But Sam, crouching on the table, rose to his feet and quickly spun around, letting the lamp shaft go, so he could hoist himself onto the wardrobe. The dog charged. Sam cursed.
"Kick! Kick!" I cried, then lashed out with the rope, using it like a whip on the dog. I brought the rope down hard again and again, trying to back off the furious animal. Hearing the rip of clothing, I pulled on Sam's arm.
He suddenly propelled himself to the top of the wardrobe, so suddenly, I was unprepared for the shift in weight and direction. I fel backward. Sam yanked me toward him, back onto the top of the furniture.
The dog leaped against the solid wardrobe, charging it repeatedly, as if he had gone mad. Sam and I held on to each other and stared down at the animal.
A scream, a man's shout that pitched into terror, quickly drew our eyes upward. Joseph was in the loft, shouting to Adrian, "Call the dog off. Call it off!"
"You had your chance, several chances."
I could see Joseph backing toward the balcony railing. The dog matched him step for step, then began to close the gap.
"Call the dog off," Sam hollered. I shouted with him.
Joseph took a step up onto the flat metal railing. He climbed to the top, standing on a surface half the width of his foot. There was nothing for him to grab on to there—no pole, no wires—the ceiling high above him, the ground floor far below. The dog snapped at his feet. Joseph teetered.
I saw what followed as if played in slow motion. Joseph realized his fate, closed his eyes, began to fall. Sam jerked my head toward his shoulder, then buried his face with mine. We didn't see Joseph hit, just heard a sound like a pumpkin smashing against the concrete floor.
Chapter 23
"Tonya, Marcus, come!" Adrian commanded the dogs.
Sam and I held on to each other on top of the wardrobe. We couldn't see Joseph from our perch, but one of the dogs was nosing the area where he had fallen.
"Marcus, get out of there!" Adrian shouted at the dog. "I don't want to have to clean you up."
I sank against Sam, feeling sick to my stomach.
"I'm sure he's dead, Kate," Sam said quietly, "but as soon as the dogs are kenneled, I'll check him out."
I can look for myself."
"Don't argue—not this one, okay? If it were someone I had thought was my friend, I would ask you to look for me."
I nodded mutely.
"Sam, Kate, we must talk," Adrian said, as if we, too, were obedient to him.
I ignored him. "How is your leg, Sam?"
"Marcus got a mouthful of pants."
"Did he? So, it's your pants that are bleeding like that."
"There is no need to stay up there," Adrian called to us.
Sam grunted under his breath, then said aloud, "When the dogs are inside, the door is closed, and you are farther from the door than we are, we'll come down."
"Of course, I understand," Adrian replied, sounding almost amused by our caution. "But don't leave. There are a few things we all need to understand."
As soon as he had secured the dogs behind the door, Sam jumped down from the wardrobe and rushed toward Joseph. He stopped suddenly. The way he gripped the back of a chair told me all I needed to know. Sam turned to me, his body bent slightly, his face distorted, sickened by what he had seen, then he buried his chin in his chest and walked swiftly back to me.
I slid off the wardrobe. "Let's get out of here."
"Not unless you have better lawyers than I do," Adrian called. He walked toward us, cell phone in hand, punching in numbers.
"Yes," he said into the phone, "this is Adrian Westbrook. I'm calling from Crossroads Auction House. I wish to report a break-in and what appears to be an unfortunate casualty resulting from it… No, it's too late for medical assistance. The thief must not have realized we had guard dogs. He appears to have fallen… Yes… Yes… I'm not sure," he responded, eyeing me. "It is possible that more than one person was involved… Thank you. I'll wait for you here."
Adrian closed his cell phone and gazed thoughtfully at Sam and me. "I called the sheriff, not the state police, to give us a little more time, though we don't have much. You need to make some choices quickly."
"The facts don't leave us any choices," Sam replied.
