The modified Georgian-style Chappelle house in Ardsley Park had been built in the center of the lot and set back off the street. Two towering palms graced either side of the brick walkway and two overgrown holly bushes the size of small trees flanked the white brick structure. No doubt, in its day, the house had been impressive, and it was still a lovely old home. A wide variety of eclectic styles created a diversity of houses in the area, which stretched from Bull Street on the west to Waters Avenue on the east, and from Victory Drive north to Derenne Avenue south. He could leave the Chappelle home after he finished his job and be on I-16 in about ten minutes. By daylight that morning, he would be more than halfway to Atlanta.
While Poppy had attended church with her grandmother and the housekeeper on Sunday, he had broken the lock on the outside entrance to the basement at the side of the house and had slipped inside without any trouble. As luck would have it, the old woman hadn’t put in a security system, so he had been able to go upstairs and take his time familiarizing himself with all the rooms. Twelve in all, not counting bathrooms and two sun porches.
Mrs. Carolyn Chappelle’s room had been easy to spot. It was the largest bedroom which also included a sitting area in front of heavily draped bay windows overlooking the front lawn. The antique furniture, polished to shining perfection, overfilled the space, making the room feel cluttered. In comparison, the housekeeper’s eight-by- ten room, that probably had originally been the nursery, was sparsely furnished and excessively neat. Wooden shutters covered the single window. He had checked each of the other bedrooms, searching for Poppy’s room, and when he found it, he wondered if it had once belonged to her aunt Mary Lee. Two large windows overlooked the pool and enclosed patio. Feminine to the point of being frilly, the white French Provincial furniture, lace adorned drapes and bedding, and floral wallpaper seemed, as did the other rooms in the house, to be trapped in a time long past.
Moonlight illuminated the predawn sky and cast shadows over the lawn. Tree branches swayed in the warm summer breeze, their tips scratching at the upstairs windows on the east end of the house. Security lights at the back of the house kept the pool area well lit, but the basement door, the lock now broken, lay hidden in darkness behind a row of red azaleas.
He had parked his rental car in the driveway. If by any chance some neighbor happened to be awake at this hour and looked out a window, he or she would see a nondescript sedan and possibly assume the Chappelles had an overnight visitor. He had no intention of returning the rental and there was no way it could be traced back to him, only to the real Albert Durham. He would leave the car at the Atlanta airport tomorrow. With the time difference between the U.S. East Coast and London, his employer would be enjoying a late breakfast when he reported in, once he was on the road. After he spoke to his employer, he would make flight arrangements. This morning’s kill would be number six, the exact number he had been paid for by wire transfer to his Swiss account, which had been opened under one of his many aliases.
He was known by many names and yet he remained nameless. He was a man of a hundred disguises and yet he remained faceless, unidentifiable. In his world, he was known only as the Phantom, except by a precious few who had once known him as Anthony Linden. But he was not Anthony Linden and hadn’t been in more than ten years. For all intents and purposes, Anthony Linden was dead.
Poppy woke with a start, her mouth dry and her cotton sleep shirt damp with perspiration. She kicked back the light covers and lay there, her eyes open, her heartbeat racing. She stared up at the shadows dancing on her ceiling. She’d had the most god-awful dream.
Her nightmare had been a convoluted jumble of scenes, none of which had made the least bit of sense. Headless zombies creeping toward her. Pig-faced people hovering over her. Outraged men and women chasing her down the street, screaming at her, accusing her of being an alien from outer space.
Poppy shuddered.
She wished her bedroom—Aunt Mary Lee’s old room—wasn’t at the opposite end of the hall from Grandmother’s and Heloise’s rooms. She certainly had no intention of walking up that long, dark corridor. The old house moaned and groaned enough as it was without her padding down the hall and making the wooden floors creak.
She could turn on the light, get up, and read a few chapters in the paperback romance novel on her nightstand. Or she could go downstairs to the den and watch TV or grab a snack in the kitchen.
The odds were if she went back to sleep, she wouldn’t dream again. Not if she thought about pleasant things.
“I think Wes likes you,” Anne Lee had told her. “If Mother wasn’t best buds with his mother, I’d go after him myself. But God forbid that Wes and I hook up and make our moms happy.”
“He’s cute, isn’t he?”
“Do Chihuahuas shiver? Girl, Wes Larimer is cream of the crop.”
Poppy closed her eyes and imagined Wes putting his arm around her and kissing her. It would be explosive, like fireworks lighting up the sky. They were alone on Court’s sailboat, just the two of them. The ocean was smooth, the sun was warm, the breeze balmy.
“Oh Court, kiss me again,” she mumbled to herself and then yawned before dozing off to sleep.
He moved through the Chappelle house as quietly as smoke rising from a chimney. He turned off the slender flashlight he held, pocketed it and took the back stairs two at a time, being careful to tread lightly. Even when the old staircase creaked occasionally as his weight pressed on the carpeted runner, he didn’t pause. Those living here were accustomed to the odd sounds that the nearly eighty-year-old house made in the night. When he reached the landing, he glanced down the corridor toward Mrs. Chappell’s suite and across the hall to Heloise McGruger’s bedroom. Both doors were closed.
He turned and went in the opposite direction, straight toward the young girl’s room decorated in fancy ruffles and lace. Unlike the older ladies in the house, Poppy slept with her door partially open. A thin line of moonlight seeped through the narrow opening and painted a pale yellow-white line across the threshold and onto the floor beneath his feet. He reached out, grasped the crystal knob and slowly eased open the door all the way. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness so he could see quite well with only the moonlight brightening the bedroom just enough to reveal the furniture’s silhouettes.
Poppy Chappelle lay beneath a ruffled canopy, one arm and one leg tangled in the top sheet and lightweight blanket. The upstairs central air unit kicked on, sending a rush of cool air from the ceiling vent. He stood over her bed and watched her while she slept. So very young. So pretty.
Such a pity he had to kill her.
He didn’t choose the victims. His employer did.
He was simply an employee following orders, a professional doing his job.
Easing up to the edge of the bed, he rubbed his glove-encased hands together, collected his thoughts and prepared for the kill. He slipped his hand into an inside pocket, removed the disposable scalpel from the small carrying case and returned the case to his pocket.
A momentary calmness came over him, steadying his hand and clearing his mind. The rush of excitement would come later, with the act itself. The moment the knife entered her body, he would experience an unparalleled exhilaration. He always did.
He watched her for another minute, noted the rise and fall of her tender young breasts as she inhaled and
