Yes, yes. I will go.

Now!

She"d obeyed instantly, quickly racing up the stairs, Edward watching from below.

"He stood at the door of the room," Greta told them. "Looking at me. Cold. Then he went into the room and closed the door."

She hadn"t intended to return to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and certainly not to Mr. Davies" storage room, but twenty minutes later she"d realized that she"d left her ring of house keys there. She"d had no choice but to return downstairs to retrieve them.

"I was on the second floor, in Mr. Davies" office. That is when I thought of it. The keys. I had left them in the bas.e.m.e.nt. In the storage room. I went back downstairs. I had to do it. To get my keys."

Once downstairs, she"d gone directly to the storage room.

"I grabbed the keys and started to leave," Greta went on. "I was afraid someone would see me. I wanted to get away. But I noticed how things had changed. Some of the boxes had been moved. Heavy boxes. Edward had moved them. I do not know why. I did not want to look. I was afraid to be found there again." She was talking rapidly now, the old fear once again rising in her, the dread of being discovered in the bas.e.m.e.nt, cast out of Riverwood because of it. "I started to leave. That is when I heard sounds. Voices. Edward. A girl. Voices coming from the boathouse. I could not hear the words. I did not want to hear. I was afraid. To be caught again in the room. So I closed the door and stayed there. In the room. Waiting. Until the voices were gone. Then I looked out again. I thought they were gone. But now I could see them. Still in the boathouse. Edward untying the boat. The girl inside it, waiting for him. Under the umbrella." She stopped, almost breathless now. "But that is not all I saw," she added. "I saw Faye."

She"d been standing at the entrance to the corridor, Greta said, facing the boathouse silently, her hands in the pockets of her dress.

"I do not know where she came from," Greta said. "I did not hear the door of the bas.e.m.e.nt open or footsteps on the stairs, but there she was, standing, looking toward the boathouse." She shrugged. "I did not want her to see me in Mr. Davies" room. So again I waited. In the room. I don"t know for how long. A few minutes. When I looked again, all of them were gone. Edward and the girl. Faye too. I did not ever see Faye again after that." She drew in a shaky breath, let it out slowly, exhaustedly. "I was sick. Suddenly sick. From the fear. My stomach. Vomiting. Trembling. All over. Mr. Davies came to me. He said I should go away. From Riverwood. To rest. I left early the next morning. Only when I came back did I hear about Faye. Then the old detective came with his questions."

"And you told him all this?"

"No. Not then. Later."

"What did you tell him at the time?"

"What you know. That I had seen Faye in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Also Edward and his girlfriend. The truth. All of it. Except that I was in the storage room. With Mr. Davies" papers."

"And that Edward Davies had found you there."

"This also I did not tell him," Greta said. "Later, when the detective came again. I told him everything."

"How much later?"

"Many years."

"What did he say?"

"That it did not matter," Greta said. "I thought he meant that it did not matter because the one who did that terrible thing to Faye was also now dead. The one accused, I mean."

"Jake Mosley."

"Yes. But the detective told me it could not be him. He said it was someone else who killed Faye."

"Did he ever mention anyone else?" Eleanor asked with a sudden, fierce antic.i.p.ation. "Someone he suspected?"

Greta hesitated, a door closing briefly, then opening again. "The one who caught me. Edward." Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if she were betraying a long-held family secret. "His girl too. The old detective had a name for them." Her mind seemed to drift back in time, to Edward Davies and Mona Flagg as they"d sailed out of the shadowy boathouse and into the blinding light of that August noon. "Partners in crime," Greta said.

CHAPTER 24.

