Perfect Nightmare

  Curious, Kara moved closer, and just beyond the fold in the rug, almost hidden in its shadow, she saw something else.

  An open trapdoor.

  She stared at it, her mind whirling. Why was there a trapdoor in the middle of the library floor? Was that where Patrick had gone?

  She took another step toward the yawning hole in the floor, then stopped. What was she thinking? It was four in the morning, and Patrick was gone, and she’d found a trapdoor that led God-alone-knew-where.

  She reached for the telephone on the desk, her hand shaking as she picked up the receiver. As her finger hovered over the keypad, she struggled to remember the number the detective had given her—the number where he could be reached at home. But now, when she needed it, not only was it gone, but even his name had vanished from her mind.

  911!

  That was it—she’d just dial 911 and someone would come. But as she stabbed at the first of the three keys that would summon help, another scream ripped through the darkness.

  And ripped through her heart.

  Lindsay!

  This time she knew it was no dream.

  This time she was sure it was Lindsay, and her blood ran cold as she realized where the scream had come from.

  She heard the scream again, and with it, all the fears and the panic that had threatened to overwhelm her only moments ago dropped away. Grabbing a poker that stood by the fireplace, she stared down the steep flight of steps that led from the trapdoor into the darkness below.

  Every instinct she had told Kara to go back, to turn away from the steps leading down into the dark pit beneath the library floor. If she just picked up the phone, someone far stronger than she—someone who would know what to do—would be here in a few minutes. But Lindsay’s scream was fresh in her mind, and she knew it had been no dream, no trick of the night or her imagination.

  This time her daughter’s scream had been real, and she was not about to question herself or hesitate. Gripping the poker tighter, she moved down the steps until she reached the bottom. Except for the shaft of light from the library above, the blackness surrounding her was complete.

  A flashlight. Why hadn’t she thought to find a flashlight?

  But there was no time to go back now—Lindsay was down here somewhere, and she had to find her. She stepped out of the shaft of light and her eyes gradually adapted to the shadows. She came to a wider area then, the walls seemingly falling farther away, and strange, almost surreal images began to emerge out of the darkness.

  Thin mattresses on the floor.

  A bucket near each of the mattresses.

  Scanning the ceiling, Kara saw a lightbulb hanging a few feet away, groped above her and found a string. She pulled it, and in the suddenly blinding light, found herself standing in what appeared to be a dungeon.

  The stench of it filled her nostrils, a wave of nausea rising in her belly as her eyes took in the chains and shackles bolted to the concrete walls. Again, her instincts told her to turn around and flee back up the stairs, but once again, the memory of Lindsay’s scream checked her panic and pushed her deeper into the strange chamber.

  How was it possible? How could Lindsay be here? This was Patrick’s house—the house she’d come to for refuge, and protection, and—

  And Lindsay was here! She could feel it now, feel it deep in her soul.

  But not in this room, not in this dark dungeon.

  Yet not far away, either.

  Kara’s eyes darted around the chamber, searching for some way out other than the trapdoor she’d come down, and a moment later she found it. A small door, constructed from thick oak, set into the concrete wall at the far end of the grim room.

  Carefully, she picked her way through the litter strewn over the floor until she got to the door. It was barely ajar, and she reached out with a trembling hand to pull it open.

  Ahead of her lay a tunnel, barely high enough to stand up in, just wide enough to let her pass.

  In the distance she saw a dim glow, no more than a faint brightening of the blackness that filled the tunnel. How far away? Twenty yards? Fifty? A hundred?

  Her hand tightening on the poker so hard her fingers hurt, she started toward that light.

  Where did the tunnel lead? As she moved through the darkness, feeling her way along one of the rough walls, she again recalled Patrick telling her about waking up in the mausoleum with no memory of having gone there. Was that where the tunnel led? She tried to gauge not only the distance ahead, but the direction as well. And then, as the light grew brighter, she knew.

  The playhouse! The miniature copy of Cragmont itself that stood near the woods between the house and the mausoleum.

  The playhouse whose door and windows were boarded up.

  Certain she knew what lay ahead, Kara quickened her step, and as the light at the end of the tunnel grew steadily brighter, it began to pulse oddly, almost as if it were energized by a beating heart.

  Lindsay’s heart!

  “I’m coming,” Kara whispered. “I’m coming.” She quickened her pace, but not enough to risk tripping on the uneven floor of the tunnel and twisting her ankle. When she was still ten or fifteen feet from the source of the light ahead, she heard something and stopped short.

  Voices.

  She listened, and in the dim light saw what lay ahead.

  Another set of wooden stairs, like the ones that had led from the library down into darkness and the dungeon, only this flight led up. Taking a deep breath, Kara moved slowly and silently to the foot of the stairs. Lindsay, she said silently to herself as she gazed at the open trapdoor overhead. That’s all you have to think about. Find Lindsay and get her out of here.

  As quietly as a wraith, she mounted the stairs.

