Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die; The Deep End of Fear (31 page)

While Emily sat by Patrick's bed holding his hand, Adrian paced back and forth in the room. The expression on his face was calm, his hands steady, but I had observed his son enough to recognize the stiffness in his shoulders and the set of his jaw. He was upset and steeling himself against something.

Brook lounged against the bedroom door. Since he had no affection for Patrick, I wished he had stayed downstairs with Trent and Robyn. "Thank you, Brook," I said quietly, "but I have all the help I need."

He gazed at me, surprised. "I'm not here to help. I'm bored."

Adrian flicked him a look.

I handed Patrick's favorite old picture book to Emily, hoping he would find it comforting to read with her. Outside in the hall, Henry cleaned the Oriental rug. Mrs. Hopewell returned to say the doctor was coming. When the housekeeper told Adrian she wanted to speak to him in the hall, I followed them uninvited, as. did Emily, who closed the bedroom door behind us. The door opened and Brook darted out from Patrick's room, then hung like a roach on the wall, listening.

"No one informed me that Patrick had an allergy to raspberries," Mrs. Hopewell said to Emily. "Not that the dessert was intended for him," she added, glancing at me.

"How could I inform you if I wasn't aware of it?" Emily replied, sounding defensive. "You know as well as I do, he has never had a reaction before, not to berries or to any other kind of food."

"And he didn't now," I said. "He was poisoned."

"Poisoned," Emily echoed faintly.

Adrian turned to stare at me. "Do you mean deliberately?"

"I believe the tainting was deliberate—though it was meant for me, not Patrick. If I hadn't been concerned about him, I would have eaten the entire serving myself. What do you think"—I looked from one face to the next and tried to keep my voice steady—"was the pie meant only to make me ill, so I couldn't care for Patrick, or did someone want to kill me?"

"That's a ridiculous question," said Mrs. Hopewell.

"It is somewhat melodramatic," Emily observed.

"But interesting," Brook added. "In my opinion, the pie was intended to do the same thing that pushing you down the steps was intended to do."

"And what was that?" I asked angrily.

No one answered.

"We'll sort this out, Kate," Adrian assured me. "I want the pie wrapped up," he instructed Mrs. Hopewell "We'll have it tested." He turned toward Patrick's room.

"That won't be possible," the housekeeper said.

Adrian swung around. "And why not?"

"I have cleared it away."

"Then take it out of the trash, Louise." He said each word distinctly.

"I do not put spoiled food in the trash. It may develop a bad odor and attract wildlife. I ground the dessert in the garbage disposal."

"What about the rest of the pie?" Adrian asked.

"The rest!" I cried, frustrated. "Tainting can be done after a piece is cut, done to just one serving. A test will prove nothing."

Mrs. Hopewell went on as if I hadn't spoken. "I thought it best, sir, to dispose of the entire pie."

Adrian grimaced. "Have the doctor speak to me first when he arrives. In the meantime, inform Trent and Robyn of the situation. And take Brook downstairs with you. Kate, I want you to stay with Emily and me." He led the way into Patrick's room.

Patrick was turning the pages of his favorite book, looking at pictures of Max and "the wild things," paging forward and backward. Emily resumed reading aloud. I couldn't tell if Patrick was listening; his eyes followed me around the room as I mechanically straightened things that didn't need straightening. Adrian sat in the rocking chair, motionless, deep in thought.

When the doctor arrived, Adrian met with her briefly in the hall to explain the situation, then introduced her to us as Dr. Whelan, informing Patrick that she was covering for his pediatrician. Emily pointed out the door to Patrick's bathroom, so that the physician could wash her hands before examining Patrick.

She returned to the bedroom with an odd expression on her face. As she checked Patrick's eyes, mouth, and ears, she questioned him.

"tell me what you ate," she said softly.

"Some of Kate's crackers."

"A package from a vending machine," I told her.

"And some of Kate's pie."

She got out her stethoscope. "What kind was it?"

"Raspberry."

"What else did you eat?"

"Nothing."

"Take a big breath for me. Good. Take another. You ate nothing else?"

"No."

"He had an after-school snack around three forty-five," I said, "a piece of buttered toast and a small glass of apple juice."

"Any tremors, convulsions, labored breathing?" she asked.

"No, ma'am," I replied.

"Patrick, did you have anything to drink later?" No.

"Why don't you whisper the answer to me?" the doctor suggested.

"He didn't have anything else!" I said, frustrated that she wasn't keying in on the pie. "Why do you keep asking him?"

She turned to me. "Because there is a bottle of cough syrup lying open on the bathroom sink."

I stared at her dumbfounded.

Emily's red eyebrows pulled together. "His medicine cabinet is kept locked." She looked at me accusingly. "At least, it's supposed to be."

"I keep it locked, just as you told me to," I said, starting out of the room to see for myself. "Besides, there was nothing on the sink when I washed up Patrick."

