in the darkness, listening. Then, through the French doors leading to the flagstoned side patio, the first rays of the rising moon crept into the room. In that first instant of faint illumination, Megan saw them.
The eyes of the doll, gleaming in the moonlight, gazing down at her from the top shelf of the tall case that stood against the wall to the right of the fireplace.
So high that her mother thought she wouldn’t be able to reach it.
But Megan knew better. As silent and surefooted as she’d been when she crept through the upstairs hall and down the stairs, she crossed the library and began climbing up the shelves of the cabinet as easily as if they were the steps of a ladder.
Elizabeth jerked awake, not from the terror of another nightmare, but from a loud crash, immediately followed by a terrified shriek. Then, a long, wailing cry.
Megan!
Heaving herself out of bed and ignoring the robe lying on the chaise longue, Elizabeth stumbled through the darkness toward the bedroom door. She fumbled with the two old-fashioned light switches set in the wall next to the door. A second later the overhead fixture in the center of the ceiling came on, filling the room with harsh white light. Blinking in the glare, Elizabeth jerked the bedroom door open and stepped into the hall, now lit brightly with its own three chandeliers.
Megan’s door was closed, but as Elizabeth started toward her daughter’s room, another scream rent the night.
Downstairs!
Megan had gone downstairs and—
The doll! She’d found the doll and tried to get it, and—
Heart beating wildly, Elizabeth lurched to the top of the long flight and started down. When she was still three steps from the bottom, the lights in the entry hall came on, illuminating Mrs. Goodrich, wrapped in a tattered chenille bathrobe, shuffling toward the living room.
As still another cry echoed through the house, Elizabeth came to the bottom of the stairs and rushed through the living room. At the door to the library, she reached for the bank of switches, pressing every one her fingers touched. As the lights flashed on and every shadow was washed from the room, the vision Elizabeth had seen only in her mind a few moments before was now revealed in its terrible reality.
The mahogany case had fallen forward. Beneath it, Elizabeth could see Megan struggling to free herself from the massive weight pressing down on her. The pictures and curios that had filled the case’s shelves were scattered everywhere, shards of glass from broken picture frames littered the carpet, and figurines lay broken all around her.
Megan’s shrieks had deepened to a sobbing cry.
Choking back a scream, Elizabeth rushed across the room and bent down, her fingers curling around the front edge of the cabinet’s top.
From the doorway, realizing what Elizabeth was about to do, Mrs. Goodrich cried out. “Don’t! You mustn’t!”
Ignoring the old housekeeper’s plea, Elizabeth summoned every ounce of strength she could muster and heaved the case upward, lifting it off her daughter. “Move, Megan,” Elizabeth cried. “Get out from—” Her words cut off by a terrible flash of pain that felt as if a knife had been thrust into her belly, Elizabeth struggled to hold on to the cabinet while Megan, finally responding to her mother’s voice, squirmed free. A second later the weight of the cabinet overwhelmed her and it crashed back to the floor. Elizabeth sank down onto the carpet as another wrenching pain ripped through her and she felt something inside her give way.
“Call … ambulance,” she gasped, her hands clutching protectively at her belly. “Oh, God, Mrs. Goodrich. Hurry!”
Wave after wave of pain was crushing her. Elizabeth felt a terrible weakness come over her, and the light began to fade.
The last thing she saw before darkness closed around her was Megan, on her feet now and looking down at her.
In Megan’s arms, utterly undamaged by the accident that had smashed everything else the cabinet had held, was the doll.
Chapter 6
Bill McGuire turned into the nearly deserted parking lot of Blackstone Memorial Hospital and pulled the car into the space closest to the emergency entrance. He’d driven for nearly three hours, leaving the motel in Port Arbello minutes after he’d gotten the call from Mrs. Goodrich, pausing only long enough to drop the room key through the mail slot in the office’s locked front door. Throughout the frantic drive to Blackstone, he’d had to force himself time and again to slow down, reminding himself that the objective was