Perfect Nightmare (28 page)

For a moment the two men stared at each other blankly, then Neville reflexively stepped back. “Mr. Shields, what are you—” he began. Then he heard screams echo through the tunnel and saw the yellowish glow of fire piercing the blackness at the far end. “Dear God, what have you done!” he cried as the shouts echoing in the tunnel grew louder. Seeing the insanity in his employer’s eyes, he took another step back.

“Not me!” Patrick howled. Blindly, he raised the poker and slashed it down, sinking its iron spur deep into Neville Cavanaugh’s skull. “Not me,” he said again, his voice breaking. “It was never me.”

Stepping over Neville’s body, he lurched across the concrete floor of the basement and staggered up the stairs, into the library, then out through the open door to the terrace.

For a moment he stood perfectly still, gazing out over the broad lawn that swept down to the water. Off to the left he could barely make out the shape of the mausoleum, which was almost hidden by the smoke curling out from the playhouse.

He dropped the bloody poker on the flagstones, and the last details of the nightmare he’d suppressed for so long came starkly into focus.

It hadn’t been a nightmare at all.

It had all been real, and now he remembered.

He remembered everything.

He looked one last time at the playhouse, where flames were leaking out around the plywood he’d long ago nailed over the windows.

Then he turned away.

There was one last thing he had to do.

Chapter Fifty-three

T
he tires of the Mercedes-Benz shrieked in protest as Patrick hurled the big car through the curves of the winding roads that would take him to his destination. The only car he met along the way pulled off to the side long before he tore past it, and he was barely aware of the driver’s blast of a protesting horn. As he negotiated one turn after another, some small part of his mind guided him along the route as the rest of his consciousness tried to cope with the memories that were still boiling up from his subconscious. His rage and his horror at all the things that had happened kept growing, building upon themselves, until not only his mind, but his whole body, felt as if it might explode.

By the time he slewed the car into the long driveway that led to Claire’s house, tears were streaming down his face and his throat hurt from the howls of anguish and fury that had filled the car during the short drive. The car lost traction on the gravel drive as he slammed on the brakes, spun around, and came to a stop with its rear end laying waste to more than half of the rose garden that had been Claire’s pride and joy for more than a decade.

Giving the horn three long blasts, then adding two more to be certain Claire would wake up if she was asleep, he got out of the car. Leaving its lights on, the engine running, and the driver’s door open, he took the steps to the broad porch of the big shingled cottage in two quick strides and a moment later was punching at the doorbell, then pounding on the door. After what seemed an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, he stepped back and bellowed his sister’s name. “Wake up, God damn you!” he shouted into the faint light of a false dawn. “Get down here and open the door!”

He was about to resume his pounding when the porch light flashed on. Then the door opened and his sister appeared, clutching her robe close around her neck.

“Patrick?” she said, appearing confused. “Patrick, what’s wrong? My God, do you know what time it is?”

Instead of answering, he shoved through the door, catching Claire off balance and making no move to catch her before she tumbled to the floor. He towered over her, his face scarlet with rage, his eyes glazed, his body quivering.

“Patrick,” Claire gasped, instinctively trying to pull herself away from him before she got up. “What are you—”

His right foot lashed out, catching her just below her left breast. “I killed them!” he roared. “I killed them myself!”

As the pain from the kick slashed through her, Claire scrambled away and got to her feet. “What are you talking about?” she gasped, pressing her hand against her chest and bending over against the pain.

“Renee!” Patrick howled. “And Jenna, and Chrissie, and that girl, and—” His voice broke, he choked on his own sob, but then he went on. “How many others?” he demanded. “How many?”

Claire stared at him, trying to fathom what he was talking about. Then the light from the chandelier caught his eyes and she saw the insanity that gripped him. Shifting her gaze away, she scanned the foyer, searching for something—anything—with which to defend herself.

There was nothing.

“Patrick, calm down,” she said, backing away as he moved toward her. “Tell me what—”

“You
know
what!” he roared. “How could you do it? I was a little boy! What kind of monster are you? I was only six! That very day, I turned six, and you and—” His voice broke and he reached toward her.

