The Charity (22 page)

She showered and dressed for the evening’s round of interviews in a tan knit turtleneck sweater and a pair of khakis. A growing urge to call off the interviews and begin packing to leave town was pushed back down. She chastised herself for the skittish habits she had developed from so many years of running. As preparations for the night’s interviews continued, she vaguely noted that her headache was gone.

Jessica settled back into the old lumpy easy chair and wrapped her hands around the steaming mug of tea. Pete wound himself in several small circles before thumping down at her feet on a pile of old horse blankets that served as his bed. She looked at her new companion and smiled. In the few days she had him they had become good friends, and she was grateful for his company tonight. The storm that had been threatening all week had finally begun with a vengeance.

She spent the past few days getting the new stable hand established in his job and making sure the horses and the barn were handled to her high standards. Out of the ten or so people that she interviewed, only the one she hired passed her inspection. He was not of the quality she was accustomed to working with, but she knew that her farm had to gain a better reputation before she could be choosy. Right now, she had to focus her efforts on training. It did not take a lot of skill or brains to muck out a stall, so Jessica reluctantly settled on the least objectionable help she could find.

The wind howled through the trees and blasted against the side of the house. The old wooden frame of the building creaked in resistance to another assault. Sheets of rain pelted the side of the house, now filled with an assortment of groans and chatters. Jessica listened to each sound in the night and tried to label it. The wind turned and shifted, bringing the sounds of the barn to her ears. She heard a distant scraping and the nervous whinny of a horse. Storms could really rile animals, especially pregnant ones. Michael and his friend may have been mistaken as to how far along Snugs was with foal, and Jessica wanted to be careful.

She got up from her soft chair and grabbed her raincoat, pulling it on over her sweater and jeans. Pete bounded up beside her, anxious not to be left alone. He wagged his tail with a signal that told Jessica he did not like the storm too much either.

“You stay here and keep the house warm. No need for two of us to get soaked.” She flipped on the floodlights that lit the area between the house and barn from the switch on the main panel she recently had installed by the door. Leaving the lights on in the barn was something she hated, and having to go back out at night to turn them off sent shivers up her spine. She could not recall why she hated that so much. On a night like this, she was glad she had spent the extra money. She steadied herself as the door was forced open by a blast of wind. Wet leaves and cold rain swirled into her kitchen.

Jessica braced herself against the gusts of wind racing up the mountainside as she trudged to the barn. The downside of her farm’s location was its exposure to the elements. People in the valley were tucked away in their homes far away from the tempests that ravaged the hillsides around them. Most probably never suspected the additional magnitude a storm would have on a mountaintop. She learned that lesson the hard way from her time out west. The difference in the weather between a valley and a summit could be that of warm sun versus a heavy squall. The force of the wind made her push her way up the small knoll to the barn.

She found the source of one of the odd sounds she had heard in her living room. The great sliding door swayed and bumped heavily from the force of the gale, working its way open. Irritated, she made a mental note to talk to the hand about securing the latch better. The growing gap in the door allowed the wind to whip around the inside of the barn. The horses grunted anxiously at the lack of protection. The mare stuck her head over her stall door and gave off deep nickers of concern even when Jessica stroked her neck.

“Take it easy, Snugs. We don’t want you to have that foal of yours on a night like tonight, do we?” Jessica let herself into Snugs’ stall to get a better look at her. The animal calmed considerably with her presence. Its breathing became easy and abdominal muscles were relaxed. Jessica determined that labor was going to wait another night. Satisfied that the other occupants of the barn were settled, she made her way back to her house.

She thrust her back up against the kitchen door to force it closed. Shutting the storm outside, she took off her dripping coat and replaced it on the hook. “Well, Pete, I sure am glad I’m in here and not out there.” She looked down at the spot the dog normally occupied by the side of her knee. “Pete?”

A flash of lightening filled the kitchen with its bright white glow, and the house was plunged into darkness. It was instantly followed by a sonic blast of thunder. Jessica felt the rumble in her knees as the storm rolled across the sky. There was the sound of scratching as if leaves were trying to scrape their way through the kitchen door. “Pete?”

