Escape the Night (47 page)

Carey stared at Barth's bloody face. “Where's Phillip?” he asked softly.

“I'm coming to that, with your indulgence. As you know, Barth's motive was more than love for publishing. Before you were born, his father killed himself when your grandfather refused to restore him to his salesman's position. The young Barth's hatred of John Carey became an adult obsession to own the firm which bore his name.

“He succeeded by blackmailing Phillip.”

Carey looked drawn in the light. He did not speak.

“You must feel quite confused, Peter.” He watched Martin's knees tense as he reached into the drawer. “Do you wish me to explain how Barth came to own your uncle?”

There was silence. Slowly, Carey nodded.

“Yes,” Englehardt answered gently. “I think it's time you understood the hidden meaning of your life.”

He switched on Pogostin's tape.

CHAPTER 18

“Daddy …”

Peter Carey heard himself screaming in the voice of a six-year-old.

“Go faster, Daddy …”

Pogostin's voice was soft. “What happened next?”

High-pitched and afraid, the child's answer came to Carey from the darkness. “Mommy doesn't want him to …”

“
Go faster, Daddy
…”

Carey shook his head.

“
Go faster, Daddy. Don't let him beat you
…”

“No,” Carey cried out. “Stop!”

His father grinned, accelerating to catch Phillip. His mother reached back to zip Peter's windbreaker. She touched his cheek. “Then at least you won't catch cold
.”

Peter leaned forward, wind whipping his hair. Trees and houses and picket fences on both sides flashed like shadows at the corners of his eyes. The road grew steeper, dipped into a shady hollow, rose sharply in front of them. Peter began chuckling. The precipitous grade ahead, curving to the right, snapped in front of him like a photograph. His father took the curve, sped up the grade between green trees dappling it with light and darkness
.

At the top of the grade, almost without warning, flashed an abrupt left curve
.

Phillip took it, the mint-green car vanishing. Peter's laugh grew wilder. Clutching Dewey by the trunk, he shouted, “Catch him, Daddy
.”

His father stepped on the gas. Two hundred feet, a hundred. “Charles
…”
his mother entreated
.

Peter grasped Dewey's trunk. “Faster, Daddy
…”

His father braked abruptly, crying, “I've lost control,” as the steering wheel spun like a toy in his hand and their car slid toward the cliff. In sickening freeze frames, Peter saw them jump the last rocks, trees and sky appearing in the windshield, his father turning to his mother, their eyes locking for one split second before his father whirled and threw him from the car
.

Peter hit dirt, still clutching Dewey, falling, tumbling, air bursting from his lungs, rocks buffeting his skull and ribs. He glimpsed his father's car plummeting next to him in a hundred-foot deadfall of jagged rock, and then lost sight of it as he spun in punishing darkness on a long strip of grass and rolled until the speed of it threw him on his stomach at the bottom of the cliff and he saw, within ten feet of him, two red cars smashing into trees, his mother's necks snapping like two rag dolls, and then his vision fused, and a single car burst into flames, and his father screamed in animal torment as fire consumed his body and his face fell forward
…

“
Daddy!
”

The tape kept playing. “Daddy … Daddy …”

“
Tell me, Peter, is there any reason you might feel guilt over your father's death?
”

Carey felt tears.

A door opened
…

The room was a blur. Blindfolded, Noelle reached toward him. The voice of his enemy came from behind her. “You see, Peter, it was your
father
who saved you.”

Noelle began rising.

Englehardt touched her shoulder.

“Wait,” he said softly.

The scenes unfolded before him: Noelle blindly reaching; Carey stunned; Martin looking toward him for a signal. Englehardt held up one finger.

The tape played on.

“Let's go back,” Pogostin was saying, “to the night before …”

“I don't want to …”

“Can you tell me about Dewey, Peter?”

Englehardt saw Martin lean slightly to the left.

“Do you remember?” Pogostin asked.