Claire’s eyes narrowed as it finally became clear, and she took another backward step. “Patrick, slow down. All that was years ago and—”

But Patrick didn’t want to slow down. He wanted to hurt Claire the way she’d hurt him. He moved closer, close enough to see the fear in her eyes.

The fear and something else.

Guilt. It was in her eyes, and the knowledge that she knew exactly why he was here further fueled his rage.

Claire turned then and ran, darting up the stairs, her bathrobe streaming behind her.

Patrick bolted after her, stumbling on the staircase, then regaining his balance and charging up again.

Claire got to the master bedroom and tried to close the door, but he was right behind her and shoved his way into the room. She backed up again; the fear in her eyes had turned to abject terror.

“It was only a game,” she said, searching for something that might mollify her brother. “We were just playing a game! We were children—”

“It wasn’t a game,” he said, his eyes bleak and his voice harsh. “It was sex, Claire. It was sex and torture! You tortured a little boy, Claire. A little boy who was your own brother!”

Once again Claire’s eyes darted around the room, this time searching for a means of escape. But there was no escape, not without getting past Patrick, and he was too big, and too strong.

Far bigger and stronger than he’d been back then, all those years ago, in the playhouse.

And now he was furious, too.

Turn it back,
she told herself.
Make him think it was his fault.
“You wanted to do it,” she hissed. “You liked it, Patrick. You loved it! And you were lucky Father never found out—if I’d told him you raped me, he’d have killed you!”

Ignoring her words, he moved closer.

Claire turned, scrambled across the bed, and fumbled with the nightstand drawer. “Get away from me, Patrick,” she said, trying to keep her terror out of her voice. “I’m warning you—”

But it was already too late. Lunging at the bed, he threw himself on top of her, then twisted her around so she was lying on her back, his legs straddling her, his weight pinning her to the mattress. She kicked and struggled as she kept reaching for the drawer in the nightstand, but it was useless.

As she struggled even harder, Patrick saw the desperation in her face, and it somewhat eased his pain to see that now she would feel what all the others had felt, all the others who had suffered because of what she’d done to him. He could feel the blood pumping through her arteries under his hands now, feel her heart pounding and her chest heaving. His hands moved to her neck and his fingers closed around her throat. She was still thrashing beneath him, her face turning red, her eyes bulging. Then her lungs began to spasm as she struggled for air, and he could feel her larynx and esophagus collapsing under the pressure of his fingers.

No more was he the little boy molested by his big sister and her laughing friend.

No more was he stripped naked, bound to a table, and forced to submit his body to his sister’s desire.

“No more!” he screamed, releasing the last of the pent-up fury and outrage that had split him in two so many years ago.

Claire’s face had turned from red to purple, and her struggles had lessened, yet still he squeezed. And then, finally, she stopped struggling.

Her arteries no longer throbbed, her chest no longer heaved.

And still he squeezed.

He squeezed until his hands ached as much as his heart, until his own lungs began to heave with sobs.

He squeezed until tears fell from his eyes into the dead, wide-open orbs of his sister's.

They trickled into her mouth and onto her cheeks and through her hair.

His tears.

The tears he’d held back, just as he’d held the memories at bay.

Finally, his tears as spent as his rage, Patrick rolled off Claire’s still body. For a few minutes he lay on the bed next to his sister, then wiped away the last of his tears.

It was time to finish it, finally and forever.

Opening the drawer he hadn’t let Claire reach, he took out the small pistol she’d bought after Phillip Sollinger had left her ten years ago.

He gazed at the gun for almost a full minute.

Oh God, I’m so sorry,
he said silently to himself as he put the gun to his temple.

As his finger began to squeeze the trigger, one last memory rose in his mind.

The journal.

The journal written by that other person, the secret person who had hidden inside him all those long years while he himself was hiding from the past.

The journal that was locked in the bottom drawer of the desk in the library.

