“Artie!” Mrs. Dixon, who was beside him, cried out.
Allison swung around. There was no one behind her, no one at all.
* * *
Tyler didn’t doubt Allison’s word. He contacted a guard and had the hospital locked down, but he knew full well that in a hospital, it was easy for someone clad in the right uniform to simply disappear—hiding in plain sight.
And Allison, try as she might, couldn’t describe her assailant. “Tall, I think. Maybe not, but at least my height,” she said. “I don’t even know if it was a man or woman,” she told him.
Artie Dixon was fortunately unharmed. Tyler made arrangements with Jenson to send local officers to watch over his room from that point on. Haley Dixon remained hysterical for a long time after the incident and had to be sedated.
Security officers and police who had gone through the hospital reported to Tyler that they’d found no one answering the description hiding in lounges or in patients’ bathrooms.
Tyler hadn’t expected they would. The moment he’d stepped off the elevator, the perpetrator had been managing his or her escape. Strip off the cap and mask, walk calmly and briskly into a patient’s room, perhaps even direct a cop to a different location. Slide out of the uniform and walk out like a visitor.
When they were finally leaving, he heard Allison gasp.
“What?”
“Annette! There’s Annette.”
Annette Fanning was hurrying through the parking lot to her car. Allison touched Tyler’s arm. “Let me see what she says when I catch up with her. I want to see her reaction to me being here. But Annette can’t be our killer. Really, it can’t be Annette.”
Allison ran ahead of him. He slowed his pace, watching carefully. Allison caught up with Annette, and the other woman turned to her, a look of surprise on her face.
“Hey! My God, I’m glad to see you. I don’t know what was going on here, but I came to see my cousin in the maternity ward. And suddenly there were bells and bongs and security and cops all over.”
Tyler could hear Annette speaking; he could also tell that she was reaching into her oversize handbag for something.
A needle? The needle she’d failed to thrust into Allison in Artie Dixon’s hospital room?
No more taking chances.
Tyler sped across the parking lot and tackled Annette Fanning. He slammed into her, twisting so he didn’t throw her onto the pavement but took that punishment himself.
Annette cried out. Tyler rolled, pulling her to her feet. He grabbed the bag from her.
“What the hell?” Annette demanded angrily.
“Tyler?” Allison said, as if she, too, thought he had lost his mind.
He ignored them both and searched Annette’s bag. There was nothing in it more incriminating than a hairbrush and a box of tampons.
He thrust the bag back at her. “What’s your cousin’s name?”
“Judy Hall, and she had a baby girl last night at 10:03,” Annette told him. “Check it out!” she added angrily.
“We will.”
“What’s the matter with you people?” Annette shouted.
“Allison was just attacked. In Artie Dixon’s room,” Tyler said.
Annette gasped. “And you think that I—that I… Don’t be absurd! It couldn’t have been me!”
“Why should we infer that it couldn’t have been you?” Tyler asked.
“For one thing, because Allison is way stronger than I am!” Annette said.
“She’s right,” Allison agreed.
“You don’t need much strength to shove a needle into someone.” Tyler shook his head. “I’m done taking chances.”
“No, no, it wasn’t Annette—I know it wasn’t Annette,” Allison said.
“You can’t just assume,” Tyler began.
“I’m not assuming on the basis of friendship. But the attacker was taller. Annette’s too small.”
Annette groaned. “Thanks. Thanks a hell of a lot!”
* * *
When Allison and Tyler returned, Logan was alone in the house. He was seated in front of the screens, glancing at them now and then, and going over papers and folders, eternally patient while he searched for what he wanted.
He knew what had happened because Tyler had spoken to him.
“Jane and Kat are with the police at Valley Forge,” he said. “There was an attempt to break into Martin Standish’s house last night. With Standish’s blessing, they’re transferring some of his papers to a bank vault.”
“That’s a good idea,” Allison said. “Are we still expecting the others tonight?”
“We are,” Logan said.
“Including Annette.” Tyler grimaced. His apology had been minimal, and Allison felt guilty, since they hadn’t really learned anything from the encounter. So Annette’s distress had been for nothing. Tyler had told Allison they couldn’t afford to take any chances, and she understood that, but…
She looked around. “Where’s Julian?”
