A Lincoln Town Car with Virginia plates sat in front of the house, its engine idling. The doors were closed and it seemed unoccupied. As Quentin walked past the car on the way into the house, he glanced inside and saw that the driver's seat had been leaned back as far as it would go, and Ray Duncan was lying there, eyes closed. He must have driven all night to get here. The witches were leaving him outside to sleep. Apparently he wasn't going to be useful in today's little drama.
But he wasn't asleep. Or perhaps the crunch of Quentin's feet in the snow had wakened him. He gave a little wave and sat up. Quentin walked around the car to the driver's side as Ray rolled down the window. "Ro and Roz are already inside," he said. "I'm taking a nap."
Thanks for introducing me to the wonderful world of the obvious. "Must have been a tough drive."
"I like it," said Ray. "Makes me feel useful." He grinned.
I wonder if I looked as pathetic as this when I was Madeleine's lapdog. "Well, don't let me keep you awake."
"I just hope you like the house. Beautiful place but too big for us to keep up. I don't know what the rush is for, but I'll tell you, I'll be glad to get it off our hands. Rowena always gets so upset when you talk about it—either moving in or selling it. But last night after you came over to talk about buying it, well, she changed her mind. I shouldn't tell you this, but let's just say that we're pretty motivated sellers."
Quentin smiled. "We'll see."
A pair of driving gloves lay on the seat beside Ray. Quentin remembered what Mrs. Tyler's note said. Don't let it touch his skin. Maybe he shouldn't open the treasure box with bare hands.
"You going to need those gloves for the next little while?" asked Quentin.
Ray looked down as if noticing them for the first time. "No, you need them? Go right ahead." He handed the gloves through the window. "Got climate control in here, but I bet the house is an iceberg."
The house is whatever your daughter decides it is. "Thanks, Ray."
He heard the window rolling up behind him as he walked around the car and up the stairs.
Roz and Rowena were waiting for him on chairs in the entry hall. Rowena sat like a lady; Roz had her feet up over the arm of the chair. "Took you long enough," said Roz. "You flew and we got here first."
"Didn't know it was a race," said Quentin. To Rowena he said, "Hope you didn't have any trouble getting in. But of course you have a key."
"No, we don't," said Rowena. "The door was open."
"Chief Bolt locked it when we left here the other day."
Roz sighed. "Why are we discussing locks and keys?"
"Because, as your mother will tell you, the thing inside that box is stronger than you think," said Quentin. "Don't open it, Roz."
"I'm not going to. You are." Roz grinned saucily.
"Haven't you explained it to her, Rowena?" said Quentin. "That thing is supposedly trapped inside the box, but still it has power enough seeping out to lock and unlock doors. It's not like you. It has the power to make changes in the physical world. It's so far out of your league that it's insane of you to think you can control it."
Roz got up and started skipping around the room. "Grown-up talk. It's a good thing for you I need you to be free. When my parents lecture like this, I shut them up. I feel sorry for other kids who have to listen."
"Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe the beast is deceiving you as surely as you deceived me? 'Come on, it's not so strong, you can control it, you can ride this horse,' just a bunch of lies to fool you into doing what it can't do for itself—break your grandmother's seal and get out?"
"No, Quentin. Stupid impossible ideas don't occur to me." She looked down at his hands. "You won't need those gloves."
"It's cold in here."
"How stupid do you think I am? I said, you won't need those gloves!" Her face grew nasty and dangerous-looking, filled with rage.
"I think I do," said Quentin.
She transformed before his eyes into a monstrous travesty of a woman, long nails reaching for him, sharp teeth brandished in his face. "Take off the gloves," hissed the monster's voice. "Nothing will happen until you do. Lizzy won't be free until you do."
It was no good. She could find even the most pathetic sort of plan in his mind. Quentin pulled off the gloves.
"Nice to see you for a moment without the cute façade," he said. Immediately Roz returned to her little-girl self.
"Ha ha, break my heart," she retorted. "And don't think I'm not perfectly aware of Grandmother's pathetic attempt to thwart me. I've taken care of her already."
Quentin felt sick at heart. He'd been right about not having a plan, because whatever fragments of a plan had occurred to him or to Mrs. Tyler had been foreseen and forestalled. Poor Mrs. Tyler. Did Roz mean the old lady had been pinned down to her bed again? Or worse? Could Roz really make her mother's poor thrall commit murder?
"I could make him bite his own feet off," said Roz. "The only reason I don't do it with you is because the dragon won't ride in you if you aren't free."
"Let's do it," said Quentin.
As if in answer to him, the door to the parlor flew open, slamming against the wall. For a moment Roz looked startled, nervous. Then she turned back to him and grinned at him. "The steed may buck, but in his heart he still wants to be ridden."
"That may be the stupidest thing ever said by anybody," said Quentin.
"Say what you want, Quentin. I won't have to hear it much longer."
"Where's Lizzy?" asked Quentin.
"Out in the car. As soon as we finish, I'll set her free."
"What if you're wrong? What if you lose your gamble in there?"
"Then it won't matter much what happens to Lizzy, will it?"
"I'm not doing it if I'm not sure she's getting out."
Roz turned into Madeleine, looking sweet and shy. "If you don't do it, Tin, I'm afraid she won't have any chance of getting free. We'll just have to bet on my success, won't we?"
Quentin closed his eyes, refusing to see Madeleine.
"Harder to get rid of the illusion when I'm inside it, isn't it, Tin?"
He turned his head away.
The voice was Roz's when it came again. "Let's stop playing games. The door is open. It's time."
He opened his eyes. It was Roz again. She gestured for him to lead the way into the parlor.
This room wasn't as ratty-looking as the other rooms in the house. No windows had been broken. The dust was thick but no spiders had made webs, no rats had gnawed at it. The place was still. Only Quentin's own footprints led into the room. The treasure box, sitting on its pedestal, seemed to glow just a little. To throb with inner light.
Mike Bolt came out of the elevator and walked down the corridor. One of the two cops who had run for the stairways when they first arrived was already coming out of Mrs. Tyler's room, as the other jogged up to join him. "He hasn't been here yet."
"If he's coming at all."
"Well, we're supposed to keep watch on the door."
"Wild-goose chase, just like the other night. I don't know why they let psycho nurses run a place like this."
As they complained, Mike walked right between them. They didn't see him.
He went through the open door of Mrs. Tyler's room. She lay on the bed, her eyes open. She was struggling to rise from the bed, but each time she arched her back, she fell right back onto the sheet. She stopped struggling and turned her head to look at him. "I guess she's got us both, hasn't she, Mike?" she said.
He raised his pistol, aimed it at her head, and fired once, twice. Each time, the force of the bullet threw her farther toward the edge of the bed. Thrice. The fourth bullet knocked her off the bed. A bloody smear across the pillow marked the passage of the old woman's head.