money.” He spoke so glibly, it took Reed a few seconds to realize he was perfectly serious.
“Money?” The timber she was leaning against shook with her trembling. Wood and dirt floated to the floor like snowflakes. “What money?”
“McCoy is filthy rich. But she keeps the money stashed away. You’ve seen the way we live here. We lived better in California. But when she got sick, she panicked about not being able to work and put all of her money into a trust fund, just in case she should be forced one day to join the unemployment lines. I can’t get my hands on any of it, unless …”
Reed shuddered. The timber trembled against her back. “Unless she’s … dead?”
“Oh, no, just the opposite. If she croaks, I get nothing. It all goes to charity. She can’t die,” Rain said vehemently. “But”… the dark eyes lit up … “if she’s incompetent and no longer able to handle her own affairs, I become the trustee. I handle everything. All of it. Every cent. You understand now, right?”
Carl whispered something that Reed didn’t understand.
Rain laughed. “He just told you to run. Like I’m not standing in the way of the only exit. Trapped like two little bunnies in a burrow, that’s you two. No way out. Sorry.” He laughed again, a harsh, chilling sound. “Well, no, that’s not true. I’m not really sorry. Actually, I’m thrilled that Poe brought you down here. Saved me the effort.”
Reed’s eyes frantically searched the dim space for another door, a window … but there was nothing. Rain was at least telling the truth about that. There was no other exit. “You killed Sunny Bigelow?”
“No, I didn’t have to. But I would have.” Rain casually lifted one foot and placed it lightly on Carl’s chest.
The very casualness of the cruel gesture took Reed’s breath away.
“I was in love with Sunny,” Rain continued lightly. “But she wasn’t interested. I was desperate. I thought if she knew I was going to be filthy rich, very soon, she’d change her mind. So, in a weak moment, I let her in on my perfect plan.”
Carl made a sound, and Rain took his foot away. “Big mistake, telling Sunny. I read her wrong.” He shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect, right? Anyway, she pretended at first that it was okay with her, that she suddenly found me fascinating. Flashed me a brilliant smile, as only Sunny could do, and then went back to her typing.” Rain’s expression took on a dreamy look. “I remember she was smiling …
“But,” his voice hardened, “she was just biding her time, tricking me. Said she needed a glass of water and asked me oh, so sweetly, if I would get it for her. I went happily, I can tell you. When I came back, I saw her through the living room window. She was running through the pine grove as if her very life depended on it.”
As it did, Reed thought, watching his face fill with rage.
“Of course I had to follow her. When she saw me, she veered toward the river. Dumb move. She’d have been safer on Faculty Row. I guess she panic
ked. I caught up with her. We fought. She was stronger than she looked. But she slipped and fell. Cracked her skull on a rock and slid into the river. It was the bump on her head that made the cops suspicious. But they got over it.”
On the floor, Carl moved feebly. Frustration overwhelmed Reed. She had to get out of here, away from this house, and save Carl. But how? Even if McCoy really was upstairs, working, she’d have the headphones on. There was no one else around to hear a scream. No one.
“She wrote that note,” Reed said flatly. “Sunny wrote it. I thought Karen had, but …”
“What note?”
“Never mind. And Carl?” she asked, stalling for time. The beam behind her shifted again. The wood she was leaning against was as rotten as the person standing before her, glibly confessing his crimes. “Explain to me why your mother told me Carl had called her and said he was quitting.”
“I made that call. The weather was lousy that day and there was a ton of static on the phone lines. I knew there would be. I called her from campus, pretending to be Carl. She was already in her office when Carl got to the house that day, so I just saw to it that good old Carl ended up down here instead of behind a desk. When it got dark, I pushed his car into the river.”
Reed gestured toward the loaf of bread lying, beside Carl. “Why are you feeding him?”
“Because he has to die very slowly, while I make sure everyone on campus knows my mother is loony as a jaybird. Then, when the time is right, I’ll make an anonymous call to the local militia. They’ll come here, find what’s left of Carl, and be absolutely certain that McCoy is responsible. By that time, she’ll be so befuddled herself, she’ll think she did do it. They’ll put her away for a long, long time, and I’ll have my hands on all that lovely money. You won’t see me slaving for a living like McCoy. And why should I? The money is there.”
“You deliberately made the things that happened look like her novel plots,” Reed accused. “To lead the police to her.”
“Nice touch, don’t you think? Karen was a bit of a problem. She caught me stealing, trying to set her up. She threatened to tell. So I threatened to kill her.” He said the word “kill” as easily as he might have said “dog” or “cat.” “She knew I meant it. She was scared to death.”
“And when that didn’t work, you ran her down with your car.”
“I knew she was planning to see you. I called her house that night, and her mother told me where Karen was headed. And I didn’t use my car, you idiot. I’m no fool. I used McCoy’s, of course. I believe there might still be some evidence on the fender somewhere, which will be useful when I need it. When the time is right.”
“You took the cover off the well,” Reed said flatly, “knowing I’d fall into it. And you made the shelves fall. How?”
“Fishing line.”
“Fishing line?”
“Right. Filament. Almost invisible to the naked eye. Tied it to the beak of that grotesque statue of a raven my mother was so crazy about. Pulled on it from outside the window. Brought the shelves down with it. I thought that might happen, but I didn’t care, frankly.”
“You could have killed me, Rain.”
“Right. Whatever.”
Reed was struggling to take all of it in. “But … I heard you and your mother arguing that day. It sounded like you were trying to talk her out of doing something.”
Rain laughed, low in his throat. When he spoke, it was Victoria McCoy’s voice that came out of his mouth. “ ‘Why are you getting so excited? It shouldn’t matter to you. Why don’t you mind your own business?’ ”
Reed stared at him, open-mouthed. “That was you? Not her?”
