Night of the Phantom

"Sorry about the car," she said inanely.

  He just stared at her. "You should have left while you still could," he said, his rough voice somber.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the tightly shut door. "I couldn't," she said, more to herself than to him.

  Sal followed her gaze. "No," he said. "I guess you couldn't." He moved past her, not touching her, but she could sense his mental dismissal. "I put your suitcases back in your room. You'll probably want to change." His gaze raked the sheet she had pulled around her. "And Ethan and I will need some time alone."

  "All right." She couldn't think of an argument. And she desperately longed for a shower and a change of clothes. Maybe then she wouldn't feel so weak and shaky, so helpless. She wasn't used to feeling helpless-it was an unpleasant feeling, but one she couldn't shake. She was at the mercy of emotions, events that she couldn't control, couldn't even influence. She was at the mercy of a man who mystified as much as he enchanted her.

  "Just keep turning right and you'll come to your room," Sal said, sensing her hesitation. "Anyone with your ability to get into places where you shouldn't be won't have any trouble finding it. And once you're there, for God's sake, stay put. Ethan will know where to find you. I'll be going into town to find out exactly how bad things are. I wouldn't want you to be wandering around alone if Pastor Lincoln decided to make one last try at converting you."

  Megan shivered. "I'll stay in my room. At least until Ethan comes to get me.''

  Salvatore's answering snort was far from encouraging.

  Ethan didn't come to get her. She made up a dozen excuses for him. He had to be as tired as she was after their sleepless night. She was able to sleep for several hours on the muslin-enclosed bed, hoping, dreaming that when she awoke, Ethan would be lying beside her. But when a nightmare yanked her into sweating, heart-pounding wakefulness, she was alone in the darkening afternoon.

  The thunder was back, a distant, ominous rumble, and the wind had picked up once more. She climbed off the huge bed, stretched her cramped, sore muscles and walked over to the French doors. The white-flowered garden was empty—no elderly gardener was stooped over the fragrant blossoms. She'd have to remember to ask Ethan about the old man. For some reason, she'd always been too overwhelmed by the here and now to think of anything, anyone but the two of them. When she was with him, all other people seemed to fade into the distance.

  She glanced around the darkening room, looking in vain for food. She couldn't remember when she'd last eaten, and while food had certainly been a low priority while she'd been in residence, she realized quite suddenly that she was famished.

  In her wanderings around the convoluted old house she'd never found anything as remotely practical as a kitchen, but then, she'd never been looking. Maybe her sense of direction would work as well for cheese and crackers as it worked for Ethan. Except that she didn't think it was going to be that simple. She needed Ethan far more than she needed food to stay alive.

  Maybe she'd go in search of him, and together, they could invade the kitchen. She could manage a decent omelet if she could find the right pan. The thought of cooking for him, of a tiny, normal morsel of domesticity, was alluring. And somehow, very unlikely.

  The hall door was tightly locked. She stared at it in disbelief, unwilling to accept the fact that last night had made no difference at all. But then, Sal was perfectly capable of taking it upon himself to lock her in. Ethan was probably wondering why she was gone so long, why she hadn't come to him.

  No, he was wondering no such thing. He could come to her, as he had before. If he wanted to.

  Where was Sal? It had been midmorning when he said he was going to check on what was happening in Oak Grove. Though she had no way of telling time, she could only guess that it was early evening, six or seven. He'd been gone a long, long time.

  And she wasn't going to sit there a minute longer like a passive little lady. If she couldn't get through the door to the house, she could go over the garden wall. And if Ethan came to rescue her while she was gone, then he'd have only himself to blame.

  The wind was picking up, knocking the white-budded flowers this way and that. She went first in search of the door Joseph had used just yesterday, but that stretch of wall was smooth and unblemished. There'd been no way he could have simply vanished in front of her eyes, but there was no other practical explanation, either.

