Hide & Seek - James Patterson [67]
Then Jennie and Barry and Allie were there for me. So were a couple of the musicians. They helped me offstage. I could barely walk.
“Poor Mommy,” Allie kept saying. “Poor Mommy. Mommy got sick.”
CHAPTER 79
WILL HAD ALWAYS been a night creature. Now, more than ever he needed to get out and around. The werewolf of Bedford.
He whipped his black BMW coupe approximately five hundred yards down Greenbriar Road. He turned from one tree-lined, shadowy driveway—his own—into the next.
The main entrance to the Lake Club was marked by ten-foot-high fieldstone pillars. An uneven fence of like stone ran the length of the property, and Will drove past the entrance to a designated spot near the fence.
He parked and got out. The fence swung open; a path led to the rear of the clubhouse and a service door that would be virtually invisible to anyone who wasn't looking for it.
Inside the club, there was a tangible stillness in the air that signified privacy and privilege. It reminded Will of the silence of cathedrals and European banks. He maneuvered his way past deserted billiard and smoking rooms to yet another door, on which he knocked, paused, and knocked again.
The door was opened from inside. Will blinked at the sudden bright light assailing his eyes. Then he took in the mahogany paneling, the long oak bar, the Tiffany lamps, and the Renaissance paintings that hung on the walls of the room.
The group of men clustered at the bar had watched his entrance. They said hello once they saw it was he, and that Will belonged there.
Peter O’Malley was one of them. Strangely, he and Will had become friendly at the club. They had Maggie in common, didn’t they? Maggie had brought them together, and they frequently talked about her. Peter dreamed of bringing Maggie down.
That evening, they were both attending a late-night get-together at the country club. The meeting was strictly unofficial.
Once, or sometimes twice a month, after the club closed, a few members brought in special entertainment. It was a way for the high-powered men to let off steam and have some social, and certainly politically unacceptable, fun. God knows, they couldn’t seem to get it at home with “the wives.”
The room was lit by the gold and red flames from an ample fieldstone fireplace. The fires of Hell, Will called it. A sample of what’s to come for the lot of us.
Standing in front of the fireplace in a more or less orderly row, stood six girls. They were all young beauties. Their bare skin and long hair gleamed in the burnishing firelight.
The eldest looked twenty at the most, the youngest might have been sixteen. Each was wearing a black sleeping mask. The girls were never permitted to see the members, or even the location of the club.
The exclusive Lake Club of Bedford Hills, Will thought to himself. It was a facade, like everything else.
Later that night, Will picked out one of the young girls. She was tall and blond and reminded him of Jennie.
CHAPTER 80
I THINK I knew in my heart, for some time, that the marriage was over between Will and me. It was a matter of timing now. What would be best for the children, then for me, and finally for Will. I didn’t want to hurt him, just leave him.
Will was there to greet us when we got home. He was also his old self. Our arrival revived him. He became almost giddy with joy. He seemed genuinely concerned about what had happened to me in San Francisco, my minibreakdown. He said he understood “the jitters” very well, and I believed Will did.
He promised me there would be no more anger, no more fights, no more disappearances. His fear of desertion had made him desperate. He was in touch with his feelings once again.
I listened to Will and everything he had to say. I heard the words. I had already made my decision though. Will had shown me, however briefly, a side of him that I couldn’t possible be around, or deal with.
An uneasy calm descended on the house in Bedford.
It was calm sometimes too with Phillip, I thought.
I was getting everything