Partners in crime," Eleanor repeated as they made their way down the stairs. "Edward Davies and Mona Flagg. But why would either Mona or Edward want to hurt Faye, Paul? And even if they"d had a motive, how would they have been able to do it? Portman himself traced their movements that afternoon. All those people who saw them on the river at the time of Faye"s death." She continued down the stairs, then out the door and into the evening shade. Silently, Graves followed. "There must be something we"re leaving out. Remember how Slovak finds the answer in The Missing Hours? The Missing Hours? Remember what he says when he finds it?" She did not wait for a response. ""Ident.i.ty is the mask illusion wears." That"s what Slovak says. Because all along he"s had to a.s.sume that Kessler couldn"t have murdered Molly Parks. Kessler was seen by too many people at the time of the murder. A watchman saw him. A cleaning woman. Even a cop. So it couldn"t have been Kessler who murdered Molly, unless ..." Remember what he says when he finds it?" She did not wait for a response. ""Ident.i.ty is the mask illusion wears." That"s what Slovak says. Because all along he"s had to a.s.sume that Kessler couldn"t have murdered Molly Parks. Kessler was seen by too many people at the time of the murder. A watchman saw him. A cleaning woman. Even a cop. So it couldn"t have been Kessler who murdered Molly, unless ..."

"Unless it wasn"t Kessler those people saw," Graves said.

"Which it wasn"t. It was Sykes dressed up like Kessler and told by him to go down a certain street at a certain time, waving to familiar people with Kessler"s red handkerchief, but always careful, as Kessler tells him, to greet all eyes with your back." She seemed astonished by what her own mind had suddenly conjured up. "What if the time frame of the murder is all off? What if Faye wasn"t killed in the woods at all? What if she were killed there, in the bas.e.m.e.nt?"

Graves could see the scene playing in her mind, actors moving in various directions, taking their marks in a new and different version of the play.

"We know absolutely that Allison saw Faye at the front door," Eleanor continued. "And several people saw her in the gazebo. After that she wait into the bas.e.m.e.nt. When she came out again, she walked back toward the front lawn. Several workmen saw her. They said her hand was raised to her eyes, remember? Like she was trying to shield them from the sun." Something in her eyes caught fire. "But she wouldn"t have been facing the sun." She seemed amazed that this small detail had escaped her. "Because she"d come around the eastern eastern corner of the house and faced the pond. The sun would have been to her back, Paul." corner of the house and faced the pond. The sun would have been to her back, Paul."

"So maybe she was trying to shield her face from something else." Graves heard hammers cease their rhythmic beating, saw eyes look up from wood and plaster. "From the workmen."

"Yes. Because it wasn"t Faye who crossed the lawn and went into the woods that morning."

"Then who was it?"

Eleanor"s answer came without the slightest hesitation. "Mona Flagg."

"And where was Faye?"

"In the boat with Edward Davies. Wearing a red polka-dot dress, behind that frilly white umbrella." A shiver pa.s.sed through her. "Already dead."

Graves saw Faye step into the shadows of the bas.e.m.e.nt, her blue eyes working to adjust to its shadows. What had she been looking for?

"Murdered by Edward," Eleanor said.

Graves saw it. A man stepped out of the darkness. Tall and lean. Dressed in white trousers and a polo shirt. Faye stepped back, mouthed his name, Edward. Edward. He came toward her silently, drawing a gray cord from his pocket. Her eyes fixed upon the cord with a desperate urgency, the words dropping from her mouth like small white petals, He came toward her silently, drawing a gray cord from his pocket. Her eyes fixed upon the cord with a desperate urgency, the words dropping from her mouth like small white petals, Oh, please, please, please ... Oh, please, please, please ...

"But why?" Eleanor asked.

They were on the floor of the bas.e.m.e.nt now, Edward pressed down cruelly upon Faye"s struggling body, one hand over her mouth, the other looping the rope around her throat as she kicked and gasped. He could hear the sc.r.a.pe of her shoes against the floor, the gurgle of her final breath.

"Once she was dead, Edward went to get Mona," Eleanor went on. "By then he"d worked out the plan."

Graves saw Mona as she stripped off the red polka-dot dress, trembling as she did so, terrified beyond imagining at the look in Edward Davies" eyes, following her lover"s commands, too frozen by panic to resist him. Playing Sykes to his Kessler.

"Once they"d switched clothes, Edward put Faye in the boat. He hid her face beneath that white umbrella," Eleanor continued. "Mona helped him do it, the two of them in the boathouse. That"s what they were doing when Greta heard them there."

He saw Greta Klein crouched fearfully in the dark interior of the storage room, her keys clutched in her hand, listening to distant whispers, words she could not make out.