“I left him in the race car, in Uncle Phillip's garage.” The child's speech became rapid, fearful. “Daddy kissed me goodnight and said he'd get him for me.”

“And did he?”

Martin's shoulder dipped.

“Peter?”

“No.” Peter's voice turned cold. “He didn't.”

“What happened?”

“I'm afraid.” Pause. “Do I have to tell you?”

“Nothing you can tell me now will hurt you, Peter. I promise.”

The voice grew smaller. “I woke up and Dewey wasn't there.”

“What did you do?”

The tape spun silently.

“Just the first thing, Peter.”

“I went downstairs to the kitchen.”

“Why did you go there?”

“There was a door to the garage.” The voice rose. “It was dark there. I was afraid.”

“What did you do?”

“I touched the door.”

“And?”

“I opened it.”

Slowly, Peter opened the door
.

Carey saw the garage.

A light was on
.

Phillip turned from the wheel of his father's car
.

“
Peter!
”

“Phillip!” Carey shook his head. “Oh my God, no!”

He heard a series of clicks; abruptly Pogostin asked, “Why didn't you tell your father what you saw?”

“I was scared to.”

“Do you know why, Peter?”

The ugly man tensed. From the tape, the child Peter said: “Because of Uncle Phillip.”

The door to his room opened. “Peter?
”

“After I took Dewey back upstairs, he came to my room.”

“
Why don't we talk, Peter?
”

“He promised not to tell Daddy I was spying on him. I saw them fighting; he knew Daddy didn't want me to …”

His father spotted Peter in the doorway; in a soft voice, he told him, “Sometimes even brothers need their privacy, all right?
”

Recalling the naked woman, Peter looked away. “I'm sorry, Daddy
.”

“Grown-ups have secrets.” The child sounded guilty, confused. “My Mommy got mad because I sneaked up to hug her and she broke the glass.”

“Was that all?”

There was silence.

“Peter?”

“No …”

“What else?”

“In the library.” The voice was barely audible. “I saw my Daddy with the dark-haired woman …”

“What did they do?”

Peter stopped, transfixed by naked arms and legs and bodies, a slim, dark woman he had never seen
…

“She put her mouth on him.” The child's voice shook. “Grown-ups do things I shouldn't see. Phillip promised …”

Phillip kissed his forehead, as his father had done. “Promise
…”

“Then why are you mad at him, Peter?”

On the tape, Peter Carey started crying.

“Peter?”

“Phillip did something to the sports car.” The child's voice choked, and then burst out, “I helped them kill my Daddy …”

Carey felt himself fuse with the child Peter. “No-o-o-o …”

The ugly man spun on him …

Englehardt saw Martin pivot, his good arm swinging, Carey jumping sideways. Englehardt jerked up the gun and fired.

The bullet echoed; Noelle cried out.

Martin's other arm flew up in the air.

A stain appeared on his back. He turned, staring through the darkness with a look of dumb amazement, reached out for Englehardt. Blood spread on his shirt front, began running from his mouth.

Englehardt watched him, silent; the ugly man had gone too far.

Martin's eyes rolled; he took two last staggering steps, and pitched forward.

Carey caught him, fell to his knees, pointing the gun toward Englehardt.

“Wait!” Englehardt stuck his revolver to Noelle's ear.

On the tape, Peter cried, “It was Uncle Phillip!” and then the tape clicked off.

Carey clung to the dead man, for cover.

“This time,” Englehardt told him from the darkness, “
I
saved your life.”

Carey clasped the dead weight, felt the warm blood through his shirt. Over one shoulder, he pointed his gun at the voice.

“Consider it, Peter.”

Noelle leaned straining across the desk. The revolver followed her. “Noelle,” Carey called. “Don't move.”

A second arm reached out to pull her back into the chair. She sat as if drugged. The arm was attached to a shadow with no face. Turned from it, the face of Clayton Barth stared blankly through the darkness at the man who had died in Carey's arms, seconds before.

