A clap of thunder broke over the house, and Hannah began to scream.
The rush of the train, Bobby’s cry, her own voice screaming.
Menley pushed the memory aside. She heard swift footsteps overhead. He was coming. Hugging Hannah tightly to her, she ran through the hall and into the kitchen. She raced across the room, wishing passionately she had not lit the candles. They were burning all too brightly now. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Covey in the entrance from the hall. His expression was different now. His eyes were narrowed, his lips a knifelike slash.
Her fingers were closing over the car key when he caught her, pulling her roughly against him. “Menley, it’s you, or it’s you and the baby. Take your choice. Put her back in the cradle and come with me, because if you don’t put her back, Adam will lose both of you.”
His voice was quiet, level, almost matter-of-fact. It would have been easier if he had been nervous, if there had been some hesitancy. Then she might be able to reason with him. Why was he doing this? She kept trying to understand. Yet clearly he meant what he said. She had to get him away from Hannah.
“I’ll put her back,” she promised desperately. “I’ll go with you.”
He picked up one of the candles. She felt the gun pressed against her back as she led the way up to the nursery and laid the frightened, crying baby in the crib.
“The cradle,” he said. “Put her in the cradle. And put the doll back in the crib.”
“Why?” Delay, she thought, stall for time. Keep him talking. Adam can’t be far away now. Adam, hurry. Please hurry.
“Because you’re crazy, Menley, that’s why. Crazy and hallucinating and depressed. Everyone, even Adam, is going to be so grateful that you didn’t take the baby with you when you committed suicide.”
“No. No. I won’t.”
“Either put the baby in the cradle or bring her with you. It’s your choice, Menley. Either way, we are going now.”
She had to get him away from Hannah. Alone, if he was taking her away in a car, she might be able to jump out, might be able to make a run for it. Somehow she might still save herself, but not here, not with Hannah in danger. She would have to leave Hannah here.
Menley laid the baby down, bringing fresh wails from the frightened infant. “Sshhh . . .” She pushed the cradle to start it rocking and looked up. “I’ll go with you,” she said, willing herself to be calm. Then suddenly she had to bite back a shriek.
A section of the wall behind Scott Covey was opening. A musty, stale odor was drifting in from the space behind it. Covey beckoned to her. “This way, Menley.”
105
As rain slashed against the windshield, Adam drove down the darkened main street of Chatham. He could not see more than a few feet ahead and forced himself not to speed. The road turned right. Now it ran along the ocean.
He passed the lighthouse. In five minutes he’d be home. Morris Island was just ahead. And then he came to the dip where Little Beach and Morris Island roads joined. It was flooded and the road was closed.
Without hesitating Adam drove through the barrier. As clearly as though she was in the car, he sensed that Menley was calling him.
106
The opening in the nursery wall wasn’t more than a foot and a half wide, Menley realized, as Scott Covey nudged her through it.
“Go ahead, Menley,” he said.
She heard a faint tap as the door closed behind her, and Hannah’s cries became muffled. The candle’s flickering light cast crazy shadows about the narrow space. Scott blew it out as he picked up a flashlight he had left lying on a pile of debris, its beam piercing the shadows of a small room piled with rotting clothes and broken furniture.
The musty odor was overpowering. It was the same smell she had noticed several times in Hannah’s room and in the minister’s cabinet downstairs. “You’ve been here before,” she cried. “You’ve been in the baby’s room other times.”
“I’ve been here as little as possible, Menley,” Covey told her. “There’s a ladder in the corner. I’ll follow you down it. Don’t try anything.”
“I won’t,” she said quickly, trying desperately to clear her head, to overcome this sense of unreality. He doesn’t know Adam is coming, Menley thought. Maybe I can get him talking. Maybe distract him. Trip him. I’m stronger than he knows, she thought. I might be able to surprise him, get the gun away from him.
But could she use it? Yes. I don’t want to die, she thought. I want to live and be with Adam and Hannah. I want the rest of my life. She felt anger surging through her.
She looked around her, taking in all that she could in the dim light. This place. It was what she had suspected. There was a hidden room in this house. More than just a room, in fact. Between the chimneys, the entire core of the house was storage space. Were these piles of rotting rags part of the cargo from the Thankful? she wondered.
Play for time, she told herself. Even though she knew Hannah must still be crying, she could not hear her. These walls were so thick that if she died in here, no one would ever find her.
If she died in here.
Was that Covey’s plan? she asked herself.
“I’m not going to get out of here alive, am I?” she said.
“Aren’t you?” He smiled. “What makes you think that?”
Menley felt a surge of pure hatred. Now he was toying with her.
But then he said, “Menley, I honestly am sorry about this. I’m doing what I have to do.” His voice was completely sincere.
“Why? At least tell me why.”
“You can believe this or not,” he said. “I didn’t want to kill Vivian. She was crazy about me, always giving me presents when she came to Florida, but never a dime after we were married. No shared bank account, no assets in my name, no cash. Anything I wanted, she’d buy me, but would you believe, I had to ask her for every nickel I spent?” He shook his head in disbelief.
