He swung round so suddenly that she jumped. He smiled. “You know,” he said, “you’re going to look very foolish if I send for the constable and Bella arrives home an hour later. And how will Lucas feel, knowing that his wife has accused him of murder? I think we should go down there now and let him out of the crypt before this goes any further.”
Constable? She hadn’t thought of sending for the constable. That’s not what she wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted. She only knew that Lucas had to be stopped.
He unlocked the glass door and opened it. “There’s something else you’re not taking into account. Lucas arrived at the priory after you. If I send for the constable and he finds Stone’s body buried in the crypt, he may accuse you of the murder.”
His eyes narrowed on her face, then he looked down at his feet to see what she was staring at. The rose had fallen out of his lapel.
Jessica jerked her eyes up to meet his.
Sighing, he shut the door and bent to retrieve the rose. Petals broke away and floated to the floor.
She tried to say something, but her tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“That was careless of me,” he said, and he crushed the rose in his hand then threw it away. “But that’s not all, is it? What else did I say, Jessica?”
She looked into his eyes and knew that lying would not save her. She had given herself away and now he knew that she had found him out. Making the movement as unthreatening as she could, she slowly rose to her feet. “When I entered the crypt,” she said, “I wondered why there was no smell of putrefying flesh. You’ve just told me why. You buried Rodney Stone’s body in the earth floor, didn’t you, Rupert?”
“So, that’s it.” He smiled ruefully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to frighten you. I wanted to get this over and done with before you realized what was happening.”
He was going to kill her. She saw at once that it wasn’t a sudden decision. He’d had every intention of doing away with her from the moment she’d accosted him outside the conservatory. And the moment she knew that, everything became clear to her.
“You’re my Voice,” she said.
“Voice?” He cocked his head to one side. “That’s not how I would describe it. You came into my mind uninvited. I wondered about it a time or two, oh, years ago, but not seriously. I thought my imagination was playing tricks on me. All that changed the night your father died.”
“Yes,” she said, as memories flooded her mind. “At first, you couldn’t believe that I was reading you. You didn’t want to believe it. But you could not shut your mind to me.”
“And,” he said softly, “I was terrified.”
“So you came after me and tried to murder me. I didn’t see you, you know, not clearly. So you were quite safe.”
He spoke without passion, and his words were all the more lethal because of it. “Safe? I think not. Try to see it from my point of view. I would always be afraid of your power to read me. My whole life through, I would be afraid. There’s no way I can guard myself against you. Not completely. How can I live with that?”
She said wonderingly, “But why you? Why not someone else’s mind? I thought it was Lucas’s mind I could read. When I was a girl growing up, I was sure of it.”
“Then you were mistaken. It had to be my mind. You and I are related, you see. Oh, not closely, cousins three or four times removed. Our common ancestor is Great-great-uncle Albert. I suspected it must be something like that, so I looked into it after you ran away from Hawkshill. It’s all written down in the family annals. Uncle Albert was the black sheep of the family. He was cast out without a penny many years ago, and from what I can
gather, deservedly so. He hadn’t the least notion of what he owed to the name he bore.”
“We’re related?” she said, trying to absorb the thought.
“There’s even a physical resemblance between us. Haven’t you noticed? We have the same hair and eyes.”
Though she heard every word, another part of her mind was on Lucas. What had she done? Oh, God, what had she done?
“Lucas won’t help you, Jessica. It will take him hours to find his way out of the crypt, as I should know.”
Her eyes flared.
“No,” he said, “I’m not reading your mind. I simply guessed you’d be thinking about him. You see, it’s only the females in our family who have the … ‘gift,’ shall we call it for want of a better word? Oh, we males are sensitive, but we haven’t the same power, and not everyone has it. As you may imagine, my grandfather was appalled. He thought it was an abomination, and I agree with him. It was a secret we kept closely guarded within the family.”
He didn’t look like a murderer. He didn’t sound like a murderer. Even in this macabre nightmare of a conversation, he was as gracious and charming as she’d ever seen him.
