The Unloved (45 page)

Will Hempstead stared at the front door of the mansion for several long seconds. He felt a deep reluctance to take the final step of pushing it open, for already he was certain that a tragedy had taken place within the house that night and that it would be years before anyone in Devereaux would ever forget it. At last he reached out and twisted the knob. The door was not locked, and with a gentle push it swung back to reveal the entry hall, dimly aglow with the light of a single sputtering stub of a candle on the newel post.

Then he saw the crumpled form of Julie’s body, curled at the bottom of the stairs, and his heart sank. Already they were far too late.

“Julie!” Jeff cried out. Dropping his grip on Hempstead’s hand, he ran to his sister, dropping down on the floor beside her. “Julie!” he sobbed again. Then he looked up, his eyes—large and glistening with tears—fixing on the police chief. “She’s dead,” he wailed. “Aunt Marguerite killed her!”

Hempstead hurried across to the sobbing child and knelt beside him, his fingers gently touching Julie’s neck. Almost immediately he found her pulse.

“She’s not dead,” he told Jeff, and as if to affirm his words, a low moan drifted from Julie’s lips, and the fingers of her left hand twitched spasmodically. “Find a blanket,” Hempstead told Hal Sanders. “And a pillow. Quick!”

Sanders disappeared into the living room and a moment later was back, carrying an afghan that had been draped over the back of the sofa and a small pillow he’d found on one of the wing chairs. Hempstead, working as carefully as he knew how, eased Julie’s right arm out from under her body
and gently straightened her legs. For a moment he considered moving her into the living room, but then rejected the idea, afraid that her back might already be broken. If he risked moving her, he might only compound her injuries.

“Kerry—” Hal Sanders said, his eyes fixed on the dark bruises that covered Julie’s face. “He’s got to be here.”

Hempstead stood up, and when he spoke again, his voice took on a note of authority. “I want you to stay here, Hal. Take care of Jeff, and if Julie wakes up, don’t let her move.” Then he turned to Frank Weaver, a nod of his head directing the deputy’s attention to the smears of blood that led from the foot of the stairs toward the door to the cellar. “Take a look down there,” he said. “I’ll go upstairs.”

Frank Weaver stared down the steep flight of stairs that led to the basement, the bright beam of his flashlight playing over the smears of drying blood that seemed to be everywhere. The steps were sticky with blood, and even the wall adjacent to the steps was stained a brownish red. Placing his feet carefully, avoiding the worst of the mess, he started down into the basement, stopping when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Ahead of him, its door standing wide open, was a small room, and Weaver frowned in the gloom as a thought drifted through his mind.

Looks like a cell
.

Steeling himself, he strode toward the little room.

It was empty, but as Weaver played his light over it, he felt a wave of nausea. There seemed to be blood everywhere—on the floor, on the wooden cot against the wall, even on the door itself. What the hell had gone on here? And where were the people whose bodies had to be the source of the carnage around him?

He turned away and hurried back up the stairs, but as he started up the main staircase, Hal Sanders stopped him, his face ashen and his hand trembling on Weaver’s arm.

“Kerry,” he asked shakily. “Is—Is he down there?”

Weaver said nothing, only shaking his head. Then he
hurried on up the stairs.

On the second floor he saw the glimmer of Will Hempstead’s flashlight flickering through an open door at the end of the hall. Quickening his step, he moved along the length of the corridor and stepped into the bedroom.

“The basement’s a mess,” Weaver told the police chief. “Blood all over the place, but no bodies.”

Hempstead nodded grimly, then played the flashlight over a heap of clothes on the dressing room floor. “Same thing up here,” the police chief said. “There’s bloody clothes all over the place. The window in the nursery’s smashed, just like Jeff said,” he added. Taking a deep breath, he started toward the door. “We better go up there and see what she’s done. But from what I’ve seen so far, it’s going to be one hell of a mess.”