The journal that, perhaps, would explain it all.

His finger tightening once more, Patrick Shields pulled the trigger.

Chapter Fifty-four

A
ndrew Grant was only vaguely aware of the brightening dawn outside the window of the small apartment he’d called home since his wife had thrown him out five years ago—not because of another woman in his life or another man in hers, but because of the kind of behavior he was indulging in right now. Not only was the small dining room table covered with copies of every report, note, and photograph that might be even peripherally relevant to the open house cases, but so also was the couch, the coffee table, and every other flat surface. All night, he had been sifting through them, moving relentlessly from one report to another, prowling through the mass of interviews, observations, and speculations like a hungry tiger sniffing for prey it knows is there but can’t quite pin down. But he was close, though it was his gut telling him he was almost there rather than his brain.

An invisible person.

That was what it boiled down to. Someone who could blend into even a small crowd so perfectly that even people who remembered he was there couldn’t quite recall what he looked like. That let out all the real-estate agents he’d talked to, and all the clients they’d brought with them. And all the couples who had gone through the houses, too. And all the singles who’d signed in—whoever he was looking for wouldn’t have signed the agents’ books at all. But at all three of the open houses he was now investigating, at least one person—and at the Marshalls’, three people—had remembered someone being in the house at the same time they were, though they couldn’t recall anything about him. “One of those guys you just don’t notice, you know?” someone had said. “Like a waiter when you’re at a restaurant. You know he’s there, but you don’t even look at him.”

A waiter . . .

What the hell did
that
mean?

His gut told him it meant
something,
but
what
?

As he reached for the mug of cold coffee he’d left on the windowsill, the police scanner in the kitchen, which had been droning intermittently all night with reports of domestic violence and drunken driving, suddenly came to life with a report of a fire. But it wasn’t the fire itself that caught Grant’s attention—it was the location: 35 Flinders Beach Road.

The coffee mug instantly forgotten, Grant went to the dining room table and picked up one of the twenty-odd reports he himself had made on this case over the last two weeks, this one in reference to the reward that had been offered for information about Lindsay Marshall. He stared at the name and address of the donor: Patrick Shields, 35 Flinders Beach Road.

Now Grant’s mind was racing. This wasn’t the first fire Patrick Shields had been involved in. Just last Christmas the man’s skiing cabin in Vermont had burned, killing his wife and both his daughters.

That fire had been deemed accidental, but now, as the address of tonight’s fire was repeated on the scanner, Grant’s skin crawled. One fire might be accidental. But not two.

He picked up his jacket from the chair by the door, and in less than a minute was driving out of the building’s garage, his mind racing.

Two girls and a woman had died in the fire in Vermont, and now two girls and a woman were missing.

And Patrick Shields’s house was once more burning.

But Patrick Shields? It made no sense—almost everything about Shields was memorable: he was good-looking, and always expensively dressed in the kind of clothes whose quality even he could spot instantly. And not just spot, either—actually notice, and wish he could afford.

But it wasn’t just that. At least until his wife and children died, Shields had always possessed the kind of self-confidence that only old money brings, which again always commanded attention.

Nothing like a waiter at all. The notion of Patrick Shields serving anyone—

Suddenly, the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place for Grant.

Serving . . .
servant
!

The word exploded in his mind like a bomb, and he switched on the siren and the flashing light of the bubble gum machine on top of the car and hit the accelerator.

Neville Cavanaugh.

A man who had spent most of his life being invisible!

Ten minutes later, Grant swerved into the driveway of Patrick Shields’s estate and skidded to a stop amidst two Camden Green police cruisers, an ambulance, and two fire trucks. But the house, looming high against the dawning sky, showed no signs of fire.

Getting out of the car and following the hoses the two fire crews were pulling around the end of the house, Grant stopped short when he saw the source of the flames. It wasn’t the house burning, but a far smaller structure, no larger than a child’s playhouse. And even at a glance, he was certain that neither the structure nor anyone who might be inside was going to survive. Already, smoke and flames were pouring up through a gaping hole in the roof, and as the firemen turned on their hoses, the entire roof collapsed. He saw the firefighters flinch as a storm of sparks and flames shot toward the sky, the fire feasting on the oxygen that flooded through the structure’s fatal wound.

