The Blackstone Chronicles

Chapter 3

“Mother, for Heaven’s sake, look outside!” Celeste Hartwick said as she came into the breakfast room the next morning and poured herself a cup of coffee from the big silver carafe on the table. “It’s fabulous!”
But even with her daughter’s urging, Madeline barely glanced at the sparkling snowscape that lay beyond the French doors. Every twig of every tree and bush was laden with a thick layer of white, and the blanket of snow that covered the lawns and paths was unbroken save for a single set of bird tracks, apparently made by the cardinal that was now perched on a branch of the big chestnut tree just outside the window, providing the only splash of color in the monochromatic scene.
“Okay, Mother,” Celeste said, seating herself in the chair opposite Madeline. “Obviously something’s wrong. What is it?”
Madeline pursed her lips, wondering exactly what to say to Celeste, for the truth was that though something was, indeed, wrong, even she herself had no idea what it was. It had begun last night, when Jules had come up after seeing Andrew out and closing the gate. When he entered their bedroom, he’d barely looked at her, and when she’d spoken to him, asking if something was wrong, he positively glared at her and informed her that if something were wrong, she would know it better than he. Then, before she could say another word, he’d disappeared into his dressing room and not come out for nearly thirty minutes. When he finally appeared in his pajamas, he slid into bed beside her, then turned out the light without so much as a good-night, let alone a kiss. Having picked up very clearly that he was in no mood to communicate with her, she’d decided that rather than make this unexpected situation worse by trying to drag the problem out of him in the middle of the night, she would let it go until morning. She’d managed to sleep—at least sporadically—but every time she awakened, she could feel him lying stiffly next to her. Though she’d known by the rhythm of his breathing that he was as wide awake as she, he’d made no response when she’d spoken to him.
Now she asked her daughter, “Were you still up when your father came in last night?”
Celeste nodded. “But I didn’t see him. I heard him come up, but I was in my room. Did something happen?”
“I don’t know—” Madeline began. “I mean, I think something must have happened, but I haven’t the slightest idea what. It was the most peculiar thing, Celeste. When your father came to bed last night, he was barely speaking to me. He—”
“Do you tell everyone what happens in our bed, Madeline?”
Recoiling from his words as if she’d been slapped, Madeline’s whole body jerked reflexively. Coffee splashed from her cup onto the table. As Celeste quickly blotted the spill with a paper napkin, Madeline shakily set the cup back onto its saucer. “For heaven’s sake, Jules, will you please tell me what’s going on? Did Andrew say something last night that upset you?”
Andrew, Jules thought. His hand, shoved deep in his pocket, closed on the locket, its metal so hot it seemed to burn into his palm. Could it be Andrew? But Andrew was in love with Celeste, not with Madeline. Or was he? It wouldn’t be the first time a young man had fallen in love with a woman old enough to be his mother. “Why do you ask?” he said aloud.
The shock of his words giving way to impatience, Madeline picked her napkin off her lap and began folding it slowly and neatly, pressing each crease flat with the palm of her right hand. It was an unconscious gesture that both Celeste and Jules had long ago learned to recognize as a sign that Madeline was annoyed. Though Celeste threw her father a warning glance, it seemed to have no effect whatsoever.
“I ask,” Madeline said in a perfectly controlled voice that made Celeste brace herself for a breaking storm, “because I do not know what is going on. When I asked you last night if something was wrong, you said I would know better than you. Now you are implying that I am in the habit of discussing our bedroom activities with other people, which is something you are well aware that I would never do. If something is wrong, Jules, please tell me what it is.”
Jules’s eyes flicked suspiciously from his wife to his daughter. How much did Celeste know? Probably everything—didn’t mothers always confide in their daughters? “What’s his name, Madeline?” he finally asked. “Or should I ask Celeste?” He turned to his daughter. “Who is it, Celeste? Is it someone I know?”
Celeste glanced uncertainly from one of her parents to the other. What on earth was going on? Last night, when she’d gone up to bed, everything had been perfect. What could have happened? “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she began. “I don’t—”
“Oh, please, Celeste,” Jules said, his voice carrying a knife edge she’d never heard before. “I’m not a fool, you know. I know all about your mother’s affair.”
Now it was Celeste whose coffee splashed across the table as her cup fell from her hand. “Her what?” she asked. But before Jules could say anything more, she’d turned to her mother. “He thinks you’re having an affair?”
Madeline was on her feet, her eyes glittering with anger. “Tell me what this is all about, Jules,” she demanded. “Where on earth did you get such an idea? Did Andrew say something last night to put such a ridiculous idea into your head?”
