House Of Reckoning Part 28

People-more than a dozen people-were staring at him, their glittering eyes boring into him.

Sarah screamed.

But the people didn't move.

"Mannequins!" Bettina whispered.

Now her light, and Sarah's, too, played over the life-sized figures clad in ancient, rotting clothes from another time. They were arranged in a vague semicircle, all of them facing the door, standing like so many lifeless sentinels guarding- Guarding what?

There were no other doors in the room, no other entrances or exits but the way they'd come.

"We can't go any farther," Bettina breathed. She played her light on the overhead beams. "This is it. Those are the beams Sarah drew-I'm sure of it. But ..." Her voice trailed off as she searched for any sign of the grisly scene Sarah had sketched, but where Sarah had drawn bones and skulls, all Bettina saw around them were mannequins clad in rags.

Nick, though, moved toward one of the mannequins, the voices loud in his head now, and growing louder by the second.

He reached out, his hand trembling, and touched the jaw of the nearest of the strange figures.

And everything changed.

The mannequins collapsed, their ragged clothes vanishing, but instead of seeing the peculiar figures that looked like they could have served as tailor's models, something else was left.

Bones.

Everywhere they looked there were bones and skulls. The skeletons somehow stayed intact as they crashed down, and now they were spread across the floor, sprawled out as if they'd died while lying down, though others were propped up oddly against the wall, as though their bodies had been placed in a sitting position but collapsed as the decades pa.s.sed and every speck of soft tissue disappeared, picked clean by nature's scavengers.

c.o.c.kroaches were skittering among the bones, darting away from the invading beams of the flashlights.

"It's just like Sarah drew it," Bettina whispered. "How many? How many are there, Nick?"

"Seventeen," a voice in Nick's head whispered. a voice in Nick's head whispered. "There were seventeen of us." "There were seventeen of us."

"They say there were seventeen of them," Nick repeated as he played his flashlight over the skulls.

"That's how many stories are in the ma.n.u.script," Bettina whispered. "Dear G.o.d, what happened in this house?"

"Sarah," one of the voices whispered in Nick's head. one of the voices whispered in Nick's head.

"Sarah can show you everything," said another. said another.

A third voice joined the chorus, and then a fourth.

"She can show you everything that happened to everyone."

"We'll help her ... let us help her. ..."

Nick turned to Sarah, but instead of looking back at him, her eyes were fixed on the macabre scene they'd found in the small chamber. "They want to help you," he whispered. "They say they can help you show us what happened." For a moment he wasn't sure if Sarah had even heard him, let alone understood his words. But finally she nodded.

Then, as Nick and Bettina silently watched, Sarah stooped down, the pain in her hip suddenly gone. Her fingers closed on one of the bones.

Then she picked up another, and another.

When there were too many for her to hold, she pa.s.sed them back to Nick and Bettina, then went on with the grisly ch.o.r.e, following the unspoken instructions that came into her head from an unseen source.

And yet she understood and knew what she must do.

When at last she was done, all of them knew how many bones she'd gathered.

Seventeen.

Seventeen fragments from the seventeen people who had been brought down here so many decades ago.

Sarah looked first at Nick, then at Bettina. "I'm going to paint," she said, starting back through the maze of rooms in Shutters' bas.e.m.e.nt. "I'm going paint it all."

Chapter Twenty-five.

Shep Dunnigan peeled off his overcoat, hung it on the tree by the front door, and rubbed his hands together to warm them. "Finally winter!" he called out. "It's freezing out there."

No answer came from the kitchen, even though he could hear Lily in there chopping something. And if she was working but not talking, something was wrong.

c.r.a.p. Just when he was figuring on pouring a good stiff drink, putting his feet up on the coffee table, and relaxing. Double c.r.a.p! Double c.r.a.p!

He left his briefcase on the side table and walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, Lily wouldn't meet his eyes. No smile, let alone a kiss. Instead she just kept chopping celery into finer and finer pieces. The way she was going, there wasn't going to be anything left of it when she finally put it into whatever she was cooking.

Which meant one thing. Nick Nick.

"Okay," Shep sighed. "What is it this time? What's he done now?"

Lily sighed. "He didn't come home after school today." She turned toward him, her eyes cold, her lips set in a thin line that told him she blamed him for whatever trouble their son had gotten himself into. "What did you say to him last night?" Lily demanded. "Why wouldn't he even come home today?"

Shep tried to deflect the question. "Have you called his cell phone?"

But Lily was not to be put off. "What did you say say to him, Shep?" to him, Shep?"

His jaw muscles starting to clench, Shep picked up the kitchen phone and dialed his son's cell number.

The call rolled instantly to Nick's voice mail. "This is Nick. Leave a message."

Shep's voice was hard when he spoke, his words like chips of ice. "You should be home, Nick. You know that. So wherever you are, you call us so we won't worry, and then get yourself home. Got it?" He clicked off and turned back to face his wife's accusing eyes.