The shadow spoke rapidly. “I could have killed you just as easily, Peter. Now this man's death becomes part of our deal. There's much more that I'll need.”

Carey shook his head. “You have
me
now. Let her go.”

“I need your informed understanding, Peter, and we haven't much time.” The voice was thin, angry. “You can cling to that corpse if it helps you.”

“
I saved you
…”

“What about Phillip?”

“That part's quite simple. Somehow Phillip obtained a copy of your grandfather's will, and discovered its humiliating terms. He meant to kill both you and your father by tampering with the steering mechanism—that was what you saw, the night before your father's death.” The words slowed, became more gentle. “But Phillip was a tender murderer: impulsively, he saved you, perhaps hoping that a six-year-old would not connect the accident with what he'd seen in the garage. In the end, his foolish act of pulling you away cost him dearly. For twenty-three years he lived in mortal terror: from the time you were six, he did everything in his power to keep you from remembering what had happened, and then making sense of it as an adult. It was he who destroyed the elephant, of course.” The voice lowered. “You see, the faceless man was Phillip Carey …”

Leaping, Phillip rolled him from the car
…

Carey saw Noelle weeping, tears running down her face from eyes he could not see. “How do you know these things?”

“Barth told me: how he'd learned them I don't know—I suppose through Phillip's analyst. But he
used
them to blackmail your uncle, and then hired the man whose body you're holding to determine from Dr. Levy's files what dangers your memory might pose, and what pressures might cause your will to crumble. They chose Miss Ciano …”

“
Noelle? Tell me, dammit
—
what's Barth
got
on you?
”

“Retrieving the tape that I just played, the man encountered Dr. Levy, and killed him. Once he'd heard the tape, Barth became frightened that Phillip could be pressured by a murder charge into exposing his blackmail and therefore connecting him with Levy's death—after all, Phillip would have nothing left to lose. So Barth ordered this man to kill
him
, too.”

“
It's
not
Barth
.”

“Is he?…”

“Oh yes, Peter. Phillip's quite dead—your memory killed him. You've wreaked your revenge: on your uncle, on the man who killed Levy, on Barth himself.”

Carey could smell the intestines of the ugly stranger draining, feel his skin start turning cold. He remembered the recorder; instinctively his hand slid toward his pocket as the voice continued. “You see, Barth planned to have this man kill Miss Ciano, your only alibi, and then stage your death as a suicide, with the gun he had already used to kill the others. Your apparent guilt in two earlier killings would help satisfy the police. You were to serve as the murderer of your analyst, uncle and lover. But by capturing the killer you turned the gun on Barth.”

The gun was too close to her head, the voice too tight for the calm it pretended. Carey's knees ached; one arm was heavy from pointing the gun, the other from clasping the stranger. He tried to reason …

“I've been helping Barth on matters of security. He called in a panic, and told me what I've just told you. For the first time I saw the impact of his father's suicide, the depths of his hatred for you and your uncle—realized, truly, that he was insane. I said I could do nothing.

“Barth could not face the prospect of exposure. He killed himself with the revolver he had meant for you, leaving me to clean up the mess.

“I've done more than that, Peter—I've set you free.” The voice became gentle. “All I ask now is that you do that much for me.”

Englehardt watched Carey look from Noelle to the direction of his voice. “Now,” he urged, “will you stand and talk with me?”

Seeing Carey hesitate, he fought the tension connecting his nerves to the memory of Charles. The father had seen through him …

Carey released the body.

Martin pitched face-forward to the cement. His head struck …

Wincing, Englehardt saw Carey snatch back his hand as if in horror, thrust it in his coat pocket for a moment, then seem to remember that the right hand held a gun. He pointed it, kneeling without shelter.

“That's better.” Englehardt held Phillip's check to the light. “Now I have something for you.

“Barth wrote this check to Phillip. Unless I arrange for its deposit, the sale will fall through for lack of any payment, and you will regain from Barth's heirs what your grandfather left you—one half of what you seem to need so desperately.

“The other half is Miss Ciano.