“Don’t be stupid, Madeline,” Jules cut in. “Andrew didn’t say anything.” His hand, still in his pocket, squeezed the locket so tightly he felt its filigree digging into his flesh. “He’d be the last person to say anything, wouldn’t he?”
Now Celeste was on her feet too. “Stop it, Daddy. How can you even think such a thing? Andrew and Mother? That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard!”
Jules’s eyes, narrowed to little more than slits, darted back and forth between his wife and his daughter. “You didn’t think I’d find out, did you?” he asked. “But I did find out, didn’t I? And I’m damn well going to find out all the rest of it too.” Leaving Madeline and Celeste staring speechlessly after him, Jules Hartwick turned and strode out of the breakfast room.
“It’s the Devil’s work!”
Martha Ward’s words were uttered with such sharpness that they made Rebecca flinch and instinctively wonder what sin she might have committed this time. But then the wave of guilt receded as she realized the words hadn’t been directed toward her at all. Martha was on the telephone, and this time, at least, it was her cousin Andrea who was the recipient of her aunt’s lecture.
“I warned you,” Martha continued, holding the phone in her left hand as she used her right to gesture to Rebecca to pour her another cup of coffee. “When I first met that man, I recognized him for what he was. Didn’t I say, ‘Andrea, that man has the face of Satan’? Of course I did, whether you want to remember it or not.” She fell silent for a moment, then clucked her tongue in a manner not so much sympathetic as disapproving. “You must go to church, Andrea,” she admonished. “You must go and pray for your immortal soul, and beg for forgiveness. And the next time, perhaps you’ll recognize the Devil when you see him!”
Hanging up the phone, Martha Ward scooped three teaspoonsful of sugar into her coffee, added some cream, then sighed as she sipped at the steaming mixture. “I think this time I truly put the fear of the Devil into that child,” she declared. “But it’s true, Rebecca. The first time I saw Gary Fletcher, I warned Andrea about him. I told her never to bring him to this house again. I am a woman of the Church, and I will not countenance evil in my presence.”
“But how can you recognize Satan, Aunt Martha?” Rebecca asked, an image still fresh in her mind of the dark figure she’d seen in the snowstorm last night.
“You know him when you see him,” Martha stated. “It doesn’t matter what guise he takes on, a person of virtue can always recognize the Devil.”
“But what does he look like?” Rebecca pressed. “How would I know if I’ve seen him?”
Martha Ward set her coffee cup down and regarded her niece suspiciously. There was a lot of her father in Rebecca, and Martha Ward had never approved of the man her sister, Margaret, had married, any more than she did of the man her daughter, Andrea, was living with. Mick Morrison, as far as Martha had been concerned, was evil incarnate. It had always been her firm belief that the accident that killed both him and her sister was nothing short of God’s retribution for Mick Morrison’s sinning ways, and Meg’s countenancing those sins. Rebecca, she assumed, had been spared her life because she was so young, but there was still more of Mick Morrison in her niece than Martha would have preferred. The vigilance required to prevent Rebecca from giving in to the wickedness inherited from her father was just one more of the crosses she’d been called upon to bear. Martha sighed heavily. “Just what are you trying to get at, Rebecca?”
“I saw something last night,” her niece replied. “It was after the Hartwicks’ party.” She described the figure she’d seen emerging from the porte cochere next door. “And he just vanished into the snow,” she finished. “It was almost like he hadn’t been there at all.”
Martha Ward’s face pinched in disapproval of her niece’s recitation. “Perhaps he wasn’t there, Rebecca,” she suggested. “Perhaps you merely invented this mysterious person to justify having been spying on our neighbors. The Hartwicks are good, decent people, and they don’t need you peeping at them in the middle of the night. I suggest you go to the chapel and say three Hail Marys in repentance. And as for the Devil,” she added pointedly as Rebecca hurried to obey her order, “I think you should look very carefully at Oliver Metcalf.”
There, she told herself as Rebecca left the room. I’ve done my duty, and if anything bad happens to her, it’s nobody’s fault but her own.
Jules Hartwick could feel them watching him.
It started the moment he left the house. Even as he walked down the driveway to the sidewalk, he’d known that Martha Ward and Rebecca Morrison were watching. Twice he turned to glare accusingly at them, but both times they were too quick for him, stepping back from their windows before he caught even a glimpse of them.
But they weren’t fooling him—he knew they were there!
Just as he knew the rest of his neighbors on Harvard Street were watching him as he made his way down the hill toward Main. How long had they been watching him? Years, probably. And he knew why.
They were all his enemies.
He understood it all this morning with a clarity he’d never had before.
They knew about the problems at the Bank.
They knew about the affair Madeline was having.
