The Vanishing (9 page)

I could hear the crinkling of the fabrics as the ladies, dressed in taffeta and silks, floated past me. Their laughter and chatter filled the air, first distant and low, and then louder. I heard the clinking of wineglasses as someone made a toast to the musicians. And then
a hush fell as the audience took their seats and the first strains of music wafted through the air.

I stood there, caught up in the moment, when suddenly, all heads turned—toward me! I saw their faces, eyes wide, mouths agape at the sight of me. I heard gasps as the image of their party faded back into the painting, as quickly as it had come.

I backed out of the room and started down the hallway, slowly at first, shaking my head, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then a chill ran through me and I picked up speed. Was it the alcohol, or my lack of medication producing these strange sights? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, I made a mental note to ask Adrian about refilling my prescription.

I finally found my way to the grand staircase—how, I don’t know—and ascended slowly, holding on to the handrail for support as reality seemed to spin around me.

As I made my way up, stair by stair, the portraits hanging on the walls seemed to flicker and sway with life, whispering to me as I went. I could hear them, louder and louder, hissing and moaning all around me. I hurried my pace and was nearly at the top of the stairs, when I tripped on the hem of my dress, hitting the ground with a thud. I heard laughter and jeers, voices taunting me, and I curled into a ball, there on the floor, hands over my ears, trying to make it all go away.

That was when I felt a pair of strong hands grasping my arms. “You’re all right,” he said. “I’m here now, don’t worry.”

At first I didn’t know who it was, but in the darkness, I could make out Drew’s face. I let him pull me up, and leaned against the wall. We stood there for a while, looking at each other in that dark hallway.

“My God,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful.” And then his arms were around my waist and his lips were on mine, kissing me with such force that I thought he was going to engulf me. I put my hands around his neck and pulled him even closer into me, closing my eyes.

“Andrew,” I whispered into his ear.

But then I felt the most horrible emptiness and I realized I was alone. I opened my eyes and looked up and down the hallway—nobody was there. Where had he gone?

I took a deep breath in. Had it even happened? There’s no way he would have simply left me lying there. Had I passed out and been asleep on the stairway? Had I dreamed the whole thing? I wondered how much time had passed. I didn’t feel drunk any longer, or even dizzy. Had I been lying there for hours?

I hurried to my room and shut the door behind me, grateful for the fire that Marion had laid in my fireplace and for the pitcher of water she had left on my nightstand. I poured a glass and drank it down quickly. My gaze settled on my windows and I thought of whoever might be lurking out there in the woods. I drew the curtains closed to block out the night, shivering to my core.

After washing my face and peeling off my dress, I slipped under the covers and watched the fire crackling in the fireplace, all the mysteries of Havenwood dancing in my mind.

My dreams that night were strange and jumbled, a funhouse of distorted images. Jeremy. Me, falling asleep in my dorm room in college, surrounded by a roomful of friends whom I had long since lost touch with. The dog of my childhood, running in the backyard of the house where I grew up.

I was awakened by the sound of a telephone ringing. I sat up and shook my head, the dreams still at the edge of my consciousness. Was that a phone I heard? I listened closer. Yes, it was, coming from another room, perhaps next door.

I gazed around. The fire had died down, the last embers glowing. I poured a glass of water and took a drink before slipping out of bed and moving across the room to the windows. I pushed the curtain aside and looked out. The night was still deeply dark. No hint of man-made light whatsoever. I watched as northern lights blazed across the sky.

And there was that phone again. I wondered why Marion wasn’t answering it. Well, I sighed, it had nothing to do with me. I hadn’t gotten a phone call in the months prior to coming to Havenwood, and certainly nobody would be calling me now. I climbed back into bed, drew the covers around me, and closed my eyes. I had a few more hours to go before morning and desperately wanted to sleep.

But the ringing just wouldn’t stop. I rolled this way and that, trying to muffle the sound, to no avail. I didn’t have a phone in my
room—where was this noise coming from? And then I remembered the study down the hall where I had tried to call Adrian. The old-fashioned black phone with the heavy handset. That had to be it. It didn’t seem possible I’d hear it ring all the way down the hall in my room, but sounds do tend to carry in old houses, especially at night when everything else is silent. That was what I told myself, anyway.

I threw the covers aside and grabbed my robe. The only way I’d get back to sleep was to find that phone and answer it, or at least take it off the receiver to stop that infernal racket.