Together the two men started down the corridor, but on the stairs to the third floor Weaver stopped abruptly, listening.

Drifting down from the open doors to the ballroom above, he heard the faint sound of music. The melody was one he’d never heard before, a strangely haunting tune that tinkled softly in the otherwise silent house.

“You hear that, Will?” Weaver whispered. For a moment he wasn’t sure the police chief had heard his question, but then Hempstead nodded.

“ ‘The Last Good Night,’ ” he whispered softly. “It was always her favorite song.”

A great melancholy settling over him, the police chief slowly climbed the remaining steps to the ballroom.

Will Hempstead stepped through the double doors of the ballroom. It was stiflingly hot, for the windows were closed tight, but all the candles still burned brightly. A layer of pale smoke floated near the ceiling, swirling gently as Marguerite, her eyes closed, her head thrown back, slowly danced to the eerie melody of the music box. For several long moments Hempstead’s eyes fixed on her uncomprehendingly. Then, as Frank Weaver swore softly, he tore his eyes from Marguerite
and saw the four corpses, all of them except Jenny Mayhew still upright on their chairs.

“Jesus,” he breathed. The word seemed to grow in volume as it echoed in the large room, and Marguerite’s eyes snapped open.

Turning, she looked directly at Will Hempstead, the scarlet slash of her mouth spreading into a welcoming smile.

“Will,” she said. “How nice of you to come. I’ve missed you so much, you know.”

With a tiny curtsey she closed her eyes once more and resumed her dance.

“Crazy,” Weaver muttered. “She’s just gone completely wacko!” He started toward Marguerite, but Will reached out, his fingers clamping tight on his deputy’s arm.

“No,” he said, his voice quiet but his tone leaving no room for argument. “It’s all over now, Frank. There’s nothing more she can do. Let her finish.”

Weaver froze, staring at Marguerite for a moment, then stepped back.

As the music went on, weaving a mournful spell in the candlelight, Hempstead’s vision blurred and his eyes began to sting with tears. In his mind the grotesque, twisted vision before him—the strange, hobbling figure in the ill-fitting and faded dress, with its bizarre, distorted mask of Helena’s evil face—faded away, and in its place came a memory of the Marguerite Devereaux he had fallen in love with so many years ago.

The Marguerite he saw then moved gracefully, her body swaying with the rhythm of the music, her fingers trailing in the air with a perfect symmetry that reminded him of a flower dancing on the breeze. Soft and perfect, her smile was gentle and her eyes sparkled with a happiness that reached out to Will, gladdening his heart.

Hempstead could even see himself, waiting as Marguerite spun toward him, reaching out to him as he had once reached out to her—

And then, as the music box abruptly stopped and a silence fell over the ballroom, the vision faded away, and Will Hempstead’s eyes cleared. Before him, a few yards away,
Marguerite was curtseying low, her head bent demurely, her right hand on her skirt, her left daintily touching her bosom.

At last she rose to her feet, and her head came up so that her eyes met Will’s. For a moment Will wasn’t certain she even saw him, for there was an empty hollowness in her eyes that he’d never seen before. And then, once more, her mouth twisted into a parody of the sweet smile of her youth.

“Was I all right, Will?” she asked, her voice childlike and trembling with anxiety.

Will swallowed the lump that rose in his throat, then walked toward her, his hand outstretched. “You were fine, Miss Marguerite,” he said, his voice breaking. “You were just fine. But I think it’s time to go now.”

Marguerite’s smile faded, but then she nodded vaguely and took the arm that Will offered her. Pressing close to him, leaning her weight against the strength of his body, she started toward the door, then stopped and turned toward the row of chairs against the wall.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you all for coming to watch me dance. But it’s late now, and I have to go.” Once more she curtseyed low. “Good night,” she breathed, then turned away, and with Will Hempstead at her side, drifted out of the candlelit ballroom.

