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.“He didn’t know the meaning of the word.He was strutting like a bantam cock, crowing and smug.He had sons.Lots of sons.”“But you did conceive.” Hannah slid down another step.She wasn’t done with the second shelf from the top, but Mrs.Manly’s appearance alarmed her.The woman was red-faced, almost apoplectic.“After years of hell, of taking hormones to stimulate my ovaries to produce eggs.Do you know what happens when they do that to you? Weight gain, abdominal pain, nausea.not to mention I miscarried twice.I spent the pregnancy on complete bed rest.And do you know what I got for my pains? Carrick.” She spat the name.“My son, Carrick.”Well.That answered any questions Hannah had about the relationship between mother and son.“Did.did Carrick’s birth make your husband happy?”“Yes.But then, he always was jubilant when one of his children was born.Another son to prove his manhood.” The bright red color receded from Mrs.Manly’s face, and she smiled, a superior lift of her lips.“After Carrick, there were no more sons for him.”“What?” Hannah stood perched on the ladder, and stared at her employer.“Not long after Carrick was born, Nathan was walking through Central Park, returning from his girlfriend’s house.Right there in broad daylight, he was mugged and beaten.One testicle was crushed beyond repair; they had to amputate.The other.” Mrs.Manly tsked in mock sorrow.“When he recovered, he discovered he was no longer the man he had once been.”Had Hannah imagined it, or had Mrs.Manly just obliquely confessed to arranging the beating of her own husband?“He changed then.He didn’t have the affairs, but he didn’t stay home, either.He visited his sons.He spent time at the business he’d built in Pennsylvania.And he started looking beyond.” Mrs.Manly was looking beyond, too, staring into space as if she could see her absent husband.She whispered, “I should have seen it coming.” She switched her attention to Hannah so swiftly Hannah’s head spun.“Bring me Ulysses by James Joyce.”Hannah gaped at her.“Hurry, girl.We haven’t got all day.It’s on the fourth shelf, the middle shelf, a leather-bound hard-cover, tan with black lettering.”Hannah searched.“You like Ulysses?” She found it jutting out from among the paperbacks, put her finger on the spine, and tugged.Nothing happened.“I read it in college lit.” Hannah tugged again.“Personally, I found it one of the most obvious attempts of an English teacher to get his students to commit suicide from sheer boredom.”“Grip it and pull,” Mrs.Manly directed.Hannah wrapped her hand around Ulysses and pulled.The book popped loose with an audible sproing.and the wall moved.No, not the wall, the bookcase.Hannah jumped back.She stared as, slowly, the polished wood, the heavy tomes, the gargoyles swung on a pivot to reveal a black hole behind the wall.Hand over her heart, she said, “My God.There is a secret passage.”“Yes.There is.How did you hear about it?” Mrs.Manly asked.“Carrick said there was rumored to be one, but that he’d never found it.” Hannah slid a foot inside, then her head, then her body and looked around.She stood on a narrow landing, with stairs going up one way and down the other.Light slipped in from some unknown source—an unseen window, or a skylight—and illuminated dust and cobwebs.Across the way, another part of the wall was cut at a forty-five-degree angle.“I never told Carrick about it.By the time he was old enough, I didn’t trust him.” Mrs.Manly’s voice sounded nearer, much nearer.Hannah turned to face her.“There’s another entrance across the way?”Mrs.Manly sat in her wheelchair.“Bright girl.In the bedroom next to mine, there’s another bookcase.Every bookcase that leads to the passage is set at an angle, and somewhere on the shelves, there’s a copy of Ulysses by James Joyce.Remove that, and it opens.”Diabolical.Mrs.Manly was diabolical.“Where does the passage go?”“It leads from the attic to the basement, and from there, into a cave and onto the beach.Pull Ulysses loose, and you can step inside, shut yourself in, and escape.”Hannah pushed the bookcase shut and replaced the book in exactly the right spot.“Escape what?”“Whatever monster is chasing you.”Hannah remembered all the things Carrick had done and said, all of the trials Mrs.Manly had suffered, and she felt dread creep up her spine on tiny spiderlike feet.“So there actually are secrets?”“Some I know.Others I only suspect.” Mrs.Manly pushed herself toward the door.“But I know we’ve got trouble, girl.Big trouble.”“What kind of trouble?”“The house is watching us.”Gabriel caught a glimpse of movement on the monitor.In the corridor outside Mrs.Manly’s room, two figures, the young woman and the wheelchair-bound elderly lady, maneuvered their way into the elevator and disappeared.He turned to the next monitor.The elevator door opened on the ground floor, and they exited.Hannah Grey grasped the handles of the wheelchair and pushed Mrs.Manly into the dining room.Another monitor picked them up as she settled Mrs.Manly into her place and went down the stairs toward the kitchen.He’d placed cameras well.He had a complete view of the corridor, a solid view of the foyer, the elevator and dining room.While Mrs.Manly and Hannah Grey were occupied, he needed to organize one more very important camera setup.Gathering his equipment, he sprinted out of the bedroom he occupied in the north wing, and headed for Mrs.Manly’s suite [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]