Iron House

CHAPTER EIGHT

The sun came dimly to the skies of Chatham County, so lost behind black clouds that Abigail Vane barely noticed it; it was a faint presence in a heavy sky, a suspicion of orange in the still air, of color hung in the trees. Rain fell straight down, a hiss in the tall grass that was loud enough to deaden most other sounds, hard enough for Abigail to feel on the backs of her hands, the crown of her head. It stung her face as the horse ran, and as the morning stalled, black and loud and ceaseless. After two hours, her body was chilled, her fingers so cramped she could barely open them. Her back ached and her legs burned, but she didn’t care, didn’t feel. She wanted to push. She wanted to ride hard, and let the wind of a fast horse steal the scream from her throat.

At the end of the field, she reined in, horse snorting as it danced sideways and worked the bit in its mouth. Her pants were coated with mud and horse sweat, her feet heavy in the stirrups. A wall of hardwoods loomed in the rain: oak and beech and maple, trees so tall and broad that night remained complete beneath them. She swiped at the hair that clung to her face, and then turned the horse to face back down the length of the field. From one end to the other, they’d worn a track of crushed grass and churned mud, a violent gash in the valley floor. And the horse still wanted to run. He tossed his head, rolled his eyes, and Abigail felt a wildness in him that suited her mood. He was a dangerous animal, seventeen hands tall with a streak of viciousness she’d never seen in a horse.

But he was fast.

Goddamn, was he fast.

She sawed once at the reins, then put her heels in his flank and let him go. His nostrils flared, and his hooves put a thunder in the mud. They reached the end and turned. Ran it again. Her lungs were burning when the Land Rover pushed out of the trees. It was old, with paint scratched through to metal, and Abigail knew who was behind the wheel even before it lurched to a halt. She turned the horse, her hand sliding once along its hot, reeking neck. The animal jerked its head, but she patted it a final time, then walked it to the vehicle, where she found a lean, broad-shouldered man standing at the hood. He was sixty years old, but hard and straight, with large-knuckled hands and the kind of smile you had to look closely to see. But there was no smile this time. He wore khakis and leather boots, a burgundy tie under rain gear the color of moss. Disapproval pinched his features, so that when Abigail leaned from the saddle, she said, “I don’t want to hear it, Jessup.”

“Hear what?”

“A lecture on safety or propriety or how a woman my age should behave.”

“That horse. In this visibility.” Jessup Falls pointed at the horse, his voice tight. “You’re going to break your damn neck.”

“Such language.” Her eyes sparkled, but Jessup was immune.

“You’re going to break your neck and it will be up to me to carry you out of here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not being ridiculous. I’m being angry. Jesus, Abigail. That horse has injured two trainers. He almost killed the last one.”

She waved off his concern, and slid from the horse. Rain clattered through leaves and pinged off the truck. “Why are you here, Jessup?”

Jessup’s skin had grown ruddy with the years, his hair thin and white, but other than that, he was the same man she’d known for so long: her driver, her bodyguard. Abigail circled the horse, boots squelching in damp soil. She’d aged, too, but more gracefully. Her skin was lined, but looked more like thirty-seven than forty-seven. Her hair had its natural color. She still turned heads.

“Your husband is up,” Jessup said. “He’s asking for you.”

She slowed as her face angled toward the far hill, where hints of the massive house showed: a slate roof and gabled windows, one of the seven tall chimneys.

“Are you okay?” Jessup’s voice was softer, his anger spent.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Jessup cleared his throat, unwilling to state the obvious: the soaking clothes and the mud, the horse lathered yellow at the neck. Abigail was a fine rider, but this was insane. “Julian, for one,” Jessup said.

“How is he this morning?” She kept her voice crisp enough to fool anyone else. She leaned close to the horse, one palm on the broad, flat plane of its cheek. She wished she had an apple or a carrot, but the decision to ride had been impulsive. Five in the morning. Rain falling in sheets.

“I don’t know.”

“Is he worse?”

“I honestly don’t know. No one knew where to find you, not your husband or the staff. No one. The first place I checked was the stable.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Not that I know.”

She stroked the horse as water dripped from her face. It was colder now that she was off the horse; in the dim light, her skin looked blue. “What time is it?”

“A little after seven.”