  The white climbing rose ran up a trellis. She tore her hands climbing, snarled her hair, but nothing could make her stop, not the wind howling overhead, not the distant crackle of lightning, not the threatening roll of thunder. She dropped down lightly on the other side into a Zen-like garden of swirling sand patterns and miniature fir trees, then up and over another wall, her anger at odds with her quickly building panic. Something was wrong, something was very wrong, and she had the sense that danger was all around her. She could smell smoke in the air, a sweet, piny-pitch smoke, and the rumble of thunder sounded ominously like the rumble of voices.

  The next garden had no walls. Instead, there was a maze made of boxwood that reached over her head, a maze she had no choice but to enter. There was no way around it, and she sure as hell wasn't going back.

  The chanting was louder inside the maze, and she knew with sudden grim fear that Pastor Lincoln and his loyal crew of followers had to be nearby. Hadn't Sal warned her? Hadn't Ruth already ended up in the hospital, an innocent victim of their deranged sense of justice?

  The voices grew louder, closer, and the smell of fire was stronger than ever. Torches, she thought, panicked. They used to burn witches, didn't they? Hadn't Pastor Lincoln accused her of being something perilously close to a witch?

  She turned back, panicked, but the maze split in two directions, and she had no idea which way to go. She started down one path when something or someone seemed to call to her. Looking back, she saw Joseph, as if from a great distance, beckoning to her.

  Without hesitation, she wheeled around and ran to him. He was gone by the time she got there, but she kept on in that direction, blind with panic and fright, the voices behind her growing louder and louder.

  Another split in the path, and Joseph was there again, leading her to safety. She no longer thought she'd reach him, she was happy just to follow him, away from those droning voices, those evil minds. He'd take her to Ethan, she knew he would, and Ethan would keep her safe. Ethan was all-powerful, dark and menacing and mysterious to people whose limited minds couldn't understand him, and he loved her. He wouldn't let anyone touch her.

  She almost made it. The end of the maze was in sight and she began to run toward Joseph's patiently waiting figure, slipping in the dew-wet grass, racing as fast as her beating heart would allow her, when she felt the hands behind her, reaching out for her, gnarled, claw-like hands, catching at her clothes, pulling her down, down. She screamed, Ethan's name a helpless cry that was silenced as it began as a hand clamped over her mouth, followed quickly by a foul-tasting rag. Something pungent and acrid covered her nose, and she held her breath, struggling, fighting with all her strength.

  "Ether'll do the trick." She recognized Doc Bailey's slurred tones with horror. "She'll either have to take a breath or she'll pass out on her own accord."

  "Evil!" Pastor Lincoln intoned from overhead, and she knew they were his hands holding her down, hurting her breasts with perverse deliberation. "She'll be purified by fire and blood "

  Megan could smell the fire, see the flames of the torches against the darkening sky. Why didn't Joseph help her? She turned her head and saw him at the edge of the maze, watching her struggle, making no move to help her.

  She kicked hard, connecting with the good pastor, forcing him to release his painful hold as he rolled to the ground. But there were too many willing hands ready to take his place, and her lungs were about to burst. She opened her mouth against the rag in one last attempt to scream, but the drug poured into her, blackness surrounded her, and the last thing she saw was Joseph watching her, standing close, a sorrowing expres
sion on his ancient face. And the odd thing was, no one else seemed to notice him at all.

  Ethan sat bolt upright in his chair, his hands clenched into fists. For five long hours he'd sat in darkness, fighting his need to go to Megan, fighting his own guilt and rage. She wasn't safe. He'd known that, known that once he'd put his own convoluted plans for revenge in gear, nothing would stop them. Not an innocent woman who stood in his way, not his own, belated second thoughts. He'd gone too far to change his mind, to back down. And now Ruth lay in a hospital, Sal was missing, and Megan... Megan...

  She was safe for now, locked in that room, with the locked garden beyond. No one could get to her, most of all him.

  When had things shifted beyond his control? He'd managed his life so carefully, using his money, his brilliance, the gifts a stingy God had given him in return for deformity, to run his life. No one was able to touch him, to hurt him. Those who had managed would pay the price.