I opened my door and walked down the dark hallway, turning this way and that before reaching the wing where the study was located. Sure enough, the door to the study was ajar, and I could see light coming from the room. I marched toward it, wondering who on earth was calling at this hour and letting the phone ring and ring and ring. I intended to give whomever it was a lecture about disturbing an entire household in the middle of the night.

I reached the study and pushed open the door. I didn’t see a lamp or a ceiling light, and yet the phone, and the desk it was sitting on, was bathed in a soft glow. No matter, I thought. It was just one more strange thing happening at Havenwood. I was starting to get used to it. I stared at the phone, which was still ringing, but a knot in the pit of my stomach was telling me that I shouldn’t answer that call. Who on earth could it be, in the middle of the night? I almost turned and left the room, I almost went back to my bed, but then I thought: What if it’s Adrian? So I picked up the heavy black handset and put it to my ear.

“Hello?” I said.

“Julia? Is that you?”

I recognized the voice. But it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. What sort of magic was this? I wanted to drop the phone and run from the room, but I was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to take the handset away from my ear.

“Julia!” the voice repeated. “Are you there?”

“Jeremy?” I croaked out.

“Yes, it’s me. Listen, I don’t have much time.”

“But how?” I said. “Did you—are you…?”

This was my husband… who was supposedly dead. My first thought was he must have faked his own death to escape prosecution. Obviously he had, the crafty devil. How had he done it? And how had he found me? Had he somehow followed me here to Havenwood?

But then a more disturbing thought occurred to me. Had he put Adrian up to the whole thing, the arson included? It was all too convenient—we were both “dead,” as far as the rest of the world knew. Did he now think we were going to run away together with his ill-gotten millions?

“Were you the man outside the kitchen window tonight? Have you come here for me, Jeremy?”

But as I said the words, I knew he wasn’t, and hadn’t. A chill enveloped me as I remembered the scene in our basement just a few months before. I was the one who had found his body. His blood had been spattered all over the room. The top of his head was gone. Jeremy was dead; there was no question about it.

“No, I wasn’t there tonight.”

“Jeremy…?”

“Don’t freak out, Julia,” he said, his voice urgent and stern. “I can tell you’re freaking out. You need to focus. I told you, I don’t have much time. You need to listen to me. Are you listening, Julia?”

“I’m listening,” I whispered, my voice shredded by the terror that was overtaking my body.

“Get out of there.”

“What?”

“I’m calling to warn you, Julia, and believe me, this is not allowed.”

“Why did you do it, Jeremy?”

I heard him sigh. “None of that matters right now. What matters
is your safety. And you’re not safe there, Julia. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, but believe me, you need to get out of there. You are in danger. They had no right to bring you there. No right at all.”

I couldn’t process what he was saying.

“How can you be talking to me?” I said, shaking my head. “You’re dead.”

“As it turns out, that’s not as final as it seems,” he said. “But now I have to go. I don’t know if I can contact you again.”

I opened my eyes with a start. My pillow was wet with perspiration and the sheets were tangled around my legs. I took a few deep breaths to get my bearings and looked around the room, where I saw light peeking from the edges of my curtains.

I disengaged myself from my sheets and sat up to pour myself a glass of water with shaking hands. It was just a bad dream.

But why should I dream such a thing? Perhaps the jarring news of the fire, combined with finding the painting of the woman who resembled me, combined with my strange experiences and the sheer volume of alcohol I had drunk the night before… surely it all worked together to create this oddly detailed dream. A product of my overactive imagination.

But as I stood in the shower, I couldn’t wash away the feeling that it was something else. A myriad of questions with no answers swirled through my mind. The dream felt so familiar, so true to life. Was it truly a warning? I shuddered to think of it.

Was I in danger here? I thought of the footprints in the snow outside the kitchen door the night before, and felt a tendril of dread slither around my insides. Maybe that was what the dream was warning me about.

I intended to ask Mrs. Sinclair about all of it at breakfast, but I didn’t get a chance to do so, not that morning. As I was about to enter the breakfast room, Marion let me know that Mrs. Sinclair was up in bed with a migraine. I didn’t doubt it, considering the amount of alcohol she had consumed the day before. My own head felt more than a little fuzzy and I was looking quite forward to my first cup of coffee. And maybe I could get a peek at the morning paper as well for an update about my house fire.

I pushed open the door to the breakfast room and was surprised
to find Adrian at the table drinking a cup of coffee of his own. I wouldn’t need the newspaper to give me an update after all.