Abigail turned to look more closely at his face. She saw that he was unshaven, and that the skin beneath his eyes was dark enough to seem bruised. An image gathered in her mind: Jessup awake most of the night, sitting unhappily beside an untouched whiskey, pacing dark hours in the small room he kept. His worry for Julian would be real, as would his concern for her, and for a moment, she felt deep affection for the man whose own emotions were so obvious. “I should go,” she said.

He shook his head. “Not like that.”

“Like what?” She palmed a streak of mud from her face.

“Barely dressed.” Jessup smiled awkwardly. “The rain has made your shirt quite transparent.”

Abigail looked down and saw that he was right. Jessup retrieved a long, waterproof coat, then stepped forward and draped it over her shoulders. It smelled of canvas, hunting dogs, and burned powder. She reached out an arm to pull the coat tighter, and Jessup caught her deftly by the hand. His eyes settled on the yellow-green marks on her wrist. They were large and finger-shaped. The moment stretched between them, and he said, “When?”

“When, what?” Her chin rose.

“Don’t bullshit me, Abigail.”

She pulled her hand free. “Whatever you think happened, you’re mistaken.”

“Did he hit you?”

“God, no. Of course not. I’d never allow it.”

“He got drunk and put his hands on you. That’s why you’re out here.”

“No.”

“Then why?” Anger sharpened his features.

“I just needed something bigger.” She patted the horse again. “Something clean.”

“Damn it, Abigail…”

She handed him the reins and made it plain that the subject was closed. “Walk him back to the stable for me. Cool him down.”

“Talk to me, Abigail.”

“I’m more of a doer than a talker.”

Jessup’s face showed his displeasure. “Just like that?”

She looked up, and let rain strike her face. “You still work for me.”

“And the truck?” His neck stiffened, and a wounded look settled in the dark centers of his eyes.

“I’ll take the truck.”

She walked to the truck without looking back, but felt him there, unhappy and staring.

“This is not right,” he said.

“Walk him the long way, Jessup.” She opened the door, slid inside. “He worked hard this morning.”

The Land Rover Defender was old, purchased as an estate vehicle in the infancy of her marriage. She remembered the day it was delivered; she was twenty-two years old, and still in awe of her husband. He was two decades her senior, about to run for the Senate and wealthy beyond belief. He could have had any woman in the world, but he chose her over all the others-not just for her beauty, he’d said, but for her elegance and refinement, for the poise she wore like a garment. After long years as a bachelor he needed a face to go with his political life, and she was perfect. When the Defender was delivered, they drove it to the highest point on the estate, a long narrow ridge that looked down on the house and grounds. He’d lifted her skirt, put her on the hood, and she’d thought then that his sweaty hands were the precursors of happiness. But he never looked her in the face as he screwed her; he watched the house and thought of his glory: four thousand acres and a pair of trophy tits. Two months later, he won the Senate seat in a landslide. A year after that, he had his first new girlfriend.

Leaving Jessup with the horse, she drove to the same spot on the same ridge, a slab of granite that had probably been there for a million years. She parked and looked down on the manicured lawns, the stables, and the twin lakes that looked like black glass shot with gray. The grass was colorless in the rain, the forest beyond a hint of dark canopy. Rain muted everything, but the house, rising, looked as tall and massive as it had that day so many years ago. For an instant, Abigail wished she could reach back through time and touch the young woman she’d been, all smooth skin and conviction. She wanted to slap that girl in the face, tell her to pull down her skirt and run like the devil was at her heels. Instead, she pulled out the revolver she kept in the glove compartment. It was heavy in her hand, the metal cool and blued. She looked into the brutish barrel, then at the bullets nestled like eggs in the chambers. She straightened her arm, sighted at the house, and for a moment entertained dark fantasies. Then she put the pistol back where it belonged: in the glove compartment, locked.

She drove down the rough track, gravel clanking on the undercarriage, the shocks worn and loose. Where the forest ended, she turned across a final field, then picked up the main estate road that ran to the stables and the back of the house. She saw Jessup at the stables, then turned for the garage and caught a brief glimpse of the long, impossibly straight drive. At the far end, the gate was a postage stamp of twisted iron.

Abigail drove to the rear door and killed the engine. Inside, she ignored the stares and the hurried movements of the household staff. She turned down a narrow hall, then through the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen, where two cooks looked up, too startled say a word as they took in the long, ill-fitting coat, the mud on her feet, and the ruin of her hair. “Where is Mr. Vane?” Abigail asked.

