Dominance (27 page)

The woman relaxed. Clearly this was a question she was used to being asked. She removed a mittened hand from a pocket. “There,” she said, pointing to a redbrick house on the corner. “His widow still lives there. But . . .”

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“You look like students.”

“We are.”

The woman made a face. “Lydia doesn't care for students.”

“Why not?” asked Alex.

“It's the house. They believe . . . the students think something happened in that house a long time ago.”

Alex waited.

“But you two look sweet. Maybe she'll talk to you if you don't bring him up.”

“Him?”

“The writer. That Paul Fallows. That's why she distrusts students—that's all they want to talk about. They're never interested in her life or how Charlie is doing.”

“Charlie,” Alex said. “You mean her husband?”

“No, of course not. Mr. Rutherford has been dead for years. I'm talking about her son.”

*   *   *

The house was tiny. It was a throwback even on the block, an antique. The brick had faded, the shutters were cracked, and a ragged American flag snapped in the wind. A fence of tall hedges loomed up outside the front door, perhaps to keep the Fallows scholars at a distance. Alex looked at the place and once again felt nothing; no tinge of knowledge, no whine of electricity. For the first time she wondered if this was truly where Aldiss wanted them to be.

“Doesn't look the least bit spooky,” Keller said.

“What'd you expect?” she asked. “A haunted house?”

“Obviously.”

They watched from the curb. Nothing moved inside, no one passed across the wide front window. The house was the very same one Charles Rutherford had died in, the same one Aldiss and his mentor, Benjamin
Locke, had come to when they'd made this same trip. Thinking of Aldiss, she felt the first spark.
He was here.

They approached the front door. Alex stopped and let Keller walk up the steps of the porch between the hedges; she felt that he should be the one to greet the widow. He was better at this sort of thing than she was.

Keller knocked and the two waited, listening. Movement from inside, and then the door dragged open and a woman stood before them. She was at least fifty-five, her face wrinkled and sagging. Yet there was something alive about her, something that suggested a former beauty.

“Mrs. Rutherford?” Keller asked.

“Yes?”

“We're . . . we just wanted to, um . . .”

The woman eyed the boy, leaning against the frame of the door.

“We wanted to . . .”

“What my friend is saying,” Alex said, stepping forward, “is that we wanted to speak to you about your son.”

Something changed in the woman's eyes. “Charlie?”

She and Rutherford had a son, a young boy who was very ill.

“That's right,” Alex went on, so perfect with her lie that she surprised even herself. But she knew these lines, this script—Aldiss had given it to her in an early lecture. “We heard about his illness in an article we read in school and we wanted to see how he was doing. He still lives here with you, doesn't he?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “He has his own room upstairs. Where did you say you were from?”

“Vermont,” Alex said.

“And you've come all this way to . . .”

“We really do think Charlie has an amazing story.”

What are you doing, Alex? This is something Aldiss would do. We shouldn't be—

But Lydia Rutherford was moving out of the way, and Keller was pushing inside the small house. Alex had no choice but to follow.

*   *   *

“My husband died in 1974,” the woman said when they were all in the kitchen. “Charles Jr. was nine. He grew up without a father. His condition
made it that much more difficult. But we made it—somehow we made it.”

“Your husband,” Keller said. “What did he do?”

“A salesman,” Lydia said. “He sold encyclopedias door to door. We think that's what killed him. He exhausted himself. He wanted to work up to the main office one day, get up there with the suits. He just ignored the symptoms. Died right there on the front porch. I never remarried.”

The woman's eyes drifted away.

“Sometimes people like you come here,” she went on.

“Like us?” Keller asked.

“University students. They call themselves
scholars
. They think . . . this is going to sound crazy.”

“Not at all.”

“They think my Charles was a famous writer. That he wrote these novels under a different name. That he was this—what is it called? A ghostwriter. It's all this crazy game to them. But some of them are so adamant. They used to take pictures of our house from the street. There was even a couple who got married on our lawn once. We were going to move—my sister lives in Des Moines. But we never did. Charlie loves it here, and the neighborhood has always been so forgiving of his problems.”

His problems,
Alex thought.
What's wrong with her son? What kept this woman here, alone, all this time?

“He used to be much worse,” Lydia went on. “He used to be so
angry
. Some people in the neighborhood think he still is. But I know the truth. I know how much better Charlie is than before.” The woman paused and Alex studied her.
What happened to her? What is she protecting?
“Charlie's father wanted to institutionalize him. He knew there was something . . . different about our son. And, well, I'm not proud of this, but we sent him to a home.” The woman blanched. “I was weak, and Charles was very firm about these things. Then, when he died . . .” She trailed off. “It was a miracle. Dr. Morrow changed Charlie into the man he is today. He saved my son.”

There was a sound from behind them, the sound like the coo of a small child.

“There's Charlie now,” Lydia Rutherford said softly. “I'll tell him he has company.”

The woman left the kitchen. The two students sat around a small dinner table, neither of them saying a word. In the next room Alex heard muffled talk, the widow's feminine trill, and then a long silence.

“They're going to find out about us,” Alex whispered. “She's going to catch on. It's only a matter of time.”

“You lied to her,” Keller hissed. “You got us into this.”

“I didn't know that she would actually—”

Footsteps approaching. Alex sat up and folded her hands on her lap.

“He's ready to see you now,” came the woman's voice at her back.

They went into the living room. It was semidark, just a small lamp spilling light into the room. A man sat in a recliner, rocking gently, his eyes straight ahead.

“Charlie hates the light,” Lydia Rutherford whispered. “Always has.” Then to her son, in a voice that suggested the man may be hard of hearing: “Charlie, here are your guests. They've come all the way from Vermont. They read about you at their school. About you and Dr. Morrow.” She looked expectant.