"Oh, everyone has choices," Adrian said. "Joseph here, chose to break in. His reason? One can only conjecture, but he cased the place last Monday with Kate—several people witnessed that. Perhaps, in the course of settling his mother's affairs, he became interested in the antique business. Perhaps he spotted a few valuable pieces he wanted but didn't wish to pay for. Too bad he forgot about the guard dogs.
"As for Kate, what choices does she have to make? Not only was she seen with Joseph on Monday, guests and employees at the hotell noticed her and Joseph" together just before the break-in today. One has to wonder why a teenager would get involved in this kind of business—for a percentage of the profits? But wait, she was recently fired by the owner of the auction house."
He was framing me, blackmailing me.
"Don't look so grim, Kate," Adrian said, sitting down on a Victorian settee, running his hand over the torn silk upholstery. "I was painting the worst scenario for you. In fact, you can choose to be quite well off for a seventeen-year-old. Your father must have left you a respectable sum. I would give you something rather more outrageous, with my guarantee that I will swear you had no part of this and with your guarantee that you will go along with my story to the police."
"But I won't."
I saw the perspiration on his brow, the first sign that he was less than sure things would work out his way.
"I don't think you understand the precarious nature of your situation," he said, "the little bits of information the police might be given that aren't very flattering to you, such as the poisoning of Patrick when he was in your care, the so-called accident at the pond, his distrust of you, not to mention the power of my testimony coupled with Sam's."
Sam turned to me. "Let's go, Kate."
"I would think twice before saying no to full tuition, Sam, tuition and board at an Ivy League college. I'd be delighted to give a decent education to a boy as bright as you. Did I mention I'm on Harvard's board of trustees? They have a fine hockey team."
"Over my father's dead body."
I heard a car engine. I wondered how two teens could convince a sheriff that they were innocent.
"I admire the honesty of both of you," Adrian said, his voice as reasonable as ever, though he was breathing fast, "but think it through. Ashley's murderer is dead. I have little time left—I'll be dead before a trial could begin. If death is the ultimate justice, justice will be attained. No one is in danger now from me—I'm not a common criminal. Most important, Patrick will be spared. Kate, you love the boy. Do you want him growing up knowing what his father has done?"
I didn't answer right away. I would have done anything to protect Patrick from more pain. I knew what it was like to grow up without a parent you loved deeply, to believe terrible things about that parent and try to hate her, hurting only yourself each time you did. If Sam and I covered for Adrian, we could give Patrick a few more precious months with his father and some happy memories. At seven years old, he had suffered enough.
"It's not what I want, but it's what is going to be," I replied. "I won't keep any more of your horrid secrets. In the end, secrets come back to haunt. I don't know how it will happen, or when, but someday Patrick will stumble on something that doesn't quite make sense. He'll start asking questions and realize that people lied to him in significant ways. Then he'll begin to doubt everything else he knows and experienced. He'll doubt even the good things that have happened to him. He'll mistrust people who try to get close, and become more and more alone."
Adrian rose to his feet, his face bathed in perspiration. At the same moment the front door of the auction house opened. The person who entered stopped just inside the door and gazed about. At first I didn't recognize Robyn. Her hair hung loose and untidy, as if she h
ad yanked it out of its clip. Her shirttail, usually tucked in neatly, billowed out from beneath her* short jacket. She strode toward us, her bam boots thumping against the concrete, then stopped midway down an aisle of furniture.
"This is a pretty mess," she said, turning her face away from the sight of Joseph lying on the floor.
From a distance, with her skin pale and her hair wild, her eyes glistening as if wet from riding in the wind, she looked younger, like a schoolgirl who had just ridden the newest horse in her daddy's stable. But as she grew closer, the shine in her eyes and the pallor of her skin looked unnatural. Her hands shook and her gait became unsteady.
"Hoppy was right about you being here," she said to her father. "There is nothing Hoppy doesn't hear or know."
"Robyn, you don't look well," Adrian observed.
"I feel wonderful," she replied. "I feel… liberated."
Adrian's brow creased, a look of apprehension spreading over his face. "Come, sit down for a moment." He patted the place next to him on the silk settee. "You see that Sam Koscinski and Kate are here."
