Never Sleep With Strangers (17 page)

The hallway was as quiet as a tomb, she thought. She shivered and hurried down the stairs.

 

Jon looked around the chamber of horrors. Absolutely nothing seemed amiss.

Thayer gave him his theory, showing him how the old bolt had been turned just a hair. “And with the weather swelling the doors…” Thayer shrugged. “Let's face it, Susan is a powerful bitch, but something seems to be unnerving her. Do you think she just scared herself into a tizzy?”

Jon, too, shrugged, staring at the wax figures. Joshua had done such a good job. The figures were haunting and scary and all the things they should be. But they
were
wax and wire and fabric and mesh. They weren't inherently evil, and they weren't capable of coming to life.

And Susan was a bitch.

But he, too, had been the recipient of a nasty note unrelated to the real play of the game. And he was feeling especially tense because they were now likely to be snowbound and dependent on generators for power. For how long, he didn't know. And he was responsible for his guests' welfare.

“The thing is, most of us were at the séance,” Thayer said. “You, Brett, Sabrina and Joshua were gone. Camy was working. Maybe someone on the staff had something to do with it?”

“My household staff? They're all hardworking and far too busy and responsible to play pranks on my guests. Besides, I'm sure none of them could care less about scaring Susan Sharp.”

“So she had to be imagining things,” Thayer said. Hands on his hips, he sighed. “Well, if we had the equipment, we could dust this place for prints, but, hell, we'd find everyone's. Everyone has been down here.”

Jon went to stand before Jack the Ripper. He reached out to touch the figure. Still wax, he told himself dryly.

But Susan likely had received a different summons from the others; he didn't doubt it, since he had, too.

He did have to wonder if someone was just playing cruel tricks, however…or if they were all to be snowbound with a maniac. Hell, now
his
imagination was running away with him.

“I guess there's nothing more to be done down here,” he told Thayer.

“I agree. There's nothing here to prove or disprove anything Susan said. It was something, though. I wish you'd been here. The power suddenly went while we were here, with Susan screaming that I was trying to burn her when I lit my lighter!”

“The storm must be surely an act of God,” Jon said dryly. “I hardly think there's someone up there shooting down lightning bolts and saying, Oh, good, let's get Susan!”

Jon smiled wryly. “I guess there's only one way left to solve any of this.”

“Oh?” Thayer inquired.

“Play the game,” Jon said grimly. “Play out the game, just the way we intended.”

 

The castle in darkness was utterly eerie.

It wasn't that Sabrina hadn't been places where the electricity had gone off before. She had. Storms downed electrical wires across the globe.

But the castle was different. Haunting shadows filled corners and crevices. Candles and kerosene lamps shot flickering patterns against the stone walls. Each nook and cranny seemed to hold a mystery, a dark, fluttering menace.

She all but ran down the stairs and hurried into the great hall.

It was empty. The others had eaten and gone.

The food was still out; chafing dishes were aligned on the buffet, though many of the Sterno heating fires were out. Someone had begun clearing the table, but a few plates remained.

She began to inspect the contents of the chafing dishes. Suddenly, a stark chill of unease raced down her spine. She spun around, certain that someone was watching her from the shadows.

Then she felt like a fool. No one was behind her. Like Susan, she had simply begun to imagine a cloaked figure ready to bludgeon her to death when she wasn't looking.

But she did hear footsteps from the foyer, heading toward the great stairway. She started out of the great hall and paused in the shadows of the doorway.

Jon was coming up from below. Anna Lee met him on the stairs to the second floor. She set a hand upon his arm. Her wavy hair fell forward, brushing her face. She smiled. A beautiful smile. But then she said something, looking worried. Sabrina couldn't make out her words. Jon took her hand in both of his. She looked frail next to his tall, muscular form, and as he took a step up and whispered down to her, he looked like her protector. Something tender seemed to pass between them. Anna Lee turned around, accompanying him as he continued up the steps.

Sabrina slipped back into the great hall, leaning against the wall, feeling weak.

“It wasn't Anna Lee,” a voice said out of the shadows. Sabrina nearly jumped; she was amazed she didn't scream.

Reggie Hampton suddenly appeared, rising from a huge antique chair set into the recess of the kitchen doorway. She looked old and tired but very straight and dignified.

“What?” Sabrina whispered.

Reggie shrugged, smiling slightly. “I watched you watching Jon and Anna Lee just now. Watching people—that's what keeps me going. And keeps me good, too, by the way. You're wearing your heart on your sleeve, and—”

“I don't know what you're talking about, Reggie,” Sabrina interrupted.

“Our host, dear,” Reggie said kindly, her keen old eyes assessing still. “You just watched Anna Lee and Jon. And somewhere in your mind you were remembering the rumor that Jon was having an affair when his wife was killed.”

Sabrina arched a brow. “Reggie, I really have no right—”

“They're friends, Anna Lee and Jon. But don't worry, dear. He doesn't care about her now. Sexually, that is.”

“He's free to care about her in any way he wishes. Including sexually,” Sabrina said.

Reggie smiled. “Certainly, dear. Whatever you say. I can see that you don't care in the least. Ah, well, then my lips shall remain sealed about what I know. So why don't I help you make something for your patient up there? The food is so wonderful here, isn't it? Let's fix Brett a plate of the lamb. He'll love it.”