“He went with Jane and Kat. He’s decided you don’t need him—and they might,” Logan said, smiling. “What a pity they met at completely the wrong time! He’s so courteous toward Jane, and while she pretends he’s a pest, she really likes him.”
“Yeah, talk about the ultimate bad timing,” Allison murmured.
“Oh!” Both Logan and Tyler turned to her. “With everything that happened, I forgot to tell Tyler what Artie ‘said’ to me. I don’t think he was denying there could be a second painting, but he wanted me to understand something about the painting in the study. He kept saying it was a lie.”
“I’ll bet he means the painting itself is a lie,” Tyler said. “We know that when Tobias Dandridge painted it, he despised Bradley. Bradley and the British troops had left Philadelphia. Tobias was probably feeling a bit inadequate, since the Colonial forces didn’t defeat the British here. The British abandoned the capital just as the patriots had.”
“Interesting. The history of the house and the family came down to us through Tobias Dandridge and his wife, Sophia,” Tyler said. “Lucy’s sister.”
“So, he painted the picture of Bradley as a monster and left that image of him for the world.” Allison sighed. “And now we know it’s probably unfair.”
“Let’s go look,” Tyler suggested. “See if we can find the second painting.”
“But…say there is such a painting,” Allison said, “would the killer leave it here?”
“Maybe not, but maybe we’ll find a clue as to whether or not it actually exists.”
Logan checked his watch. “You have about an hour,” he told them.
“Let’s get on with it,” Tyler said.
* * *
Allison thought they should trace the path someone might take through the house and discover how easy it would be to slip from the study to other rooms—and then leave the property entirely. As they moved through the study into the ladies’ salon and the music room, she could see how someone could have crept through the various rooms without being seen by her, the lone remaining guide, on the night Julian was killed. The house alarms didn’t extend to the fence in front of the property or the wall that surrounded it.
She opened every cabinet and every drawer, looking for a place where a painting might have been hidden. They didn’t find one, but toward the end of their search, Allison opened a cupboard where musical instruments had been kept during the Revolutionary era. It still contained a couple of fifes, carefully displayed on shelves.
“Wait!” Tyler said.
She’d been about to close the door. He stepped past her and ran a finger over the top shelf. He lifted the finger—and there was a slight smudge on it.
“Paint?” she asked.
He nodded. “We’ll get a sample to the lab.”
“But if there was a painting here, it’s gone now.”
“The more we know—or think we know—the better off we’ll be.”
“Hey!” Logan was standing in the doorway to the music roo
m. They turned to see what he wanted.
“Showtime!” he announced. “They’re arriving.”
Allison followed Tyler out to the narrow hall and down to the entry. Ethan leaned on his cane, Cherry stood next to him and Nathan was just coming in. She walked forward to welcome them all, her heart beating fast, but behaving as naturally as she could.
“Let’s adjourn to the grand salon, shall we?” Logan invited. “We can sit around the table.”
“Ohhh!” Cherry said with dismay. “Look what you’ve done to this table! It’s over two-hundred years old, you know!”
“It’s covered with a plastic tarp that lets nothing through,” Logan reassured her. “Not to worry. Please, have a seat. Coffee, tea—anything?”
They heard a key in the door. “I’m here!” Jason called from the entry.
“This way!” Tyler called back.
“Ethan, I just don’t know if it was such a good idea, bringing this unit in. Sorry, you all, but really. You people don’t seem to have any answers,” Cherry said.
“This will be solved.” Ethan spoke in a low, confident voice.
“I’m curious. Evidently, you’ve discovered something,” Nathan said cheerfully. “I, for one, am agog to hear!”
Annette arrived just after Jason. She acted as if she didn’t want to be in the house; she was hostile and whispered to Allison, “I’m not coming back to work here. I don’t want to wind up like Julian or Sarah. And I don’t want to be accused of hurting anyone, either!”
“Sarah had an accident,” Cherry murmured.
“Now that we’re all present… If you’ll sit down, we’ll tell you what we believe we can prove,” Tyler said.
He remained standing while the others took chairs. “First,” he began, “take a look at these likenesses.”
