Part 25 (1/2)

Where? She wondered. Where do I look? Where do I even start?

Then she heard a faint scratching sound from behind her, and instinctively whirled around, only to see Cooper, his head c.o.c.ked, standing at the foot of the stairs, looking at her. Sighing, she turned back to the filing cabinets.

And something had changed.

But this time she knew right away what it was: one of the drawers-the bottom one in the cabinet farthest to the left-was open.

Not by much-just a crack-but she was certain that a moment ago, before she'd turned around, it had been closed.

Behind her, Cooper growled softly.

Bettina reached out, her fingers trembling, and pulled the drawer open.

At first it seemed empty, but then, when she pulled the drawer all the way open, she saw them. Tucked away behind the metal slider designed to keep the files in front of it neatly upright, were a batch of large envelopes, perhaps thirty in all.

Bettina carefully lifted the first one out, opened it and slid the pages out, s.h.i.+ning the flashlight onto the top sheet. The patient's name had been Tarbell: William G. Tarbell. All that was on that first sheet was a sort of time line, listing the date of admission and the various wards to which Tarbell had been a.s.signed. The man had seemingly been well enough to act as a groundskeeper at Shutters during the last four months the time line included. Bettina carefully turned the pages, scanning the handwritten notes as quickly as she could. Over the course of a decade, Tarbell had apparently married three young women and fathered five children; only the last wife and one of the children survived. Tarbell, according to the notes, had eaten eaten all the others. all the others.

Bettina was almost certain she remembered a similar story in the ancient ma.n.u.script. Taking all the envelopes from the drawer, and with Cooper at her heels, she went back upstairs to the light and warmth of the kitchen. She turned off the bas.e.m.e.nt lights, locked the door, and carefully laid all the envelopes on the big wooden kitchen table. She went to the studio then, retrieved the ma.n.u.script, and returned with it to the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later she had correlated most of the stories in the ma.n.u.script to the files, and discovered that they had three things in common.

Each of the inmates had been in service here at the house; some as cooks, others as gardeners or housekeepers or stable hands.

Each had committed truly horrendous acts of violence and shown absolutely no remorse.

And finally, not one of them had a date of death listed in their records, let alone a date of release.

Not that anyone committed to Shutters Lake in its early days was ever released, and in only a very few cases had relatives claimed bodies when someone died. But most of Shutters' inmates never left at all; when they died, they were buried in the property's own cemetery, their names, dates of interments, and the location of their graves carefully recorded in a large ledger that was still in her grandfather's study. ”Just in case,” he said when he showed her the ledger so many years ago. ”If someone came looking for a relative, my grandfather always wanted to be able to show them where the grave was, and he told me to keep the book handy, just in case any of their descendants showed up.”

Bettina got up, went to the study, and found the ledger.

Not one of the people whose case histories had been tucked in the back of an otherwise empty file drawer were listed in the cemetery register.

But if they weren't buried in the cemetery- The memory of Sarah Crane's first drawing rose in Bettina's mind, and suddenly she knew where those people were.

The bas.e.m.e.nt.

All of them were in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Chapter Twenty-two.

Bettina was just about to take off her robe and crawl back into bed, which was already occupied by both dogs and all three cats, when Rocky stood up, stiffening as he went on point with his nose directed at the window. ”What is it?” Bettina asked as she untied the belt. But the sweep of a pair of headlights across the ceiling answered her question even before Rocky-and then Cooper-began barking.

Someone had come up the driveway and was now stopping in front of the house.

Cooper's ears perked up and he stared at the bedroom door, waiting for the doorbell.

Bettina looked at the clock. Ten-thirty. Who would come at this time of night?

The voice on the phone.

The doorbell rang, the dogs began to bark, and Bettina opened the bedroom door to let them dash downstairs. She followed, more slowly, coming to a stop at the bottom of the stairs as an echo of last night's phone call rose out of her memory.

... I'll kill you ...

What was she thinking? It wasn't time to open the door-it was time for an alarm system!

Except that anyone who wanted to kill her wouldn't ring the doorbell first.

Would they?

The bell rang again, but instead of going to the front door, she de-toured into the study and picked up a heavy poker from the hearth. With it clutched tightly in her right hand, she finally approached the door, turned on the porch light, opened the small Judas door and peered out.

Lily Dunnigan stood on the porch, her face pale and her eyes darting nervously as she searched for anyone who might be hidden in the velvet darkness of the night.

Bettina dropped the poker into the umbrella stand, unlatched the dead bolts, and opened the door. ”Lily?”

”Thank G.o.d you're here,” Lily said as she slipped into the house and Bettina closed the door behind her. Then she noticed Bettina's bathrobe. ”Did I get you out of bed?”

”Not even close,” Bettina said. ”I hadn't gotten my robe off yet.” Then she saw the redness in Lily's eyes, and her tone turned serious. ”Lily, what is it? What's happened?”

The dogs, apparently satisfied that whoever this was didn't mean their mistress any harm, sniffed eagerly around Lily's feet, and she reached down to give them each a scratch before blowing her nose on a well-used handkerchief. ”It's Nick,” she finally managed to say. ”And Shep.”

”Come into the kitchen,” Bettina said. ”I'll put on a fresh pot of tea.”

Lily unb.u.t.toned her coat and followed her to the kitchen. ”Nick doesn't seem to be getting any better, and I'm-” She hesitated, and Bettina knew that whatever was coming next was something Lily wished she didn't have to say. After taking a deep breath, Lily went on. ”Shep says that if Nick doesn't start getting better, he's going to send him back to the hospital.”

Bettina frowned as she filled the teakettle. Though Nick wasn't in any of her cla.s.ses this year, she'd seen him around the school, and he'd seemed all right, at least until he was jumped in the park. ”Is he worse since he was beaten up?” she asked.

”It seems to come and go. We thought the new drug was working for his hallucinations, but now they're getting worse.” Lily hesitated again, then: ”And now he's calling them 'visions.'”

Bettina's frown deepened. ”That doesn't sound good.”

”I'm at my wit's end,” Lily said, finally taking off her coat and dropping onto one of the chairs at the big oak table.

Now Bettina understood why Lily had come here in the dead of night. She put some tea in the pot, and while waiting for the water to boil, leaned against the counter, folded her arms across her chest, and waited on Lily Dunnigan. Whatever Lily wanted, she would have to ask for it.

It didn't take long.

”I-I've heard ...” Lily began hesitantly. ”Well, I've heard that you can do things ...”

She looked so embarra.s.sed that Bettina almost laughed out loud, but Lily also looked so miserable that she almost went over and hugged her. ”Despite what you might have heard,” she said gently, ”I don't cast spells or tell fortunes or anything like that.”

Now Lily looked like she wanted to fall through the floor. ”I-I just wondered if there was anything-anything at all-you could do that might help Nick.”