He's warning her not to say too much in front of us, I thought.
"I see," she said, her voice flat. "I see that all my hard work has come to nothing."
Her words were uneven, as if she couldn't catch her breath.
"And why is that?" Adrian asked quietly, soothingly. He patted the seat next to him again, but she didn't sit down.
"Because I'm a fool! A total fool!" she cried angrily. "I have spent my life caring for you, pleasing you, protecting you when you were too cocksure to protect yourself. I knew she'd blow the whole thing apart," Robyn said, with a jerk of her head toward me. "Hoppy knew it too," she went on, "but you weren't going to be cowed by anyone." She shook her head. "All I've done for you, Daddy, all I've done for you. I tried to get rid of Kate, pushing her from the top of the stairs, getting Brook to break the window, as Ashley had, poisoning the cat, hoping to scare her into leaving.
"It didn't work. Hoppy had said it wouldn't. I was getting desperate, knowing it wouldn't be long before Kate figured out what I had guessed long ago about Ashley's death. So Hoppy laced the pie.
When the plan went bad, I added the open bottle of cough syrup, and finally you fired Kate. Once again I had helped you. I thought it was all over."
"Then Patrick was abducted," I said.
She acted as if she didn't hear me.
"It was Trent who took him," Adrian told his daughter.
"I wish the devil himself had and he had carried Patrick all the way to hell! But you, you would have gone there to get him back. You would do anything for him, and yet you never notice what I do for you. You didn't notice with Ashley around, and you don't with Patrick, either."
She ran her hands through her hair, her fingers separating the strands, then bunching into fists, tangling them up. "All you could think about was your missing son. I saw that Emily was going to be as useless as ever, worrying about Patrick, not you, not even considering the effect of this on your health.
So I phoned your doctor.
That's right," she said, responding to the sudden lift of Adrian's head.. "I spoke to your doctor about my fears for you." Robyn laughed out loud. "You know what she told me, don't you. You haven't been getting experimental treatment. Your cancer was cured."
I blinked.
"You've got the health of a man fifteen years younger—that's what your doctor said. You were manipulating us, Daddy! All of us, even your wife! You were dangling your money in front of us, seeing which dog you could make jump the highest!"
Robyn circled the settee, then sat next to him. "But once again I fixed things for you. I'm keeping you to the plan. There was poison in the cup of coffee I brought you today, the one you drank just before you left."
Adrian stared at her with disbelief.
"Surprised? Surprised as I was at what Daddy's girl could do?" She started to cry. "All my life, all I wanted was to please you."
Adrian bowed his head.
"But I didn't want you to die alone, Daddy. You know I wouldn't do something that horrible to you." She laid her head on his shoulder. "I drank it too."
"Robyn!" Adrian closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her head.
"Sam, we have to call a paramedic," I said.
"Too late," Robyn whispered. "Too late." She snuggled like a small child against her father.
"I need your phone," Sam said, reaching toward Adrian, but Adrian kept his arms around Robyn, slowly stroking her hair. Sam reached into Adrian's pocket to retrieve the phone, then flicked it open and punched in the numbers.
He was talking to the dispatcher when the sheriff arrived. I explained quickly as much as I could, then rushed outside to Patrick. I found him asleep in Sam's car, unaware of what was going on.
Robyn died in her father's arms before the paramedics arrived. Sam said that Adrian refused treatment and died shortly after.
Chapter 24
The week that followed the events at the auction house was, in many ways, more difficult than that which followed my father's death. When Dad died, I knew what I had lost. But while I felt depressed and saddened by the deaths of Adrian and Joseph, whom could I mourn—the people I thought they were?
They were cold-blooded murderers. They had betrayed not only me, but people I loved, my parents and Patrick.
I could do nothing to ease Patrick's pain and confusion, not that week. In his mind, Ashley's fear of her tutor was still too vivid for him to trust me. But Sam knew better than anyone how it felt to be a little boy who had lost his father. He missed his hockey game Saturday night—didn't make it as far as the team bench—not because of the stitches in his leg, but because Patrick needed him.