“And then she wanted me to sign something renouncing any interest in her estate if the marriage didn’t last at least ten years. She said that would prove I loved her, that she’d heard people in the beauty parlor whispering that I’d married her for her money.”
“And so you killed her?”
“Yes. Reluctantly. I mean, she wasn’t a bad person, but she was making a fool of me.”
“But what has that got to do with me? I helped you. I felt sorry for you. I urged Adam to defend you.”
“You can blame Adam for being here now.”
“Adam! Does Adam know you’re here?” Even as she asked, she knew that wasn’t possible.
“We’ve got to get moving. Menley, I’ll make it simple. Elaine has always been crazy about Adam. A couple of times over the years she thought he was falling for her, but it never worked out. Last year when she thought you two were breaking up, she was sure he’d turn to her. Then he went rushing back to you, and she gave up. After that, she decided it was useless. But when Adam phoned about renting that place in Eastham, and she found out how emotionally unstable you were, she hit on this plan.”
“Are you telling me you’re doing this for Elaine? Why, Scott? I don’t understand.”
“No, I’m doing it for me. Elaine recognized my boat in that aerial photo of this place. She realized I was alone on the boat at 3:15, and that blew my story about what had happened to Vivian. She was ready to use that information. So we made a deal. She’d be my star character witness. And I’d help her try to drive you crazy. Adam had told her about your flashbacks and depression, and she figured that this old house with its legends and hidden rooms—which she had learned about from some workmen—would be the perfect place to push you over the edge. She planned it all; I just helped her carry it out.
“She brought me here to the house, showed me around, explained what she wanted done. That was the day that crazy woman wandered in and followed us up here. She’s just lucky her husband came along when I took her for a walk in the ocean.”
Menley shivered. He might have been talkin
g about a walk along the shore. That’s what Phoebe was trying to remember, to warn me, she thought.
Keep him talking. Keep him talking.
“The ring. What about the emerald? Where is that?”
He smiled. “Tina. She’s quite a hot little number. And giving her the ring was a stroke of genius. In case they ever do try to indict me, she’s an accessory. She’ll have to keep her mouth shut. Elaine and I would have made a good team. We think the same way. She’s been in and out of here at night. I guess she’s pulled some stuff that’s gotten under your skin, like dubbing your son’s voice from the tape and playing it with the sound of the train for you at night. It certainly worked. The word around Chatham is that you’re close to a total breakdown.”
Where was Adam? Menley thought frantically. Would she hear him when he came? Not in here. She saw Covey glance over at the ladder. “Come on. Menley. You know it all now.”
He waved the gun. Trying to follow the beam of the flashlight, she picked her way across the rough, uneven flooring. She tripped as she reached the gaping hole where she could see the top rung of the ladder. Covey caught her before she fell.
“We don’t want any marks on you,” he said. “It was hard enough explaining the bruise on Vivian’s finger.”
The wood of the ladder was rough, and a splinter stabbed her palm. She felt with her feet for the rungs, descending carefully. Could she drop to the next level. somehow escape him? No. If she twisted an ankle, then she really would be helpless. Wait, she cautioned herself, wait.
She reached the area on the main floor. It was wider than that above; but there was debris scattered all about. Covey was right behind her. He stepped down from the final rung. “Take a look at this,” he said, pointing the flashlight to what seemed to be a mound of rags. Then he kicked it with his foot. “There are bones under there. Elaine found them the day she showed me this place. Somebody’s been buried in here for a long time. We talked about that being a good plan for you, Menley, to leave you here. But then if you just disappeared, Elaine was afraid Adam might spend the rest of his life hoping you’d come back.”
She felt a moment of hope. He was not going to kill her in here. Outside, she might have a chance. As he shoved her ahead of him, she looked back at the bones. Phoebe had said Tobias Knight was in this house. Was that what she had meant?
“Over there.” Holding the flashlight, Covey gestured toward an opening in the floor. She could smell dampness from a few feet below.
“Let yourself down slowly. There’s no ladder.” He waited until she had dropped through. Then he carefully let himself down beside her, closing the heavy trapdoor behind him, sealing the opening. “Stand over there.”
Menley realized they were in a narrow storage area of the basement. Covey played the flashlight back and forth. A large yellow slicker was spread out on the ground where they had dropped through the hole, a pair of boots next to the slicker. That was why his clothing wasn’t wet, she realized. He had come in this way.
With a swift movement, Covey picked up the slicker, and rolled the boots in it and threw the bundle under his arm.
Menley sensed a change in him. Now he wanted to get it over with. He prodded her toward the wide basement door and pushed it up. “They’ll think you went out this way,” he said. “Makes you look a little crazier.”
They’d think she left the baby alone and wandered out into a storm. Where was Covey’s car? Maybe he was going to drive her somewhere. In the car she might have a chance to jump out or force him to crash. She turned toward the driveway, but he took her arm. “This way, Menley.”
They were heading for the beach. He was going to drown her, she realized suddenly.
“Wait, Menley,” he said. “Give me your sweater. In case your body never turns up, they’ll at least know what happened.”
