The Warlock's Curse (38 page)

“You did,” Jenny said. Her lip trembled as she said it.

He took a step closer to her. “Why would you worry about me? We’ve both got our own plans. Just business, right?”

“Sure,” she said uncertainly. “But we’re friends too, right?”

“I don’t know,” Will said. “Friends usually tell each other things and trust each other. You don’t seem to trust me at all.”

Hurt softened Jenny’s features. “I trust you, William. But you have to trust me. I promise you, I have it under control.”

“Sure you do,” Will said. “You always have everything under control.”

Will realized that they were now very close to each other. He could feel Jenny trembling. He could smell her skin. Without thought, he touched her flushed cheek, cradling it in his palm. Her soft brown curls brushed his fingertips.

“I don’t always have everything under control,” she murmured. She leaned her cheek into his hand and closed her eyes.

Drawing her toward him, he kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft. He kissed her and he didn’t want to stop.

But being so close to her made him dizzy, and not in a pleasant way. The voice in his head was suddenly back, and it was ... laughing. Laughing, cackling and cruel. His heart raced and he pushed her away, alarmed.

“Oh, shucks,” she said, stumbling back. Her face was suddenly beet red. “I ... I guess I’m not a very good kisser. I’m sorry.”

“You’re a fine kisser,” Will said curtly, not trusting himself to look at her, not wanting to risk the return of the laughter. “I’m just not feeling like myself right now, Jenny.”

She cast her eyes down. “You’re tired,” she said. “I worked you too hard. But it’s all over now.”

“Yes, Jenny,” Will said. “It’s all over now.”

Chapter Fifteen

Seven Stones Unturned

T
HREE DAYS UNTIL THE FULL MOON

A
nd even though it was all over, and the only thing Jenny had to do was finish preparing the filing papers so they could be sent to the patent office in Washington D.C., and Will could sleep as much as he liked, catching up on the rest he so desperately craved and knew that he so desperately needed, he found that sleep was even more a stranger than it had been before. All the rest of that week, Will suffered from terrible dreams, each night’s horrors more terrible than the last. He would wake gasping, the light of the waxing moon casting terrible shadows across his sweat-tangled bedclothes.

His dreams always had blood in them.

One night he dreamed of killing a man, stabbing him in the chest with a kitchen knife. There was a lot of blood that came out when you stabbed a man in the chest. There was also a child in that dream, a little girl. And for some reason he hated her. The violet-eyed little brat was hiding from him. He kept calling to her, trying to find her, telling her that he would kill her, but of course he would not. He needed her. He could not live if she did not grow up someday, have little violet-eyed brats of her own. But he liked making her afraid. And she knew something. She knew something that he wanted to know, and she wouldn’t tell him what it was.

He had many other dreams like this, but in each dream, he was always a different person. In each dream, people looked at him with fear in their eyes. For some reason, they never knew who he was. They always expected him to be someone else. Someone they trusted. And he did not know why, in those dreams, he found it so deliciously sweet to disappoint them, to betray them, to hurt them.

He didn’t tell Jenny about these dreams. He didn’t talk to her at all, just went to work every morning and closed himself in his room when he got home at night. Sometimes he heard her outside his door, lingering as if she wanted to knock. But he did not want to talk to her.
Couldn’t
talk to her. He couldn’t get the thought of kissing her out of his mind. Or rather, he couldn’t get the thought of what he’d wanted to do
after
kissing her out of his mind. Those thoughts were as bad as the nightmares. Worse. Sometimes he thought it was better to sleep and have nightmares than think about Jenny.

Ben still wrote to him every night, his letters short and friendly. There were no more terrible revelations—it was as if his brother knew that Will could not stand any more of them. And Ben was coming to Detroit. He was coming to Detroit on December 16th, and Will was to meet him at the Michigan Central Depot. It would all come out all right.

Will wrapped that thought around himself. It was insufficient armor, but it was something.

Ben was coming.

It would all come out all right.

On Thursday night, he woke from the worst nightmare he’d yet had. In it, he had been screaming a word, just one word—
maledictus.
His hands were covered in the blood of a woman he loved, and a man was putting a sword to his throat.

Will felt that he was still screaming when he woke, but as he sat in his bed, panting and trembling, he realized that the apartment was still and silent and he hadn’t made a sound. It was very bright outside, the light of the almost-f moon multiplied by the harsh light of the moonlight towers.

I’m sick.
It was the only explanation. He thought about the way the Exunge had slithered and burrowed under Selvaggi’s skin. What was wrong with him? Why was he hearing voices in his head? He would ask Ben. Ben would know.

Climbing out of bed, he moved quietly across the room and into the hall. Ben would know why he was hearing voices. Ben would know what was wrong with him. As he walked past the door to Jenny’s bedroom, he saw that it was half open.

He slowly pushed it open, careful not to make a sound.

She was very beautiful when she slept.

B
EAUTIFUL AND HELPLESS AND AT YOUR MERCY.

He cradled his head. The voice again, the goddamn voice. He forced himself to look away and in doing so, saw something else. Jenny’s calfskin grip. Seizing it, he fled from the room as if in a fever.

