The Blackstone Chronicles - By John Saul Page 0,43

see him,” Martha stated. “It doesn’t matter what guise he takes on, a person of virtue can always recognize the Devil.”

“But what does he look like?” Rebecca pressed. “How would I know if I’ve seen him?”

Martha Ward set her coffee cup down and regarded her niece suspiciously. There was a lot of her father in Rebecca, and Martha Ward had never approved of the man her sister, Margaret, had married, any more than she did of the man her daughter, Andrea, was living with. Mick Morrison, as far as Martha had been concerned, was evil incarnate. It had always been her firm belief that the accident that killed both him and her sister was nothing short of God’s retribution for Mick Morrison’s sinning ways, and Meg’s countenancing those sins. Rebecca, she assumed, had been spared her life because she was so young, but there was still more of Mick Morrison in her niece than Martha would have preferred. The vigilance required to prevent Rebecca from giving in to the wickedness inherited from her father was just one more of the crosses she’d been called upon to bear. Martha sighed heavily. “Just what are you trying to get at, Rebecca?”

“I saw something last night,” her niece replied. “It was after the Hartwicks’ party.” She described the figure she’d seen emerging from the porte cochere next door. “And he just vanished into the snow,” she finished. “It was almost like he hadn’t been there at all.”

Martha Ward’s face pinched in disapproval of her niece’s recitation. “Perhaps he wasn’t there, Rebecca,” she suggested. “Perhaps you merely invented this mysterious person to justify having been spying on our neighbors. The Hartwicks are good, decent people, and they don’t need you peeping at them in the middle of the night. I suggest you go to the chapel and say three Hail Marys in repentance. And as for the Devil,” she added pointedly as Rebecca hurried to obey her order, “I think you should look very carefully at Oliver Metcalf.”

There, she told herself as Rebecca left the room. I’ve done my duty, and if anything bad happens to her, it’s nobody’s fault but her own.

Jules Hartwick could feel them watching him.

It started the moment he left the house. Even as he walked down the driveway to the sidewalk, he’d known that Martha Ward and Rebecca Morrison were watching. Twice he turned to glare accusingly at them, but both times they were too quick for him, stepping back from their windows before he caught even a glimpse of them.

But they weren’t fooling him—he knew they were there!

Just as he knew the rest of his neighbors on Harvard Street were watching him as he made his way down the hill toward Main. How long had they been watching him? Years, probably. And he knew why.

They were all his enemies.

He understood it all this morning with a clarity he’d never had before.

They knew about the problems at the Bank.

They knew about the affair Madeline was having.

And they were laughing at him, laughing at his humiliation, laughing at the indignity, the dishonor that was about to befall him. But he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, wouldn’t even let them know he’d finally caught on to them. He held his head high as he turned onto Main Street and walked right past the Red Hen Diner, where half the leading businessmen in Blackstone gathered every morning for coffee.

Their real purpose, of course, was to plot against him, to plan the downfall of not only his bank, but himself as well. And they’d been clever, going so far as to ask him to join their group in order to keep him from guessing its true purpose. But this morning, finally, he understood why some of them were always already there when he arrived, and others always lingered after he left. They were talking about him, whispering to each other behind his back, plotting every detail of his downfall.

But he wouldn’t let it happen.

Now that he knew what they were doing, he could out-maneuver them. He’d always been smarter than the rest of them, and that was another reason they hated him.

Well, they might hate him, but they wouldn’t beat him!

Now, as he stepped through the door of the Bank, he could feel the whole staff watching him, even though they were pretending not to be.

The tellers were behind their windows, ostensibly counting their cash drawers, but he knew they were secretly observing him, following every step he took