I stopped at the bathroom's marble transom. There was now—a half-empty bottle. I had been in a hurry to clean him up and get him in bed, but surely I would have noticed it.

I returned to the room. "I don't know how that bottle got there."

"How much of the medicine did you drink, Patrick?" Adrian asked wearily.

"None."

"tell the truth."

I am!"

"Did Ashley dare you to take some?" I asked.

"Kate," Emily pleaded.

"Who is Ashley?" Dr. Whelan asked.

Emily sighed. "Patrick's imaginary playmate."

"Did she?" I persisted.

Patrick shook his head no.

I turned to Adrian. He met my eyes, but I couldn't read his gaze—he didn't want me to.

"Dr. Whelan," I said, "is it possible that Patrick ate something that was poisonous enough to make him sick and, if he had eaten more, could have killed him?"

The physician studied me, the lines in her softly weathered face deepening. "There are an endless number of poisons, some more potent than others, some more deadly in a higher dosage. Why do you ask?"

"Are some tasteless?" I persisted. "Some odorless?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because I don't think Patrick drank any cough syrup. And as it happens, that raspberry pie—the entire piece, not two bites—was intended for me."

Dr. Whelan glanced at Adrian.

"When you have finished examining Patrick, we will discuss matters downstairs in my office," he said.

"I'm done," she told him.

"Emily?" He held out his hand for his wife. "Kate, would you mind staying with Patrick until he is asleep?"

He was not allowing me to talk further with the doctor. What was he afraid of—that I would give her even more reason to question the situation she found at Mason's Choice?

"I'm staying with him all night," I replied.

The doctor rewashed her hands and accompanied Adrian and Emily downstairs. Patrick resumed looking at the illustrations in his old book. I sensed he didn't want me sitting on his bed reading to him, so I pulled a chair next to it and sat quietly.

"I didn't have any medicine, Kate," he said, looking up from the book. "And Ashley didn't dare me."

"I know, Patrick."

I knew that flesh-and-blood hands had tainted the pie and unlocked the medicine cabinet. Whether by poisoning or by framing, someone was desperate to get rid of me. After twelve years, someone's nerves were starting to fray, and I was pretty sure it was Ashley's killer.

Chapter 17

I spent the night on Patrick's bedroom floor, getting more rest when I wasn't asleep, for in my dreams I ran continually, searching for Patrick, all the while being chased by someone or something I couldn't see. It was a relief when the alarm clock rang.

Patrick ate all of his breakfast and wanted to go to school. Emily was uncertain about sending him, but Adrian was pleased and praised him repeatedly for being "a strong boy," which made me wince. While Patrick waited for Emily to finish a note to his teacher, I went out to get the car. I stepped into a soft gray day, the warm air and melting snow blanketing the land with fog.

"Good morning."

"Sam!" I exclaimed, startled to see him leaning against his car in the Westbrooks' driveway.

I got home too late to call you back," he said.

"Your mother told me you were out."

"She told
me
that she gave you Sara's number." He cocked his head. "Why didn't you call?"

"I didn't want to interrupt anything."

"Anything like what?" he asked, laughing.

"Anything."

He moved closer, examining my face, his own becoming more serious. "You don't look like you got a lot of sleep."

"Right you are, Sherlock."

"What happened?" He opened the front door on the passenger side of his car. "Have a seat here in my office. Talk, Kate."

I sat sideways, keeping my feet outside the car, and told him about the poisoning of November, the dessert intended for me, and the sudden appearance of the cough syrup.

"I think Adrian is losing faith in me," I concluded, lapsing into silence. I was more tired than I had realized.

Sam's verbal explosions woke me up. His eyes flashed and he kicked the tires of his car. "You've got to leave, Kate. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you. I can't."

"You've got to!"

"I will not abandon Patrick," I said firmly. "I know how it feels to be left as a child."

"Like I don't? You keep forgetting about my father."

"That's different," I argued. "Your father didn't
choose
to leave. Something happens, Sam, happens to your heart, when you know a person has chosen to leave you. You keep waiting for the next person to go."

He kicked bits of dirty snow out from under his car's tires. "Okay, maybe I don't understand that part," he said.

"But here's the thing: If your goal is to help Patrick, I'd like to know how you are going to do that dead."

"Dead?" I shook my head. "Is there something you know that I don't?"

"The steps were a warning—I
think
they were just a warning. The pie, if you had eaten the whole piece—"

"Think about it," I interrupted. "It wouldn't have been very smart for someone to kill me with a piece of pie. An autopsy would have shown I was poisoned." It was the argument with which I had been trying to reassure myself since last night.

"Some poisons show up, some don't."

"All the same, I think you are getting a bit melodramatic," I said, borrowing Emily's line.