“Good morning, my dear,” he said, smiling. “You must tell me everything about your first days here at Havenwood. I want to hear it all. How did it go with my mother?”

“I saw the newspaper report about the fire.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, as Marion came into the room carrying a tray. We were both quiet as she served us each an omelet—spinach, goat cheese, and onion, along with broiled tomatoes and a basketful of warm croissants, just out of the oven.
If I am in danger here at Havenwood, at least they are feeding me well,
I thought.

“Well?” I pressed, my voice still low. “I saw your picture, Adrian. You were there when my house burned down.”

He shook his head. “A fortuitous development, to be sure,” he said, taking a bite of his omelet and chewing thoughtfully.

“What does that mean? Fortuitous development. I hate to ask you this but I
have
to ask it. Did you set that fire?”

“What if I had?”

I nearly choked on my croissant. “Well—” I coughed, not knowing quite how to respond to that. What
if
he had? I had no desire to return to the place, and as he had said to me the day we met, this was my opportunity to drop out of sight. My house burning down was the perfect escape.

I just looked at him.

“The answer is no, I didn’t set the fire,” he said, taking another bite of his omelet. “But as I said, it is fortuitous for you.”

Adrian reached across the table and took my hand in his. “You look terrified, Julia. No, I didn’t burn down your house. But yes, I do have some… pull, shall we say, with the media and certain factions in Chicago. That’s why I went to the scene when I heard about the fire. I recognized it as an opportunity. The press will report, and the world will believe, you died in that fire. It’s best not to ask how.”

A pang of sadness coursed through me as I thought of all of my friends who would now be grieving for me. But then I realized I had been dead to them for months. They might feel a little bad for how they had treated me, but would anybody
really
grieve my passing? Maybe they’d believe both Jeremy and I got what we deserved. It made my stomach seize up.

Adrian took a sip of his coffee. “Isn’t this omelet delicious? I’ve eaten in the finest restaurants all over the world and nothing compares to Marion’s cooking here at Havenwood.”

I knew he was trying to change the subject, but I just couldn’t let it go. “But if someone deliberately set it—”

“Julia, it’s best not to get too worked up about this. Please, just let me handle it.”

I sat back in my chair and realized I was shaking on the inside. I took a sip of coffee and buttered my croissant with trembling hands, trying to breathe deeply. “Okay. I’m not worked up.”

But I was. It seemed like my sight was closing in on me, that the edges of the world were turning black. I shook my head, wondering what kind of strange world I had gotten myself into by coming to Havenwood. I thought of Jeremy’s warning.

Adrian went on. “Before you paint me the villain, Julia, you need to realize something.”

“What’s that?”

Now it was his turn to lower his voice. He leaned in toward me before he spoke. “Someone deliberately set that fire. I don’t want to alarm you, but I think that means only one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Vengeance. Somebody was trying to kill you.”

My mind was swimming. If what he was saying was true, and if Adrian hadn’t appeared on my doorstep that day—just days ago!—I might very well have died in that fire.

Last night’s footprints in the snow flashed in front of my eyes and I began to get a very sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Adrian,” I began, “do you believe it’s possible that the person
who set the fire in my house could have tracked me here to Havenwood?”

“Certainly not,” he said. “I’m not in the habit of leaving a trail of bread crumbs for someone to follow. I have a man on it, in Chicago, looking for the arsonist. He’ll get to the bottom of it. But you must believe, Julia, you’re perfectly safe here.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I told him. “There’s something you need to know. Last night after dinner, Marion was in the kitchen and saw someone standing outside the window, looking in.”

At this, Adrian put down his fork. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “We heard screaming and ran into the kitchen just in time to see Marion brandishing a rolling pin and yelling at whoever it was out the kitchen door.”

Adrian tried to suppress a chuckle. “A rolling pin?”

“She was fierce enough with that thing to scare whoever it was away.” I smiled. “Drew followed his footprints into the forest.”

At the mention of Drew’s name, my stomach began to churn, thinking of my dream, or vision, or whatever it was on the stairs, the night before. I tried to shake the thought of it from my mind. And then it hit me. That was why I dreamed of Jeremy. Guilt. I had felt a strange attraction to a man I barely knew within months of my husband’s death, and I manifested said husband in my dreams to let me know how wrong that was. I made a silent pledge to keep my distance from Drew.

“He didn’t find anyone?” Adrian asked, pulling me back into the room from where my thoughts were taking me.

“No one,” I said.