"At some point Greta a.s.sumed that Edward and Mona had sailed out of the boathouse," Eleanor said. "That"s when she opened the door of the storage room. That"s when she saw a young girl in a blue dress. Greta a.s.sumed the girl was Faye. But the girl was looking toward the boathouse. So Greta never actually saw her face."

Graves nodded silently, his mind now sweeping forward as time swept forward, the small boat now circling the pond and moving down the channel toward the open waters of the Hudson, Edward at the helm, Faye propped up against the starboard side, a lifeless doll in a bright red dress, the umbrella carefully positioned to shield her dead face from view.

"At about this time the workmen saw Faye emerge from around the eastern corner of the mansion," Eleanor continued. "She shielded her face, then turned and headed for the woods. From that moment on, her back was to the cottage, the house, the pond, every place at Riverwood where anyone would have been able to see and recognize her. She reached the woods and entered them. A hiker spotted her a few minutes later, going down Mohonk Trail. She was in front of him, walking so quickly he thought she might be trying to get away from someone. He was right, Paul. She was trying to get away from him." him."

Graves saw a female figure dart around the gray wall of Indian Rock. The girl was no longer Faye. Mona Flagg was rushing down the slope. Toward the cave that rested near the bottom of the ridge, only yards from the river.

"Meanwhile, Edward was on the Hudson." The urgency was building in Eleanor now. In her voice, he heard her close in upon a prey she had long pursued. "His boat was always seen at a distance. People saw a girl in a red dress, holding an umbrella. They saw Edward onsh.o.r.e with a young woman. But the woman was sitting with her back against a tree, facing away from the river."

Graves saw what anyone on the river would have seen: a couple on the bank, the young man standing, waving, the girl motionless, propped up against a tree.

"Edward and Mona later met somewhere in the woods," Eleanor continued. "They carried Faye"s body from the boat to Manitou Cave. Mona changed back into her own clothes. She dressed Faye again in her blue dress. After that she and Edward returned to the boat. They sailed back to Riverwood."

Graves turned it over in his mind, considering all the details, until, with a terrible certainty, he suddenly felt that it was true, that Edward Davies had, in fact, murdered Faye, used Mona as his frenzied slave.

"Let"s go talk to him," he said. "Edward."

Eleanor looked at him questioningly. "Why Edward? Why not Mona?"

"I suppose I just a.s.sumed it was more likely for Edward to have had a motive for killing Faye," Graves said, knowing it was untrue, that the real reason lay at the core of his imagination, its two demons of viciousness and cowardice, Kessler and Sykes.

"Do you know where he is?" Eleanor asked.

"No," Graves said. "But I"m sure Miss Davies does."

CHAPTER 25.

Miss Davies did know where her brother lived, as she was quick to admit. Even so, she remained reluctant to reveal his location.

"I don"t think he"d want to be disturbed," she explained. "Edward is in a state of seclusion."

They stood in the flower garden, behind the house, the gazebo rising empty only a few yards away. Graves imagined the morning when Faye Harrison had lifted her eyes toward the second floor, nodded slowly, risen, then walked into the bas.e.m.e.nt. In search of what? he wondered now, while Eleanor continued pressing Miss Davies for her brother"s address.

"But if you called him and told him we were coming," Eleanor said. "Surely he"d-"

"I"m not in contact with my brother," Miss Davies interrupted. She was busily pruning the irises, cutting back the long brown stems of those that had begun to wither. The blades of the pruning shears snapped loudly as she continued. "We have not spoken to one another since my mother"s death. That was over ten years ago." She shot a curiously scolding glance toward Graves. "Frankly, Miss Stern, I"m puzzled by your interest in this matter." She pulled the shears back, the sharp twin blades still open, and faced Eleanor abruptly. "I should remind you that you weren"t invited to Riverwood for this purpose. I can"t help but wonder why you"ve become so involved in something that was supposed to be handled by Mr. Graves alone. Of course, I"ve noticed that the two of you spend a lot of time in each other"s company."

"Eleanor has a great mind for detail," Graves explained. "She came up with an idea about Faye"s death. How someone from Riverwood might have had the opportunity to murder her."

