Nightshade

  “How dare you?” Phyllis raged. “Just because I might have a little sip every now and then doesn’t mean — ”

  “Fine, Mother,” Becky said, holding up her hands as if to stop the denials she knew might well go on for several minutes. “But you’re still wrong about Matt. He’s — ”

  “He’s a killer, and a rapist, and God only knows what else! And when your father gets home — ”

  That was when Becky had gone to her room, slammed the door, and flopped down onto the bed to study. Why bother to listen to it anymore? She knew what would happen when her father got home. He’d hear her mother out, let her ramble on until she ran out of steam, then come in and try to gloss over the whole thing, managing to apologize to his daughter without quite condemning his wife. “Your mother’s a little high-strung sometimes,” he’d say. “You just have to try not to upset her.”

  Now, still sprawled out on her bed, Becky heard her father’s car pull into the driveway. She heard its door slam, the back door open and close, and her father call out to her mother. Then she heard the murmur of voices drifting in from the living room. She could practically count the seconds until she’d hear the soft knock that meant it was time for her father’s not-quite-apology for her mother. Except that when it finally came, it wasn’t a soft knock at all. It was a sharp rap, followed immediately by her father opening the door and stepping into her room.

  “Your mother tells me you were with Matt Moore this afternoon,” Frank Adams began, his forehead creased with deep worry lines.

  Becky’s jaw almost dropped open in surprise, and she sat up, swinging around to face her father. As the anticipation of his apology faded, she felt the anger that had been simmering for the last hour surge to a boil. “I don’t believe it! You’ve always liked Matt — in fact, you’ve always wanted to know why I don’t go out with him!”

  Frank Adams’s eyes narrowed defensively. “That was before — ” he said, but his daughter was on her feet now.

  “Before what?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Before everybody decided he did all kinds of horrible things? Well, if he did them all, how come he hasn’t been arrested?” The memory of the misery in Matt’s face and voice as they’d stood on the sidewalk while he confessed his own doubts rose to the forefront of Becky’s mind. “He didn’t do anything, Daddy! If he had, he’d have told — ” She cut her words off abruptly, but it was too late.

  “Told who?” her father asked. “Told you? Why would he do that? And if he didn’t do anything, then what happened to Bill Hapgood? He was there when Bill got shot! He was standing right there, and he shot a deer that was between him and Bill! It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. I’m not saying he did anything to Emily Moore — God knows she might have just wandered off. But what about Kelly Conroe? She wasn’t the kind of girl who’d just take off, so something must have happened to her. And Matt is the only person that makes sense!”

  Becky’s eyes glittered with fury. “It does not!” she insisted. “Maybe Matt did shoot his dad. But even if he did, it was just an accident! And anybody could have picked up Kelly — if she was walking home by herself, anyone could have come along and picked her up!”

  “That’s not what happened,” Frank Adams insisted.

  Becky’s temper snapped. “How would you know what happened?” she shot back. “You don’t even know what happens in your own house! You don’t even know that Mom’s drunk all the time! All she has to do is deny it — just claim she had a ‘bad day’ or something — and you make every excuse you can think of for her! But not for Matt! Even though you’ve known him all his life, and always told me he’s exactly the kind of boy I should marry. Well, guess what, Daddy? I’m not going to marry Matt, because he’s never going to ask me! Why would he, with the kind of parents I have?”

  When she stormed out of the house, neither of her parents made a move to stop her. Her father was too stunned by her outburst to do anything but watch her go. Her mother was too drunk even to know she’d gone.

  Her fury still raging, Becky set off down the street. If she was the only friend Matt still had, he was also the only friend she had.

  * * *

  CYNTHIA MOORE MOVED slowly through the house, carefully examining each of the rooms, deciding what she would keep and what must be changed. Some of the pieces were really quite good — she recognized them as family heirlooms that had undoubtedly been in the Hapgood family for generations. But others — both the Queen Anne chair in the living room, which was obviously a reproduction, and the not-quite-Chippendale sideboard that stood gracelessly in the dining room — would have to go. Not that she was surprised to find the less than perfect furnishings: Joan had never had any taste, and undoubtedly had never noticed that the pieces she’d put in the house simply weren’t up to standard. What she did find surprising was that Bill Hapgood had allowed Joan’s taste to taint the house so badly.

