“Faith!" he screamed at the top of his voice. He wasn't far away.
She left the path and ran closer to the drive near the mountainous rhododendron bushes, bordered by Canadian hemlocks. There was only one thing to do. She dove into the center of the largest clump and ducked down in the middle of the branches.
They were covered with snow and ice, and as she pushed through, they rattled like castanets. The sharp needles of the hemlocks cut into her face, bare forearms, and legs, but her whole body was so numb from the cold, she could scarely feel the pain.
“Faith!”
She held her breath as he came closer and closer. The branches were silent. He was only a few feet away. Thank God she had worn the dark-blue dress.
“You can't hide from me. I know you're in these bushes someplace.”
She let out the breath slowly and took another. She was in a tight fetal position and dared not try to make herself yet smaller. The slightest movement would start the branches clacking together.
“Be reasonable, Faith! It's cold out here. I've changed my mind. I'm not going to hurt you, dear." His voice, calm now and almost convincing, came from farther away. Then there was silence. All she could hear was the hideously loud beating of her own heart.
Then a sharp crack followed by a regular thwacking noise. Dr. Hubbard had broken off a branch and was beating the bushes.
Thwack! Thwack! It was coming closer. She shut her eyes and pictured him bringing the stick down on her head with all his manic force.
Thwack! Thwack! He took his time. He was thorough. She opened her eyes. She wanted to see him coming.
She started to edge cautiously out from underthe bush to one farther along, and as she did so she heard a car coming up the drive. Scarcely believing, she waited until it was almost even with her hiding place, then she stood up and broke through the branches the short distance to the pavement.
It was Tom. He stopped the car abruptly and jumped out.
“Faith! What's—"
“Get down," she screamed as she ran out of range to the driver's side of the car. "He's got a gun.”
She flung hersef next to Tom. "It's Dr. Hubbard. He's trying to kill me. He's killed all these people. We've got to get out of here!”
Tom didn't hesitate. Without standing up, he opened the back door and pushed Faith in, then got in the front himself and started the engine.
Faith pulled Ben from the car seat where he had been obliviously sound asleep and shoved him beneath her on the floor. He didn't like it.
Tom executed a rapid U turn and started down the drive.
A few feet away Roland Hubbard came leaping from the bushes and froze in the car headlights like a deer straying at midnight from the safety of the woods. For an instant he stayed like that, then raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.
Eleven
Tom put down the phone. Faith was putting the finishing touches to a platter of small open-faced sandwiches she was preparing for a high tea she was serving before the Sunday-school pageant. It was Christmas Eve.
She raised an eyebrow. John Dunne did it so well, she thought she might give it a try too. "You don't want to know.”
Faith sighed. "I already do and it's the bell all over again. It goes something like this: 'How is Faith and, of course, dear little Benjamin? It's too bad she had to bring about the collapse of a fine old institution like Hubbard House, not to mention bringing Dr. Hubbard to ruin as well, whybless me, the man delivered half the town.' Millicent has this all down pat, am I right?"
“Essentially, although I think even Millicent is having a little trouble reconciling Roland Hub-bard's rewrite of the Hippocratic oath with his otherwise impeccable reputation.”
Aunt Chat walked into the kitchen with Ben trailing closely behind. She'd arrived that morning along with reporters from every major and minor news agency in the northeast. Chat had immediately appointed herself Faith's public relations person and handled them all with great aplomb. They were gone now, and for the last half hour she'd been sitting by the fire playing an intense game of animal dominos with Ben. She was flushed, whether from the flames or her probable triumph Faith wasn't sure, though if childhood memory served, Chat had never let Hope and her win either.
“It's time to stop talking about all this and start a little holiday celebration. I know I started the whole thing, but you didn't listen to me, and if you had, you wouldn't have gotten into the mess you did." She was hugging Faith tightly as she spoke, which took some of the asperity away from her words.
“But Chat, if I—we that is—hadn't done anything, Dr. Hubbard could have continued for years." She shuddered.
“I know, you silly girl, and that's why this whole thing is such a mess. You ought to be spanked, yet you probably saved a good many lives. Besides, you're too grown up.”
Faith had heard from Julia Cabot earlier, and the reaction at Hubbard House the night before had been one of shocked disbelief accompanied by profound relief at having escaped alive. Geoffrey Gordon, who had been slated to join the angels, made a miraculous recovery and was leaving for the Riviera later that day.
Faith reluctantly left her aunt's embrace. After last night she had been spending most of her time hugging anyone in sight. But time and tide—or in this case hungry parishioners—wait for no one, and she had to get the rest of the food out. Tom was taking care of the libations—vin chaud, cider, and tea, definitely no claret cup. Or bouillon.
As she checked the phyllo triangles filled with ricotta and prosciutto browning nicely in the oven, she told Chat, "But there is a grain of truth in what Millicent is spreading all over town, though I will not admit it to anyone other than you two. Hubbard House was a wonderful place—save for that one little problem.”
Faith felt a bit giddy. What was she saying? It was the perfect retirement home, except you might be killed in your sleep?
She continued, "Obviously it got completely warped in his twisted mind, but Roland Hubbard did create a fine community. Do you think it can possibly keep going?"
“I don't claim to understand this part of the world very well," replied Chat, which was more than modest—she tended to view New England with great bewilderment as a place that banned books, probably still believed in burning witches, and elected some of the most liberal politicians inthe country with no apparent regard for consistency. "However, it's always been my impression that once an institution, always an institution here. I'd be willing to bet they won't even change the name, and in future only the most rude boor will ever mention Dr. Hubbard's peccadillo."
“Chat's right, and I have it on good authority. Cyle dropped by to tell me that he is taking a leave of absence, which news I was able to receive with a relatively sober face. Thank you, Faith." Tom kissed her and she kissed him back. They had slept very little the night before. In the midst of clutching each other and Ben in thanks at being alive, rejoicing at the news of the possible pregnancy, and starting Faith's circulation going again in various congenial ways, she'd almost forgotten Bootsie's blurted remarks. After she'd told him, Tom had leaped out of bed and done a jig.
“His mother had had a call from Leandra. It looks like the two pillars are going to indeed hold the temple up. The residents want to run Hubbard House as a cooperative and buy it from Donald, retaining him as chief physician.”
Chat nodded, "You see, just as I said. His whole family turns out to be certifiable, but until he starts talking to the furniture—although even then it might be dismissed as eccentric—no one would think of not retaining him." She deftly grabbed Ben's hand as he was about to reach for a bottom one of the Comice pears Faith had arranged in a pyramid next to a large wedge of ripe Stilton. "No, no, sweetheart, that's for the company. Aunt Chat will get one especially for you.”