Chapter 65 #3
‘We were young and we were partying, I was still taking coke and too much booze, and Teresa, she was pretty wild too. She fell, Vanessa. She was dancing on the kitchen counter in the Hamptons house and she slipped, and she fell on her head. There was so much blood. I was out of my mind on drugs, and Teresa, she . . . she was dead. She’d broken her neck.
She was gone. There was nothing I could do.
I called my dad, and he told me not to call the paramedics or the police, that I should just change my clothes and get out of the house.
He said he would take care of it, that this could ruin us.
‘Molly, she . . . she was Teresa’s half-sister.
The one they could never find, Willow Chase.
She had come after me. I only read the first few pages of her journal, but it was clear what she had in mind.
My dad said that he would have to take care of Willow, that we were in too far now.
That I shouldn’t worry, that he would do it.
I swear I didn’t know he was going to kill her.
I thought he was just going to pay her off.
I can’t live with this any more. I swear to you, Vanessa, I’m telling you the truth.
He’s a very dangerous man, and he could kill me too, if I tried to tell anyone.
He’d kill you too if he found out that I’d told you any of this.
I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared, and I’m so sorry. ’
Vanessa said, ‘Patrick, I believe you, but we have to stop him now. He’s framed me for Molly’s murder.
He covered up that poor girl’s death in the Hamptons and you’ve been carrying that guilt ever since.
Together, we have to make sure he can never harm anyone else ever again.
He’s tortured you for your whole life. He wants you to be like him.
But you’re not, Patrick. You’re not your father.
There’s still time to stop him. To put an end to this once and for all before it’s too late for you and me . . .’
Now, standing in the second-floor living area, the pipes wailed as the water in the system ran out.
Vanessa handed Patrick the bathroom door key.
He took it, gave her the divorce agreement and his pen.
‘Leave,’ he said.
‘No, I have to make sure you go through with it. Do it. Do it for yourself.’
He nodded, and together they walked to the locked bathroom door.
‘What the fuck happened to the water?’ said Julian, his voice muffled behind the thick mahogany door.
Vanessa slipped off both of her open-toed high-heel shoes.
She tossed one, the other she placed on the floor, with the open toe pointed at the tiny gap between the door and the carpet.
Vanessa took her perfume bottle, sprayed the door, then took off the atomizer and poured the contents of the rest of the bottle onto the insole of the shoe.
The liquid slipped down the leather, cascading at a rapid pace through the open-toe gap, and underneath the bathroom door.
It wasn’t perfume – it was ether, taken from a can of engine-starting fluid, and it would burn like nothing else on this earth.
‘What is this? What the hell is wrong with this plumbing? It’s all over my shoes.’
The door handle suddenly turned so fast that it frightened Vanessa, and she stood up and backed away from the door, now barefoot.
‘What the . . . Get me out of here . . .’
‘Do it,’ said Vanessa. ‘Do it for yourself. Do it for your mother. He made her suffer just like you suffered.’
Patrick picked up the ship’s lamp from the table, the wick red hot. She could smell the kerosene from a few feet away.
‘Dad, I’m not weak. Not any more. This is for Mom, and Molly,’ said Patrick, and he threw the lamp at the door.
The flames burst into life instantly, the floor and the oak door roaring into flame.
The screams came next, his father burning like that wick.
Burning like the devil he was.
Patrick and Vanessa moved fast. He leaned over the balcony, shouted down to the security guards on the stairs below.
‘Fire! Get everyone out now!’
‘Where’s your father?’ called the security guard, as he turned and started to run up the staircase.
‘He must be outside already. I think he took the back stairs. Get everyone out, now!’
The guard hesitated, uncertain what to do.
The fire alarm on the second floor blared, deafening everyone. People in the crowd below started shouting, women screaming.
‘Get them out!’ cried Patrick.
The guard turned on his heel, leapt the last two stairs to the hallway and began to holler at everyone to get out of the house.
Vanessa grabbed Patrick’s arm, and they made for the back staircase, but she couldn’t resist a glance back toward the bathroom.
The door was ablaze, and the ceiling now too. The fire was spreading rapidly, fueled by the oil from the lamp.
Together, they ran down the staircase, and out into the cool night air.
Vanessa reached for Patrick’s hand and took the key from him.
He let her, there was no resistance. She locked her fingers in his, and then they ran to the back of the house, across the grass and Vanessa’s toes soon bit into cold, gray sand.
She let go of Patrick and ran to the water’s edge, the vast horizon dark and ominous.
She hurled the key into the churning water.
Then turned to look back at the Hamptons house.
A red blaze of fire had eaten through the roof and was sending black smoke into the night.