  When she finished her tour of the downstairs rooms, she returned to the second floor. First she went to the master suite, into which she would move her things this very day. Going to the closet, she pulled a large suitcase off the top shelf — second rate, like everything else Joan had surrounded herself with — and began filling it with the contents of Joan’s dresser. Not all of it had to go, of course. There were a few things — some lingerie, a few silk blouses, and some very good cashmere sweaters — that she recognized as having been gifts from Bill Hapgood. But the things Joan herself had bought all disappeared into the suitcase, just as Joan herself had vanished a little more than an hour ago, when Cynthia had finally come to the end of her patience and decided to take over completely. Having made room for her things in the dresser, Cynthia started back to the guest room to deal with the mess Joan had made. Her hand was on the knob when she heard the front doorbell chime softly from below. For a moment she was tempted not to answer it at all — the house was hardly in condition for her to receive visitors yet. But when the doorbell rang a second time, she sighed, went downstairs, carefully put on her most gracious smile, and opened the door.

  The girl standing on the porch was about Matt’s age, and struck her as unfortunately plain, her hair as badly done as Joan’s had always been. She wore clothing Cynthia considered drab, the kind of clothing she had always hated. She was about to close the door, but before she did, she decided to retrieve a name for the girl from Joan’s memory and talk to her, if only for a moment.

  Becky.

  Becky Adams.

  She opened the door a little wider, adjusting her smile to project a degree of cordiality, if not quite friendliness. The girl, after all, was not the sort of person toward whom Cynthia Moore would ever have been more than polite.

  Becky Adams looked uncertainly at Joan Hapgood. Though she recognized her immediately, she appeared different to Becky than the last time she’d seen her, at Mr. Hapgood’s funeral. She had changed the way she did her hair, putting it up in a French twist, and her makeup was different too. It almost looked like she wasn’t wearing any, except that her cheekbones seemed a little higher, and her eyes looked wider apart.

  Though Becky had always thought Matt’s mother was pretty, she now seemed truly beautiful. Even the way she stood made her look different, and left Becky feeling self-conscious about her own plain features and slumping posture.

  “What is it, Becky?”

  Becky frowned uncertainly. Even Mrs. Hapgood’s voice sounded different — low, and sort of throaty. “Is — I was wondering if Matt’s home,” she said, her voice faltering.

  Cynthia hesitated, then pulled the door further open and stepped back. “I’m afraid he’s upstairs in the shower, but I’m sure he’ll want to see you. Won’t you come in?”

  Becky remained where she was for a moment. It almost seemed to her that the woman inviting her into the house wasn’t Mrs. Hapgood at all. But of course she could see that it was. She stepped inside.

  “Perhaps you’d like to wait in here,” Cynthia said, guiding her through the wide archway th
at led to the spacious living room. She gestured Becky into one of the wingbacked chairs that flanked the fireplace, and lowered herself onto the edge of the one opposite it. “I’m sure Matt won’t be more than a few minutes,” she went on, her eyes fixing on Becky.

  Becky fidgeted under her gaze. “Maybe I should come back some other time,” she said, starting to get up. “Or you could just have Matt call me.”

  Cynthia leaned forward, holding out her hand as if to stop Becky. “Oh, no,” she insisted. “You mustn’t go — you just got here, and I know Matt wouldn’t want to miss you.”

  Uncertain what to do, Becky nervously eased herself back into the chair. Then the demeanor of the woman sitting opposite her changed.

  “You’re in love with my son, aren’t you?” Cynthia Moore asked, her eyes hardening, her voice suddenly cold.

  “No!” Becky protested. “I — ”

  “Of course you are. It shows all over you. But it won’t do you any good. He belongs to me!”