And they were laughing at him, laughing at his humiliation, laughing at the indignity, the dishonor that was about to befall him. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, wouldn’t even let them know he’d finally caught on to them. He held his head high as he turned onto Main Street and walked right past the Red Hen Diner, where half the leading businessmen in Blackstone gathered every morning for coffee.
Their real purpose, of course, was to plot against him, to plan the downfall of not only his bank, but himself as well. And they’d been clever, going so far as to ask him to join their group in order to keep him from guessing its true purpose. But this morning, finally, he understood why some of them were always already there when he arrived, and others always lingered after he left. They were talking about him, whispering to each other behind his back, plotting every detail of his downfall.
But he wouldn’t let it happen.
Now that he knew what they were doing, he could out-maneuver them. He’d always been smarter than the rest of them, and that was another reason they hated him.
Well, they might hate him, but they wouldn’t beat him!
Now, as he stepped through the door of the Bank, he could feel the whole staff watching him, even though they were pretending not to be.
The tellers were behind their windows, ostensibly counting their cash drawers, but he knew they were secretly observing him, following every step he took as he started toward his office at the back of the Bank in the corner next to the vault.
But it wasn’t just the tellers who were watching him. The guards were all following his progress too. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, and he felt a shiver pass through him that didn’t release him from its cold grip until he was inside his office and had closed the door behind him. He leaned against it for a moment, waiting for the tension that had been building inside him from the moment he left the house to ease.
Now, for the first time, he felt his heart pounding.
Had Madeline put something in his coffee this morning?
No, he’d fooled her and hadn’t had any coffee.
Finally moving away from the door, he went to his desk and dropped into the big chair that had been his father’s and grandfather’s before him. He was about to press the button on the intercom and ask Ellen Golding to bring him a cup of coffee, but quickly thought better of it. Whatever was going on at the Bank—and it was clear now that the Federal Reserve audit was only part of a much larger conspiracy—surely they would have recruited Ellen at the very beginning.
Better to get his own coffee before that sneaking bitch could doctor it!
Stepping out of the office, he went to the coffeepot Ellen always kept on the credenza that contained all his files and started to pour himself a cup.
“Why didn’t you call me, Mr. Hartwick?” Ellen asked. “I could have done that for you.”
He’d been right! She would have put something in it. Should he fire her right now? Better not to let them know he was on to them yet. “I’m not totally helpless, Ellen,” he said. “Besides, isn’t asking your secretary to bring you coffee considered grounds for a lawsuit these days?”
Ellen Golding stared at her boss. What on earth was he talking about? She’d been his secretary for nearly ten years, and brought him a cup of coffee every single morning. It was part of her job, for God’s sake! “Are you all right, Mr. Hartwick?”
“Don’t I look all right?” Jules shot back. “Do I look like something’s wrong with me? Well, I can assure you, Miss Golding, that nothing is wrong with me, and nothing is going to be wrong with me, no matter how clever you might think you are.” Taking the cup of coffee with him, he retreated to his office, closing the door behind him once more. Back at his desk, he took a sip of the coffee.
It had a bitter flavor to it that instantly put him on his guard. Had Ellen put something in the pot?
He pushed the cup aside.
Suddenly, the feeling of being watched swept over him again. But how? He was alone in his office.
Wasn’t he?
What if someone was hiding in his private bathroom? Rising abruptly, he moved to the bathroom door, listened for a moment, then pulled the door open.
Empty.
Or was it?
What about the shower?
His heart pounding harder, he crossed the tile floor.
The shower curtain was closed, but he could almost feel the presence behind it.
Who?
In a movement so quick it surprised even himself, he reached out and snatched the curtain aside with so much force that three of its rings tore loose from the plastic fabric.
The stall was empty. Venting his frustration by jerking the rest of the curtain loose, he left it crumpled on the bathroom floor and went back to his office. And the moment he was back inside the paneled room, he knew where the watchers were hiding.
The security cameras!
There were two of them, set up six years ago not because Jules thought them necessary but because the insurance company had offered a reduction in premiums if they were installed. Now, however, he understood the real reason the insurance company had wanted the cameras put in. It wasn’t to protect security at all.
It was so they could spy on him!
He picked up the phone and punched in the extension for his executive vice-president. “I want the security cameras in my office turned off,” he said without so much as a good morning.
“I beg your pardon?” Melissa Holloway asked.
“You heard me!” Jules snapped. “I want the cameras in my office off right now, and taken out completely by lunchtime!” Slamming the phone back onto its cradle, he glowered up at the mechanical eye that stared at him from the corner. Then, unable to bear being watched a moment longer, Jules Hartwick left his desk once more.
Ten seconds later, having failed for the first time in his life to respond to every employee who spoke to him, he was on his way home.
Once again his right hand was buried deep in his pocket, clutching the locket.