clever for her, that they had thought of absolutely everything.
But that wasn't true.
They hadn't thought of the pantry.
Her spirits boosted again. And, she hoped, they hadn't thought of the three cars in the garage, either. They had expected her to lose her senses tonight, to totter over the brink, beyond help, beyond reason. Perhaps it had not occurred to them to bother disabling the cars; who, after all, would expect a madwoman to proceed rationally to the garage, pull up the door, look for the keys on the ledge where they were kept, and be off…?
No one would.
She hoped.
She stepped off the rear patio, then thought better of exposing herself on the open lawn; she recalled how clearly Ben and Penny had stood out against the dark grass when she had been inside watching them. She went back to the wall, and began to circle the house, staying flat against it, crouching to crawl beneath any window that rose up in her path. In a few minutes, she reached the first study window, where warm yellow light spilled out onto the grass, and she felt a curious temptation to peer inside, to spy on her enemies once more.
That would be foolish, she told herself. She might rise up to look inside — and come face-to-face with Penny or Groves, who would be looking out for her…
But the temptation to be one up on them was too great to resist. She edged up to the window and cautiously lifted her head to peek in over the sill.
No one was looking her way.
Ben was standing beside the desk, holding the phone to his ear and talking animatedly. Apparently, he had her dear Uncle William on the line right now.
Penny sat in the swivel chair behind the desk, staring straight ahead at the bookshelves, as if she were mesmerized.
Gwyn realized, watching Penny, that though these people had come frightfully close to driving her out of her mind, and though Ben had nearly killed her, they were not professionals at this sort of thing, as they were on the stage.
The odds were not, she saw, so heavily weighted in favor of the Groves. Indeed, because her life depended on her success in getting away, and because they were not fighting for their lives, the odds actually might favor her.
Smiling for the first time in a long time, she ducked down again, crept under the window, and went on toward the garage.
TWENTY-EIGHT
At ten minutes past midnight, William Barnaby tipped the waiter another dollar for leading him to the proper phone again, then slid into the booth, closed the door, glanced around to make sure no one was lingering close at hand, and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“You've got to come home.”
“Groves?”
“It's me.”
“What are you saying?'
“Come home straightaway.”
Barnaby bristled at the implication of disaster, and he said, “What has gone wrong out there?”
“It's not so bad as you think.”
“How do you know what I think?” Barnaby roared.
“Look, I think you should be here.”
“What about Gwyn?”
“That's why I called.”
“Did everything go all right?”
“Almost.”
“Almost?” Barnaby asked, incredulous. “This wasn't the sort of situation where it could be 'almost' right. It was work or fail!”
“Just come on home,” Groves said.
“I won't—”
“And be fast!”
He hung up on Barnaby.
“Hello?”
The empty line hissed at him.
“Groves?”
But Groves, of course, was not there to answer.
Barnaby slammed the receiver down in its cradle and sat there in the booth for a moment longer, trembling, thinking furiously. The trick was to get home as soon as he could, but to do it without making either Edgar or Lydia Aimes curious. Edgar was not a strictly honest businessman. He would tolerate the use of a man like Paul Morby, in special cases, if there were enough money to be made to justify violence — but he would never tolerate something like what they'd intended to do to Gwyn… He must never know about it. And, of course, Lydia would tolerate neither Morby nor what had been done to Gwyn, making this a touchy situation.
Two minutes passed before he got up out of the booth and went back into the crowded cocktail lounge. All night, Lydia had wanted to leave, and only his and Elaine's insistence kept them there. She was going to think it strange indeed that he presented such an about-face, without warning and on the heels of another phone call.
By the time he reached their table, however, he thought he knew how to bring it off. He sat down and picked up his drink, took a sip of it and said to Elaine, “It was just Ben. Seems Gwyn wasn't able to eat, and now she can't sleep.”
She picked it up beautifully. “Is she having any more of her — hallucinations?”
“Not really,” he said. “But Ben's worried about her not being able to sleep. She just tosses and turns, he says.”
“I think we ought to go home,” Elaine said.
“She'll be all right,” Barnaby said.
“She's been a fairly sick young girl.”
“There's no need to break up the evening,” he said.
Lydia, seeing an end to the night and anxious for it, said, “I think Elaine's right. From what she's told me about Gwyn, the girl might be on the verge of a relapse.”
“She was fine all day.”
“But you can't tell about these things,” Aimes said. His concern was not part of his wife's, for he had also seen through Barnaby's deception, and he realized there was some crisis brewing. He probably thought it had something to do with Morby. But whatever the cause of it, he was anxious to give Barnaby a chance to leave.
“Well, it looks like you're all against me.” He tossed off the rest of his drink and said, “Let's call it a night.”
They paid the check and went to the lounge where the men separated to get the women's coats,
At the coat rack, Edgar said, “Morby?”
“Not exactly.”
“Don't lock me out. This could mean my neck as much as yours.”
“You're not involved,” Barnaby said. Then he took Elaine her coat, waited to walk to the parking lot with the Aimeses. Both couples had brought their cars, and they separated, at last, to board them.
“What is it?” Elaine said, when they got into her sportscar.
“Whatever it is, it's bad,” he told her. “Let's not waste any time getting home.”