  Becky’s stomach suddenly felt hollow, and a chill ran through her. What was Mrs. Hapgood talking about? In a cold sweat that made her body feel clammy, Becky stood up. She was so frightened, her legs would barely support her. “I better go home,” she said, her voice quavering.

  Opposite her, Mrs. Hapgood rose from her chair, her eyes still fixed on her, but it semed to Becky that she was seeing something, or someone, else.

  “Joan wanted him,” she said, “and Bill wanted him, and that terrible Conroe girl. They all wanted Matt, but none of them could have him.” Her eyes bored into Becky, who was trembling now. “You can’t have him either, you pathetic child. He’s mine, and he always will be.”

  Becky tried to back away, tried to turn and run to the front door, but her body refused to obey her. It wasn’t until Mrs. Hapgood moved toward her, her hands reaching out, that Becky finally came back to life and wheeled away. But her foot caught on the thick Oriental rug and she fell, sprawling facedown. She tried to scramble to her feet, but by then Mrs. Hapgood was on top of her, sitting astride her, pinning her to the floor.

  Then she felt the woman’s hands clutching at her hair, pulling her head up.

  “Do you understand?” Cynthia screamed. “You can’t have him!” She slammed Becky’s head onto the floor, then raised it. “I won’t let you have him!”

  Again she slammed Becky’s face into the carpet, and a howl of pain and terror erupted from the girl’s throat.

  “No one can have him!”

  She smashed Becky’s head against the floor again.

  “He’s mine . . . he’ll always be mine . . . I’ll never let anyone take him away again.”

  When Cynthia’s fury was finally spent, Becky Adams lay still on the carpet.

  CHAPTER 26

  HALF CARRYING, HALF dragging Becky Adams, Cynthia made her way down the stairs into the basement. She didn’t like the basement — it was far too dark and dirty for her tastes — but it didn’t hold the terror for her that it held for Joan. But Joan had always been a fraidy-cat, screaming the moment she’d first been put in the cedar chest in the basement of the house on Burlington Avenue all those years ago. Cynthia had almost felt sorry for her the first time their mother did it, but she knew that if she did anything — even said anything — she would be the one her mother locked up.

  It had actually happened once, when she was very young. She couldn’t even remember anymore what her infraction had been, but remembered that after her mother was finished slapping her — hard — she was taken down to the basement and put in the cedar chest.

  Then the lid was closed.

  Cynthia had been terrified, not only of the dark, but of the awful feeling that the box might actually crush her.

  But she hadn’t let herself scream.

  She hadn’t even let herself move. Instead, she’d forced herself to lie perfectly still and close her eyes and pretend she wasn’t in the box at all. And she made up her mind that no matter what she had to do, she would never let her mother slap her again.

  She would never let herself be put in the box again.

  And she would get even.

  Some day — some way — she would make her mother feel the pain and fear she herself had felt that day.

  From then on, Cynthia said whatever she had to say, did whatever she had to do, to keep her mother from punishing her.

  She didn’t let herself get slapped.

  She didn’t let herself get put back in the cedar chest.

  For a while it had been hard — she had to be so careful about what she did that most of the time she just didn’t do anything at all — but after Joan was born, it got a lot easier. As soon as Joan was old enough to crawl, Cynthia began blaming things on her; she was already a good enough liar that her mother always believed her. From then on, it was Joan who took the punishment for whatever Cynthia did — and screamed through every minute of it.

  Now, as Cynthia dragged Becky across the floor to the trapdoor that was the only entrance to the old root cellar, she wondered what would have happened if Joan had summoned up the courage to come down here — or, even worse, if Joan had managed to regain control before she had finally become strong enough to take over completely.

  Maybe Joan would have been happy, seeing what she’d done to their mother. But probably not; for some reason — some reason that she had never been able to understand — Joan kept loving their mother. It never seemed to matter how cruel the old woman was, Joan always managed to make excuses for her.

  Weak. That’s what Joan had always been — just plain weak!