  First Reese Carey, with his greedy tactics that endangered people in order to line his own pockets. A man worthy of punishment, yes. But not Ethan Winslowe's punishment. If Ethan had simply been interested in justice, he would have sent his information directly to the investigators looking into Carey Enterprises. Instead, he'd planned to keep the man a prisoner, playing his own sadistic cat-and-mouse game, to make the man suffer.

  It had backfired when Carey had been despicable enough to sacrifice his daughter, instead. And Ethan had fallen in love with that daughter, despite his best efforts. Megan Carey was everything her father wasn't. Brave, honest, compassionate and loyal. She also looked at him without flinching. No, it was even worse than that. She looked at him with love.

  He had no defense against that love. His experience with Jean Marshall, with Ruth, with various carefully made professional arrangements had left him unprepared for the magnitude of falling in love for the first time in his life. And for the last, he realized. Life was no longer as he chose to make it. It had fled from him, leaving him an angry, struggling victim.

  And who was he to wreak vengeance on a town so small and poor and miserable and inbred that its inhabitants no longer knew right from wrong? Who was he to sit in judgment? He'd chosen to stay here knowing his presence filled their superstitious souls with fear and torment, and when that wasn't revenge enough for the death of his father, he'd upped the ante, turning most of their barren little town over to what they'd consider Satan himself. And he'd done so with malicious relish.

  But he'd pushed them beyond their limited lease on sanity. And they hadn't hurt him. They'd hurt Sal. They'd hurt Ruth. And he knew that if they could, they'd hurt Megan.

  He didn't want to let it go. He didn't want to take Megan and turn his back on them, letting them off scot-free for their escalating violence. He wanted to punish them, destroy them, squash them into the ground like malevolent bugs. And much as he loved Megan, he couldn't give up the one thing that had kept him going through the long, dark years. That hatred had kept him alive—it was as important to him as his love for Megan.

  But he couldn't have both. He didn't need an ultimatum from Megan to know that. He'd made his own ultimatum. The damnable thing was he couldn't decide.

  Deep in the center of the house, it was too dark to tell the time, but his internal clock told him it was late, and still Sal hadn't returned. Megan would be locked in her room. Probably ravenously hungry and mad as hell. He was sorry he'd been gentlemanly enough to disconnect the video monitors. He'd done it for his sake as well as hers. He'd known, subconsciously if not otherwise, that he was going to join her in that room, take her on that wide white bed. And he didn't even want the computer watching.

  Maybe he should have taped it. Maybe once she left, he could sit and watch the tape, watch their bodies join, over and over and over again. But he didn't need that. He'd watch the tape in his mind, endlessly, a helpless voyeur to his own pain.

  It sliced through him with a sudden, shocking savagery. She screamed for him. Megan's voice, Megan's soul, calling out for him in panic. He'd heard her call before, and had answered that call, but never had he heard such bone-shattering terror.

  He knocked over his throne-like chair as he went, not bothering with lights when he was so accustomed to the thick blackness that surrounded him. There were secret passageways and tunnels, shortcuts through the maze of hallways and ramps. Within minutes, he was outside the door of the white room. The room that was locked, the key back in his basement lair.

  He smashed through the door, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. The room was deserted, the white muslin curtains billowing in the fierce breeze, and he raced into the garden, dreading what he'd find.

  It was empty. The rose-covered trellis had been pulled from the wall, signifying her escape route. For a moment, he didn't move, wondering if she'd simply made up her mind to leave him after all.

  And then he knew, with no doubt at all, that she hadn't been running away from him. She'd been running to him.

  He was over the garden wall in two seconds flat, dropping down lightly into the Zen garden. The wind was whipping the sand up, stinging his eyes, and still his heart was racing, his blood throbbing through him, feeling her panic, her need.

  The door in the north wall was standing open. The door ahead of him was still locked. It made no sense that she would have gone straight ahead, but he hesitated, torn.

  It had been years since he'd seen Joseph. He'd thought that he never would again—he'd given up hoping or even caring. But suddenly, he was there, standing in front of the closed door, beckoning to Ethan.

  Beckoning to his son.

  Ethan didn't bother with the wall this time. His shoulder could stand up to more punishment, and besides, that door was flimsy. It splintered beneath him, and he stumbled out into the maze.