The first gray light was streaking the horizon over the sea when at last the ambulances, followed by a long cortege of the townspeople’s cars, crept slowly across the causeway and along the road toward Sea Oaks. Hours earlier a helicopter—its rotor clattering loudly in the night—had swept low over the channel, put down on the lawn in front of the mansion, and then, a few minutes later, had risen once more into the night sky. As it moved back across the channel, a murmur had rippled through the gathered crowd as word was passed along that Julie Devereaux had been taken off the island. A few people were certain she was dead, but most of them knew that whatever had happened, Julie must have survived. If she hadn’t, there would have been no need for the helicopter. But when the helicopter didn’t return, a numb silence had fallen over the crowd as they realized that the other children who had gone out to the island that day must have perished.

Alicia Mayhew was one of the first to arrive at the mansion, but as she brought her car to a halt on the lawn, she found herself strangely reluctant to go inside, for as long as she remained outside, she could still hold onto a tiny, fraying thread of hope that perhaps Jennifer was all right after all. But at last, steeling herself, she walked up the steps and crossed the veranda.

The front door stood open, almost as if to welcome expected guests into the house, but as Alicia stepped into the entry hall, she froze, her eyes fixed on the bloodstained floor, now lit by a floodlight that had been plugged into the generator beneath the stairs.

A thick, orange extension cord snaked up the staircase, and
Alicia, a strange detachment spreading through her mind, found herself following it.

She came to the third floor and paused outside the open double doors. Another floodlight stood in the center of the ballroom, its garish brilliance filling the room with a cold and shadowless light. As Alicia blinked in the glaring brightness, she heard a low moan and a muffled sob.

Holding her emotions in check, she stepped into the ballroom.

Even while two state troopers worked taking pictures of the macabre scene in the ballroom, Edith Sanders, her face streaked with tears, was already kneeling on the floor next to Kerry, her arms around her son as if she were trying to lend her own warmth to his cold body. Hal Sanders, his eyes vacant, his expression slack with shock and grief, stood next to his wife, one hand resting gently on her shoulder.

Alicia had started to turn away, uncomfortable at intruding upon their grief, when her eyes found Jennifer, sprawled out on the floor, her eyes wide as she gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling. Alicia felt her blood chill as she looked at her daughter, and then her knees buckled beneath her. She would have collapsed to the floor if Will Hempstead’s arms hadn’t reached out to her, supporting her as he eased her into a chair.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I wish you hadn’t come here. There’s no reason why any of you had to see this.”

“Sorry?” Alicia echoed, her voice bleak. “If you’d listened to me this afternoon—” But then she fell silent, unable to go on.

“I know,” Hempstead finally said as the silence in the room grew heavy. “But I couldn’t imagine that Marguerite could do anything like this.”

Alicia, whose eyes had remained fixed on her daughter’s corpse, slowly turned to face the police chief. “Why?” she asked. “Why did it happen?”

Hempstead shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “And I’m not sure any of us will ever know.”

Alicia’s eyes hardened, and when she spoke again, her voice was bitter. “Where is she?” she asked.

Hempstead licked his lips nervously. “In her room,” he said. “Frank Weaver’s with her. She’s been sitting there
most of the night. She hasn’t spoken at all since I took her out of here. She’s just sitting there, staring off into space. I—well, I’m not sure she even knows what happened.”

“Doesn’t know?” Alicia asked hollowly, her suddenly dull eyes scanning the carnage in the room. “How can someone do this and not know they’ve done it?”

Once again Hempstead shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Alicia,” he replied. Then he drew her to her feet. “I’m taking you downstairs,” he said. “I’ll find someone to take you home—”

“No,” Alicia interrupted. “I want to stay here with Jennifer. I can’t stand her being here like this, all by herself. Please?” she asked, her eyes pleading with Hempstead. “Let me stay with her.”

Hempstead hesitated, then nodded, and a moment later Alicia Mayhew, her eyes glistening with tears, eased herself onto the floor and silently took her daughter’s cold hand in her own.