If Dr. Parker was right, Patrick's sensitivity to Ashley would fade and finally disappear when Patrick's life became different from the kind she had known. The dynamics at Mason's Choice had already changed, and Emily was talking about leaving the estate, which I hoped would hasten the process. I knew I had to be patient.
Trent, Sam, and I spent much of that long week talking to the police, trying to patch together the recent events, though some things would never be verified. Trent told the authorities he had suspected that Ashley was murdered, but did not know who did it. While admitting he felt no affection for Patrick, he said that the prospect of another child's death was a painful reminder to him of the death of Ashley. He also realized that a child's death, occurring twice in a generation, would call unwanted attention to the family and create suspicion. After I was fired, he feared that Patrick was vulnerable, and removed him from the house til he could figure out who was threatening him. Looking back now, I should have realized that if Trent had wanted to hurt or kill Patrick, he wouldn't have brought him to a hotell in town and wouldn't have left behind such an obvious paper trail.
As for Mrs. Hopewell's and Brook's roles in all these events, we knew only what Robyn had claimed before she died. The housekeeper was gone by Sunday morning, leaving no forwarding address. Trent confided to me that she had a sister in Virginia, but he. did not tell the police that, for I wasn't filing charges over the laced pie. I had no evidence to support what a court would consider the "hearsay" of a dead woman.
Brook left for Florida nearly as fast, after denying knowledge of any and everything that had happened; one would have thought he was living in England for the last week and a half. While I will never know if he was the one who killed Patrick's hamster, my hunch is that he did it just for fun—his kind of fun, upsetting a child. In retrospect, I think Brook lacked his grandfather's steel, which had the curious advantage of making Brook nasty, heartless, and petty, but not actually evil. I think that when he realized more serious things were going on in the house, he pulled back from his own pranks.
Whatever the case, Brook will eventually be a very wealthy nineteen-year-old, for it turned out that Adrian did not change his will—had never planned to, according to his attorney. He provided for his wife and divided the rest e
venly among his three children. Brook would inherit all of Robyn's portion.
During that week, Sam gave me his father's old notebook to read. It was Mr. Koscinski's jottings that had moved Sam to seek out Adrian the morning Patrick was missing. Putting together a log of the money spent by Joseph and bank reports on Olivia, whose cash had been tied up in her new shop, Sam suddenly realized that his father had been working on a new suspect—someone who had been present at the time of Ashley's death, someone with a surprising amount of money immediately after: Joseph. But who had paid him to kill Ashley? The most likely candidate was Adrian, Sam had thought, though Trent also had access to company funds.
Sam's plan had been to talk to Adrian and see what kind of visceral response he'd get when mentioning his belief that Joseph was dangerous. He never got that far.
Robyn interrupted, bringing in her father's tainted coffee, then Joseph and I phoned from the hotel. Adrian asked Sam to follow him to the auction house so that he could drive Patrick home. I suppose Adrian wanted Patrick safely out of the picture while he talked to Joseph and me. He didn't realize how much Sam knew, and made a fatal mistake in assuming that Sam could be bought, as the young and ambitious Joseph had once been.
Sam, his mother, and I attended the private funeral of Robyn and Adrian. On a dreary afternoon they were buried in the family cemetery, a place that, for me, would always be full of ghosts. Three days later, Friday of that week, we went to a small memorial service for Joseph, given by his friends in Baltimore. It had rained all week; that day, it sleeted. I didn't think winter was ever going to let go.
Then Saturday morning dawned with a washed blue sky. The wind had a different feel, a lighter touch. Shy flowers called snowdrops raised their heads.
In a sunny spot against a brick wall a crocus dared to open. I knew the temperature would drop again and that, for a while, winter would be mixed up with spring. My mother was coming in a week—she had sent me her flight number—I got hot and cold just thinking about it. Even so, it was time, time to find out if we could still be mother and daughter, time to find out if Sam and I could be anything more than friends.