  He let out a groan of anguish. The house and gardens were so convoluted that even he forgot which part adjoined which. He knew the way through the maze, but there was always the chance that Megan and her enemies—his enemies—were lost somewhere in one of the blind turns.

  "Megan!" he called, and the wind took his voice and hurled it up into the bending trees. No answer at all, not a sound beyond the violence of nature.

  There was no sign of her in the maze, no sound at all, and no sign of any intruder. When he came through the other side, he saw the open door and allowed himself a moment of relief. Maybe she'd simply gotten lost in the maze and been frightened. Maybe Joseph had shown her the way to safety and even now she was lying curled up in his bed, waiting for him.

  And then he stumbled over it. Bending down, he picked up the shoe, holding it in his big hand. It wasn't one of her silly high heels, the ones he found ridiculously erotic. It was her bright red running shoe, lying in the dirt. He could smell the pitchy scent of torches mixed with kerosene, and he knew they'd taken her.

  A darkness closed over him. Not the warm, beneficent darkness that cradled and protected him. This was a darkness of murderous rage so intense that it seemed it would never lift. He sank to his knees in the dirt, cursing, as he held her shoe like a talisman.

  And then he looked up. Joseph was there, distant, indistinct, remote as he'd been since the day Ethan was born.

  "The grove," he said, his faint voice fading on the wind. "They took her to the old grove." He started to fade.

  "How long?" Ethan demanded, pulling him back. "How long ago?"

  Joseph simply shook his head, growing ever fainter.

  "Wait!" Ethan called, but Joseph had already disappeared into the stormy evening air.

  When they’d carried her away, Megan couldn't see, couldn't hear, could scarcely breathe. She guessed that they'd thrown her in the back of a battered pickup truck, one without springs. That, or it was Pastor Lincoln's old school bus with the Repent or Perish slogan on the back.

  The smell of kerosene lingered in the air, mingling with the smell of stale sweat and cheap after-shave. What kind of person wore after-shave to a mob scene, she wondered dizzily.

  She
had no sense of time. She could have been unconscious for minutes or hours before she came to, trapped in that rattling vehicle. She could hear the sizzle and crackle of lightning, the angry roar of the thunder. Could she hear Ethan? Would he find her in time? Would he save her?

  Maybe she didn't need to be so frightened. Maybe they were just going to lecture her, throw her in a ducking pond, maybe make her confess her sins. But she didn't think so. The fanaticism of the people of Oak Grove was deep and twisted. A simple repentance wouldn't sate their warped, hungry souls.

  The vehicle came to an abrupt stop, and she was flung forward against a tangle of legs. She heard the nervous laughter, felt the hands pull her upright, lingering on her breasts, her buttocks, and then she was pushed out into the darkness and the blindfold was taken from her eyes.

  Night had fallen, a dark, dangerous night. Lightning sizzled all around them. The wind was whipping her hair into her face as she tried to focus on the place they'd taken her.

  It was an oak grove, presumably the place from which the town had taken its name. High on a hilltop, it overlooked the rolling Arkansas landscape, and the trees huddled in a circle looked oddly like Stonehenge. In the center of that circle was a broad, flat boulder, just the perfect spot for a picnic, she thought dizzily. Or a sacrifice.

  She could see the huddled shapes of construction equipment in the distance. This was where Ethan planned his spite house, his psychic-research center. It was no wonder they'd brought her here. What better place to leave Ethan Winslowe a message?

  Pastor Lincoln came up to her. They'd tied her wrists together with leather thongs, had bound her ankles, too. She'd lost one of her Reeboks in the battle, and she thought, idiotically, of Cinderella. Would Ethan find the glass slipper?

  She was punchy from panic and whatever filthy drug they'd given her. It took all her self-control to look calmly at Pastor Lincoln and wish she wasn't gagged. So that she could spit in his face.

  "Are you ready to repent, sister?" he screamed into the rising wind. "We've brought you to the godless place to heal the sickness that's invaded our community. We've brought you to the place of witches so that you may join your evil horde or else be washed clean by the blood."