"My patience is rather thin, Clarissa," Morgan
said impatiently. "Let's go."
She did not move. The ordeal of the past four
days, the constant fine tuning of her will to survive, had honed
her senses and heightened her perceptions. Clarissa felt the cracks
in his cold veneer, heard the thin edge of fear in his voice. She
was aware of the slight, almost imperceptible tremble in his
outstretched hand. He was vulnerable, susceptible. There were
discernible holes in his armor and Clarissa thanked God for them.
Morgan Wolfe was cornered and possibly wounded. That made him a
most deadly animal.
"You bastard," she hissed at him.
"I have no time for this," Morgan snapped and
lunged toward her.
"Keep away from me!" she cried.
"Damn it, come here! Clarissa!"
She was cut off from Dusty's office and the
phone, from the front door, from escape. The only avenue open was
the stairs. She swung herself around the newel post and pounded up
the stairs. Get to her room, lock herself in, and use the rusted
fire escape outside her window to get out of the building. It would
work if she could put distance between herself and Morgan. She
rounded the second floor landing with so much force that she banged
her hip into the edge of the banister. The sharp pain made her gasp
and clutch her side but she couldn't dare slow down.
Her breath was heaving in deep gasps when she
stumbled into the third floor hallway. The most welcome sight in
the world was Rowland standing stooped over the lock on his
door.
"Rowland!" she cried. He looked up startled
and smiled at her.
"Well, child, I thought you was already down
at the church kitchen. I knocked on your door but you didn't
answer."
"Rowland, help me." The fear in Clarissa's
eyes wiped the smile from the old man's face. "There's a man after
me."
Clarissa turned, expecting to see Morgan in
the hallway behind her. It was empty. She turned questioningly back
to Rowland.
"He was in the lobby," she said quietly. "He's
trying to kill me."
"There's no one there now, child," Rowland
said soothingly.
"He was there, Rowland," she insisted. "I saw
him. It was Morgan. He was there. Downstairs."
Clarissa rubbed at her temples and tried to
make the blinding headache go away. She was not mad. Morgan was in
lobby. He was no drug induced illusion. Yet, even as she thought
about it, she doubted her own sanity. She knew she had been
drugged. She knew what she had witnessed in the basement. Or had
she? Had any of it been real? Her head pounded and throbbed trying
to remember events after she had eaten Dotty Warren's soup and
fallen asleep. Things were hazy, disjointed images of Dotty dead
and Randy shot by the Mexican neighbor. Was it real or was her
fogged mind putting together a patchwork of barely related people
and events, laced together by the constant terror she had lived
with since Byron Roth's murder. The admission that it was possibly
all just a nightmare brought tears to her eyes.
Rowland unlocked the door to his room and
pulled out a supermarket grocery cart. He jockeyed and angled the
cart, struggling to pull it into the hallway.
"I brought up my laundry," Rowland explained.
"I got to return this here cart on the way to dinner. Roast beef
and macaroni tonight."
"Rowland, you have to go call the police,"
Clarissa was near hysterics. "Dusty is hurt. Please."
"I just spoke with Dusty on my way up here,"
said Rowland. "He was at the desk. He seemed just fine to me.
Child, you come with me. We'll go get some of that
beef."
She screamed silently inside her head. She had
seen Dusty laying in his own blood from the wound on his forehead.
He was in the hallway blocking the cellar door. She saw him! Damn
it, she did see him. He was hurt bad. Then what was he doing there
away from his desk? He never left his desk or his office. She had
never seen him outside his cage except the one time with the county
inspector.
The awful doubt clouded her vain attempt to
remember. She struggled to get a mental picture of Dusty lying in
the hallway. She could not hold the scene in her mind. Dusty's
frail form continually faded to became her mother's body lying next
to the bus stop in a pool of her own blood. Clarissa clenched her
fists in the agony of frustration. Madness scraped at the edges of
her soul and she pushed it away with one rational thought.
Escape.
"Clarissa!" Morgan's voice from the other end
of the hallway spun her around. She shrank back from his slow
advance. "I can get you help if you come with me. The best doctors,
I promise you. There is no need for you to live with your problem
any longer. It's lucky I found you this time. It will be
alright."
"Stop it, Morgan!"
"Don't make me call the hospital, Clarissa,"
Morgan's voice was enticing and silky, brimming with believable
compassion. "You need your medication. Come with me."
"There's nothing wrong with me," Clarissa spat
back at him. "You keep your bloody hands off of me."
Rowland glanced at Clarissa with pity in his
sad eyes. "Child?"
"He's lying," Clarissa said, tears of
frustration welling up in her. "He's a master at it."
Morgan gave Rowland a weary smile. "I love
this woman," Morgan explained. "We're engaged to be married. She is
manic depressive. Do you know what that is?"
"Damn you, Morgan, I am not."
"It's a mental disorder, something out of
balance chemically in the brain. She takes medication for it,"
Morgan continued, flicking an imaginary piece of lint from his
expensive jacket. "When she's off the meds, she gets very deeply
depressed or very hyper active. I usually find her in places like
this. Clarissa grew up in neighborhoods like this one. She tends to
go back to her roots when the depression comes on her. She saw her
mother killed not far from here when she was very young. But she
doesn't belong here. You know that she is international fashion
model Clarissa Hayden?"
"Rowland, please call the police," Clarissa
begged as she edged closer to the elderly man and the grocery cart.
Rowland had not said a word. He stood very still, occasionally
eyeing Clarissa, but never taking his eyes off Morgan Wolfe for
more than a half second.
"I love her, Mister Rowland," Morgan said
softly and there was compassion in his eyes. "She may not believe
that but I have been looking for her continually for the past
seventy two hours."
"To kill me," Clarissa screamed at
him.