He laughed again. “She wasn’t even in the room. She’d already gone into her office when I saw you coming back up the path. I figured it was the perfect opportunity to make you wonder about her. So I played her part. I was good, wasn’t I?”
“Yes.” Reed thought for a moment. Then, “You did all this for money?”
Rain took a few steps closer to her. He was standing directly beneath a ceiling beam. Cottony cobwebs hung from the corners, and Reed could see where the wood had rotted away, as if something had been nibbling on it.
“You say that as if money isn’t all that important,” Rain said with contempt. “Money is everything, especially when it’s being doled out to you a few dollars at a time. She has tons, and she gives me an allowance, as if I were eight years old. Well, I’m not. I’m eighteen, and that makes me the executor of her estate when she’s weaving baskets somewhere.”
“It’s not your money,” Reed said hotly. “It’s hers. She earned it, and took care of you at the same time. Besides, if you put her away, she won’t be able to write, and the money will stop.”
He laughed, loud and long. The overhead timbers shook with the sound. “You fool, she hasn’t written a word since her illness. Not a word. She’s pretending, that’s all she’s doing. She goes into that office of hers every day and does heaven-knows-what. But she’s not writing. Doesn’t matter, though. There’s enough money for yours truly to live very well for the rest of my life.”
“She’s not writing? But … the manuscript I found … the one you were reading from. That’s new. It’s new. And it’s about … me.”
“Of course it is. I wrote it. Although everyone will, of course, think that she did. While she was planning your demise, so to speak. However, I am the proud author of that particular piece of prose.” He smiled. “How’d you like it? Think it’ll sell?”
“You?” She pressed her back into the timber behind her, wanting to be as far away as possible from this cruel, cold enemy. “You wrote it?”
“Just getting my thoughts down on paper. Making my plans.”
“How could you?” she cried. “How could you do this?”
“It’s easy. I’m evil.” He glanced down at Carl with contempt. “Like the characters in my mother’s novels. From the time I was old enough to read, I knew those characters backwards and forwards, just the way she did. And I liked reading about them. I was intrigued by what they got away with.”
I was, too, Reed thought, sickened. I was, too.
But it hadn’t made her go out and kill anyone.
“Carl is your Pitfall, isn’t he, Rain? Karen is The Wheelchair, although you screwed up there, because she’s not paralyzed, and Sunny? What was Sunny?”
“I told you, Sunny was an accident. As for Carl here, I needed something more. They wouldn’t put McCoy away for very long for yelling at people and firing them. But hit-and-run, and murder by starvation should keep McCoy out of my hair for the rest of her natural life.”
Still smiling, he glanced down at Carl, and said, “Nothing personal, Carl. You understand.”
Carl let out a deep, angry groan. He tried to sit up, but the effort was too much for him, and he fell backward, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“The guy in Pitfall didn’t die,” Reed said coldly. “He lived.”
Rain shrugged. “So I’m changing the ending a little. Poetic license. Now, if you’ll just stay right where you are while I get some rope, I think it’s time for me to make sure you don’t get away, until I decide what to do with you. Can’t keep you here with Carl … your friends might come looking for you. Especially that Neanderthal, Link. Can’t imagine what you see in him.”
“He’s not evil!” Reed shouted.
“Hmm. Well, maybe that’s why he’s so dull. Now, shut up. I’ve got to find something to gag you with, before McCoy gets back. She’s not home, you know. Went into town. I lied. You know, Reed,” he added in a conversational tone of voice, “I’m so grateful for that first breakdown of hers. So obliging of her. That’s where I got the idea, actually. And I sometimes have dreams. They give me ideas, too.”
Rain turned sideways, his eyes sweeping the cellar for something to use as a gag. Dust and dirt from the beam above him coated his hair and shoulders.
There is just this one chance, Reed thought grimly, her heart pounding
wildly in her chest, her hands shaking. Just this one. We could all be killed.
But he’s going to kill us both, anyway.
She drew her body forward and, taking a deep breath, slammed backward with all of her strength into the beam support she’d been leaning against. Her spine shrieked a protest, but the beam groaned and creaked menacingly.
Then, as Rain turned to see what was happening, the support bent inward and folded into the ground, yanking the two overhead beams along with it, slowly but surely, like a child pulling a heavy wagon.
Beneath the shower of disintegrating wood Rain cried out, his hands instinctively flying up to protect his head.
Reed flung herself to the ground, shoving Carl sideways, out of the path of debris, as she landed.
Rain shouted again, and Reed heard the sharp, painful crack of wood colliding with his skull. Her face half-hidden in Carl’s shoulder, she watched in horror as Rain collapsed beneath the onslaught.
Wooden chunks hit the backs of her legs, her shoulders, slammed against the side of her head. Still she lay flat, unmoving, shielding Carl as much as possible.
When the last piece of wood had fallen, there was only silence.
Epilogue
“THIS MEETING OF THE Victoria McCoy fan club is called to order,” Reed declared from her podium at the front of the room.
The seats were nearly full, she noted with pleasure. Of course, that was partly the result of the deluge of publicity after …
Never mind. They were here, that was enough. And they’d all stayed long after all the publicity had died down.
Link smiled at her from the front row.
“I received a card from Ms. McCoy this morning,” Reed announced. “She’s working again, and writes that it’s going very well. She’s living in the house in La Jolla with a companion, and,” Reed’s expression sobered, “she goes to see her son—” she still couldn’t bring herself to say Rain’s name … “once a month.”
She didn’t like to think about Rain. Or, looking at Debrah’s face watching from the front row, about how she had suspected her friends. Debrah had finally confessed that the reason her face had been familiar to McCoy was McCoy had once caught her peeking in the windows of the house. She’d been too embarrassed to tell anyone.