He passed out copies of the computer images Jane had devised, melding Allison’s face with the images of Lucy Tarleton.
Annette let out a little gasp. She stared across the table at Allison. “Oh, my God! That is uncanny.”
“We don’t think it’s uncanny. We think its heredity,” Logan said evenly.
“That’s ridiculous!” Cherry snapped. “Lucy didn’t have children.”
“We believe she did, and we can prove it,” Tyler said. “We want to do DNA testing.”
“What?” Cherry gasped.
“Why not? Cool!” Jason said.
“I don’t know… Disturbing the dead?” Ethan asked haltingly. “I need to speak with Adam.”
“You may do that, of course, Mr. Oxford,” Logan said. “I’m afraid he had to go back to D.C. yesterday, but you can call him, and of course, we’ll bring him out again. We’ve concluded that someone is afraid of the discovery that Lucy did bear an illegitimate child. That someone is so obsessed with history, he or she doesn’t want the truth known.”
“About a possible descendent?” Nathan asked. “But…that’s not logical, is it? That makes the story all the more appealing! It means we have a flesh-and-blood replica of our beautiful Lucy!”
“Wait a minute,” Cherry protested. “Just because you can play with a computer and make Allison look like Lucy? I repeat—ridiculous!”
“That’s not the only aspect of our theory, Cherry,” Tyler said. “Martin Standish has letters in a safety deposit box that appear to have been written by Lucy. Reading between the lines, they indicate she was never in love with Stewart Douglas, that they were very good friends, and there was no reason for either Stewart Douglas or Brian Bradley to have killed her.”
“Well, someone killed her. She ended up very dead!” Cherry said.
“So, we’ll find a way to do the DNA testing.” Logan cleared his throat. “I don’t know how many of you are aware of this, but Allison was attacked at the hospital today. Someone dressed up in hospital scrubs came after her with a needle. A lethal dose of some kind of drug, I’m sure. So, where were you all today?”
“What?” Cherry demanded, rising.
“You’re accusing us?” Nathan burst out.
“Well,” Tyler said, sitting on the edge of the table, “we know it’s one of you. It has to be. We just have to figure out which. You’re the only ones who know the house well enough. So, if we can trace your movements today?”
Jason raised his hand. “Hey, call Evan McDooley! I was working all day.”
“I’ve already been accused,” Annette said. “And I’m too short!”
“This is ridiculous,” Cherry muttered again. “Fire them, Ethan. Get rid of them!”
“Cherry, you do stand to lose the most, you know,” Tyler said in a reasonable voice. “No longer being the star of the history center—I mean, hey, a real live descendent of Lucy Tarleton?”
“That’s not what a murder is committed for!”
“No, it’s not, is it, Cherry?” Tyler asked.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” Annette said abruptly. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
She got up to leave the room but asked, “Do I need a guard?”
No one spoke and she headed toward the back.
“So?” Tyler asked. “Who’s next?”
“I was in my house all day. My housekeeper can vouch for me,” Ethan said indignantly.
“Stockbroker and business,” Nathan said.
“Oh, please. I was at the gallery,” Cherry said.
As Cherry’s words died, they suddenly heard a high-pitched scream. Annette was yelling in a panicked voice. “Help, help! Oh, my God!”
Allison jumped up, ready to run. Tyler was ahead of her, thrusting her behind him as Logan dashed toward the rear of the house, the others following him.
Allison slammed into Tyler when he stopped at the door to the bathroom. “It bit me!” Annette screamed. “It bit me!”
Logan dialed 9-1-1; Tyler stepped past him.
There was a copperhead coiled behind the trash basket. As it started to strike again, Tyler pulled his Glock and shot the snake, then crouched down by Annette.
It was while he bent to minister to her that Allison felt the pinprick in her leg. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She felt someone’s arms around her, dragging her back. She tried to blink to see clearly; Logan and Tyler were involved with Annette. She saw Cherry’s face, filled with concern. Jason Lawrence had knelt down beside Annette.
She didn’t see Ethan Oxford or Nathan Pierson.
But she knew one of them was behind her. He’d drugged her and was dragging her away, and she couldn’t speak or blink, and soon, everything was black.