"No, my love. You don't know what you saw from
your bedroom window Friday night. You think you saw something that
you really did not. Think, Clarissa. I have given you everything
you ever wanted. When have I ever hurt you or even threatened to do
you any harm? Never. I love you. If you let me help you, we can put
all of this behind us. Together, we can get you through the pain of
your mother's death. Let it go, Clarissa. Come with me."
In her mind she could see the azure water of
the swimming pool from her upstairs bedroom window. She could hear
the gun shot. Or was it simply the backfire from a passing car? She
could see Byron's body floating in the pool and dark shadows in the
night, of Morgan and his men staring into the water. The image
rippled and became a crowd of onlookers standing around a bus
bench. Myra floated in the pool. Clarissa stared out of the window
in shocked silence. Then Morgan's eyes turned up to glare at her.
Escape.
"You killed Byron Roth," Clarissa
yelled.
"You know that isn't true," Morgan said
evenly. "I've never hurt anyone."
"You're a monster, Morgan," Clarissa said near
tears. "You may have not been the one to pull the trigger but you
ordered his death."
"You see, Mister Rowland, why she needs her
medication?" Morgan said as he subtly let the light from the bare
bulb in the hall ceiling play on his gold and diamond rings. "I am
a businessman, not some killer in Clarissa's depression inspired
fantasies. Help me, Mister Rowland, to bring her back to reality.
We have to get her back on the meds."
"You damn liar," Clarissa said through
tears.
"She needs a lot of love and care," Morgan
smiled at Clarissa. "As her fiancé, I can give her everything she
needs. Please, Clarissa, come. I have the car waiting downstairs. I
have to catch a plane to Washington for an important meeting in the
morning. The staff at the house will see to your needs for the next
day or so.”
"Marco is dead," Clarissa murmured and she
watched Morgan's face for any trace of a reaction. There was
none.
"He's waiting in the car, Clarissa," Morgan
said as he reached for her hand. "Where the chauffeur always waits.
Come."
Clarissa felt herself wanting to believe him,
wanting to know that it had all been a terrible nightmare, and now
Morgan was here to take her home. The longing was strong to
collapse into his arms and let him lift her, carry her out of the
terror and dread. He was so handsome, so damned perfect. So damned
evil. She met his eyes under the glare of the hall lights and held
his gaze for a long moment. She waited, searching his face for the
one shred of proof of her sanity.
"Go to hell, Morgan Wolfe," she whispered. And
there it was. The domino, the disguise, faded for a fleeting
second. All the agonies of hell blazed for that brief moment behind
his small violet eyes. Then the domino fell back into place. Morgan
Wolfe smiled and reached out confidently for Clarissa.
The ephemeral domino did not escape Rowland.
The grocery cart hit Morgan in the gut with a force that knocked
the wind out of him. The frail old black man was stronger than
Morgan had ever imagined. Wolfe sprawled on the floor with a
curse.
"Go, child!" Rowland urged Clarissa. She eased
past Morgan and broke into a run for the stairs.
Clarissa started down the stairwell and
stopped. Alex climbed the last step to the landing just below her.
His jacket was stained with blood. He looked up at Clarissa with
eyes that held a great deal of physical pain.
"Clarissa," he said huskily.
"Don't..."
She backed away into the hallway. Alex was
wounded but Clarissa knew he still had the gun. She chanced a quick
glance down the third floor hallway before she ran up the stairs to
the fourth floor. Morgan was just gaining his feet. She ran until
the stairs ended at a door marked "roof" stenciled in red letters.
Clarissa pushed the door open and stepped out into the damp night.
A cool breeze and a light drizzle was all that was left of the
passing thunder storms.
Clarissa slammed shut the heavy metal roof
door. There was no lock on the outside and a quick look around
provided nothing with which to wedge the door closed. Now, she had
only seconds to find the fire escape ladder and get off the roof.
She ran along a four foot high wall that rimmed the edge of the
building, looking over down onto the street below. There was no way
down on this side. Clarissa started toward the edge on the west
side of the roof.
Behind her, the metal door slammed open with a
bone jarring crash. Clarissa whirled. Morgan came toward her, a
look of grim satisfaction on his face.
"There's nowhere else to go, Clarissa," he
said smugly. "Only down."
"Please, Morgan," Clarissa implored as she
continued to back toward the roof edge. "I don't understand any of
this. Why?"
"Believe me, I don't want to hurt you. You
were so good for me. You shouldn't have run. You shouldn't have
come back into the house that night. I thought Marco had secured
the doors. I tried to protect you. I never wanted you
involved."
"I am good for you, Morgan." Her voice was
small and desperate. "Give me a chance."
"Sorry, darling."
Her back was at the low wall. Clarissa glanced
over the edge then stared back at Wolfe with wide terrified
eyes.
"You didn't kill Byron Roth," she stammered.
"I saw Marco do it. Not you. Marco is dead."
"I know you don't understand, my love," Morgan
said as he took cautious steps toward her. "It has to be this
way."
"No, Morgan! I won't say anything. I promise.
Please don't do this. We could go away. Nobody has to know
anything."
"There would come a time, a time when you
would want something from me. Something perhaps I could not give
you. Then what would you do, Clarissa? Threaten to go to the police
with what know you know?"
"No, Morgan, I wouldn't."
Clarissa inched along the wall, trying to keep
just out of Morgan's reach. She grabbed the opening of her olive
work shirt and wrapped it protectively around her. Her hand brushed
the lump in the pocket of her jeans and her facial expression
changed ever so slightly. She had forgotten Marco's knife. Slowly,
Clarissa's right hand slid down into the pocket. Her thumb felt for
the tiny lever that would release the blade.
"Did you send Marco to kill me?" she asked,
and there was the hint of confidence in her voice.
"Marco came on his own against my direct
orders."