Duma Key(138)

"Look at the ship's wake!" Elizabeth shouted at me as she was borne out of the public eye for the last time. "For Christ's sake, don't you see what you've painted?"

I looked. So did my family.

"There's nothing there," Melinda said. She looked mistrustfully toward the office door, which was just closing behind Jack and Elizabeth. "Is she dotty, or what?"

Illy was standing on tiptoe, craning for a closer look. "Daddy," she said hesitantly. "Are those faces? Faces in the water?"

"No," I said, surprised at the steadiness of my own voice. "All you're seeing is an idea she put in your head. Will you guys excuse me for a minute?"

"Of course," Pam said.

"May I be of assistance, Edgar?" Kamen asked in his booming basso.

I smiled. I was surprised at how easily that came, too. Shock has its purposes, it seems. "Thanks, but no. Her doctor's in with her."

I hurried toward the office door, resisting an urge to look back. Melinda hadn't seen it; Ilse had. My guess was that not many people would, even if it were pointed out to them... and even then, most would dismiss it as either coincidence or a small artistic wink.

Those faces.

Those screaming drowned faces in the ship's sunset wake.

Tessie and Laura were there, most certainly, but others as well, just below them where the red faded to green and the green to black.

One might be a carrot-topped girl in an old-fashioned singlet-style bathing suit: Elizabeth's oldest sister, Adriana.

vii

Wireman was giving her sips of what looked like Perrier while Rosenblatt fussed at her side, literally wringing his hands. The office seemed packed with people. It was hotter than the gallery, and getting hotter.

"I want you all out!" Hadlock said. "Everyone but Wireman! Now! Right now!"

Elizabeth pushed aside the glass with the back of her hand. "Edgar," she said in a husky voice. "Edgar stays."

"No, Edgar goes," Hadlock said. "You've excited yourself quite en-"

His hand was in front of her. She seized it and squeezed it. With some force, it seemed, because Hadlock's eyes widened.

"Stays." It was only a whisper, but a powerful one.

People began to leave. I heard Dario telling the crowd gathered outside that everything was fine, Miss Eastlake felt a little faint but her doctor was with her and she was recovering. Jack was going out the door when Elizabeth called, "Young man!" He turned.

"Don't forget," she told him.

He gave her a brief grin and knocked off a salute. "No, ma'am, I sure won't."

"I should have trusted you in the first place," she said, and Jack went out. Then, in a lower voice, as if her strength were fading: "He's a good boy."

"Trusted him for what?" Wireman asked her.

"To search the attic for a certain picnic basket," she said. "In the picture on the landing, Nan Melda is holding it." She looked at me reproachfully.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I remember you telling me, but I just... I got painting, and..."

"I don't blame you," she said. Her eyes had receded deep in their sockets. "I should have known. It's her power. The same power that drew you here in the first place." She looked at Wireman. "And you."

"Elizabeth, that's enough," Hadlock said. "I want to take you to the hospital and run some tests. Run some fluids into you while I'm at it. Get you some rest-"

"I'll be getting all the rest I need very soon now," she told him, and smiled. The smile exposed a large and rather gruesome ring of dentures. Her eyes returned to me. "Trixie pixie nixie," she said. "To her it's all a game. All our sorrow. And she's awake again." Her hand, very cold, settled on my forearm. "Edgar, she's awake!"

"Who? Elizabeth, who? Perse?"

She shuddered backward in her chair. It was as if an electrical current were passing through her. The hand on my arm tightened. Her coral nails punched through my skin, leaving a quartet of red crescents. Her mouth opened, exposing her teeth this time in a snarl instead of a smile. Her head went backward and I heard something in there snap.

" Catch the chair before it goes over! " Wireman roared, but I couldn't I had only one arm, and Elizabeth was clutching it. Was docked in it.

Hadlock grabbed one of the push-handles and the chair skittered sideways instead of toppling backwards. It struck Jimmy Yoshida's desk. Now Elizabeth was in full seizure mode, jittering back and forth in her chair like a puppet. The snood came loose from her hair and flailed, sparkling, in the light of the overhead fluorescents. Her feet jerked and one of her scarlet pumps went flying off. The angels want to wear my red shoes, I thought, and as if the line had summoned it, blood burst from her nose and mouth.

"Hold her!" Hadlock shouted, and Wireman threw himself across the arms of the chair.

She did this, I thought coldly. Perse. Whoever she is.

"I've got her!" Wireman said. "Call 911, doc, for Christ's sake!"

Hadlock hurried around the desk, picked up the phone, dialed, listened. "Fuck! I just get more dial-tone!"

I snatched it from him. "You must have to dial 9 for an outside line," I said, and did it with the phone cradled between my ear and shoulder. And when the calm-voiced woman on the other end asked me the nature of my emergency, I was able to tell her. It was the address I couldn't remember. I couldn't even remember the name of the gallery.