“Ma’am?”

“Mr. Vane? Where is he?”

“He is in the study.”

“Has Julian eaten?”

The cooks shared a worried glance. “Mr. Vane says no one is to go into that part of the house.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Mr. Senator says-”

“I don’t care what Mr. Senator says.” Her voice came too loudly, and she calmed herself. No point in scaring anyone. “Fix a tray,” she said. “I’ll send someone for it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Abigail left the back halls used by the servants and entered the main house, the ceiling soaring above her. She passed window treatments that hung twenty feet to the floor, a dining room table that could seat thirty. She entered the foyer and felt coolness in the air as the ceiling rose forty feet, the stairwell curving around the vast space as it spiraled to the third floor and the vaulted cupola beyond. She climbed the stairs, passing an iron chandelier the size of her bed and portraits of long-dead men who weren’t actually related to her husband. At the first landing, she turned for the guest wing, which was long and broad and rich. Six rooms lined the hall, three on each side. More paintings hung on the walls. Antique sideboards gleamed. A man sat in a chair halfway down the hall. He was middle-aged and fit, with black hair and shoes that caught the light when he stood. He was neither a member of the house staff, nor, as far as she could tell, a member of her husband’s office. His hands were large under thick wrists and snow-white cuffs.

“Good morning, Mrs. Vane.”

His tie was the same navy as the rug, his gaze as flat as the floor on which it lay. Yet, the eyes moved: up and down, light blue and steady. She let him have his look. Stories circulated about her, she knew; and her appearance this morning would no doubt make for another one.

She could not care less.

“Where’s Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Sleeping, I assume. The senator deemed her unfit to watch over his son.”

“The senator deemed?”

“He dismissed her three hours ago.”

She tilted her head, her own face as hard as his, her eyes just as appraising. “Do I know you?”

“Richard Gale. I work for your husband.”

“That was not my question.”

“We’ve never met.”

“But you know who I am?”

“Of course.”

She weighed his appearance even further: wide shoulders and narrow waist, the first hint of creases in the skin of his neck. He stood perfectly still, light on his feet and amused. Abigail recognized the arrogance common to men of a certain physical quality. She’d seen it often in military officers and in field agents prized by the intelligence community. Years ago, she’d found such men exciting, but she’d never been as wise in her youth as she’d imagined herself to be. “Are we going to have a problem?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. You’re cleared to go in.”

“Cleared?”

“On the senator’s list.”

She frowned. “What is it, exactly, that you do for my husband?”

“Whatever is required.”

“Are you a federal agent?” He blinked once, and kept his mouth shut. “A private contractor,” Abigail concluded.

“I work for your husband. That’s really all I’m obligated to say.”

“Is my son under guard?”

“He’s not tried to leave. He’s-”

“What?”

Gale shrugged.

“Let’s get a few things straight, Mr. Gale. My son is not a prisoner. This is his home. So, if he wishes to leave this room, you may call me or his father, you may follow him if you must; but if you lay a hand on him or try to restrain his movement in any way, I’ll make you regret it.”

“Senator Vane left strict instructions.”

“Senator Vane is not the one of whom you should be frightened.”

The humor drained out of his eyes.

She stepped closer.

“The senator has concerns that I do not: appearances, for one, lawsuits and reporters and voters. His worries are larger than his son, so he does foolish things, like make you sit in this hall with a responsibility you cannot possibly handle. But that’s not my problem. I’m a mother of one son, that son. Do you understand me?”

“I think so.”

“No, Mr. Gale, you don’t. If you did, you’d be leaving at a fast walk and praying that I forget your name.”

“But, the senator-”

“Don’t fuck with my son.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, step away from the door.”

Abigail brushed past and opened the door that for three days had shut her son off from the world.

Three days of doubt and uncertainty.

Three days of hell.

She crossed the threshold and closed the door. Inside, the dark was a shock to her eyes, a blackness that was nearly complete. Heavy curtains hung over windows that opened to the lakes below. No lamps burned. Warm air pressed her skin as she put her back to the door and dug deep for the courage to force a smile before turning on the lights. She was a mother first, and found the weight of Julian’s collapse nearly unbearable. Wounded and unsure, he’d been a delicate child from the first, a boy prone to night terrors and doubt. Yet, she’d worked hard to make him whole, first for months and then years, until fixing the broken parts of Julian had become her resolve and her religion. She’d given all she could: education and activity, love and patience and strength, and in many ways it had worked, for as weak as he was, as scarred and bereft, Julian had always found the will to endure. He’d overcome the trauma of his childhood, the loss of his brother, and the mark of long years at Iron Mountain. He’d become an artist and a poet, a children’s author, successful in his own right. To the world at large, he was a man of deep feeling and nuance, but in his heart, Abigail knew, Julian remained little more than a shattered boy, the brittle precipitate of the things he’d endured. It was a secret they kept, dark matter buried deep.