Jessica groped her way to the kitchen drawer where she kept the flashlight. Finding it, she turned it on, and its weak yellow light barely reached the floor. “Damn it!” She hit it against the heel of her hand in an effort to beat a brighter light out of it.

More scratching could be heard from another room. Jessica took the nearly worthless beam of light and searched for her dog. A menacing sound of an animal emanated from the corner of the dining room.

“Pete? C’mere buddy! Did you corner another mouse?” The occasional rodent would stray into her house, and Pete would make short work of them, enjoying the mighty hunt as he did so. “C’mon Pete, leave the poor thing alone.”

She entered the room, and wind blew through a window on her right. It surprised her. She thought the windows on that side of the house did not need work and were strong enough not to blow open. It must be a stronger wind than she first thought or the latches needed repair. She pushed the windows shut and tried to assess the condition of the latches, but she needed more light. She used her shoulder to push the windows shut, securing the extra lock as well.

Jessica slowly continued her way across the dining room toward the sounds. Using a shuffling kind of walk to keep from tripping over the many cans of paint, tarp and ladder she kept there from her redecorating efforts, her feet hit an unfamiliar pile of blankets, rocking her off balance. She placed her hands on the floor to break her fall. They slipped in a warm, sticky substance.

“What?” She was bringing one hand up to examine it in the dim light when she touched soft fur. “Pete? What’s going on, buddy?”

The fading shaft of light pointed down at the pile she had tripped over. The dim light showed Pete lying in a pool of dark blood. His neck was nearly completely severed.

A floorboard creaked. Her head whipped back in the direction of the sound. Racing out of the room, she flung herself against the front door. Something was holding it shut against her. She fumbled with the locks and heard another sound coming at her. A flash of lightning ripped across the mountain. Jessica turned in time to see two figures, one in the hall, and one in the dining room. Both were coming at her.

She bolted up the stairs to a small bedroom at the top. As soundlessly as possible, she crawled as far back into its closet as she could manage. During her repair work, she had found a loose panel and discovered it hid a narrow crawl space between the bedroom she entered and the one next to it. She worked the panel free and wiggled her way into the space. Sounds were more muffled in there, but she could still hear the soft creak of the stairs as they protested the weight of the men climbing them.

Her mind frantically raced all of the details of the house through her mind. She knew the next bedroom had a much larger closet and something else. What was it? Why was that room so important? Finally, it came to her. It held a trap door in the ceiling that led to a larger space inside the huge attic. If she could get there, she had a chance.

She listened again to the house, sorting the sounds of the storm outside from conscious thought. The creaks and shifts inside of the house gave away the location of her intruders. Another floorboard groaned at the entrance to the small bedroom. One more grating sound elsewhere told her the intruders had separated and were searching the rooms on both sides of the hall.

She slithered her way down the passage and worked loose the second panel leading to the other bedroom. Soundlessly, she removed the panel and squeezed herself through the opening. Her heart stopped as she heard metal scraping against wood close by. She put her hand down and found a long rusted nail. Grasping it tightly, she crept to the closet door and peeked out of a crack. A near blinding flash of lightning lit an empty room. She made her move.

Springing from the closet, she placed her foot on the windowsill, vaulting further upward. The momentum enabled her to knock aside the heavy ceiling panel of the trap door to the attic, and her fingers clung on to the edge of the opening. The door from the hallway burst open, and a heavyset figure bounded toward her. She swung herself up through the opening and tried to scramble her legs the rest of the way through. Two hands yanked her legs from their task.

Grimacing with the effort to hang on, she tried to kick herself free of the force pulling her down. Skin on her hands shredded with the effort to grip the wooden floor joists. Still fighting, she fell with a gasp onto the hard floor.

A light seared into her vision. “Miss Jessica Wyeth. Why I thought that you’d be most pleased to entertain an ol’ friend or two. Especially now that yer the toast of the town, an’ all.” The voice belonged to the man from Electra’s party.

A second shaft of light hit the side of his head. Jessica could see the small black eyes of the repulsive man staring at her through the eyeholes of a ski mask. Rowdy Howe squinted, eyes narrowing into dark slashes.