The rain was pounding down, and the wind tore at her clothes. Her hair was drenched, falling forward in her face, covering her eyes. She tried to shake it back. Scott stopped, released her right hand. “Hold up your arm, Menley.”
Numbly she obeyed. In a quick gesture, he ripped her sweater over her head and pulled it free, first of her left hand and then the right. Dropping the sweater on the ground, he grasped her arm and forced her down the path that led to the bluff and then to the sea. Tomorrow, with the torrents of rain, there wouldn’t be a trace of his footsteps.
They’ll find my sweater, Menley thought, and think I committed suicide. Would her body wash in? Vivian’s had. Maybe they were counting on that. Adam. Adam, I need you.
The waves were slashing against the shore. The undertow would pull her down and out to sea, and she wouldn’t have a chance. She stumbled as he hurried her down the steep path. Try as she might, she could not pull away from his viselike grip.
The full force of the storm struck them as they reached the place where only yesterday she had lounged on a blanket with Adam and Hannah. Now there was no beach, only the waves, breaking upon the land, eroding it, hungry to reclaim it.
“I’m really sorry, Menley,” Scott Covey said. “But drowning isn’t that bad. It only took Vivy a minute or so. Just relax. It’ll be over soon.”
He pushed her into the water and, crouching, held her under the angry surf.
107
Adam saw the flickering candlelight in the kitchen as he rushed into the house. Finding no one there, he grabbed a flashlight and raced up the stairs.
“Menley,” he shouted as he ran into the nursery. “Menley!”
He shone the light around the room.
“Oh God,” Adam cried as the beam reflected on the china face of the antique doll.
And then a whimper came from behind him. He turned and played the light around the room until it found the gently rocking cradle. Hannah was there! Thank God! he thought. Hannah was all right!
But Menley—
Adam turned and ran to their bedroom. It was empty. He raced down the stairs and went from room to room.
Menley was gone!
It wasn’t like Menley to leave Hannah alone. She would never do that. But she wasn’t in the house!
What had happened? Had she heard Bobby’s voice again? He knew he shouldn’t have let her watch that tape. Shouldn’t have left her alone.
Outside! She must have gone outside! Frantically, Adam rushed to the front door and opened it. The rain drenched him immediately as he stepped outside and began calling to her. “Menley!” he cried. “Menley, where are you?”
He raced across the front lawn, headed toward the path to the beach. Slipping in the heavy, wet grass, he fell. The flashlight flew out of his hand and disappeared over the edge.
The beach! She couldn’t have gone down there, he thought frantically. Still he had to look. She had to be somewhere.
“Menley,” he called out again. “Menley, where are you?”
He reached the path and clambered and slid down it. Below him the surf was roaring, while all about him was darkness. And then a bright flash of lightning illuminated the angry ocean.
Suddenly he saw her, her body surfacing on the crest of a huge wave.
108
Menley had to will herself not to panic. She had held her breath until her lungs were bursting, forced her body to go limp when she was wild to struggle. She felt the water surging about them, Covey’s strong hands holding her, pressing her down. And then he let her go. Quickly she turned her head, gulping air. Why had he released her? Did he think she was dead? Was he still there?
Then suddenly she understood. Adam! She heard Adam, calling out to her. Calling her name!
She started to swim just as a wave crashed over her. Momentarily stunned, she felt herself being pulled out by the powerful undertow.
Oh God, she thought, don’t let me drown. Choking and gasping, she tried to tread water. The mountainous waves were everywhere, pulling her, sucking her down, tossing her forward. She forced herself to hold her breath when the water closed over her, to fight her way back up to the surface. Her only hope w
as to get into a cresting wave that would carry her back to land.
She swallowed more water, then flailed her arms and legs. Don’t panic, she thought. Get into a wave.
She felt a surge building behind her, lifting her body up to the surface.
Now! she thought. Now! Swim! Fight! Don’t let it pull you back.
Suddenly a bright flash of lightning illuminated everything around her—the sea, the bluff. Adam! There was Adam, sliding down the steep path toward her.
As the thunder crashed around her, she threw her body into the wave and rode it toward the shore, toward Adam.
He was only a few feet away from her as she felt the strong pull of the undertow drawing her back.
Then he was with her, his arm firmly around her, pulling her back to the shore.
109
At eleven o’clock Amy and her father were saying good night to Elaine. The evening had been less than successful. Elaine had rehashed with Amy the importance of never taking anything without permission, and certainly never giving that object to another person. Her father had agreed, but she had gone on about it until even he had said, “I think we’ve milked this subject dry, Elaine.”
They had been late eating dinner because the electricity failed for more than an hour, and the roast wasn’t done. As they were finally finishing dessert, Elaine brought up Menley Nichols again.
“You must understand that Adam is very worried about Menley. She’s in a state of serious depression, and seeing the tape of her little boy might upset her terribly, plus she’s alone for two nights. That’s a big worry for Adam.”
“I don’t think she’s depressed,” Amy said. “She was sad when she watched the tape, but we talked about it, and Mrs. Nichols said that you should be grateful when you’ve had the chance to love someone wonderful, even if you didn’t have them very long. She told me that her mother always said she’d rather have been married to her father for twelve years than to someone else for seventy years.”