“Julian?”

Her eyes began to adjust. To her right, the bed was dark and flat and empty. Furniture made vague, humped shapes in the room, while from somewhere deeper, a dull, rapping sound made itself heard.

“Julian?”

There were two more thumps, and then the sound stopped. Something moved in a far corner.

“I’m going to turn on a light. You might want to cover your eyes.”

She shuffled to the bedside table and clicked on a small lamp, a Tiffany piece whose soft light touched a pale yellow rug and cream-colored baseboards beneath walls papered French blue with gold fleur-de-lis. Shadows gathered under furniture, and she saw Julian, hunched in the corner beyond the bed. His hair was unwashed, his face buried in knees drawn to his chest. His pants were stained with mud and grass, his shirt untucked and greasy at the collar. Clean clothes sat in neat piles, but he refused to touch them. He refused to eat. Refused to drink.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” Abigail moved closer, and Julian pushed into the corner. He clenched his arms more tightly, and in the light she saw that gauze wrapped his hands. The fabric extended from his wrists to the tips of his fingers, tightly wrapped except at the edges, where it had begun to tear and fray. Blood soaked through at the knuckles, red stains on white, and on the walls around him-on all the walls-blood discolored the fine, blue paper. Where Julian huddled, the blood was fresh and wet, while farther away it had dried to thin smears of rust-colored ink.

Abigail froze when she saw how wet the bandages were, how stained the walls. This was something terrible and new: damaged hands and bloodstained walls. She asked why, but had no answer; looked for reason and saw only madness. She turned a circle, barbs of fear hooked in the walls of her chest, the strings of her will simply cut. The marks went as high as the ceiling, as low as the floor. The walls were dashed with red and rust and questions she could not bear.

She sank to her knees and put her hands on those of her son. “Julian.”

The bandages were warm and wet.

My baby…

Ten minutes later, Abigail found her husband in the study, reading the Washington Post, half-glasses on his nose, mouth slightly open. Behind him, French doors showcased the formal gardens and the pool house beyond.

Randall Vane looked good under his silver hair. He was sixty-nine, wide-shouldered and tall enough to carry some extra weight. He had a strong nose and green eyes that worked well with the silver hair. Leonine, he’d once been called; it was a word he favored.

Leonine.

Lion-like.

Abigail entered without knocking. She felt nothing physical as she walked, neither her feet nor the smears of blood that her son’s bandages had left on her cheeks. She felt the ache of Julian’s eyes and the memory of heat in his wounded hands. She stopped at the desk’s edge, her fingers pressed white on the wood. “Julian needs a doctor.” Her voice shook, and she thought she might be in shock. Randall lowered the paper, took off his glasses. He considered her appearance: the fine nose chiseled white at the nostrils, the large eyes, and the once-plump lips drawn tight. His gaze traveled to the man’s coat she wore and the muddy pants beneath it. “It’s getting worse,” she said.

“Whose coat are you wearing?”

“It’s getting worse.”

She put the force of her will behind her words, and, hearing that force, Senator Randall Vane leaned back in his chair, folded the newspaper, and dropped it on the desk. The shirt pulled across his broad chest, the swell of his stomach. His face was ruddy, his teeth impossibly white. The cuffs of his shirt were monogrammed with pale, blue thread. “What do you mean?”

“Julian is harming himself.”

The senator laced thick fingers and rested them on his stomach. His voice came smoothly. “It started last night. I don’t know when.”

“Where is Mrs. Hamilton? Julian should be with someone he knows and loves.”

“I found Mrs. Hamilton asleep in the hall.”

“She helped raise him, Randall. If I’m not there, she is. That was our deal. How could you send her away without bringing me there first?”

“She was sleeping on the job while Julian beat his hands bloody. I sent her to bed and brought in someone I can trust.”

“What happened to my son, Randall?”

