Nightshade

CHAPTER 23

CRAZY.

She was going crazy.

She was going crazy, and she knew she was going crazy, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Cynthia’s voice was everywhere now, following Joan wherever she went, laughing at her, taunting her, mocking her.

“Never yours,” Cynthia kept repeating. “Don’t you understand, Joanie-baby?” she whispered, using the belittling nickname Joan had always hated. “Nothing you have was ever yours. It’s mine. All of it!Bill is mine, and this house is mine, and everything in it is mine. I was only letting you use it! But now I’m taking it back!”

A whimpering moan escaped Joan’s lips, and her head felt like it would explode from the pressure of the churning emotions building inside her. “No,” she whispered brokenly. “It isn’t true. None of it’s true. Bill loved me. He wanted me. He — ” But her words died in the cacophony of Cynthia’s scornful laugh.

Destroy her! That’s what she had to do! She had to destroy Cynthia.

Obliterate her from the guest room.

Obliterate her from the house.

Obliterate her from her mind.

“You can’t,” Cynthia whispered, as if she’d read Joan’s thoughts. “You can never get rid of me, Joanie-baby. Never!”

Joan came to the top of the stairs. She was only a few feet from the closed door to the guest room — Cynthia’s room — and she could feel the nearness of her sister’s spirit.

“Go ahead,” Cynthia taunted. “Try it. Try it, Joanie-baby, and see what happens.”

A strangled cry of fury erupting from her throat, Joan lunged toward the door, twisting the knob and hurling it open so hard it crashed against the wall, cracking the plaster and shattering the glass knob.

Ignoring the glass shards on the floor, she went to the closet where her sister’s clothes, arranged by color to form a brilliant rainbow, hung on their padded hangers — clothes her mother had cared for so perfectly that they looked like they’d never been worn. “Why didn’t you take care of me like this?” she cried out, her voice choking on her sobs. “Why couldn’t you love me even as much as you loved her damned clothes?” Snatching one of the dresses off its hanger, she ripped its bodice with one quick jerk, then hurled it aside as she grabbed another one. One after another she tore the dresses from their hangers, until she stood in the midst of a tangle of torn and mangled material.

Material that could never again be put back on the hangers as a memorial to her sister.

“They’re only clothes. They’re not me, Joanie-baby,” Cynthia whispered.

“Don’t call me that!” Joan screamed. She reeled away from the closet and began ripping the pictures from the walls, hurling them to the floor, the glass covering the photographs shattering.

Cynthia only laughed.

Joan moved on to the desk, sweeping the surface clean, sending her sister’s books and pens, her stuffed animals and favorite Barbie doll, skittering across the floor.

Then, through the turbulence of her own emotions, she heard something. She froze, and a strange silence fell over the house. Then she heard it again.

The doorbell.

Someone was ringing the doorbell.

A wave of panic crashed over her. What should she do? She glanced at herself in the mirror — her face was ashen, her hair a tangled mess. Maybe she shouldn’t answer the door — maybe she should just wait for whoever it was to go away.

The doorbell sounded again, as if to deny the possibility that whoever awaited would leave.

What if they came in?

What if they came in and found her like this?

What if they told her mother she was playing with Cynthia’s things?

Her mother would beat her again, and lock her in the cedar chest in the basement.

No! Don’t let them catch you! Don’t let them tell on you!

She ran from Cynthia’s room, hurried down the stairs, then paused in the entry hall, trying to catch her breath. She ran her fingers through her hair, clumsily brushing it away from her face.

The doorbell sounded again, and at last — knowing she could put it off no longer — she turned the knob and pulled the door open just wide enough to peek out.

A policeman!

A policeman, wearing a uniform.

She wanted to slam the door and run and hide in her room. But even if she could hide from the policeman, she couldn’t hide from her mother. Her mother would find her and —

Fear galvanized Joan’s mind, pulling its fragments back together, jerking her out of the past and the memories that had held her in thrall. Hearing her name, she pulled the door open wider and recognized Dan Pullman standing next to Tony Petrocelli.

