He jumped from the bed and dashed toward the bathroom, barely noticing that his bare shin collided with a chair along the way, toppling it over backward.
“Madeleine!” he shouted, grabbing the knob of the bathroom door and turning it. “Madeleine!” The door wouldn’t open. Something was blocking it. He lowered his shoulder, heaving his weight against the door, pushing as hard as he could.
It slowly gave way, and he squeezed past it.
Inside, he looked around frantically in the dim light of the kerosene lamp. He found Madeleine naked on the floor. She was lying on her side, her arms wrapped around her knees.
“What is it?” he cried, dropping to his knees next to her. “What is it? What happened?”
She tried to say something, but it was lost in a stifled wail.
He held her face between his hands. “Maddie. Tell me. What happened?”
She wasn’t looking at him. Her terrified gaze was fastened on something else in the room. He followed her line of sight—to the big claw-foot bathtub. The tub she’d just filled with water.
“What is it? What happened?”
Her response sounded more like a moan than a word.
Only it wasn’t just a word. It was a name.
“Colin.”
“Colin? Colin Bantry? What about him?”
She answered with a half-stifled cry. “His body.”
“What about his body?”
“Look.”
“Look?”
“In the tub.”
PART THREE. THE WOLF AND THE HAWK
CHAPTER 36
When Gurney approached the tub and peered into it, he saw nothing but water and a few wisps of steam. He checked it first in the low lamplight, then switched on the overhead fixture for a better look. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He turned his attention back to Madeleine, huddled on the floor, her knees still pulled up against her breasts.
“There’s nothing in the tub, Maddie. Just water.”
“Under the water!” she cried. “Look!”
“I did look. There’s nothing there.”
Her eyes were wide with fear.
He tried to speak calmly. “Do you think you can stand up, if I help you?”
She seemed not to understand.
“Maybe I can lift you, carry you, okay? We’ll get you off the floor and out of here.”
“Look under the water!”
He went to the tub and made a show of inspecting it thoroughly. When he swirled his arm through the water, she uttered a gasp of alarm.
“See, Maddie? Nothing but plain water.”
He came back and knelt down beside her. He slipped his arms under her body. His awkward position made lifting her a challenge, and he almost fell on her. In the end, he managed to carry her to the bed.
He switched on both bedside lamps and checked her body once more for broken bones, abrasions, or any other obvious damage. He found only a reddening area on her hip from the fall.
He squatted by the bed, bringing his face even with hers. “Maddie, can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“Colin. In the water. Swollen.” She half-turned her head toward the wall that separated the bedroom area from the bathroom. “I saw him!”
A tiny muscle in her cheek was quivering.
“It’s all right, Maddie. There’s nothing there. It was some kind of optical illusion. The water, the steam, the dim light . . .”
“His body was in the tub—not steam, not dim light! His bloated face, the scar through his eyebrow! The scar from football! Don’t you hear what I’m saying?”
Her body began to shake.
“I hear you, Maddie. I really do.”
He stood up, reached for the flannel sheet and blanket at the foot of the bed and pulled them over her.
He could see it would be pointless to try to convince her at that moment, petrified and shivering, that imagination, memories, and perhaps the poison of guilt had conspired to create a terrible illusion. She’d dismiss the effort.
He stood watching her until she closed her eyes. There would be an appropriate time, he told himself, to address the experience rationally, perhaps therapeutically. But right now—
His train of thought was broken by a sound coming from the bathroom. A barely audible creaking sound.
Gooseflesh crept up his back.
He slipped into his jeans and a sweater, retrieved the Beretta from the pocket of his jacket, and eased off the safety. After an anxious look at Madeleine, he moved quietly, barefoot, toward the bathroom.
When he got there, he heard the faint creaking again; but now it seemed to be coming from the exterior corridor. In fact, it seemed to be approaching the suite door. He reached the side of the door in a few long strides. The bolt was in its open position. He’d forgotten to slide it shut when he’d come in earlier.
He waited, hardly breathing. He was in the same position he’d been in the night of the power failure—when Barlow Tarr’s face had given him such a start.
He grasped the handle tightly, hesitated for a second, then threw the door open.
Seeing Barlow Tarr standing in the corridor once again was not in itself a shock. But there was something in the man’s intense stare that gave Gurney a chill.
“What do you want?”
Tarr spoke in a raspy half-whisper. “Be warnt.”
“You keep warning me, but I don’t understand what the danger is. Can you tell me?”
“Be warnt of the hawk that swoops down like the wolf. Be warnt of the evil here what killed them all.”
“Did the evil kill Ethan Gall?”
“Aye, and the wolves ate him, like the old man afore him.”
“How did Ethan die?”
“The hawk knows. Into the sun, into the moon—”
“Enough of that! Stop your bloody raving!” An angry voice rang out from the unlit end of the corridor.
Tarr’s face jerked as though it had been slapped. He backed away from the suite door. Glancing back along the corridor like a spooked animal, he scuttled down the main staircase.
The source of the command strode into the light. It was Norris Landon, approaching in quick strides, glaring in the direction of Tarr’s departure. He stopped at the doorway and turned to Gurney. “Are you all right?”
Gurney nodded. “Yes, thank you.”
“Damn fool’s not supposed to be in the lodge. Probably silly of me, going at him like that. God knows what he’s capable of, especially with a storm coming on.”
“Storms agitate him?”
“Oh yes. Well-known phenomenon in psychiatric wards. There’s a definite resonance between the primitive side of nature and the unbalanced mind. Things coming undone, I suppose. Thunder and terror. Extremes of emotion. But it wasn’t his raving out here in the corridor that started me on my way to your room. I thought I heard a scream.” He regarded Gurney questioningly.
“My wife had a bit of a fright. It’s all right now.”
Landon hesitated, noting the gun Gurney was holding half-concealed at the side of his leg. “I see you’re armed.”
“Yes.”
“Is that a reaction to . . . whatever frightened your wife?”
“Just precautionary. A reflex built into my line of work.”
“Ah. And your wife? Is she all right?”
“Perfectly all right.”
“Well. This may seem like a crazy question, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I’m just wondering . . . did your wife by any chance . . . see something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she see something . . . something that might not have been real?”