"You said something," Lily repeated. "I know you did, and you know you did. What was it?"

Shep's eyes narrowed defensively. "I told him not to be hanging around with that crippled girl anymore."

Lily shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Oh, great," she said, her voice fairly dripping with sarcasm. "That was real smart, wasn't it? What do you think happens with teenagers when they're forbidden to do something?"

"If they've got any smarts at all, they do what their fathers tell them."

"Like you always did?" Lily countered, her eyes rolling a second time.

"Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on him," Shep muttered. "But at least now we know who he's with." And he had a pretty good idea where the two of them were, too.

He pulled out the Warwick phone book, looked up Mitch Garvey's phone number, and dialed.

After two rings he heard Angie Garvey's voice. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Hey, Angie, it's Shep Dunnigan. I don't suppose Nick is over at your place with-" He searched his mind for the name of the girl Mitch had taken in, but before he found it, Angie Garvey answered his question.

"Sarah hasn't come home from school yet." Though she was trying to keep the anger out of her voice, Shep could hear it clearly. "I'm starting to get a little worried about her."

Worried, or p.i.s.sed off? Shep wondered, but then he tried to sound just as worried as Angie. "I have a feeling maybe the two of them are together somewhere," he said.

He could almost hear the cogs grinding as Angie turned this news over in her mind, but when she spoke again, she sounded as carefully bland as before. "Well, if I hear from her, I'll definitely give you a call."

"Thanks, Angie," Shep replied. "And I'll do the same." He put the phone back into the cradle.

"Should we call Dan West?" Lily asked.

Shep shook his head. "Not yet. Let's give them a little more time." He touched her shoulder, but the gesture didn't soften her anger. "I'm going to go change," he said, loosening his tie.

"Dinner in ten minutes," Lily said.

Plenty of time. He'd change clothes, wash up for dinner, and still have time to use the upstairs phone to make one more call. With Bettina Philips having visited Sarah's father, and Nick now hanging around with Sarah, he was pretty sure he knew exactly where they were.

Sarah stood at the long table in Bettina's studio, all the pain in her hip forgotten as she began preparing paint. Had either Bettina or Nick asked her how she knew what to do, she wouldn't have been able to put it into words. All she could have said was that she knew knew some force coming from somewhere in the house was guiding her. She worked quickly, using Bettina's old stone mortar and pestle to grind one sc.r.a.p of bone after another into a fine powder, keeping the small mound of powder from each bone separate from the others. When she began preparing her palette, she mixed a little of the powder into every color she blended, sometimes from one of the mounds, sometimes from two, three, or even four of them. some force coming from somewhere in the house was guiding her. She worked quickly, using Bettina's old stone mortar and pestle to grind one sc.r.a.p of bone after another into a fine powder, keeping the small mound of powder from each bone separate from the others. When she began preparing her palette, she mixed a little of the powder into every color she blended, sometimes from one of the mounds, sometimes from two, three, or even four of them.

Finally satisfied with her palette, she took a clean canvas from the shelf beneath the worktable and set it up on an easel.

And then she stood, very still, in front of the empty canvas, her eyes fixed on it, not a muscle in her body seeming to move at all. As the seconds turned into minutes, Bettina finally stepped closer to Sarah, putting out a hand as if to touch her, but Nick stopped her.

"She's all right," he said. "She's-I think she's listening to the voices."

"I loved them all," the voice said. Though it was emerging from Nick Dunnigan's lips, it wasn't Nick's voice. It was older-much older-and had an empty tone to it, as if whoever was speaking was describing something that had happened to someone else and hadn't affected him at all. And as the voice droned on, Sarah stood at the easel, painting rapidly, the strokes of her brush ill.u.s.trating the words falling from Nick's mouth. the voice said. Though it was emerging from Nick Dunnigan's lips, it wasn't Nick's voice. It was older-much older-and had an empty tone to it, as if whoever was speaking was describing something that had happened to someone else and hadn't affected him at all. And as the voice droned on, Sarah stood at the easel, painting rapidly, the strokes of her brush ill.u.s.trating the words falling from Nick's mouth. "Ruth Lincoln was the first. She was beautiful-her eyes the blue of turquoise. And hair the color of flax. But the baby was ugly. We called her Florence, but she wasn't a comely la.s.s. Not like her mother at all." "Ruth Lincoln was the first. She was beautiful-her eyes the blue of turquoise. And hair the color of flax. But the baby was ugly. We called her Florence, but she wasn't a comely la.s.s. Not like her mother at all."

Already two faces had appeared on the canvas: a beautiful Madonna-like figure, cradling a small child in her arms. But the child was not like the mother. Its features were uneven, its upper lip split.

"Ruth wanted me to do it," the voice went on. the voice went on. "She sat perfectly still as I put the knife to her throat, cutting it deep and true so she would feel nothing." "She sat perfectly still as I put the knife to her throat, cutting it deep and true so she would feel nothing."

A great flood of red gushed across the canvas as Sarah slashed at it with her brush.