“Can we come in for a moment, Joan?” the police chief asked.

Matt, she thought. They want to ask Matt more questions. “I — Matt’s not here, and I — ” Her mind cleared further, and she remembered what her lawyer had said last night. “I don’t think I’d better talk to you until I talk to Trip Wainwright. He said — ”

“I know what he said, Joan,” Dan Pullman said quickly, sensing that she was about to shut the door. “I was just wondering — does Matt have a pair of Redwing shoes?”

A veil of suspicion dropped over Joan’s face, and her eyes flicked from Pullman to Petrocelli, then back to the chief. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “I don’t pick Matt’s shoes out for him.”

She heard Cynthia’s laugh.

“Maybe if you could — ” Pullman began, but before he could finish, Joan shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said, starting to close the door. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“All I want — ”

Joan shook her head. “I’m not supposed to,” she said again. “I’m just not supposed to!”

A second later Dan Pullman and Tony Petrocelli were facing a closed door, and both of them were certain that no matter how long they rang the bell, she wouldn’t open it again.

“Lawyers,” Pullman said bitterly. “Damn all lawyers.”

But as they started back toward the waterfall, Tony Petrocelli turned to look back at the house. “Did she sound okay to you?” he asked, cocking his head. To him, Joan Hapgood had sounded almost like a child. A child about five years old, who was afraid of doing something wrong.

Pullman shrugged. “She’s just doing what Trip Wainwright told her to do. And he’s just doing his job. So let’s you and I go do ours.”

From the house, Joan watched them disappear into the woods.

They hadn’t found out. They didn’t know she’d been in Cynthia’s room, so they couldn’t tell her mother.

“But I can,” Cynthia whispered. “I can tell Mother anything I want.”

Joan’s eyes widened. “No!” she screamed. “I’ll kill you! I swear to God, I’ll kill you!”

* * *

GERRY CONROE’S FIST crashed down on his desk, barely missing the keyboard he’d been tapping on with steadily increasing frustration and fury for most of the morning. “God damn it! What the hell is going on here?”

Eleanor Austin, who for nearly fifteen years had been Gerry’s secretary, administrative assistant, editor, and general factotum, had not reacted when he smashed his desk with his fist, but she was so startled by his curses that she slopped her coffee onto the story she was editing. “Take it easy, Gerry. Breaking the computer isn’t going to help.”

“It’s starting to look like nothing’s going to help,” he growled. “I hate the damn thing, and I hate the Internet even more.”

“That’s today,” Eleanor observed, the soothing tone of her voice only exacerbating his frustration. “Yesterday you said you could find anything you needed to know on the Net. ‘The greatest tool ever invented by mankind,’ I believe is what you said.”

“Well, I was wrong,” Conroe muttered, his eyes narrowing as he studied the screen in front of him, which was currently displaying the latest of what had been an unending series of messages informing him of the result of his search:

“Why the hell doesn’t it just say it can’t find what I’m looking for? Somebody should teach this thing to speak English.”

Eleanor quickly cast around in her mind for some way to divert Gerry before he launched into a diatribe against all things modern. “Why does it matter so much who Matt’s father was?” she ventured, then recognizing her error at once, anticipated his reply: If you know the father, you know the son! The apple never falls far from the tree. Which means mothers don’t count at all, Eleanor added to herself.

But instead of what she’d expected, her employer said, “The thing is, Matt Moore doesn’t seem to have any father at all.” He gestured toward the computer. “According to this, he doesn’t even exist!”

Eleanor couldn’t contain a smug smile. “You mean maybe the Internet isn’t quite the greatest tool ever invented by mankind after all?”

“No!” Gerry said, shoving his chair back and standing up. “I mean that something phony is going on around here, just like I’ve been telling everyone. And I’m going to find out what it is!”