The blades closed slowly. "Someone from Riverwood? Opportunity? Is that why you want to see my brother?"

"Yes, it is."

"Are you telling me that you think that there was an opportunity for Edward to have murdered Faye?"

"Edward and Mona," Eleanor replied. "Together."

Such a possibility seemed never to have occurred to Miss Davies, but at the same time, she did not appear inclined to dismiss it. She touched one of the drooping irises, toyed with its limp petals. "So now you"re looking for a reason for them to have done it? That"s why you want to talk with Edward?"

"Yes."

"But do you seriously believe he"s just going to blurt it out? "I murdered Faye Harrison. And here"s the reason why."" She stared at Graves.

"No, but I might find out enough to come up with a story."

Miss Davies suddenly became more accommodating. "A story, yes. I keep forgetting that we"re only talking about a story. You"re right. You should talk to him." She began pruning the irises again, cupping their dying spines in quick, oddly brutal strokes. "Edward lives in a little town called Winthrop. It"s on Route Twelve. About an hour"s drive from here. His address is 1400 Carson Lane."

Graves turned to leave, but Eleanor remained in place. "You hate Edward, don"t you?" she asked.

Miss Davies continued to snip at the flowers, reducing them to headless brown sticks, a carpet of severed blooms gathering at her feet. "He killed my father. By what he did." The shears came to a halt. Her eyes shot over to them. "My brother was a thief."

"It"s strange how different Riverwood is from the way it appears," Eleanor said a few minutes later. They were in Eleanor"s car, she at the wheel as they drove through a gentle landscape of farms, the deep green of the rural countryside. "Corrupt, like Malverna in your books, where Kessler was born. The way it looks when Slovak finally visits it." She seemed to envision Malverna in its eternal ruin. "So rotted. With vines coiling up the central banister and Spanish moss hanging from the chandeliers. All of it so ..."

Graves recalled Grossman"s word. "Tainted."

"Yes," Eleanor agreed. "But not just by one act. Something one person did. But overall. Generally. A tainted atmosphere. Only alive. The way Malverna seems alive. So that you can feel it. You know, tingling. Fibrous. Like something woven into the scheme of things."

"You sound like Slovak," Graves said.

She glanced toward him. "Yes, I suppose I do a little." She smiled. "His language is a bit... florid, Paul," she added cautiously, clearly reluctant to offer any more trenchant criticism of his work.

"Yes, I know," Graves said. "I"d like to pare it down. I don"t know why I can"t."

Her answer struck him as achingly on target. "Because writing is your only pa.s.sion. So you can"t help pouring everything into it."

Watching her, Graves considered how much he"d given up in his isolation, the fuller and more pa.s.sionate life he"d turned from in his guilt. No wife. No children. Nothing to look forward to. Save the rope and the metal bar. But even now he felt it the only life he deserved, the one way he could continue to live, and yet be dead, buried with the sister he"d knowingly led Kessler to, all that had been done to her after that.

"Is he based on anyone?" Eleanor asked, her eyes now fixed on the road. "Slovak, I mean."

"No," Graves lied, remembering how Sheriff Sloane had made the long, dusty drive to Mrs. Flexner"s house, trudging wearily up the creaky wooden stairs, always bent upon talking to "the boy" just one more time.

"What about Kessler?" Eleanor asked. "Is he based on anybody you ever knew or heard of?"

"No."

"And Sykes?"

Graves shook his head. "Imagined" was all he said.

The house on Carson Lane was decidedly a far cry from the grandeur of Riverwood. Here there was no broad circular drive, no great columns or towering windows. Instead, a cement driveway led to a single-car garage. The house was modest and without charm, covered in beige aluminum siding, the roof of asbestos shingles. A rusting wheelbarrow rested beside the narrow walkway; the remains of a vegetable garden withered behind a sagging wire fence.

Eleanor grasped the small bra.s.s knocker on the front door and tapped twice. When there was no answer, she tapped again.

The door opened slowly to reveal a short, stocky woman in a nurse"s uniform.

"We"re looking for Edward Davies," Graves said. He introduced himself and Eleanor, then added, "We"re working on a story. About Riverwood."