Chapter 12
I throw the ax into some bushes and hope the rain will wash the blood off my clothes. It works somewhat, at least until the rain stops about half an hour later.
We trudge along the road until dawn, when a farmer pulls his truck up alongside us and offers us a ride.
We’re both beyond exhausted, not to mention hungry, but there’s no chance of a hotel out here.
Evans left his bag behind in the Fosters’ house, along with our coats and hats, so neither of us have anything beyond the clothes we’re wearing and whatever is in our pockets.
The farmer drops us not far from the train depot for Hart’s Leap. “At least we can take the train when we leave,” Evans says glumly.
I wince. “I’m sorry about your car, Mr. Evans.”
“Adrian, please.”
“Call me Sterling.”
One corner of his mouth quirks into a wry smile. “It’s funny. You’re a thief and involved in some very unpleasant dealings, possibly including murder. I spent months tracking you. Yet now I want to trust you.”
“You must have gotten a head injury in the crash.”
He laughs, then puts a hand to his chest. “Ouch. My ribs got bruised, that’s for sure. And throwing Mrs. Foster didn’t help any.”
“I didn’t realize you knew jiu-jitsu.”
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.” He winks.
I look away, feeling the heat rise to my face. “And what the hell was all of that, back at the farmhouse? The blood—and they tried to kill us!”
“We’ll call the police as soon as we can reach a telephone.
Hopefully the one in Hart’s Leap still has service.
As for the rest…” He shakes his head. “There have been reports over the last eight or nine months about tainted bootleg sending people to the asylums, unable to do anything beyond the basics of caring for themselves. But to see it…it’s different than I imagined, somehow.
The blankness on Barney’s face, even as he was swinging the ax… ”
I shudder at the memory. “Still, we were lucky. I doubt he would have shied away from an umbrella as though it were a knife if he had all his faculties.”
“True.”
My exhaustion lends me a sort of emotional numbness, at least for the moment. I’ve lost my memory, unknown people are out to kill me, and we tried to take refuge with a family of cannibals. At least the farmer with the truck hadn’t driven us all off the nearest cliff.
We follow the train tracks to the depot, then step out onto the lonely road through the marsh I walked down yesterday. A year and four months ago.
It’s deeply unsettling to see how changed things are, when my brain is certain I was just here. The season is different, of course, the spring green matured through summer and into the dry yellow of fall. For the second time since I last saw it, apparently.
At least the track isn’t overgrown; someone must still come this way regularly enough to keep down the weeds.
Which doesn’t seem right. “I thought you said the house was abandoned?”
Evans—Adrian—looks grim. “It’s supposed to be.”
Along the way, we pass by heaps of broken driftwood. It takes me a while to realize they’re all that remains of the strange statues. “The lunatic wandering the marsh—I think I met him.”
“You did?”
“On the way here, the first time. He seemed odd. Asked if I was a sorcerer.” The strange weather phenomenon of the night before presses forward in my mind, but I push it away. “I think he built the sculptures—I’m sure you noticed them yourself?”
“Hard not to.” He shivers, and I don’t think it’s from the damp clothes we’re both wearing. “I wonder who knocked them all down?”
“The police, when they came to take him to Danvers?” I shake my head. “Why do asylums keep coming up? Do you think he drank the tainted bootleg?”
“Possibly.” Adrian quickens his pace. “Let’s get out of this marsh. So much nature gives me the creeps.”
Thankfully, nothing disturbs our trek to Hart’s Leap. The mansion crouches on its little hill overlooking the marsh, even more disheveled than it was before. The corral is empty of horses, the Model T truck gone, though the wagon remains.
The place certainly looks abandoned. When we reach the front door, however, Adrian rings the bell.
“Just in case,” he says at my look. “I don’t want to get shot for trespassing if it turns out someone’s home after all.”
Unsurprisingly, no one answers. “How are we to get inside?” I ask.
Adrian flashes me a grin. “I wouldn’t be much of an investigator if I couldn’t jimmy a window.”
“Is breaking and entering an ordinary part of insurance investigation?”
“To be fair, most of what I do is perfectly above board.” He steps back and eyes the windows before walking over to one. “However, it sometimes helps to get proof of fraud or theft—not anything that could stand up in court, necessarily, but enough to apply pressure.”
He slips a thin piece of metal between the sides of the window, and a moment later swings it open. “There. Easy.”
The window, meant to catch the breeze from the ocean, is large enough for us to both slip through without issue. The interior is as I recalled: stuffy and covered in dust. The biggest change is the drop cloths thrown over the furniture.
As soon as we’re inside, Adrian makes for the telephone sitting on the hall table.
He lifts the handset and clicks the switch a few times before hanging back up.
“No signal, damn it.” With a sigh, he turns toward the stairs.
“What do you want to do first? Search the uppermost floor, look in the hidden room in the library, or see if there’s anything in the basement? ”
“Library,” I decide. “It’s the last place I remember being before waking up in Widdershins.”
We take the stairs to the second-floor library, and I pause a moment to peer up the grand stairwell, trying to discern what might be on the top floor. Bedrooms and other private spaces meant only for the inhabitants, I assume.
I don’t see anything but stairs and a chandelier hanging high above, so I start down the corridor toward the library. Drop cloths cover the paintings lining the wall, and the sound of one of them being pulled down brings me to a halt.
Adrian has thrown aside the cloth and is examining the first painting with a critical eye. “Looking for stolen artworks?” I guess.
“Exactly.”
“But surely Hart wouldn’t have just hung it in the hall. Myers led me right past all of these—what if I’d recognized it?”
He snorts. “You’d be surprised at how careless people can be. Hubris has been the downfall of many a thief. When a man is convinced he’s smarter than everyone else, he’s inclined to make fundamental mistakes. Or is an easy mark when it comes to forgeries and the like.”
“Do you find many forgeries?” I ask as he moves on to the next painting.
“Not my area of expertise. The company has appraisers who take a close look before any policies are issued. My cousin is one of them—she’s the one who got me the job with Grayson and Bell when I got home from the war.
My role comes after a claim is filed, if the bosses think something suspicious might be going on. ”
We continue down the corridor, Adrian uncovering the paintings as we go. Soon a cloud of dust fills the air, shaken free from the drop cloths. “Here’s the door to the library,” I say when we reach it.
“Just let me take a look at these last two.” He gestures at the covered paintings further down the corridor.
“Might as well be thorough,” I agree, glancing at the library door with more than a little trepidation.
The last time I’d walked through it, my biggest concern had been whether or not I could find anything valuable enough on the shelves to justify my visit.
I’d imagined I was going home, that night if I was lucky and first thing in the morning if I wasn’t.
It just happened yesterday, my mind insists. Yet somehow I feel as if that Sterling was almost a stranger, as if a vast gulf of experience separates me from him.
“Holy shit,” Adrian blurts.
I snap out of my reverie and hurry over to him. The drop cloth from the final painting hangs limply from his hand as he stares up at it. When I reach his side, he says, “This is it. The Wheel of Aion.”