That’s not how Peter loves her. If she can’t be his, he won’t love her anymore. He’d rather see her dead than with you. So hurry—
I surge forward, but my hair is tangled in a vine. I struggle, ripping handfuls of my hair out from my scalp, and then I feel someone’s hands on my arms, pulling me through. For a second I think it must be Edith, but then I see it’s a man. I struggle out of his grip, afraid it’s one of the orderlies come to stop me, but then I hear his voice.
“It’s Ben. I was heading to the house and saw you.”
I’m relieved it’s him, but I’d rather that he was at the house saving Chloe.
“You should have kept going to the house. It’s on fire—and my baby’s there!”
I see something pass over his face and then he turns and runs up the path. I take off after him, keeping pace behind him until we reach the ridge and he stops. I try to keep going but he throws out his arm to block me. A wave of heat hits me at the same time so that for a moment I think he’s somehow thrown up this wall of heat to stop me.
I push past him and run into a wall of fire. The house is ablaze. Flames leap out of broken windows. The terrace we sat on this morning is scorched. I spy the playpen Chloe stood in earlier today and cry out.
An answering cry comes from the edge of the terrace and a woman comes flying at me, hair singed, face blackened by soot, the whites of her eyes glowing red in the glare of the fire. She’s a Fury come to wreak her vengeance on me for leaving my child behind. She’s every mother who ever lost a child through neglect or madness. She’s me if I don’t save Chloe.
“Do you have her?” The Fury transforms into Billie. “Do you have Chloe?”
How could I have her? I open my arms wide to show her I don’t.
“What happened?” Ben asks, grabbing Billie by the arms and shaking her. “Where are Ms. Bennett and Marist?”
I want to scream that they don’t matter, but he’s right. Chloe hasn’t gone anywhere on her own. Either Peter or Sky has her.
“They fought,” Billie gasps out, turning to me. “After you left. Sky asked him some questions and he grew . . . resentful.”
I can well imagine.
“And Sky grew willful. She doesn’t like to be crossed.”
I can imagine the two of them, mother and son, pitting their wills against each other, stoking the flames—
We don’t have time for this. “Did she say something to make him think he’d lose Chloe?”
Billie nods, tears streaming down her face, carving white streaks in the soot. “She told him that if it was true he killed Laurel, she’d make sure he never saw Chloe again. She said she would take custody of her. That shut him up. She thought she’d carried the day.”
I knew that quiet well. “He was just biding his time.”
“We went to bed—I’ve been staying over to take care of Chloe—but I woke up to find that she was gone. Then I smelled smoke. I called the fire department and ran up to Sky’s room, but she was gone and when I checked Peter’s room so was he.”
“Is his car gone?” Ben asks.
Billie begins to say something but it’s drowned out by the sound of approaching sirens. “The gates!” she cries. “I have to unlock them for the fire trucks.”
Both Billie and Ben run toward the front of the house. I’m about to follow them when something makes me look up. There’s a light on in the top floor of the tower. At first I think it’s the fire, but the fire hasn’t spread to the tower yet. I squint and look more closely. Yes, the light in the tower is on and someone is standing in the window. A man, holding something in his arms.
I let out a cry and run toward the tower door, which blessedly isn’t locked. I bolt up the first flight of stairs. On the second floor I smell smoke. The door to the library is ajar, a chair toppled over, books strewn everywhere. Sky’s cane on the floor. She must have risen from her sleep, smelled the smoke, gone to find Chloe, and seen Peter take her.
I can hear voices coming from the top floor. Sky followed Peter here and somehow hauled herself up the stairs. I grab the cane and close the door that connects the tower to the house, hoping to keep the fire at bay for a few extra minutes. I begin up the stairs slowly and quietly but then I hear Chloe cry and sprint the rest of the way up, heedless of hiding my arrival.
Sky is standing in the middle of the room in flannel pajamas, hair sticking up in crazy peaks, eyes wide and frightened. She’s staring at something behind me. I turn.
Peter is perched on the windowsill, legs stretched out and crossed indolently as if he were having a convivial chat with a colleague. He’s pushed the window out and broken the rod that keeps it from opening too far. There’s nothing but empty space behind him, and a three-story drop to the flagstone terrace beneath him. He holds Chloe balanced on his knee with one hand. Her face is red and puckered as if she’s been crying, but otherwise she looks all right.
I take a step toward them and Peter pulls Chloe closer to him—and to the open window. “What’s the matter, Daph? Isn’t this one of your fantasies? Dropping Chloe from a window?”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “It’s one of my nightmares, yes,” I say, “but even in my worst nightmares I never believed you could hurt her. You love her.”
“Of course I love her,” he says, his voice catching as he looks down at Chloe.