Walking out of the office, he strode to the corner of Main and Chestnut, cut diagonally across the intersection — pausing only long enough to glare at the two drivers who honked at him — brushed past Agnes Fenster, who served Trip Wainwright in more or less the same capacity as Eleanor Austin functioned for him — and shoved open the door to Trip Wainwright’s office. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

The lawyer looked up from the will he was working on, his features automatically falling into a neutral expression that hid whatever he might have been thinking. “I’m not sure I follow you, Gerry.” He rose from his chair, offered his unannounced visitor his hand, and when Conroe refused to shake it, smoothly used it to gesture toward the client’s chair in front of his desk. “May I assume you don’t approve of me looking out for my client’s interests last night?”

Suddenly Conroe understood Dan Pullman’s refusal to go after Matt Moore: Wainwright must have intimidated him. “You get in the way of finding my daughter, and I swear I’ll make you so miserable you’ll wish you’d never been born.”

Wainwright sighed as he lowered himself back into his chair. He’d known this visit was going to happen — could practically have predicted Gerry Conroe’s exact words. That was both the blessing and the curse of living in a town as small as Granite Falls. But at least knowing what was going to happen this morning had allowed him time to prepare for it. “Look, Gerry,” he began, “I’m very, very sorry about Kelly. But until we know exactly what happened to her, I can’t let you or anybody else try to convict Matthew Moore of doing anything to her. For all you or anyone else knows, he had absolutely nothing to do with anything that might have happened.” Gerry Conroe’s jaw tightened, but before he could say anything, Wainwright held up a hand as if to hold off the torrent he knew was about to break. “And don’t put me in a position where I have to recommend that either Matt or Joan sue you either. I hate it when my clients wind up in court, especially when they have to sue my friends. So why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, and try to keep your temper out of it.”

Conroe said nothing for a moment, trying to gauge how much of Wainwright’s words were bluff. Though he couldn’t imagine Trip recommending that Joan actually sue him, he couldn’t be entirely certain he wouldn’t either, and the lawyer’s expression gave away nothing. Finally, he lowered himself into the chair. “I just want to know where that kid came from,” he said.

Wainwright frowned. “Matt? We all know where he came from — he’s Joan’s son. As for his father…” His voice faded, and he shrugged dismissively. “I suppose if you want to know that, you’ll have to ask Joan. She’s never told me, but on the other hand, I’ve never asked.”

“What makes you think Joan would know?” Conroe countered. As Wainwright’s face finally registered an expression — even if only of puzzlement — Conroe’s lips compressed into a grim line. “As far as I can tell, she’s not his mother.”

Wainwright blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“She’s not his mother,” Conroe repeated. “I’ve been on the Net since lunch, and I’ll bet I know more about Joan Moore Hapgood than she knows about herself. And I can tell you for a fact that her medical records don’t show that she ever gave birth to anybody. As for Matthew Moore, I’ve checked the records of every state in the East, and there’s no birth certificate for him. According to everything I’ve seen, he never officially existed at all until Joan registered him in school here after she came back from New York. Before that — nothing! No birth records, no adoption records, nothing! So what’s going on? Who is he? Where did he come from? And how come all of a sudden his stepfather is dead, and his grandmother and my daughter are both missing?”

“Even if everything you say about Matt not being Joan’s son is true — and I’m not saying it is, ” the lawyer countered, “I don’t see how it’s germane to anything else. Even if Joan adopted Matt, it doesn’t follow that — ”

“She didn’t adopt him!” Conroe cut in. “I don’t know where the hell she got him. But by God, I’m going to find out, and I suspect that when I do, a lot of what’s going on in this town is going to be a lot clearer. And if that kid’s done something to my daughter, you can bet I won’t rest until he pays for it.” He raised a finger and pointed it at the lawyer’s head. “And don’t try to get in my way. You’re protecting a murderer, Wainwright. He shot his own stepfather, damn it! And nobody’s doing anything about it! Do they have to find my little girl’s body before they lock him up?” Before the lawyer could respond, Conroe was on his feet again. “You tell your ‘client’ that if anything’s happened to Kelly, he’s going to wish that he’d never been born at all! And tell him that’s not a threat, Wainwright. It’s just a plain, simple statement of fact.”

