The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,25

a day or two, where’s the real harm? Right now she’s got hormones raging through her, causing all kinds of confusion, and she’s in just as much turmoil emotionally as she is chemically. Let’s just give her another day to calm down, and then take another look at how she’s doing. Deal?”

Bill hesitated, but as he turned Margolis’s words over in his mind, he began to see their wisdom. Finally he took the doctor’s outstretched hand. “Deal.”

In her room, Megan lay in her bed, watching the shadows on the ceiling. She’d been awake a long time, listening through the nursery door, hearing every word her mother and father had said.

And now, as she lay gazing at the dark shapes above her, she heard another voice.

The voice of the doll.

But tonight it wasn’t calling out to her.

Tonight it was whispering.

As it spoke, Megan listened, and began to understand what she must do.

Chapter 10

The next morning dawned bright and clear, with no trace of the slate gray overcast that had gathered like a shroud over Blackstone nearly every day of the past week. Leaving Elizabeth to sleep as long as she could, Bill was dressed and at the desk in the library by six. By eight, when Megan came in to report that Mrs. Goodrich was going to throw his breakfast away if he didn’t come to the table right now, he’d reached the conclusion that if he and Elizabeth were reasonably careful about what they spent, they might just make it through until Jules Hartwick’s problem at the bank was cleared up. At the worst, only a small loan would be needed, and there was far more than enough value in the house to secure whatever loan might become necessary. Then, as he and Megan were finishing breakfast half an hour later, the phone rang and the need for a loan suddenly evaporated.

“I’m wondering if you might have any free time,” Harvey Connally said. It was clear in the old man’s voice that he was aware of the problems with Blackstone Center.

“Depending on the project, I might be able to work you in,” Bill replied.

“I thought you might,” Connally observed dryly. “Here’s the deal. My nephew Oliver has been wanting to do some remodeling down at the Chronicle. Seems he’s decided he needs a private office, and I thought it might make a nice Christmas present for him.”

“It would make a nice Christmas present for me too,” Bill said.

“Always like to spread the cheer around.” Connally chuckled. “Hate to see anyone get their holidays ruined. Why don’t you meet me down at Oliver’s little place in about an hour?”

As Bill hung up the phone and went back to the dining room, the load of worries he’d been carrying for the last few days seemed just a little lighter.

Megan watched from the front porch until her father had disappeared down Amherst Street, then she went back into the house, closing the door silently behind her. In her mind she could still hear the doll whispering to her, just as it had last night.

“Go to the kitchen,” the doll’s voice instructed. “See what Mrs. Goodrich is doing.”

Obeying the voice, Megan moved through the dining room and the little butler’s pantry, and pushed open the kitchen door. Mrs. Goodrich was sitting at the table, mixing a large bowl of batter.

“No tasting,” the old woman warned as Megan reached a finger into the bowl, scooping out a large dollop of dark brown dough studded with chocolate bits. “Well, maybe just one,” the housekeeper amended as the lump of dough disappeared into the little girl’s mouth. “But that’s enough,” she added, rapping Megan’s knuckles lightly with a wooden spoon as she reached for a second helping. “Now, you just stay out of my way for half an hour, and then we’ll start getting the Christmas things out. And this year you can set the crèche up on the mantel all by yourself.”

Snatching one last morsel of the batter, Megan left the kitchen.

“Half an hour,” the voice in her head said. “That’s a long time.”

As the voice whispered to her, Megan went upstairs and paused outside her parents’ bedroom. The door was closed, but when she pressed her eye to the keyhole, she could see that her mother was still in bed.

Megan waited, watching. After a full minute had passed, she decided that her mother was still asleep. Moving farther along the hall, she passed the door to the big linen closet, then went through the next