He carried the grip to the breakfast nook and sat down. It was secured with a small lock, but he didn’t care about that. Using the sharp point of a kitchen knife, he jimmied it open, ruining it.

He pulled out the papers and spread them on the table. There were sheaves and sheaves of notes on his patent, drafts of the filing marked up with comments and corrections in a fine lawyerly script. Will frowned. It had to be Atherton Hart’s writing. At least there was nothing incriminating there, no little love notes, no hearts or flowers or rhyming couplets. Even so, it didn’t make Will feel much better.

Setting these aside, he got down to some more interesting documents. Investment records. When Jenny had said she had deposited the gold certificates, he’d thought she’d meant in a bank. But instead, the receipts were from Hart Financial, and they indicated that all of the money had been invested in a bewildering tangle of short-term options on the Detroit Stock Exchange. Will had no idea what any of it meant, but most of the investment orders were accompanied by more notes, this time in Jenny’s fine strong hand—intricate calculations and equations, with notations about hedge parameters, velocity and put-call parities. Will remembered how Jenny hadcorrected the equation on the board when they’d come to Detroit. Her little hand sliding across the slate, rubbing out the chalk. Will was good at mathematics, but these equations defied his understanding; he set these aside as well.

He recognized the paper that sat on top of the next bundle. It was the telegram the landlady had given him, removed from its envelope and folded smooth.

Received your message. Hart has been informed of your arrival. Waste no time. Hetty.

The letters bundled with this telegram were from a Brooklyn address, scribbled on cheap pieces of scrap paper. They were all signed Hetty Green.

Will sat back in his seat, stunned. Even he knew who Hetty Green was. She was the richest woman in America, a cutthroat financier in New York City and a famous miser. Will scanned the letters. They were all notes of friendly encouragement from an old, wise woman to a young, ambitious one. He didn’t have Jenny’s letters, but he could tell from Mrs. Green’s replies that she must have written about investing. One sentence caught Will’s eye:

If you are looking to parlay a hundred thousand dollars into a million in the space of a few weeks, I am afraid I cannot offer you any words of advice. I have always been content with six percent interest, steady over time. That is all a Christian woman should expect.

Will stared at the paper. A million dollars? What could Jenny be trying to do that required a million dollars? Briar’s words came back to him.

Money makes people do terrible things.

He sorted through the papers more quickly now, anxiety rising. He was looking particularly for anything about the Consortium that Jenny had spoken of, the organization that she had used to scare Dr. Smyth. But there was nothing in any of the papers, nothing at all.

What he did find, at the very bottom of the pile, was their marriage license. And with it, the envelope that he had glimpsed in her purse when they were in San Francisco. It had the logo of the Hansen Timber Company in the top left-hand corner. He unfolded it and read the contents:

Dear Mr. Sawtelle:

I am pleased to inform you that my daughter, Jennifer Elaine Hansen, has married Mr. William Edwards. I have known Mrs. Emily Edwards since childhood, and I consider her my oldest and dearest friend. I am overjoyed that my daughter has chosen to marry her youngest son, and I wish to give the newlyweds every comfort and luxury as they begin their new life together. To this end, I direct you to immediately disburse to her $100,000, the entire balance of the emergency fund of cash you hold on my account.

My apologies for not being able to arrange this with you personally, but matters of immediate concern require my presence away from San Francisco over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I remain respectfully yours,

Mr. Dagmar Hansen, President
Hansen Timber Company

Will stared at the signature on the letter. It was a reasonable facsimile of Mr. Hansen’s signature. But he knew it had to be just that.
A facsimile.

A fake.

That’s why Jenny had been so panicked in San Francisco.

She hadn’t gotten the money from an inheritance or a trust. She’d
stolen
it. She’d embezzled it from her father. The marriage license had been a pretense, but not of the kind she’d said.

“What are you doing?” Jenny’s voice came from behind him. She was dressed in a long white nightgown trimmed with soft lace. Her hair streamed around her shoulders. She stared at him.

He did not speak, only held up the letter. It took her a moment to realize what he was holding, but then she saw the calfskin grip at Will’s feet. First she reddened, then she went deadly pale. Flying across the room, she snatched it out of his hand furiously.

“How dare you go through my papers!”

“How dare
you
mix me up in this swindle!” Will jumped to his feet, fury flaring in response.

“You were happy enough to be mixed up in it when it meant you could get to Detroit!” Jenny snapped. “And it’s
not
a swindle. I do have an inheritance waiting for me, and that $100,000 is only a patch on it. But not even the crookedest lawyer on earth could have gotten that for us—it’s sewn up tighter than a drum. So I had to ... borrow it another way.”

“Borrow it! Jenny, you
stole
it!”

“I
borrowed
it!” Jenny stomped her foot. “I am going to pay him back every penny, with handsome interest!”

“Is that what all this is?” Will gestured to the financial papers on the table. “All of these investments?”

“I am going to make a million dollars,” Jenny hissed. “I
have
to, and this is the only way I can do it.”