A second later he was gone, and five seconds after that, Wainwright saw him march across the street — oblivious to the blaring of horns — and disappear into the police station. And when he was done there, there would be only one other place he would go. Picking up the phone, Wainwright dialed Joan’s number, his fingers drumming impatiently as he waited for her to pick up at the other end. But when he finally heard her voice, it was a recording on the answering machine.

* * *

JOAN SAT AT Cynthia’s vanity, her eyes fixed on the image in the mirror. But it wasn’t her face she saw — at least not the face that Dan Pullman and Tony Petrocelli had seen a few minutes ago. Instead she saw the face that had been hers years ago, when she still lived in the house on Burlington Avenue, after Cynthia left, when her mother had forbidden her even to go into her sister’s room, let alone to sit at her vanity or use her cosmetics. But Mother wasn’t home now, and Cynthia had gone away, and she was alone in the house.

“No one to tell,” she said softly. “No one to tell on me.”

“I’ll tell,” Cynthia whispered. “I’ll tell Mama, and you know what she’ll do.”

“I’ll kill you if you tell,” Joan replied. “I’ll kill you, and maybe I’ll kill Mother too!” She picked up a jar of Cynthia’s foundation — a brand-new one that had never been opened — and unscrewed the lid. Using a sponge she found in the top drawer of the vanity, she carefully applied the cosmetic until every bit of her face was covered. She paused then, gazing at the blank canvas her visage had become. “I can be pretty too,” she said. “I can be as pretty as you.”

Her sister laughed, but Joan ignored it, turning her attention to the array of colors spread across the top of the vanity. Choosing a shade of lavender that reminded her of the fuchsias that grew in the pots hanging from her mother’s front porch — her favorite flowers in the whole world — she carefully applied the color to her eyelids.

Next she chose a pot of rouge that would add color to her cheeks, and tried to put it on just the way Cynthia always had, accentuating her cheekbones.

She brightened her lips with a brilliant scarlet that was Cynthia’s favorite, then carefully outlined them.

Just like Cynthia.

In the top right-hand drawer she found the eyelashes Cynthia had loved to collect, and chose a pair of extra long ones that she’d been dying to try on ever since Cynthia showed them to her. Lifting them from their plastic case, she painstakingly pressed them to her eyelids, then applied a coat of mascara to make them look even thicker.

“Pretty,” she whispered, staring at the face in the mirror. “I’m just as pretty as you are!” Her jaw tightened and her eyes narrowed as she heard her sister’s peal of laughter. “Don’t laugh,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare laugh at me!”

The laughter rang out again, and Joan’s anger grew. All her life — for as long as she could remember — she’d had to live with Cynthia’s laughter. But not now. Not anymore. Opening the bottom drawer of Cynthia’s vanity, she took out the gloves she’d taken from her mother a few days ago, the gloves her mother could never wear again, the gloves whose leather would never again scar her face. She pulled them on slowly, stretching them to fit over her larger hands, her thicker fingers. She gazed once more at the face in the mirror.

She saw nothing of the grotesque gargoyle that stared back at her, its eyes painted a hideous purple, its cheeks clumsily smudged with bright red, its lips an open wound the color of blood.

Instead she saw a face that was radiant with youth, and even more beautiful than Cynthia’s had ever been. She looked as if she were ready for a formal dance, complete with perfect white gloves that came to her wrists.

Only one thing was missing — she hadn’t yet put on her perfume. A moment later her fingers closed on the bottle of Nightshade. She shook it, then lifted the stopper from the vial’s neck. As the room filled with the heavy, musky scent — the sensuous aroma that had always been Cynthia’s favorite — Joan dabbed fluid on her neck. The heavy fragrance hanging around her like a cloud, she rose from the vanity and left the room, feeling a tingling sense of eagerness, as if some beau — someone who truly loved her — might be waiting for her downstairs.