  What she saw as her eyes cleared the floor was even more surreal than the dungeon she’d come upon earlier. A few feet directly ahead of her, a pair of bare legs were duct-taped to chair legs that had been fastened to the floor with angle irons. Above the legs, she saw a table, also bolted to the floor.

  Kara’s eyes shifted, and she saw a figure looming at the end of the table. A figure clad in black.

  Then she rose into the room, and the full reality of it made her reel. In the pulsing glow of dozens of candles, two women were tied to miniature chairs. One of them was gazing at her with eyes so empty, Kara knew in an instant she was dead, and the other one’s eyes were filled with a terror unlike anything Kara had ever seen before.

  But they were smiling! They were both smiling!

  A choking cry emerged from her throat when she saw Ellen’s mouth covered with duct tape, upon which a grotesquely hideous grin had been drawn.

  And then she saw Lindsay.

  Her daughter was on top of a table as small as the chairs around it, and between her legs stood the tall, black-clad figure, a hideously grinning surgical mask hiding his face.

  A partially crumpled birthday cake—the cake she’d seen earlier in the kitchen, she realized—sat on a side table, its candles melted down to blue blobs. And suddenly she knew.

  Neville! That was why he’d been skulking around the darkened house! That was why she’d felt him watching her! He’d taken her daughter and—

  “Lindsay!” Her child’s name burst from Kara’s lips in an anguished scream.

  Lindsay began to struggle on the table, unintelligible cries bubbling from her lips.

  The black-clad figure wheeled around, his hands rising as he backed away from Lindsay.

  Kara raised the poker. “Get away from her,” she said, her voice low, but carrying enough menace that the figure lurched backward.

  “It’s not my fault,” the man whispered.

  “Untie her,” Kara demanded, her voice rising. “Untie them all!”

  “It’s her fault,” he whimpered, cowering back against the wall. He was pointing at the dead girl now.

  A blinding fury surging inside her, Kara swung the poker at the cowering figure. “Untie them!” she screamed as she brought the poker a
round, its sharp spur aimed at his head. But he ducked away, and the spur intended for the skull of the monster who had taken Lindsay sank deep into the wall instead, hitting it with such force that when Kara tried to pull the spur out, she lost her grip on the poker. Then the man was upon her, wrapping his arms around her, pinning one of her arms to her side.

  With her free hand, Kara reached up and slashed at his face with her fingers, trying to sink her nails into his eyes. But again he twisted his head away at the last second, and her fingers closed not on skin and flesh, but on the knitted yarn of his black ski mask.

  She yanked hard, jerking away not only the ski mask, but the surgical mask as well.

  In the strangely pulsing light of the guttering candles, Kara found herself staring into the face of Patrick Shields.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  It was the house itself that awakened Neville. Even before he opened his eyes, he knew that all was not well, that somewhere in the house, something was terribly wrong.

  It was a feeling he’d had more and more often over the last few months, when he’d listened to the silence, then risen from his bed to prowl through the house, checking doors and windows, making certain his employer’s realm was secure. Indeed, he’d already made his patrol once this night, and found Mrs. Marshall coming in from the terrace with strange tales of hearing sounds she couldn’t possibly have heard. Of course, he reassured her that it had been nothing more than shore birds, sent her back to bed, then finished his tour of the mansion before returning to his own room and his bed.

  He’d slept.

  But now he was awake again, and something felt wrong. Then, before he’d thrown the covers back and reached for his robe, he heard it.

  The sound of breaking glass.

  Instantly, his mind began cataloging the possibilities. Perhaps it was nothing more than Mr. Shields dropping a brandy snifter after trying to medicate himself through another sleepless night. Or perhaps one of the old family photographs that covered so many of the downstairs walls had fallen from its mount.

  Except it hadn’t sounded like either a dropped glass or a fallen picture.

  It sounded like a breaking window.

  Slipping into his robe, Neville hurried silently along the corridor and down the dark stairway that led from his apartment to the kitchen, still trying to convince himself that whatever the sound had been, it was nothing serious.

  But even as he moved through the kitchen into the dayrooms, the house whispered that something evil lay nearby.

  Emerging into the vast entry hall, he slowed his step and listened, but heard nothing but the ancient clock’s eternal ticking; all around him the house was dark and quiet.

  Just as it should be.

  Yet still he heard it whispering to him, telling him that all was not as it seemed. Neville crossed the hall and slipped into the conservatory, where only a little while ago he’d met Mrs. Marshall, but now all was well in that room, too, and beyond its great glass doors, a lightening sky signaled the coming of dawn.

  And by that light, he could find no broken windowpane whose shattering might have disturbed his sleep.

  Neville Cavanaugh moved silently on.

  The library doors were locked, which told him that Mr. Shields was once again sleeping there instead of in his room. He raised his hand to rap softly at the door, then changed his mind: if his employer was asleep, he didn’t want to awaken him, at least not until he had discovered what was amiss.

  He turned away from the library and moved to the massive, circular table that stood in the center of the foyer, its intricately inlaid mosaic surface still half obscured by the profusion of yellow tulips that Mr. Shields’s sister had picked.