People were such fools. They looked at him and saw exactly what he wanted them to see. No one had ever suspected him of murder. He was too clever for them
.
She had a flash of recall, Rupert at Bella’s side, the picture of the devoted husband. Everyone knew how Rupert spoiled Bella. No man loved a woman more.
“It’s time, Jessica.”
Having murdered once, he could do it again. In fact, he would do it again
. A shudder ran over her. “Bella was to be your next victim. You were going to kill your wife. And you would have killed her if I hadn’t come back to Hawkshill.”
“True. You have no idea how terrified I was when you
reappeared. For three years, I’d assumed you were either dead or were so far away that you were no longer a threat to me. Then I started having these little twitches, and that worried me. I remember the day I made up my mind to murder Bella. I had the strangest feeling that I’d spoken aloud.”
“I was at vespers,” she said. “I knew my Voice was going to murder again, but that’s all I knew.”
“When I heard you’d lost your memory, I hoped you had lost your powers as well, or that they were so weakened that I was safe from you. But I soon discovered that wasn’t the case.” He laughed. “You were careless, Jessica. You left me with one of your own thoughts once.”
“I remember,” she said. “I was on the bridle path, thinking about how you had murdered my father. I knew I had given myself away. What did I do?”
“It was the house,” he said. “I saw Haig House in the distance. But it was different. I couldn’t see it clearly. And I didn’t think of it as my house, but as some rich man’s house. Then I knew, I
knew
you had slipped into my mind. After that, I became even more vigilant, and kept my guard up at all times. You have no idea how wearing that can be.”
“You didn’t succeed. I sensed your anger the night I ran from Mr. Stone.”
“Yes. When I’m in the grip of strong emotions, it’s almost impossible to keep you out of my mind. That’s why I decided to postpone my plans for Bella until I had dealt with you.”
The words were torn from her. “Why, Rupert? Why did you do all this?”
He answered her gently. “We haven’t got time to go into it. And I don’t think I could ever make you understand.” He paused then went on. “You must see that I can’t let you live. But I promise, I’m going to make this as easy and as painless as possible. You see, I like you. I really
like you. There’s no malice in what I must do. I have no choice. It’s as simple as that.”
Her whole body tensed to defend herself. “You won’t get away with it. Lucas knows that I’ll come here. He’ll tear this place apart until he finds me.”
“I’m aware of that. But give me credit for some intelligence. It will be a tragic accident, a fall from the cliff, when your mind was deranged. I shall tell the constable you were here, of course, and when Lucas comes out of the crypt, he’ll substantiate my story. You weren’t yourself; you were raving like a lunatic.”
He opened the door. “Your only chance is to get to the crypt and let Lucas out before I can stop you. Call it a sporting chance. But if I catch you, I’ll break your neck.”
Her terror wouldn’t have been so complete if he hadn’t looked and sounded so normal. But he wasn’t deranged. He was simply a charming, cold-blooded killer.
Panic was beating at the edges of her mind. He wasn’t giving her a sporting chance. She could never hope to outrun him.
She licked her lips. “And if I refuse to run?”
“Then we’ll finish it right here. Of course, that would be an inconvenience to me. I’d have to carry your body to the bluff. But the mist would give me cover. Nobody would be the wiser. And I wouldn’t count on help from the servants, even if you run into any. I shall simply tell them that you’re deranged and take you away.” He waited a moment, and when she remained immobile, sighed and said, “Look, I’ll make this easy for you.”
Leaving the door open, he walked to the far end of one of the aisles. He was a good twenty feet away, his back still turned to her, when she sprang forward and leapt through the door.
She instinctively turned toward the terrace. If she could get inside the house, she could find servants and demand their help. But into her mind flashed the sure and certain knowledge that the terrace doors were locked. She
was reading him! She was reading him just as if he were shouting his thoughts aloud. He couldn’t shield his thoughts from her when he was in the grip of strong emotions. Turning aside, she headed into the shelter of the trees.
