The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,179

I know what the connection was.”

There was a silence. “Is that all you’re going to say?” Driver asked. “Or are you going to tell me what the connection was?”

“Me,” Oliver said softly. “It was me, Steve.”

Now the silence stretched out so long Oliver wondered if the deputy was still there. But then Steve Driver spoke again. “I guess I better come over.”

“I guess so,” Oliver said, his voice as spiritless as he suddenly felt. Hanging up the phone, he checked the soup, set the microwave to keep it warm until Rebecca came downstairs, then set a place for her at the kitchen table.

He was putting an English muffin in the toaster oven when, at almost the same moment, two cars pulled up in front of his house. After showing Philip Margolis to the room he’d given Rebecca, he led Steve Driver into the kitchen. “You want a cup of coffee or something?” His voice was as dull as it had been on the phone a few minutes earlier.

“I’d like to hear what happened,” the deputy replied. “Or at least what you think happened.”

Oliver cast about in his mind, trying to decide where to begin. A lot of what occurred in the Asylum that day was still jumbled in his memory. Images crowded into his mind, and he shuddered involuntarily as he remembered the scenes of his childhood suffering that had been unlocked from his memory.

“I think it started the day my sister died,” he finally said.

Steve Driver, frowning, sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “That was forty years ago,” he said.

Oliver nodded. “Uncle Harvey gave me something this morning, before he died.” The deputy’s frown deepened, but he said nothing, and Oliver continued. “It was a straight razor, in a mahogany box. He found it on his porch when he got his paper.” Oliver’s eyes met Steve Driver’s. “It was my father’s razor. My father used it to kill my sister. Then he convinced me that I did it.”

Slowly, forcing himself to speak evenly and without emotion, Oliver related what had happened to him in the Asylum that day, all the memories that had come back to him. At some point, while Oliver talked, Philip Margolis joined Steve Driver at the kitchen table. The two men listened silently. Steve Driver took some notes, but never interrupted Oliver.

“That’s what the headaches and the blackouts were about,” Oliver explained to Margolis. “It wasn’t anything physical at all. It was just too many memories that were too painful to face. And every time I went near the Asylum—every time the memories started to come to the surface—I shut them out. I gave myself headaches. I blacked out. I did everything to keep from remembering. And it was what my father wanted.” He shook his head, recalling the scenes he had finally relived, the veil of blackness now forever stripped away. “All those things that started showing up the last few months?” he said. “That doll belonged to Bill McGuire’s aunt. And the dragon lighter? That was Martha Ward’s sister’s. He showed me all those things when I was a child. And he planted it all in my mind.” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “It was his revenge. I was his revenge. His reincarnation, he told me, all that was left of him to do his bidding. He used me to send something back to every family that ever had anything to do with that place.” He fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. “It was I who kidnapped Rebecca,” he said quietly. “I kidnapped her, and I tied her up in there, and I—”

“No!”

The single word was uttered with such force that all three of the men in the kitchen flinched. Then, as one, they turned to see Rebecca Morrison standing in the doorway. She was wrapped in Oliver’s thick terry-cloth bathrobe, far too large for her small form, its belt sashed tightly around her waist. Her hair, clean and dry now, created a soft frame around her heart-shaped face.

Her eyes were fixed on Oliver.

“You didn’t hurt me, Oliver,” she said quietly. “You saved my life.”

Oliver rose and took a step toward her, shaking his head. “Rebecca, you don’t understand. I—”

Quickly, Rebecca crossed the kitchen and once more put her finger to Oliver’s lips. “I know what you did, Oliver,” she said. “I was there, remember? I was there when I was kidnapped, and I was there all the time that man held me in the Asylum. And I was