The son turned to face them, and Alex drew in a sharp breath.

She was looking at the photograph on the back of the Fallows novels. She had finally found the man in the dark suit.

Richard Aldiss had disappeared, and they were all in danger.

Word spread through the Fisk mansion like a fire. At first there was shock—at hearing Melissa Lee had been the third victim, at the knowledge that Aldiss was on the run and could be on his way to campus. Then realization set in, and Alex felt the others staring at her. Accusing her.
He tricked you, Alex. He deceived you, and you let him.

Black locked them inside the house and put his men outside to watch for any sign of the professor. Alex heard the words “armed and dangerous”; she knew that if Aldiss showed his face at Jasper he would be shot on sight.

How?
she wondered.
How did it come to this?

Keller stayed beside her. The others went off to their own rooms but she didn't move. She couldn't. She had been wrong about everything.

“Say it,” she said.

“What?” Keller asked. He rubbed a hand exhaustedly over his scalp.

“Say what you're thinking, Keller. That I dropped the ball. That I fucked up.”

“You didn't . . .” But there was no use; to go on would only be to patronize her, and Keller knew better than to do that. “This is what he does, Alex. It's what he's always done. These puzzles—he lives for them.”

“But everyone told me, Keller. They tried to warn me.”
And now three people are dead, and I could have stopped him.

He shook his head. “You can't blame yourself, Alex.”

Anger rushed to the surface. How dare he tell her how to feel! Did he think they were in Iowa again? Did he think they were kids, running around trying to find some crazy writer? She looked at him, her jaw working and red throbbing behind her eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You stole it last night. You saw the manuscript on the shelf and when I came back from Aldiss's it was gone. What did you do with it?”

A look of pure confusion. He had no idea what she was talking about.

Don't let him do what Aldiss did, Alex. Don't let him fool you.

“Where is it, Keller?” she asked again, leaning closer.

The look remained, that boyish bewilderment, and then slowly he broke. Piece by piece his face returned to the one she knew.

“In my room,” he said. “I'll let you see it.”

“Then let's go.”

“Not now. There are too many people around. Later.”

She looked at him. “Is it real, Keller?”

At first he simply looked at her. Then he nodded.

“The only unpublished Fallows,” he said. “Come by at ten o'clock and we'll look at it together.”

Then he left the room and she was alone with her guilt.

*   *   *

Just before nightfall, with the reporters down on the quad dwindling or retreating to better shelter on the west campus, Alex drifted off. A swatch of a dream: she felt herself walking, following the footsteps of a man down a corridor. The man was Richard Aldiss. She did not know how she knew this, because she could not see his face.

Where are we going, Professor?
she asked.

You'll see,
said the man.
Do you trust me?

In the dream she didn't hesitate:
Yes, Professor. I trust you.

And Alex followed him, realizing that he was a much younger version
of himself. His hair was fuller, darker. And he wore the suit she had seen him in years ago, the suit he had worn during his trial.

“Dr. Shipley,” someone called. “Dr. Shipley, wake up.”

She did. She sat bolt upright and focused on the face of Detective Black.

“It's me,” he said. “Relax.”

“Is he . . .”

“No,” Black said. “Aldiss is still missing. You need to get back to your room.”

“But—”

“No,” he cut her off firmly. “No objections, Alex. If Richard Aldiss is still out there, then we need everyone in the house protected. This man is incredibly dangerous.”

She wanted to protest, but there was nothing to say. Black was right.

She stood up and walked out of the room. His voice came up behind her.

“There will be more questions if Aldiss is found. When he is found. You must understand that if you hear anything from him, anything at all, then we will get it first. If you are protecting him or lying for him in any way—”

“I'm not.”

“—then you will be buried along with him. Did you hear me?”

She swallowed. “I understand.”

“Good. All-night surveillance tonight. If Aldiss comes anywhere near this campus, we will have him. And my men have been told to shoot to kill.”

Alex said nothing. The dream stung her eyes:
Do you trust me?

“And Dr. Shipley?”

She turned, waiting.

“What you discovered in Iowa?”

“Yes, Detective?”

“You need to think long and hard about it now, because it looks like Richard Aldiss may have been playing his game for a very long time.”

“I got the idea from Lydia Rutherford,” Keller explained.

They were in a lonely Main Street diner, a few suspicious regulars bellied up to the bar, waxing poetic about the cold. A waitress whisked by and refilled their drinks, hovered there for a moment. “Studying on a Friday night?” she asked.

Alex looked up at the woman. Said, “If we don't finish this lesson, then a man in prison for murder is going to be really disappointed with us.”

The waitress shook her head disapprovingly. Then she was gone and Alex turned back to Keller.

They had come from Lydia Rutherford's to the diner, hunger having been temporarily eclipsed by the shocking image of a Charlie Rutherford who was identical to the photo Keller had received. Someone had been pointing them toward Charlie even then. “It's him, Alex,” Keller had said breathlessly as she drove them away from the house. “Holyfuckingcrap it's him.”

Now they ate burnt cheeseburgers and sucked at chocolate milkshakes, and Keller reached into his pack and removed a book. It was Fallows's
The Golden Silence.
As Alex finished off her burger, he went through the pages, making tick marks in the margins.

“It was something she said back there,” he said. “Something about Charlie.”

Then he was flipping through the text.
The Golden Silence
was the second of Fallows's novels, the book that had really begun the search. He gestured for Alex and she scooted into the booth with him. It had been hours since she'd been this close to him, and she wanted to stop, slow the scene down so she could just be with him. Alone, relaxed. But there was no time—in less than two days they would be on their way back to Vermont, and what they'd found in that house had changed everything. The two leaned over the book, looking down into the page as if it were a well.