"You haven't yet seen melodramatic," he replied, suddenly pull ing me out of the car. He held me tightly in his arms. I could feel the blood pulse beneath my skin each place where his body touched mine.

"Why can't you drop the act, Kate?" He pulled back his head to look at me. His black eyes burned and became liquid with tears. "Don't you get it?" he asked, his voice trembling. I will go crazy if something happens to you. Don't make me any crazier than you already have."

"Hi, Sam."

At the sound of Patrick's voice, Sam released me. We both sagged against the car. I felt as if I'd had the wind knocked out of me. My eyes burned, my throat was dry.

I had thought your heart was supposed to break when someone left you, not when someone wanted in, but I felt as if Sam were chipping away, putting deep cracks in mine.

He rubbed his mouth. "Hey, short stuff. How's it going?"

"Okay," Patrick replied.

"Yeah? Is it?"

Patrick dropped his book bag next to the car, then shrugged.

"You think you might like another lesson in ice skating?"

"Okay," he said, with only a touch of enthusiasm.

Sam knelt in the snow. "I'm going to be straight with you. I heard that yesterday wasn't okay. I heard it was tough when you got home."

Patrick didn't reply.

Sam put his hand under Patrick's chin, gently lifting it. "I'm sorry about November."

Patrick took deep, sniffly breaths.

"It hurts bad; huh?"

Patrick nodded, and Sam put his arms around him. "It's okay to cry. When my dog died, I cried my eyes out. I cried when my friend's dog died. Heck, I cried when my friend's grandmother's cat died!"

I laughed quietly, but the kindness in Sam's voice and the tender way he held Patrick made my own eyes warm with tears. Patrick suddenly gave in, sobbing against Sam's shoulder. Sam stayed quiet til he was done.

"Feeling better now?"

"Yes," Patrick said softly.

"So, here's the bad news: You might want to cry again. And that's okay. Sometimes crying comes and goes."

Sam took out a package of tissue to wipe Patrick's tears, then handed him one. "Big blow," he said. "We don't want no boogies hanging out.
No boogies for you, no boogies for me,"
he chanted, then blew his own nose.

Patrick giggled. "I like boogies."

"They
are
interesting. But girls don't like them. I bet Kate thinks they're gross."

"You bet right. Need more tissue?"

"What'd I tell you," Sam said to Patrick, and stood up. "Have a decent time at school today. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." He leaned closer to him.

"That still leaves you with a pretty long list.

"I'll call you tonight, Kate," Sam went on, turning to me. "Do you have a direct line?"

I wrote down my cell phone number. As he slipped it in his pocket, he glanced toward the house and gave a casual wave. "Just saying hello to the nice people watching us—someone upstairs, someone down."

I turned quickly, but all I saw was a blur as a figure withdrew from the library window.

Sam drove off, leaving greasy black snow where his car had been parked. Patrick and I trudged silently toward the garage as if we were already at the end of a very long day.

I think I woke up Joseph. He sounded a bit cross when I phoned him from the school parking lot, but recovered quickly when he realized I was the one calling. We agreed to meet at Tea Leaves. Twenty minutes later he arrived at the bakery and cafe, looking like a rumpled schoolboy who had overslept.

"I shouldn't have called you so early,' I said as we placed our breakfast on a table by the window and sat down. "Middle button," I added, and he fastened his shirt.

"No, no," Joseph replied, "I had planned to be at the shop by now. I should be wrapping things up faster than I am and getting back to my job in Baltimore. Ah, coffee." He took several sips, then examined the china mug. "I wonder if Jamie would buy off any of my mother's collection? Nothing else here matches."

The owner had painted the cafe's furniture in a rainbow of hues, making no effort to match the sets of tables and chairs. With the fog enveloping the town, pressing against the cafe's street-front windows, the room was a cheerful island of color and warmth. I watched Joseph eat his muffin with a knife and fork. I bit into mine, messy but content.

"Did you talk to Jim Parker?" he asked.

That single moment of ease evaporated.

"Yes. He was very helpful. He doesn't think Ashley is a ghost."

I explained the psychologist's theory.

"Well, I find that easier to believe than the walking dead," Joseph remarked when I had finished, "though not much easier."

"But you see the possibilities," I said.

Joseph took a long sip of coffee, "I—no, I don't think I do."

"If Patrick can tap into the record of Ashley's thoughts and feelings, all I have to do is get him on the right page."

"The right page?"

"Get him to connect with Ashley's thoughts on the day she was murdered."

He slowly set down his cup. "I see."

"I'm taking him down to the pond as soon as we get home from school today. I'll talk to him about the day she died, try to get him to think about it, and hope that he taps into her memory trace. If Ashley saw someone when she was lured out on the ice, saw just a piece of clothing through the trees—someone's jacket, for instance—it could be an important clue. Maybe she noticed footprints or heard a familiar voice. I don't know what exactly I'm looking for, but there may be something in her thoughts and feelings from that time that could tell us who killed her."