  The tulips that were now past their prime, and should have been thrown away a week ago. Neville stood quietly, seeing neither the faded tulips nor any other visible thing, for his mind was focusing on the house itself. He knew that if he waited quietly, it would tell him of its ills.

  It always had; it always would. He understood its subtleties—knew every inch of its molding, every scar in its paneling, even every vein in every slab of its marble, as well as every pleat in every curtain.

  He knew every creak, moaning joint, and settled beam. As the decades passed, he had kept this house, and this house had protected him. He thought of himself and this house as partners; they understood one another.

  And this night, things were not right with the house.

  He could feel its ills deep in his soul.

  He waited for the impressions to become more specific, but his impatience clouded any psychic message he might have gleaned, and finally he strode to the staircase and mounted the stairs, his slippers soundless on the marble treads.

  The doors to the girls’ rooms were closed, as always.

  The guest room door, though, was open, and when he peered inside, he saw only the empty bed, the bedding itself in disarray.

  So Mrs. Marshall was up and about again, and no doubt it had been she who broke something. Certain there was nothing else to be found up here, Neville quickly went back down the stairs, searched the rest of the day rooms, and finally stepped out onto the terrace, using the same door in the conservatory through which he’d admitted Mrs. Marshall a while ago. The air was chilly, and Neville clutched at the lapels of his robe with his fingers as he moved down the length of the terrace, checking each of the French doors in turn.

  He saw the breech in the last set of doors that opened into the library. A pane of glass next to the doorknob had been broken—smashed in with one of the wrought-iron plant stands of which he had never approved, and for the reason that now confronted him. The plant stand lay on its side in front of the door.

  So there had been an intruder.

  Neville pushed open the damaged door and stepped into the library, closing it behind him, and as the latch clicked into place, he knew that here, in this room, was the source of the distress that had awakened him.

  It wasn’t merely the pervasiveness of Mr. Shields’s grief or the aroma of Mrs. Marshall’s cheap perfume. No, it was something far darker, far more disturbing. But what? The room was vacant and cold, the fireplace barely sustaining a few faintly glowing coals.

  Then he saw that the Oriental rug in front of the desk was folded back.

  Frowning, he approached it, and stared at the gaping trapdoor.

  For a moment all he could do was peer in astonishment at the hole in the floor, barely able to believe his eyes. How many times had the carpet been rolled back over the years? How was it possible that he hadn’t known that a trapdoor was there? As he stared at it, and saw how perfectly the door would drop back into the deeply grooved parquetry design of the floor, he realized that the entire floor had been designed to disguise this trapdoor; closed, it would be all but invisible.

  But where did it go?

  His brow furrowing deeply, Neville Cavanaugh hurried toward the kitchen in search of a flashlight.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  “Patrick!”

  The voice seemed to come from far away.

  It was calling his name, screaming at him: “Patrick!”

  And again, louder: “Patrick!”

  Patrick wanted to answer, but it was as if he was asleep and couldn’t wake up; as if someone were calling him in a dream, and even though he wanted to respond, to call back, he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t do anything; couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could barely even breathe. It was as if he was bound in something, as if spiderwebs were wrapped around him, webs so fine he couldn’t see them, but that nonetheless held him in their grip.

  The voice came again, howling out his name, and Patrick struggled to free himself from the bonds at least enough to speak, to let whoever was calling to him know that he was there. And he was there, he knew it. He was not asleep, though he felt as though he was; not caught up in a nightmare, though it seemed as if a nightmare was what it had to be.

  The voice screamed his name yet again, and his mind be
gan to focus. There was light all around him; but not bright light, not the light from the chandelier in the library or the lamp by his bedside.

  Candlelight.

  That’s what it was: candlelight. Glowing all around him, bathing the room in a warm, golden glow.

  Now the room itself came into a strange kind of focus. A small room, with small furniture.

  The playhouse! That’s where he was—the playhouse halfway down the lawn, where Claire and her friends—

  Claire!

  Was that who was calling him? He looked around, trying to see if his sister was there, but he couldn’t quite see out of his own eyes. Something seemed to be blocking his vision.

  “Go back to sleep!” a new voice whispered, and this time Patrick recognized it right away: it was his own voice. But how could it be, since he hadn’t spoken and wasn’t asleep? The voice inside him spoke again: “Go on. Go back to sleep. You want to go back to sleep. I know you want to go back to sleep, and so do you. So do it. Do what you want to do, and then I will do what we want to do, just like I always have.”

  As the voice whispered to him, Patrick felt himself starting to relax, to obey it and drift into the dark and gentle quiet of sleep.

  But then he heard the other voice calling to him again. Not Claire’s voice, but a familiar voice, a voice he knew.

  A voice he liked.

  “Patrick! Patrick, what are you doing?”

  Kara!

  Kara Marshall! That’s who it was. And he was holding her, his arms wrapped so tightly around her, he was hurting her. But what was she doing in the playhouse? No one ever went into the playhouse anymore, not since he’d boarded it up. Even his daughters had never been allowed in the playhouse. But now Kara was here and—