about snapping on lights. It was after seven o'clock and getting dark.
She went into the kitchen and put Ben in the high chair she'd found in the attic and sprinkled a few Cheerios kept for that purpose on the tray to keep him from screaming the place down, since his dinner had not instantly appeared. Hope followed her and took the whole drawer out to the other room to rummage through with Quentin.
“How about a drink?' Faith called to them.
“Fay,' came Hope's voice—or some approximation of it; this was not her usual strident tone, more like a gasp. 'Fay, you'd better come in here.”
Faith dropped the zucchini she was cutting into strips onto Ben's tray and went into the living room. They must have found a key, she thought.
But they hadn't. What they had found was Eric—standing in the shadows by the huge fieldstone fireplace that filled up one end of the room. Standing wlth a gun pointed at them with unmistakable intent.
Eric. Of course, Eric.
The only possibility—and the most obvious. That part was now clear. What wasn't was why.
Speculation could come later. She had to do something. Anything was worth a try. 'Eric, what on earth are you doing? Did you think these were intruders? This is my sister, Hope, and her friend, Quentin.'
“Pleased to meet you,' Eric drawled, suddenly reverting to his Texas youth. 'But it's no mistake, Faith. Give me whatever it was you got at Prescott Point. Awful nice of you to go to so much trouble finding it for me.”
Pix would be coming back, and the noise of the car might startle him enough so Faith could catch him off guard. She moved as close as she dared to the table, which had a large oil lamp on it. She could heave it at him, if he would only look away. She was damned if she was going to give him the box after all their work and especially before they even knew what was in it. There were three of them, after all. There must be some way of getting the gun. She had to stall. Keep him talking.
“Now, Eric, I'm sure you don't want to hurt anyone. Not after all that has happened. Why don't we look inside the box together and decide what to do?' It was feeble, yet it might distract him.
“I
He walked over to Hope and grabbed her, placing the gun against her temple. Quentin took a step toward them and Eric cocked the gun.
“Don't think about any noble gestures. Hurting people doesn't particularly bother me.”
Quentin gave Hope an anguished look and went out the front door toward the barn.
“Now you, Faith.”
Faith took the box from the drawer and Eric uncocked the gun, but did not release his hold on Hope.
“Put it on the floor in front of me and then go back to where you were,' he directed her.
There was still time. Quentin's return could divert him; meanwhile talk. Say anything, just keep him talking and off guard.
Faith stared Eric squarely in the face. 'You did it, didn't you? Sabotaged the boat. Murdered Bird?'
“Shut up, Faith.' His face clouded briefly. 'Dumb-ass Roger. If he hadn't been so pure, he'd still be alive. And he was going to marry her, that cunt. He couldn't see what she was like. Anyone would have been better. But he just kept raving about finally finding each other. Made me puke.”
The house. He was in love with the house.
“You're leaving your house? After all you said it meant?'
“Yeah, that's a bitch. But I can't take it with me and anyway I'm going to be able to buy any house I want with what's in this box.”
Quentin was back and Eric immediately cocked the gun and tightened his grip on Hope.
“Tie Faith up and don't waste any time, then you can do your girlfriend here. You might even enjoy it,' he leered.
Quentin started over toward Faith and just as he began to loop the rope around her wrists, the front door swung open.
Sonny Prescott walked in, not Pix. He must have come by boat, since they hadn't heard a car.
Sonny looked at Eric and the box on the floor, then at the rest of them frozen in various poses around the room.
Faith had never been so glad to see him in her life, not even the day he had called and said he had fresh salmon.
“Sonny!' she warned. 'He's got a gun, be careful!”
Eric smiled slowly. 'Oh, I don't think old Sonny here has to worry. You see, he's with me.”
10
It was a nightmare. The kind where the steady ground under your feet turns out to be quicksand and you can't take a step. Sonny! Sonny and Eric!
And what made it worst of all was now there were two to deal with.
Faith frantically tried to figure out how she could do something. If only the light switch wasn't so far away— she could use the element of surprise to get the gun. It wasn't just the box now. The idea of Eric getting away free made her furious.
She was sure Eric didn't plan on killing them, but he might not mind an injury or two.
Ben's angry cries of starvation from the kitchen presented an unlikely solution.
“Go get your brat and shut him up—and don't think about leaving, unless you want to be Mommy and Daddy's only little girl.”
Faith raced into the kitchen and grabbed Ben. She filled a bottle, left from Zoe's stay, with juice and grabbed a large handful of cookies. It was no time to be thinking of the four basic food groups. Then she quietly opened the back door and put Ben in the portable crib on the porch, zipping closed the mesh screening on top. Ben settled right down, charmed by vestigial memories of happy nursing days. She ran back in and took a large cast-iron frying pan from the pantry. Most New England kitchens were a veritable arsenal of utensils.
She paused to lift the receiver on the ancient dial phone, found the phone dead, as she had suspected, stood behind the door, and started screaming.
Ben was safely out of the way for the moment and if she could manage to get rid of one of them, the other wouldn't be able to leave his post to search for the baby. Eric had obviously been watching a lot of B movies and Faith had no doubt he would use Ben as a hostage if he decided he needed one.
She thought of Roger and Bird and Bird's father and Zoe and Bill—all the sadness and horror of the past month. She screamed in real anguish. It felt wonderful.
The door swung open and Sonny stepped in. Before he had a chance to look around, Faith swung too— bringing the frying pan down on top on his head with all her strength. He crumpled to the floor with a resounding 'thunk.' She felt for a pulse, was reassured, and started to tie his wrists together with some clothesline from the pantry, which she was beginning to regard as King Midas's storeroom.
Eric's voice interrupted her.
“Faith, if you don't get in here right now, I'm going to shoot your sister.”
He meant it. Faith could tell. He hadn't added any extraneous lines.
“Fay,' implored Quentin. 'Fay, please, hurry!”
The crisis rivaled the tragic benchmark of young Quentin's life to date—the time in October 1987 when the computer was down just before the market closed.
Faith hurried in. What did they think? She was going to let her own sister die because of a nickname and a few hundred other things that had happened in childhood?
Eric again had Hope in a stranglehold with the gun up against the side of her head. The box was under his arm. He waved Faith over to the table.
“I guess I have to assume I'm on my own now,' he said in a matter-of-fact voice, which, to Faith's surprise, held no anger. That fight at the dance had been too real to be staged. Maybe he really did hate Sonny's guts. Maybe he just wasn't good at sharing.
He moved quickly toward the door. When he got there, he pushed Hope to one side and as he did so, the box