  Heaving the trapdoor open, Cynthia peered down into the black pit below. Her nostrils filled with the putrid odor of rotting flesh mixed with urine and feces, but she paid no attention to the vile stench as she pushed Becky through the opening, barely waiting for the girl’s body to drop to the dirt floor before closing the trapdoor and returning to the bright rooms upstairs.

  Climbing to the second floor, she went to the guest room to clean up the mess Joan had made. Most of the clothes would be all right — she could find a seamstress to fix the damage, and after they were cleaned and pressed, they would be almost as good as new. But as she tried to put the pictures back together — the wonderful images of herself that she’d always kept on her walls, and in frames on her desk, and next to her bed — her anger toward Joan grew stronger than ever.

  The pictures were ruined!

  She remembered, then, the album her mother kept hidden in the drawer of her nightstand. The album that was filled with copies of every picture Cynthia had, and dozens more. Leaving the guest room, Cynthia went through the bathroom to the room next door. Her mother’s nightstand was gone! She felt a flash of panic. Was it possible that every picture of her — every image of her beauty — could be gone?

  No! Of course not! The nightstand wasn’t here, but her mother would have saved the album.

  Frantically, Cynthia began searching for it. Beginning with the dresser that stood against the wall opposite the foot of the bed, she pulled open one drawer after another, scattering their contents across the floor until the rug was strewn with a jumble of nightgowns, underwear, sweaters, and stockings — things her mother hadn’t worn in years, but had refused to give up.

  Finally, in the third drawer of the bureau that stood next to the window, Cynthia found it. The album was covered with cheap leatherette that had long ago worn away to reveal the cardboard beneath, but Cynthia handled it with as much care as if it were a Gutenberg Bible. Lifting it from the drawer, she laid it carefully on a table, opened it, and began turning the pages.

  They were all there. Every photograph she remembered, from the first one, taken when she was only a month old, to the last, taken just before she had gone away to New York. Even though the baby hadn’t been showing yet, she could see the radiance in her eyes the day the photo was taken. It was a lovely photograph — far too lovely to be hidden away in her mother’s old photo album. It should be downstairs!

  Cyn
thia knew where she wanted it to be. Not just this one, but all of them. She took the album downstairs and into the den. Rummaging in the top drawer of Bill’s desk, she found a pair of scissors, then carefully set to work.

  One by one she removed the photographs that sat on top of Bill Hapgood’s desk — photographs of his wedding, and his wife, and his family — and carefully cut out the images of Joan. Then, equally carefully, she cut her own face from the photographs in the album.

  For the formal portrait taken the day Joan and Bill were married, she chose a photograph of herself as homecoming queen, taken during her last year of high school. The dress she’d worn had been white, its panels and bodice embroidered with rhinestones. It had looked almost like a wedding dress, and as she carefully placed it over the cutout where Joan’s image had been, Cynthia knew the image of herself was finally in its rightful place.

  “It should have been me anyway,” she murmured as she slipped the altered photo back into its frame. Standing it up, she stepped back, cocked her head, and gazed at her work with a critical eye. From only six feet away, the picture looked totally genuine.

  Not only genuine, but right.

  Then she moved on to the photographs on the desk, replacing the cutouts of Joan’s face and figure with images of herself from the album until all the photographs on Bill’s desk had been altered.

  Bill and Cynthia at their wedding, their son standing next to his mother.

  Cynthia and Matt, on the Eiffel Tower, gazing out over Paris. Looking at the picture, Cynthia could almost see the view herself, as clearly as if it she had been there instead of Joan.

  Bill, Cynthia, and Matt, riding horses five years ago.

  “Perfect,” she whispered as she gazed at the photographs, now put back in the positions Bill had left them. “Now it’s right. Now it’s the way it should have been. . . .”

  * * *

  MATT DRIFTED BACK to consciousness, the line between sleep and wakefulness so blurred that he wasn’t sure where one state ended and the other began. Pain was the first thing he became aware of — pain that seemed to have seized every nerve of his body.