"Her head dropped down, and when I cut the baby, too, Ruth was watching."

Sarah's brush moved again, and now the babe was bleeding also, blood pouring from its throat.

Bettina, transfixed, listened and watched as the voice kept speaking and Sarah's brush continued to move. She knew this story-it was in the old ma.n.u.script that now lay on her ancestor's desk.

The voice emanating from Nick's throat droned on, and more and more of the canvas was filled.

"And then I was done and Ruth was gone, and Florence, and my beautiful Laura and our little Freddie were gone and buried too, and I knew that Mary was next, and our little baby Mamie. ..."

More faces appeared, two more beautiful women and the babies the man had sired, and Bettina watched in mute fascination as each of them died, their agony perfectly limned by Sarah's brush.

"But Mary knew. She knew, and brought me here, and left me and never came back. Mary and little Mamie. They never come and see me. They tell everyone I'm dead." came back. Mary and little Mamie. They never come and see me. They tell everyone I'm dead." The voice fell wistfully silent for a moment, then went on. The voice fell wistfully silent for a moment, then went on. "After I finished my story and Dr. Philips asked me if there was any more and I told him there wasn't, he got up and went to his desk. I thought he was getting me more brandy-he always gave us brandy when we talked to him to loosen our tongues-but it wasn't brandy at all "After I finished my story and Dr. Philips asked me if there was any more and I told him there wasn't, he got up and went to his desk. I thought he was getting me more brandy-he always gave us brandy when we talked to him to loosen our tongues-but it wasn't brandy at all.

"It was a knife.

"A knife like I used on Ruth and Laura and would have used on Mary, too-my perfect Mary. But Dr. Philips used it on me, and then sent me down to the darkness to join the others. And he'd promised, too-promised that if I told him everything, he'd set me free. But he lied. He lied, and put me with the others. ..."

The voice trailed off, and Bettina knew it would not speak again. A new face had appeared on a fresh canvas. The face of a man whose empty eyes seemed utterly unaware of the carnage he'd inflicted on the people he claimed to love, and as Sarah quickly finished the drawing, Nick spoke again. This time, though, it was his own voice that emerged from his lips.

"He was in the book," he said softly. "The one in the library. He was one of the men allowed to work in the house."

"And his story is in another book," Bettina replied. "I'll show it to you." She led Nick and Sarah into the study where the yellowed ma.n.u.script still sat on Boone Philips's old mahogany desk. "My three-times-great-grandfather wrote it," Bettina said as Nick stared down at the ancient pages. "He called it 'Stories from My Imagination,' but I don't think they were from his imagination at all."

Nick reached out, his hand hovering over the stack of yellowed paper for an instant before he finally touched it. Then his eyes widened, his face paled, and Bettina heard a quick, gasping intake of air. "What is it?" she asked. "What happened?"

"He killed them all," Nick whispered, his eyes fixed on the ma.n.u.script. "He made them tell him everything they'd done, made them describe it to him." His voice faltered for a moment, then: "He killed them. He hid all their records, and he killed them and hid them down there." Now he looked up, his eyes meeting Bettina's. "For a book," he whispered. "Just so he could write a book." Nick began paging through the ma.n.u.script, scanning the pages quickly, recalling so many of the things he'd seen and heard since the voices and visions began when he was so young he hardly remembered some of them. He'd turned nearly half the pages of the ma.n.u.script when the jangle of the old-fashioned telephone on the desk tore his attention out of the past and back into the present, and when he heard Bettina Philips speak his father's name, he started to rise from the chair.

Bettina waved him back but held the phone just far enough away from her ear so Nick, too, could hear whatever his father was going to say.

"I'm thinking you've got Nick out there. And that girl the Garveys took in, too-the one who's father almost killed her."

"Why would you think they're out here?" Bettina countered.

"Don't play dumb with me!" Dunnigan shot back, his voice hardening and taking on a tone that sent a chill through Bettina. "Everybody knows-"

"Everybody knows a lot of things, Shep," Bettina cut in. But before she could say anything else the memory of that other call-the coldly anonymous call that had unearthed the old nightmares-suddenly rose in her mind.

Shep Dunnigan?

Had it been Shep Dunnigan who'd called her?

Now he was speaking again, and Bettina's knuckles whitened as she held the receiver. "So if I came up there to pay you a little visit, just to make absolutely sure Nick's not there-"

"I'm sure you'll do whatever you want to do," Bettina said, struggling to keep her voice from betraying the sudden panic rising in her. "I don't think I could stop you, could I?" Without waiting for him to answer, she hung up the phone.

Nick's face was pale and his eyes darted around the room as if his father might suddenly appear out of one of its darker corners. "I've got to go," he said. "If he finds me here, he'll send me back to the hospital."

"Why would he do tha-" Bettina began, but Nick was already heading for the door.

"I've got to get out of here. He can't find me here."

"Then let me drive you," Bettina said, following him out into the foyer, then back toward the conservatory. "You'll freeze out there!"