18
The snake had been a fairly small copperhead, but Tyler didn’t believe for a minute that it had just made its way into the house—any more than a copperhead had just made its way into Sarah Vining’s car.
He knew the emergency crew would arrive shortly, but he fastened a tourniquet created from Jason’s tie beneath Annette’s knee.
She was crying and screaming all the while, and he knew the others were rushing around, trying to get her water, trying to help.
With the tourniquet in place, he looked at the wound; there was no need to try sucking out the poison and spitting it out himself. The EMTs would deal with it much more efficiently than he could ever manage. Copperhead bites were common enough in the area.
“I’m going to die!” Annette cried.
“You’re not going to die. Put your arms around my neck. I’ll carry you out to the sofa. When the EMTs get here, they’ll give you an antidote. You’ll spend the night in the hospital.”
Cherry Addison came running up, her high heels clicking away, as he brought Annette to the sofa. Logan was still on the line with the 9-1-1 operator, taking her directions and nodding to Tyler that he’d done the right thing.
“I hate this house!” Annette sobbed as he set her down. “I hate this house. It’s evil. It’s evil, evil, evil. And now, I’m going to die in it. Oh, no. Oh, my God! I’m going to become one of the ghosts of the Tarleton-Dandridge House!”
Jason knelt down b
eside her. “Annette, come on! The house isn’t evil.”
“I don’t ever want to see it again. I hate it!”
Tyler could hear the sirens; the emergency crew would arrive any minute. He stood, leaving Jason at Annette’s side and Cherry standing close by, the glass of water in her hand.
He looked around. Ethan Oxford, his complexion gray, was right behind him.
But he didn’t see Allison.
Or Nathan Pierson.
“Logan!”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s Allison?”
Logan, too, looked around. “I’ll take the upstairs,” he said urgently.
“Nathan?” Tyler turned to Ethan. “Where is he? Where did Nathan go?”
Ethan shook his head, looking old and defeated. “I…I was watching Annette,” he said.
Tyler raced to the front, letting the emergency crew in. They came from their vehicle with “poison control” bags in their hands.
“Back there,” he said briefly. He ran outside, but there was nothing to see. He pulled out his phone and called Jenson at the local station, telling him to get some officers out, that the area had to be searched immediately. They needed an emergency canvas.
He rushed back in, grabbing Oxford by the shoulders. “Nathan Pierson. Did he drive here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes,” Annette said weakly. “Yes, he drove.”
Walking toward the hallway, Logan pulled out his phone again and asked Jenson for an alert on Pierson’s car. He ran out the front door again, anxious to see if Nathan was trying to wrest Allison into his car.
But as he raced out, he felt something—someone—behind him.
He turned.
It was Lucy Tarleton. And she beckoned Tyler to the back of the house.
* * *
Allison was perfectly aware of where she was and what was happening.
She was in the apartment above the stables, stretched out on the floor. That faint scent of oiled leather, hay and horses still remained, wafting up from below.
Nathan Pierson was kneeling beside her. He looked amused—and sad.
“Ah, yes, in a few minutes, they’ll come searching for you. They’ll check the crypt, because they’ll be sure that you were spirited away to die on top of Lucy’s tomb. That would be poetic justice, but…I don’t want them finding me. They won’t think of anything as simple as the stables. What’s that you say?” He laughed, knowing very well that she couldn’t answer him. “They’ll search for you everywhere? Yes, they will! Everyone loves you. In fact, I’ve actually been in love with you for years. You knew that, didn’t you? A love-hate relationship, I’d guess you could say. Keeping alive the image of Lucy as a true heroine and not a slut hasn’t been easy. Still, what a sweet, bright young woman you proved to be. Of course, I’ve watched you. I suspected you had to be a descendent, but we had historic records and that baby of Lucy’s was so quickly swept away from all danger that your family remained above reproach. Oh, dear girl! For many years, you were like a beauty on a pedestal that I admired from afar. You loved the house and you told the stories dutifully. And what a scholar! Brains and beauty, Ally. Brains and beauty.”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 2: The Unseen ; The Unholy ; The Unspoken ; The Uninvited Page 110