a while. I really am so very, very sorry that I have to kill you.”
He went to the closet and put on his coat, then reached up on the shef and took a gun from an ancient Wright's Arch Preserver shoebox.
“It will be much nicer for you if you cooperate and I can see you out the normal way, but I'll bring this just in case.”
Normal? Just in case? Did words have meaning anymore?
Faith began to think rapidly. She had no idea where they were going, but it was obviously outside. How would he explain her lack of a coat? Once again she was going to freeze because of one of the Hubbards. But she had underestimated Roland.
“I'm going to give you one of my overcoats. You notice I say 'give' and not 'lend.' I don't expect that I will get it back. I'll explain that I gave it to you to wear home, since yours was soiled. This was after I came across you being ill in one of the rooms. You insisted you were fit enough to drive and I didn't like to quarrel with a lady. Of course, I should have insisted, but then you are so stubborn.”
He was rehearsing and Faith's mind was suddenly blank. He was going to kill her and there was nothing she could do about it. f she screamed, no one would hear her, and he would kill her 'normally' or not, before she could expect help in any case. She looked at him as he courteously held his coat out for her. He was over six feet and fit as a fiddle. There 'vas no way she could overpower him.
“Best give me your keys now, my dear. I'll be driving at first.”
She took them out of her prized Judith Leiber bag, which still swung from her shoulder. It had been an engagement present from Hope, and Faith had followed suit and given her one also. Hope! The wedding! She had one more fitting for her matron of honor dress! It wasn't your whole life that flashed before you in terminal moments, but ludicrous and totally inappropriate bits and pieces.
Dr. Hubbard unlocked the door and was reaching for the knob when a knock came.
It was Tom. It had to be Tom. She was safe.
Hubbard opened the closet door and shoved her inside. The same closet she had ducked into a week earlier. The same closet she'd been able to duck out of. A key was pushed into the keyhole, obliterating the light from the room. She heard it turn with a disheartening click. She started to scream and pounded on the door with all her strength. Why wasn't Tom coming? What could be happening? It seemed like hours and her screams were getting hoarser and hoarser.
The door opened at last and she rushed straight into the arms of—Dr. Hubbard.
“Dear Sylvia. Worried about me and wanted me to know I was missed. It sounds like a lovely party, but I told her I wasn't quite up to it. Of course she understood.' He looked at his watch. 'I just might be able to get back for some of my claret cup if we hurry. My great-grandmother's recipe. I do hope you had some.”
Faith was sobbing.
“This closet was the strong room. Tinned on the inside, you know. And these doors are very solid.”
He opened the door to the hall, closed it firmly behind them, and poked the gun in her back. It was obviously the signal to start walking, and she did.
They started down the corridor toward the rear of the house. He walked, as he always did, with a measured tread, head erect. His long overcoat billowed out behind him like the robes of some crazed medieval king.
Near the stairs Faith turned to him and said beseechingly, 'Dr. Hubbard, I am going to have a baby.' She was crying so hard she could barely get the words out.
“Are you, my dear? Congratulations are in order! How unfortunate that it should come at a time like this.”
There was no hope whatsoever.
He steered her to an outside door that she remembered led to stairs going down to the parking lot. She stopped crying. This was time not for Niobe but for one of her relatives—Athena or Hera.
At the top of the stairs Faith silently kicked off the high heels she had been wearing. The cold from the icy ground shot painfully through her feet to her legs. She walked on tiptoes, so he wouldn't notice the sudden change in her height. It was excruciating.
“Mind your step here, it's treacherous. We certainly have had a cold winter, haven't we?”
Roland sounded as though he were escorting her to the prom and worried she might turn an ankle. Faith didn't reply. It was one thing for the murderer to be so civilized; she the victim didn't have to follow suit. And she'd be damned if talking about the weather would be her last act.
It wasn't.
At the bottom of the stairs she took off, sprinted a yard or two ahead of him, tore off the coat and threw it over his head—she was close enough to aim correctly, but far enough away so he couldn't grab her. Then she sped off away from the lampposts toward the darkest part of the shrubbery.
“Faith! Faith! Come back here! You can't get away from me!' He was enraged. The last words were clearer, and presumably he'd gotten out from under the coat, but Faith didn't turn around to look.
There was a series of paths and small terraces that sloped down from the parking lot alongside the steep front driveway. She headed for these and the direction of the main road. Going down the drive itself would give him a clear shot, and she had no doubt that he would use the gun now, no matter who saw or heard. He was beyond what ever reason he'd managed to retain.
“Faith!' he screamed at the top of his voice. He wasn't far away.
She left the path and ran closer to the drive near the mountainous rhododendron bushes, bordered by Canadian hemlocks. There was only one thing to do. She dove into the center of the largest clump and ducked down in the middle of the branches.
They were covered with snow and ice, and as she pushed through, they rattled like castanets. The sharp needles of the hemlocks cut into her face, bare forearms, and legs, but her whole body was so numb from the cold, she could scarely feel the pain.
“Faith!”
She held her breath as he came closer and closer. The branches were silent. He was only a few feet away. Thank God she had worn the dark-blue dress.
“You can't hide from me. I know you're in these bushes someplace.”
She let out the breath slowly and took another. She was in a tight fetal position and dared not try to make herself yet smaller. The slightest movement would start the branches clacking together.
“Be reasonable, Faith! It's cold out here. I've changed my mind. I'm not going to hurt you, dear.' His voice, calm now and almost convincing, came from farther away. Then there was silence. All she could hear was the hideously loud beating of her own heart.
Then a sharp crack followed by a regular thwacking noise. Dr. Hubbard had broken off a branch and was beating the bushes.
Thwack! Thwack! It was coming closer. She shut her eyes and pictured him bringing the stick down on her head with all his manic force.
Thwack! Thwack! He took his time. He was thorough. She opened her eyes. She wanted to see him coming.
She started to edge cautiously out from underthe bush to one farther along, and as she did so she heard a car coming up the drive. Scarcely believing, she waited until it was almost even with her hiding place, then she stood up and broke through the branches the short distance to the pavement.
It was Tom. He stopped the car abruptly and jumped out.
“Faith! What's—'
“Get down,' she screamed as she ran out of range to the driver's side of the car. 'He's got a gun.”
She flung hersef next to Tom. 'It's Dr. Hubbard. He's trying to kill me. He's killed all these people. We've got to get out of here!”
Tom didn't hesitate. Without standing up, he opened the back door and pushed Faith in, then got in the front himself and started the engine.
Faith pulled Ben from the car seat where he had been obliviously sound asleep and shoved him beneath her on the floor. He didn't like it.
Tom executed a rapid U turn and started down the drive.
A few feet away Roland Hubbard came leaping from the bushes and froze in the car headlights like a deer