Adrian considered this as he finished his omelet. “It might be wise for him to take the dogs and track those footprints in the light of day.” He took a sip of coffee. “I’ll wager that’s what he’s planning to do. Sometimes we get curious onlookers here at Havenwood. People from the village, tourists, anyone who has heard about this house and wants to see it for themselves.”

“We were in the village yesterday,” I told him. “Your mother, too.”

“Mother?” His eyes grew wide. “She went into town?”

“She did,” I admitted, careful not to let on the manner in which she got there. “She needed to see her rental manager. Tom, I believe, is his name? Drew and I went along and met her at the Laughing Otter afterward for a drink.”

Adrian smiled broadly and shook his head. “I can’t believe it. You’re here just a few days and you’re already coaxing Mother out of her shell. I knew you were right for this job, Julia. You belong here at Havenwood.”

“We had a wonderful day,” I said. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of it.

“Well, that’s it, then. Mother went into town, someone thought they recognized her and was curious enough to follow you all here.”

“That could be what was,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure.

“I can see exactly what you’re thinking,” Adrian said, rubbing his chin and holding my gaze. “I’m thinking the same thing.”

“Trip to town or not, you’re thinking the timing is pretty suspicious—my house burning down and now this.”

“Indeed,” he said, resting his napkin on his plate and pushing his chair away from the table. “I have several calls to make. I want an update on this situation from my people in Chicago. Would you be so kind as to seek out Drew and ask him to take the dogs and track those footprints in the meantime? He’s likely in the stables.”

So much for keeping my distance. “Won’t your mother need me this morning?”

He shook his head. “I’m going up to check on her now. She’s got a ‘migraine,’ which means she’s tired out and wants some solitude. And no wonder, you had quite the day yesterday. A trip to town, an unannounced visitor.”

“And a bit of alcohol last night, I’m afraid,” I confessed.

He laughed. “That’s the way of formal dinners at Havenwood. Did she have her Dubonnet cocktail?”

“Several.”

“Right, then. You go find Drew, I’ll bring a bottle of aspirin to Mother and give her a lecture about the evils of alcohol, and then I’ll be busy in my office the rest of the day. Consider yourself off the clock, so to speak, until dinner. I’m sure the old gal will have perked up by then.”

“The drawing room at six thirty?”

“You already know the drill. Excellent, Julia, excellent!” He extended his arm to me and we left the breakfast room together. We parted ways at the grand staircase.

“Please don’t let this worry you,” he said to me. “No harm will come to you at Havenwood, of that you have my promise.”

I shook my head. “I’m more worried I’m bringing harm to all of you,” I said. “If it really is the arsonist…”

“Nonsense. We will catch whoever it was at the window last night. And he will tell us what we need to know. It’s as simple as that.”

“You sound very sure.”

He grinned. “The dogs will track whoever it was. And when they find him, well, there’s just something about being surrounded by three growling giant malamutes that makes a man feel like talking.”

I got the distinct feeling he’d had experience with that before.

He started making his way up the stairs when I remembered something.

“Oh!” I said. “I nearly forgot. Do you have a doctor on staff?”

He turned and trotted down the few steps he had ascended. “Are you not feeling well?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. Not really. It’s just—” I didn’t quite know how to say what I had to say. “It’s just that I’m out of the medication that I’ve been taking for some time now, and it occurs to me that I can’t just ring up the pharmacy for a refill.”

“Of course,” he said, drawing out his words. “I can ask my personal physician about it, but I’m not sure he’ll be willing to write a prescription for someone who isn’t his patient. He could come here to Havenwood to see you, of course, but I happen to know he’s in the Caribbean now. Minnesota winters don’t agree with him. Is it crucial to your health? Blood pressure pills, for instance?”

I shook my head. “No, it’s…” My words trailed off as I tried to remember exactly what the pills were for. I had been taking them for so long, it was just a habit. “They stabilize my mood. Antidepression pills, I guess you’d call them.”

He frowned at me. “Is it something you truly need? Doctors tend to overprescribe, in my experience.”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’ve been off them for a couple of days now.”

“Any ill effects?”

I wasn’t about to tell him about the strange experiences I’d been having. The last thing he’d want was a companion for his mother who was seeing things. “Not anything too bad so far,” I said weakly. “Headaches, mostly.”

He patted my arm. “Good. You monitor the situation and I’ll make an inquiry about getting you a refill. But maybe you don’t need them at all.”

Adrian jogged back up the stairs while I went in search of the parka and boots I had worn the day before. I’d need them if I was going to follow those tracks into the woods.