He had my grandmother.
I got in the car and backed it up to the mouth of the private road. I'd heard you couldn't get electrocuted in your car because the tires would ground you. It was the kind of Americana I didn't trust, but it would have to do in a clinch. I continued in reverse down the road for a couple hundred yards more. I revved the engine and enjoyed the brusque howl and shriek coming from it.
"Can you say ‘fuck it'?" I asked.
She continued to simply stare ahead. Sweat trickled down my neck and my bruises and lumps burned. I reached over and put her seat belt on her.
Finally she got hold of my meaning and said, with a tentative but laughing lilt, "Fuckit."
"I'm glad you agree."
I floored the gas.
Trees streamed by in a rushing black wash as we hurtled forward. I threw on the high beams and they punctured the night like twin glittering blades. After crashing through the lightweight semaphore arm I felt used to smashing things. Even at this speed the car glided. Duke had done a good job the second time around. The gate loomed and we accelerated straight for it. Katie wasn't going to be thrilled with me. I gripped the steering wheel hard, and then the woman covered her face and let out a tiny but fierce scream. Or maybe it was me.
When we hit, the headlights exploded, the grille wrenched wildly, and steam burst from the engine, but despite the gate's screeching lightning hum and burst of red sparks, we didn't fry. The gate tipped on top of us and crumpled part of the roof. She screamed but began clapping again, that giggle such a peculiar underscoring to the sound of tearing metal. The safety-glass windshield cracked and crimped inwards at the driver's corner but didn't shatter.
The car sputtered feebly as the mansion emerged in the moist moonlight. Hundreds of panes of glass like menacing eyes marked my-our-return. The woman said something in a hushed mixture of awe, fear, and anger. I looked at her and she repeated it, and again and once more. I nodded. Whatever she was saying, I felt exactly the same way. We pulled up to the house behind the limousine, and I motioned for her to stay in the car. She tucked her chin to her chest and gazed at the front door. I hoped to Christ that Lowell had understood me through the static. I took off my watch and noted the second hand, and showed her that I wanted her to come inside in ten minutes. She looked at me as if I were insane.
The dying chauffeur sat in the limo, slumped back in his seat, coughing into a bloody, phlegm-flecked handkerchief. He didn't even have the strength to go to his room. His heavy, wet wheeze made it sound like he was slowly being crushed under a board with rocks on top of it, and he only followed me with his eyes because he couldn't turn his head anymore. I wondered if Harnes had actually been poisoning him with a mixture of household products, too.
The chauffeur said, "What the hell was that noise?”
“Me," I told him. "Come knocking. Cops will be here soon. Hold on."
"What are they headed here for? Nothing they can do. He won't hurt your grandma. He hates her, but he won't hurt her. That's what he likes."
"Why aren't you in a hospital?"
He went into a coughing fit and spasms coiled him in his seat. I heard something break away deep inside his chest. "No medical."
In the hard-boiled novels Anna read, the protagonist would have a host of choices to make: he might throw himself through the front window; roll on the floor in perfect tune with the room, some psychic sense aiming his gun for him; or he might climb and enter through a skylight left carelessly open, and then swing down into a plush room where a blond had moments earlier finished showering and stood naked with a thin smile at his entrance; or he might just grab the dying chauffeur and hurl him through the window and follow with a roar in the acrid air.
I tried the door, opened it, and walked inside.
In the library, my tape recorder lay on the table, turned off, the cassette beside it.
Anna sat with Theodore Harnes by the window where they'd spent the night talking during the party. Jocelyn stood beside them, looking at me, waiting expectantly. I couldn't tell what kind of charge was already in the room, but we all knew a conclusion of some sort was at hand.
My grandmother appeared extremely tired and weak. Her cheeks were ashen and she rubbed her wrists together to heat her hands. A full glass of wine rested beside the tape recorder, and I realized she'd never be able to look at that chateau the same way again, much less drink it after hearing of Harnes' exploits in poisoning women.
I would have to lead the dragon from its lair.
There wasn't much light in the library, and gloom enwrapped us all. Jocelyn's incredibly long, intensely black hair seemed to draw her further into darkness, like a suitor wanting to dance. A phone rang distantly, and I realized it had been ringing for some time. That would be Brent calling to report the escape from Panecraft. It was a nearly plaintive sound in the dim recesses of the house, the night soaking inside.
Jocelyn said, "Leave."
"Boy, you have got to be kidding."
I walked past her and moved to Anna, who reached for my hand. Jesus, her fingers were freezing. Had she sipped any of the wine? A nervous gurgle boiled in my throat, but she grinned and softly said, "My, I hadn't realized how the time had galloped away, dear." She glanced at Harnes and tipped her head as if to thank him for such a lovely day. "Well, Theodore, we really must be going now. I have so much to do at home. The place is an absolute shambles."
"What with all the dusting," I said. "And cleaning out the rain gutters."
The nondescript persona of Theodore Harnes slid against me once more, a pressure without a living force wallowing within his body's residence. I thought if I looked closely enough I could spot the seams where they'd stuffed him full of sawdust and cotton.
He said, "I'm afraid I cannot allow that just yet."
Anna's hand didn't warm quickly enough in mine. We both released long sighs. I tried to get into Harnes' thoughts for a minute but still nothing clarified. He was a man who enjoyed a standoff and needed an audience. He used people at his whim, and when finished he either murdered or imprisoned them. His methods took months or years to play out. He delighted in watching the plight of his prey.
Anna said, "Theodore, you are a stately sophisticate, a brilliant industrialist, and a terrifyingly refined psychopath.”
“Yes," he responded.
Jocelyn inched forward and so did I. Although she stood completely stationary, her lithe form still seemed to be floating around me, on the air and threading through my hands. In another minute we were going to be into it and somehow, without her ever having done anything remotely threatening, she had become one of the very few people I'd met who actually frightened me.
My grandmother, smiling now, allowed the beginning of that cackle to escape her once more. She let out fifty years of anger, scorn, contempt, and heartache for her lost bridesmaid and also herself, and she never raised her voice. Her chilled hand slid on top of his, and the iciness startled him. She patted him with a disdain that actually brushed Harnes back in his chair.
She said, "For Diane, and Crummler, and all your other victims, but more so for myself, I will do everything in my power to see that you not only pay for your heinous crimes, but that you suffer for them, and suffer dreadfully."
I sighed even louder. Anna shouldn't be threatening a wealthy, psychotic killer during our attempted getaway.
Jocelyn glided forward and I moved to meet her.
Nick Crummler stepped into the room.
I whispered, "Oh shit."
He appeared to have spent the last several days in the woods, perhaps around the Hames estate, or hiding in the back fields of the hospital, or somewhere in the cemetery where he could seek occasional shelter inside his brother's shack.