When she came out on the landing, she looked down for the man who should be waiting for her, smiling at her, extending his hand toward her.

But there was no man.

There was no one.

There was only Cynthia.

Cynthia, and her terrible, mocking, taunting, cruel laughter.

As it pealed in Joan’s ears, slashing at her spirit, tearing at her soul, she flinched. Then, with decades of suppressed rage boiling inside her, she started down the stairs.

* * *

WHAT LITTLE HOPE Kelly Conroe had been able to cling to was quickly fading. Though she could barely feel her hands or feet, it felt as if someone were slowly twisting off her arms and legs, ripping her limbs from her shoulders and hips. Though she’d managed to scrape the tape from her mouth, it had done nothing more than allow her to breathe more easily, for her throat and mouth were so parched with thirst that she could barely manage to speak, let alone scream. Not that she believed anyone would hear her. Not even Mrs. Moore, who had stopped muttering and hadn’t answered at all when she had finally rid herself of the gag and spoken to the old woman. Kelly had given up imagining what might lie beyond the blackness, given up wondering how she might escape. She was going to die, and even that didn’t really frighten her anymore, for at least it would be an escape from the pain that gripped her body.

Suddenly, a shaft of light appeared from above, and Kelly instinctively reacted like a creature of the dark, trying to scuttle out of the light, to escape from it back into the safety of the darkness. But then her eyes began to adjust to the glare.

The chamber in which she’d been imprisoned was no more than a dozen feet square and eight feet high, and looked exactly as she’d imagined it would — the floor packed earth, the walls rough-hewn wood. Then Kelly caught sight of Emily Moore and her stomach contracted into a convulsive retching. Mrs. Moore lay curled against one of the walls, her back toward Kelly. The old woman’s wrists were bound just as hers had been, but instead of hands, there were hideous stumps of putrefying flesh where the hands should have been. A pool of muck lay around Emily Moore’s lifeless body, and as Kelly realized that it could only be the old woman’s congealed blood, her belly heaved again, and her throat and mouth burned with the acid her stomach ejected.

A sound jerked her attention away from the corpse of Matt’s grandmother, and she saw that a ladder had been lowered through the hole in the ceiling through which the light still glowed.

Rescued!

She was being rescued!

But a moment later, seeing a figure come down the ladder, her brief moment of hope was extinguished. Then the figure was looming above her, and even though the face was shrouded in shadow, she could see that it was covered with grotesque makeup, and contorted with fury.

The figure spoke, and Kelly knew who it was.

“How do you like it?” Joan hissed. She drew her foot back and kicked Kelly. “How do you like being locked up in the dark?” She kicked again, and as the shoe struck Kelly’s ribs, the girl screamed with agony and attempted to scramble away. But Joan followed her, hissing down at her. “Now you know how it felt! Now you know how I felt when Mother locked me in the cedar chest! And now you’re going to know how it felt when she hit me! See how you like it, Cynthia! See how you like it!” As Kelly cowered in abject terror, Joan raised her hand, and as it hovered in the glow of the light spilling in through the hole in the ceiling, Kelly saw that Joan Hapgood was wearing some kind of glove.

A pale glove that almost looked like —

The hand descended, smashing against Kelly’s face. She screamed and again tried to writhe away, but the hand rose again, and this time, as the light illuminated it, she saw that it wasn’t a glove at all.

It was the skin of Emily Moore’s hand, stretched tight over Joan’s own, the old woman’s cracked and yellowed nails looking like claws.

A second later Kelly felt the nails dig into her cheek, and she screamed from the burning pain of the scratches.

“See how you like it,” Joan hissed again and again as she lashed out at Kelly. “See how you like what Mother did to me. What you let her do to me! See how much of it you can stand!” Joan’s kick sank deep into Kelly’s gut, and more blows rained down, pounding at her until her face was bleeding and she could feel the bruises swelling.

Barely conscious, she only dimly realized that tape was again being pressed across her mouth. I’m going to die, Kelly thought. I’m going to die, and nobody’s ever going to find me…