“My name is Tess White.” She got up slowly, forcing strength into her words. “I don’t know any Jessica Wyeth.” Her mind raced to absorb every detail. It was too dark to make out shapes in the room. Jessica felt the unworldly cold of the stare coming from the other figure. She glared at the source. “Who are you? What do you want? Take whatever you want. Just leave me alone and get out of here!” A pleading tone crept into her voice, edging her words with its shrill presence.

“I think what we want is right here.” Jessica felt a chill as she detected a soft brogue. “Hold her arms.”

Rowdy moved in back of Jessica, dropped his flashlight and pulled her arms tight behind her. His experienced motion told her he had been on excursions like this before. Jessica sensed she was to be tortured and killed.
Why?

The bright light again searched her face. “Aye. There is no mistake. It looks like we have a murderess back from the dead.” The second masked figure bent down and retrieved something from his leg. The stainless steel blade of the knife flashed as lightning lit up the room. He rolled up his sleeves exposing his pale forearms. Calm. Business-like.

A wave of bile boiled its way to her mouth. She choked as the sharp acid burned her throat. Images of past and present collided in her head. They knew her, but who were they? She recognized Rowdy Howe almost immediately, but the other man she could not place. She heard his voice, his beastly laughter. But she knew he meant her more harm than she could imagine. Who was he?
Who?

She saw something on his arm. What was it?

The blade flashed as it neared her stomach. “Ah, look. Ya’ll made her faint,” Rowdy said holding the slumped figure up by her arms. “Damn! Her being out takes all the fun out of it fer ya, eh?”

Jessica exploded from her curled position by thrusting her feet into the killer’s stomach. With the same motion, Rowdy was pushed back to the window, and she raked the old nail down his arm, ripping free from his hold. He fell backwards trying to protect himself from the pain, and she used the moment to spring into the opened door above her head and to quickly pull her legs to safety. Slamming the heavy panel on the fingers of one of the men, she wedged the panel shut as best as she could. The action was followed by grunt of pain and footsteps running out of the room.

Get out of the house! Get to the barn and to one of the horses. They would not be able to reach her once she was on a horse. She scrambled her way through the crawl space and rolled under the eaves. She stood up in the larger expanse of the attic over the main house. It was pitch black, and she felt along the walls trying to find the little window above the long slant of roof. The sound of pelting rain on glass signaled its location.

The window had not been opened in years. It was painted shut and would not budge. Men shouted, and footsteps pounded in the hallway toward the attic door. She took the bottom edge of her sweater and pulled it up so that a double layer of thick wool encased her shoulder. She rammed her shoulder against the small window, shattering glass and splintering wood. The sound alerted the men, and they closed in on her. Jessica’s blood froze as she heard the inhuman laughter coming up the stairs after her.

Jessica clawed her way out the window and grasped the overhang of roof with her fingertips. A flash of lightning broke into her vision, illuminating a forty-foot drop to the ground under her dangling feet and another section of shiny slate roof over her kitchen to her left. The kitchen roof offered a shorter drop to the ground and was her only option. The slate roof overhang was slick with rain and age and her fingers fought for any hold. Finally feeling the soggy and half-rotted wooden gutter she grabbed the punky wood with two hands and tested it with her weight. The old horizontal lip of the gutter sagged as she shimmied hand over hand spilling gallons of water on her. Clapboards moaned as the gutter pulled away from the house. A rain downspout was ten feet away, and she hoped she could shimmy down it to the lower roof. She took in one last deep breath and swung herself with all of the power she could summon to the downspout.

The lightning was followed by a loud bang of thunder and sharp pops. Her flight was shorter than she needed, and she clawed at the ancient pipe eventually finding a grip. She was able to slither down only a few feet. She looked down and estimated over twenty-five feet to the ground. The roof was still too far away. She heard voices and excited shouting and continued her slow progress. The corroded copper brackets separated from the walls of the house and the roof. Careful! Keep going. She clung desperately to the shifting pipe. A few more feet and she could drop to the kitchen’s roof and run to the barn. C’mon! Just a little more!