Joseph chewed thoughtfully. "If someone killed her," he said at last. "Katie, I'm not tell ing you that she wasn't murdered, but I do worry that, without realizing it, you have turned a possibility of murder into a fact."

I picked up my juice glass and swished it around, watching the little particles of orange swirl.

He went on. "I think that—don't be offended—in a way, you want it to be murder. I understand why. It would explain a lot of things that are happening now to Patrick."

I thought about Dr. Parker's warning: It is when we like our theories too much that we should be wary.

"The day Ashley died," Joseph went on, "she was distraught over her missing rabbit. And she was always an impulsive child. If anyone would have run across dangerous ice to catch her pet, Ashley would have. Remember, they found the rabbit when they drained the pond. And when the coroner examined Ashley's body, he found no sign of trauma.".

"That doesn't prove anything," I argued. "No one had to touch her. All they had to do was lure her onto the ice. It would be easy enough to kill a rabbit and slide it out on the ice with a pole, leaving it there for her to see. A rabbit is light; ice that was soft enough to give way beneath Ashley could have held a rabbit."

Joseph chewed some more, thinking, then set down his knife and fork, picking the crumbs off his plate with his fingers, licking the tips.

"What you're saying makes sense. Just remember that if you start out with the wrong assumption, you may misinterpret whatever follows."

I nodded.

"So take Patrick to the pond," Joseph advised. "It can't hurt, and maybe it will help. See what he tell s you. I admit, I'm getting curious." He glanced down at his plate, which was now crumb less. "Would you like another muffin?"

"No, but get one for yourself. I have some tea left."

Joseph shoved back his chair. "Wouldn't want to get thin," he said.

As he headed toward the glass cases that ran along the back of the cafe, I gazed at the buildings across the street. In the fog, the Queen Victoria, with its second and third-story porches, looked like a faded photograph of a nineteenth-century hotel. The illusion was broken when someone in a bright green business suit emerged from the entrance. She reached back and the man behind her put his coat over her shoulders. It was Trent—and the woman from the other day, the hotell manager, I assumed. They crossed the street and entered Tea Leaves.

Walking to the cases at the back of the cafe, they passed Joseph on his return to our table. I thought Joseph hadn't noticed them, but when he sat down he leaned forward and said in a hushed voice, "Trent is seeing Margery?"

"I think so."

He offered a toast with his coffee. "Here's to women who know how to latch on to money."

Trent glanced over his shoulder at us.

Unfortunately, the only table in the cafe available to them was close enough to ours to limit our conversation to Joseph's progress in organizing his mother's estate. I hope her soul was in better shape than her finances," he kept saying.

He finished his muffin, and we rose to leave. I smiled and said hello to Trent as we passed his table. Just as Joseph and I reached the cafe door, Trent called to me.

"I had better see what he wants," I said.

Joseph looked irritated and glanced at his watch. "I've got to keep going. I have an appointment with Mother's no-good lawyer."

"Thanks for listening, Joseph."

"Sure, Katie," he said. "You know I'm just an old grouch and don't mean anything when I fuss."

He left, and Trent rose from his seat, meeting me halfway aaoss the room. "We'll go outside for a moment," he said, taking my arm lightly and steering me in that direction.

I pulled my arm free, then glanced toward Margery. She showed the training of a discreet hotell manager, acting as if she hadn't noticed me and had come to the cafe to eat by herself.

When Trent and I were standing on the brick walk, he started right in. "That's the second time I've seen you with Joseph Oakley."

"And it's the second time I've seen you with her," I replied, nodding toward his companion inside.

"I hope you are not involved with Joseph."

"Involved? Don't you think he is a little too old for me?"

"I wasn't speaking romantically," Trent said stiffly. "I feel it is my duty, Kate, to tell you that Joseph is a dishonest man, an unreliable person. When you are young and naive, it is sometimes difficult to see people for what they are."

"Oh. Well, since you are old and wise, what do you think about Sam Koscinski?" I asked. "You were looking out the library window this morning, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"You know he is the son of the private investigator your father hired after Ashley died, the man who was killed when pursuing my family."

"Yes," Trent replied, his lips barely opening.

"Why was Mr. Koscinski chasing my mother? Why wasn't he pursuing you as well?"

Trent's eyes shifted away from me.

"Both you and my mother were cheated on."

Trent's face washed white. Some people redden with anger; he paled with it.

"You would have the same motive," I continued.

"Motive for what?" he asked.

I ignored the question; we both knew its answer. "Why do you think Ashley keeps talking to Patrick?"

"Patrick is an exceptionally spoiled and confused child," Trent said. "His behavior is easy to understand. It is yours that baffles me. On the surface you appear to care too much for the boy to want to make things harder for him."