The senator rocked forward in his chair, big elbows landing on the desk. “He started hitting the walls. What else can I tell you? We don’t know why. He just did it. He was already bleeding when I went to check on him. He could have been doing it for hours.”

“And you didn’t come get me?”

“Come get you where, exactly?” His eyes drove the knife home, and Abigail looked away, angry and ashamed. “You ran out in the middle of our discussion.”

“Our argument.”

“Argument. Discussion. No matter. You were not to be found and I was left to deal with Julian. We bandaged his hands, sedated him. The injuries are minor. We’re watching him.”

“He needs a doctor.”

“I disagree.”

“He hasn’t spoken since he came home. We don’t know where he’s been, what happened to him…”

“It’s only been a few days. We agreed-”

“We did not.”

“We agreed to give him time to come out of this on his own. He’s upset about something. Fine. It happens to all of us. There’s no point in blowing this out of proportion. It’s probably just a girl, some sweet young thing that broke his heart.”

“He’s injuring himself.”

“Doctors keep records, Abigail. And records can be leaked.”

“Please don’t make this about you.”

“He’s a political liability.”

“He’s your son.”

It was an old argument, the line drawn when Julian was a boy. He had trouble looking people in the eyes, and rarely shook hands or allowed himself to be touched. Even now, he was painfully shy, so reticent he did poorly with people he did not know well. To complicate matters further, the books he wrote were as dark as could be and still be for children. They dealt with difficult themes: death and betrayal and fear, the pain of childhood’s end. Critics often remarked that a distinct godlessness characterized his stories, and because of that, some conservative communities had banned his books, even burned them. The power of his artistry and storytelling, however, was undeniable, so powerful, in fact, that few could read them without being emotionally challenged in some meaningful way. So, while in some circles he was demonized, in others he was celebrated as an artist of the highest order. His own explanation was simple: The world is cruel and children can be stronger than they know. Yet, his books, like life, did not always end well. Children died. Parents failed. Telling children less, he’d often said, would be cruelty of a different sort.

“It’s an election year.” The senator frowned. “He’ll be fine.”

“You’re blind, Randall.”

“Blind? I don’t think so.”

“Blind and arrogant.”

The senator leaned back in his chair, fingers laced above his belt. “Whose coat is that?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“I can have a doctor here by lunch. All you have to do is tell me who owns the coat you’re wearing.”

Her sigh was an exhausted one. “Why do you even care?”

“Because you said I’m blind.”

“Fine. You’re not blind.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“It belongs to Jessup. Are you happy?”

“Jessup’s a good man.” He paused. “A bit humble for your tastes.”

“The man loaned me his coat.”

“Of course.”

Abigail pushed the phone across the desk. “You’ll call?”

“Of course.” The smile was a knowing one.

“You exhaust me, Randall.”

“I consider that my job as your husband.”

“A doctor,” she said. “Soon.”

Back in Julian’s room, Abigail found that he’d used a stub of pencil to draw the shape of a door on the wall. It was small and childish, nothing like the art of which he was capable. Normally, if Julian were to draw a door, it would look so real one might try to open it and walk through. He could make it look that solid, or he could shape it in a manner so fanciful it could be a door to another universe, the passage to a world of magic and joy, or a black gate yawning wide to collect a host of damaged souls. But that’s not what Abigail saw. The lines on this door wavered and diverged, making an irregular shape less than five feet tall. The doorknob was a scrawl, the hinges thick marks of heavy black. Julian knelt in front of the door, still bent. He was beating his knuckles on the drawn door, the bandages not just wet, but torn.

“Baby.” She knelt beside him, close enough to feel his heat. The skin under his eyes was bruised, his face so lean the cheeks were sunken. He ignored her, his eyes fevered and empty, his lips chewed raw and dry as chalk. He struck one part of the door, then another, so intent he did not react when she put a hand on his arm. “Baby, please…”

His eyes were shockingly drawn, pulled so deeply into their sockets they looked black. His mouth opened and the tip of his tongue pushed against the back of his teeth. When Abigail reached again to touch him, her arm passed before the lamp so a shadow flickered on the wall. Julian flinched when he saw it, and Abigail cringed from the sudden terror in his face. Then, just as quickly, the emotion fled and his face emptied. She watched his lips move in mindless rhythm, and her fingers stopped an inch from his skin. “Baby, please.”

“Sunlight…”

His voice was the barest whisper.

“Silver stairs…”