As they began to douse the blaze, Grant looked around for Patrick Shields, but saw neither the estate’s owner nor Neville Cavanaugh. Was it possible that somehow
both
of them were inside the disintegrating playhouse?

Grant broke into a run as he started up the lawn toward the house. He’d come to the steps to the terrace that ran along the rear of the house when a set of French doors burst open and Kara Marshall stumbled out, pulling someone behind her. A moment later a third figure appeared, followed by a stream of smoke. All of them were choking and coughing.

Grant yelled back over his shoulder for blankets as he raced up the steps, and as the walls of the playhouse tumbled into the inferno that the fire hoses were just beginning to defeat, policemen and EMTs began swarming toward the house.

Lindsay Marshall collapsed into Grant’s arms just as he reached her, and he gently lowered her onto the terrace. While a policeman covered her with a blanket and an EMT began checking her for injuries, Grant recognized Ellen Fine, shivering in the morning light, wrapped in a blanket as another of the EMTs tended to her.

He turned to Kara Marshall then, who was crouched close to her daughter, clutching Lindsay’s hand and gently soothing the girl’s forehead. “It’s all right,” Grant heard her whispering. “You’re safe. It’s all right.”

K
ara clung to Lindsay’s hand even as the attendants gently eased the girl onto a stretcher and carried her to the ambulance. There, they wrapped her up in yet another blanket and strapped her to the gurney. Another crew was doing the same thing with Ellen Fine. Kara stayed with her daughter, her fingers constantly caressing Lindsay’s hair, her face, her thickly blanketed shoulder. “It’s okay,” she kept saying, as much to herself as to her daughter. “It’s over.”

“I just want to go home,” Lindsay whispered.

“Soon, sweetheart.” Kara smoothed a strand of hair back from Lindsay’s forehead. “Very soon.”

As the attendants began to slide the gurney into the ambulance, she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Andrew Grant standing behind her. As their eyes met, he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her. Kara took it, wiped the soot and sweat from her brow, then blew her nose. She crumpled the handkerchief and was about to get into the ambulance with Lindsay when Grant spoke to her.

“It was Cavanaugh, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Kara paused, then turned to face him, shaking her head.

Grant frowned, looking puzzled. “Shields?”

For a long moment Kara said nothing, her mind filled not only with the confusion of getting Lindsay and Ellen out of the playhouse and into the tunnel before the roof fell in on them, but on the madness that had culminated in the fire. Finally, she nodded. “He—He killed Neville Cavanaugh, too, I think. And another girl—her name was Shannon.”

“Shannon Butler,” Grant breathed, but Kara barely heard him.

“I know it was Patrick,” she went on. “But it was someone else, too. Someone not at all like Patrick Shields.” She fell silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was hollow: “I don’t know what happened. Isn’t that strange? I was there, and I really don’t know what happened, and I don’t think I’ll ever know. All I do know is that whatever it was, it’s over.”

One of the EMTs shut the door, then Kara scrambled in the other door, and a moment later the ambulance pulled away. As Grant stood watching, another ambulance pulled to a stop, to take Ellen Fine to the hospital, and then all that was left was the smoldering wreckage of the playhouse.

Feeling more tired than he’d ever felt before, Grant turned away, Kara Marshall’s words still fresh in his mind. Later today he’d go through the house, searching for the answer to the question she hadn’t quite asked, the answer that Kara herself obviously thought he’d never find: what exactly had happened?

Maybe she was right—maybe he never would find out.

Then, as he was starting toward the car, his cell phone came alive and he listened as an impersonal voice told him what had just been found at Claire Sollinger’s house, not far away. Sighing deeply, he started the engine. Kara Marshall, it turned out, had been absolutely right about one thing.

All of it, now, was truly over.