The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,578

in the Emergency Room. They were regulating his pulse now with a powerful drug called lidocaine, which was why he was in a mental fog, unable to hang on to any complete thought.

Aaron was allowed in to see him for five minutes during every hour. At some point Aunt Vivian was there too. And then Ryan came.

Various faces appeared over his bed; different voices spoke to him. It was daylight again when the doctor explained that the weakness he felt was to be expected. The good news was that he had sustained relatively little damage to the heart muscle; in fact he was already recovering. They would keep him on the regulating drugs, and the blood thinners, and the drugs that dissolved the cholesterol. Rest and heal were the last words he heard as he went under again.

It must have been New Year’s Eve that they finally explained things to him. By then the medication had been reduced and he was able to follow what they were saying.

There’d been no one on the premises when the fire engine arrived. Just the alarm screaming. Not only had the glass protectors gone off, but somebody had pushed the auxiliary buttons for fire, police, and medical emergency. Rushing through the gate and back the side path, the fire fighters had immediately spotted the broken glass outside the open French doors, the overturned furniture on the veranda, and the blood on the flagstones. Then they spotted the dark shape floating just beneath the surface of the swimming pool.

Aaron had arrived about the time they were bringing Michael around. So had the police. They had searched the house, but could find no one. There was unexplained blood in the house, and evidence of some sort of fire. Closets and drawers were open upstairs, and a half-packed suitcase was open on the bed. But there was no other evidence of a struggle.

It was Ryan who determined, later that same afternoon, that Rowan’s Mercedes convertible was gone, and that her purse and any and all identification were also gone. No one could find her medical bag, though the cousins were sure they had seen such a thing.

In the absence of any coherent explanation of what had happened, the family was thrown into a panic. It was too soon to report Rowan as a missing person, nevertheless police began an unofficial search. Her car was found in the airport parking garage before midnight, and it was soon confirmed that she had purchased two tickets to New York earlier that afternoon, and that her plane had safely landed on schedule. A clerk remembered her, and that she’d been traveling with a tall man. The stewardesses remembered both parties, and that they were talking and drinking during the entire flight. There was no evidence of coercion or foul play. The family could do nothing but wait for Rowan to contact them, or for Michael to explain what had happened.

Three days later, on December 29, a wire had been received from Rowan from Switzerland, in which she explained that she would be in Europe for some time and instructions regarding her personal affairs would follow. The wire contained one of a series of code words known only to the designee of the legacy and the firm of Mayfair and Mayfair. And this confirmed to the satisfaction of everyone involved that the wire had indeed come from Rowan. Instructions were received the same day for a substantial transfer of funds to a bank in Zurich. Once again the correct code words were used. Mayfair and Mayfair had no grounds for questioning Rowan’s instructions.

On January 6, when Michael was moved out of the critical care unit into a regular private room, Ryan came to visit, apparently extremely confused and uncomfortable about the messages he had to relay. He was as tactful as possible.

Rowan would be gone “indefinitely.” Her specific whereabouts were not known, but she had been in frequent touch with Mayfair and Mayfair through a law firm in Paris.

Complete ownership of the First Street house was to be given to Michael. No one in the family was to challenge his full and exclusive right to the property. It was to remain in his hands, and his hands only, until the day he died, at which time it would revert—according to law—to the legacy.

As for Michael’s living expenses, he was to have carte blanche to the full extent that Rowan’s resources allowed. In other words, he was to have all the money he