“Reggie…”

“Nope. My lips are sealed.”

“Reggie, if you know something imp—”

“I know lots of things. Or I think I do. But some of them would hurt innocent people, so I don't talk. Truth will tell itself when the time is right.”

“Reggie…”

“If you're going to be tiresome, dear, then you can fix your own plates.” And, shoulders squared, back straight, Reggie walked out of the great hall, leaving Sabrina alone for real.

Or was she?

Again she turned around and peered into the shadows. No one.

She fixed two plates of food. And she tried to walk calmly, rather than run, back to Brett's room.

 

The storm was bad enough. Being snowbound was worse. But now they were snowbound without electricity, and though Jon could keep the castle functioning, not even he liked the shadows.

He felt that he could kick himself a thousand times over.

Why hadn't he insisted that they end the game? He should have forced them all out before the weather came—even old Reggie, whether she wanted to go or not.

But he hadn't.

And so now they were all trapped together for the duration. And like rats in a cage, they were starting to scurry around, ready to cannibalize one another.

Yet they were coming to him. One by one.

Anna Lee.

And as he approached the door to his room, she followed.

He sighed softly. “Now, what in God's name—” he began.

“Shh! Please, Jon!” she insisted, urging him into the room. She was clearly excited. “It's happening! Don't you see? Everything is unraveling. The truth is out there and—”

He caught her by the shoulders, trying to steady her. “The truth is out there—but meaning what? Anna Lee, are you behind any of these threats against Susan?”

“No!” she cried, trying to wrench away angrily. He wouldn't let her go.

“Susan is a bitch, and she can certainly make up nasty tales. But this time I think she knows she is in trouble, is being pursued. I think she knows what happened three years ago, and I think you should force it out of her.”

“Force it out of her? Beat her up, you mean? Straddle her and choke her and force a confession?” he demanded dryly.

“Don't you see? I think that she's threatened the killer—blackmail, maybe. And now she's scared and unnerved, and she's stirring up a commotion among the game players, keeping herself visible and safe, rather than admitting that she's blackmailing someone.”

“What makes you so certain Susan knows the truth?”

Anna Lee shook her head. “I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws.”

“We still don't even
know
that there was a killer. And lots of people here were keeping secrets when Cassie died. Hell, probably everyone here was keeping a secret.” He hesitated. “Cassie was sleeping with—”

“Speaking of sleeping with,” she interrupted quickly, “you could easily seduce Susan and get the truth out of her that way.”

“What?”

“You know she has the hots for you,” Anna Lee stated.

“Out!” Jon said explosively.

“Jon…”

“Out! And you be careful, do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she said sullenly.

“No tricks on your part to stir up the kettle,” he warned.

She turned to leave, then turned back. “I do love you,” she said very softly.

He nodded. “I love you, too.”

 

V.J. opened the door to her room and looked carefully down the hallway. No one was about.

With no electricity, the hall seemed a frightening place. Shadows danced on the walls. Outside, the sound of the wind had become a low keening. It seemed as if the whole place had come alive, that the very walls breathed.

She gave herself a shake.

She left her room, a heavy flashlight clutched tightly in her hands. She didn't need to turn it on; kerosene lamps hung from ancient fixtures along the way, casting their eerie, flickering glow.

She moved quietly, step by step down the cavernous corridor.

She came to Susan's room and opened the door.

She heard the sound of the shower.

And before the closed bathroom door, Tom, tall and handsome, paced.

He didn't hear V.J. at first. When he did, he looked up at her.

She saw that he was carrying a pocket knife, flicking the blade open, then closed.

Open, then closed. Open….

It was a wicked blade. Surprisingly long. It looked as if it were sharply honed.

V.J. stared at Tom. He went still and stared at her.

He took a step toward her.

Reached for her.

“What are you trying to do?” she whispered desperately. “No!”

The water in the shower continued to run.

 

Sabrina returned to Brett's room, bringing his food, finding that she was ravenous herself. It was a very late lunch; it was almost three o'clock. Brett ate with a hearty appetite, and she was glad to realize that his bump on the head seemed not too serious. He was in good spirits, happy to have her waiting on him.

She was curious, though, about Susan, and about whatever Jon might have discovered in the chamber of horrors. She had thought he might come back to Brett's room with a report.

He didn't. Telling Brett that she'd be right back, Sabrina went to Susan's room and knocked on the door.

No answer.

As she stood there, she thought she saw a figure in the shadows near the bend of the hallway.

The bend toward the master chambers, Jon's private domain.

She hesitated, then began moving along the corridor, close to the wall, watching.

As she did so, a figure moved toward Jon's door, hesitated, then rapped. His door opened; the woman slipped in.

Sabrina held her breath, staying flattened against the wall. A few minutes later, the woman came out.

The figure was slim, graceful, wraithlike in the shadows. She moved in a supple flow of black, coming along the hallway, her head down. If she had looked up, she would have seen Sabrina, despite the shadows.

But she didn't look up. She passed within three feet of her.

It was Dianne Dorsey. Dressed in a long, black, flowing caftan, she seemed a haunt in the eerie light and shadows of the hallway.

A haunt very deep in thought.

“I do love you!” she whispered softly, and, suddenly stopping, she looked back at Jon's door. “I do love you.”