She could hear the pounding of his steps gaining on her, and sheer animal terror lent her speed. She was on a path, one of the famous walks of Haig House. What she didn’t know was where the path was in relation to everything else. It was one thing to skirt a bluff in the mist but quite another to find a safe way down when a murderer was hard on her heels. If she left the path, she might go hurtling over the cliff.
Where was she? Dear God, where was she?
Bubbles of panic rose in her throat. She was going to die. He was going to kill her and nobody would ever know. Then he would kill Bella.
She was panic-stricken, but another emotion began to rise in her. It mustn’t end like this. She’d been given a mission. The sisters said it was ordained.
Oh, Lucas. Oh, Lucas. What have I done?
Read him!
The thought suddenly seized her.
Read him!
And as easily as slipping into a bath of water, she slipped into Rupert’s mind.
He was reliving the night she’d run from Rodney Stone. He’d remembered how he’d helped carry her in the improvised stretcher, along this very path, pretending to be concerned when what he’d really wanted to do was finish her off. If only he’d got to her first! But this time he had cornered her. Soon, it would be over. She couldn’t escape him now.
A map, he was giving her a map, just as he’d given her a map of her father’s murder. They were on the path that led to the pavilion. There was no way down for the next mile, only a sheer drop to the rocks below. And when they came out on the pavilion, one hard shove would send her toppling over.
She was trapped, and she had no one to blame but herself. If she’d wanted to be an accessory to her own murder, she couldn’t have done more to help him. He’d asked her all those questions to make sure that he was in the clear and that there was no one there to save her. And like an idiot, she’d told him everything. If that were not enough, she’d played right into his hands the moment she’d leapt out of the conservatory and made for the terrace doors. This was the way he’d hoped she would take. There was no way down at this point, unless she went over the bluff.
Or, she could go up.
She discarded that thought almost as soon as it occurred to her. He would only stop her. Even now, he was holding himself in check, allowing her to outstrip him because she was going exactly where he wanted her to go. The moment she veered off course, he would pounce on her and drag her to the edge of the bluff.
The mist was thicker at this point, sheltered from the breeze by the trees that grew close to the path.
Good cover
, he’d called it, and it would be good cover if she could put some space between them. If she could only put some distance between them she could hide and wait for help to arrive.
She was tiring. Her lungs were bursting. The muscles in her legs were cramping brutally. She had to disable him, she had to find a way to even the odds. She ran the race of her life, her eyes desperately searching for deliverance.
A terrified whimper caught in her throat. Ahead of her, a sudden gust of air had dissipated the mist, carrying it off in a wild dervish.
And she could see the roof of the pavilion!
It was sheer animal instinct that made her balk at going to her death like a lamb to the slaughter. Her strength was almost spent, but she found an inner reserve that galvanized her into motion. With the agility of a gazelle,
she leapt off the path and into the undergrowth. She heard Rupert’s grunt of surprise, felt him check, then he turned to come after her. He called her name and the sound of it acted on her like a spark to dry powder. Oblivious of briers and the thorns from brambles, she shot through the undergrowth.
The fear of death sharpened all her senses. She knew where she was! She was traveling in reverse the route she’d come when she’d run from Rodney Stone. There was a map inside her head. She could see it as clearly as if she were reading a chart in her hand. She was making for the depression she’d fallen into when she’d run from Stone.
She had a chance, a slim chance if she could stay the course.
He was reaching for her. She saw it in her mind’s eye. Those powerful hands were reaching for her. She was almost there. She was almost there …
Now!
She dropped to her knees so suddenly that he could not save himself. The hands that were reaching for her flailed the air, but his momentum carried him forward. He stumbled over her and went flying into the depression. She hoped he had broken a leg or brained himself on a boulder. She didn’t wait to find out. Like a wounded, hunted animal, she crawled away on her hands and knees.
She didn’t think she had the strength to rise, but when she heard him laughing softly, with a will of their own, her limbs began to move.
“Jessica,” he said, his voice coming to her from the depression. “Why are you doing this? You’re only prolonging the agony. You know it can end in only one way.”