Part 21 (1/2)

I looked back at Gabrielle holding Jean-Jacques's inert body. He was a big man the last time I'd seen him and it looked as though his wandering years hadn't changed that. I pumped up and down on my knees a couple times and got ready to spring.

My G.o.d, what was I doing? Was I crazy? I couldn't go through with it. But then I remembered. No one was coming. It was all down to me. I crouched down again.

”Kee-yah!” It was a weird, cartoony karate yell, but I figured noise would help me. I grabbed Jean-Jacques by the s.h.i.+rt and he flew from Gabrielle's lap.

Flew? Jean-Jacques weighed next to nothing.

In the confusion, it took several seconds for me to realize it wasn't Jean-Jacques at all, but a dummy dressed in clothes like the ones Binder and I had seen in the room. The moment I realized this, Gabrielle's wiry arm closed across my neck and she dragged me to my feet, screaming in French at the top of her lungs. ”Tu as tue. Tu as tue!”

”What?” My French wasn't good but I got the gist, you killed him. ”Gabrielle, it's me. Julia. Let go. It's okay.”

I slithered around to face her, her arm still around my neck. My back was to the doorway. Gabrielle let go, then put both hands on my clavicle and pushed. I thought I might go over backwards. I shouted, ”No! Gabrielle! No!” and took a giant step back to regain my footing. She came after me again, and before I knew it, we were out in the hallway. I kept backing up in the face of her shoving, trying to fight her off without hurting her.

I screamed in English. ”I didn't hurt Jean-Jacques, Gabrielle! I would never hurt him. Please believe me. You and Etienne are like my own parents. Please!”

My backside hit the railing of the open balcony just as Etienne let out a sound so loud I heard it despite his gag. I looked back toward the doorway and saw flames. When I'd tossed the dummy into the air, it must have landed on the candles. Its clothes were a ball of fire and soon flames would reach the bed where Etienne was tied.

”Gabrielle, Gabrielle, let me go! We have to save Etienne!”

But the face that looked back at me didn't care or comprehend. She was mad. She threw herself against me, bending me back over the rail. It came to me in an instant. Something like this had happened to Ray. It was how he broke his neck!

I screamed at her and pushed back with all my might, but physics was on her side. I felt sure I would topple over the railing. Smoke poured out of the room and swirled above us, collecting in the high, coffered ceiling. I pleaded, ”No, Gabrielle, no. Please, please. It's Julia.”

But she didn't stop.

I couldn't straighten up, so I grabbed Gabrielle and pulled her toward me, just as she moved forward for a vicious shove. I thought for a split second that both of us would go over the balcony, but her momentum carried her forward and she sailed by me, over the railing, screaming as she went down. There was a sickening thud in the hallway below.

I was so shocked I couldn't move. Then, I looked over the rail and in the dim light made out Gabrielle's broken body below.

Etienne was shouting against the gag. I ran to the door. The room was almost fully engulfed in flame. The window had exploded open, feeding oxygen to the fire. Flames licked toward the bedding. I had to get Etienne out.

I ran into the room, then retreated, coughing and sputtering. No one is coming, no one is coming, no one is coming. There was only one person who could save Etienne. I went in again, crawling toward the bed on my belly, breathing the freshest air in the room.

Etienne strained frantically.

”Keep still,” I hissed. I didn't think I was going to get another chance. His arms were secured to the headboard by two short lengths of rope. Once I got him to lie still, the knots were easy to untie, despite my shaking hands. I didn't even untie the gag. I put his arm around my shoulders and the flames chased us from the room.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stared at Gabrielle's body. He made a mewling sound around the gag.

I pulled him from the house and fought to keep him outside. ”You can't go back in! Too dangerous.” Above us, flames leaped out of the fourth floor windows toward the night sky.

”The radio!” I yelled. ”Etienne, we have to get back to your house.” I undid the gag as he fought me off.

”Non, non, non.” He ran back into Windsholme.

I stood there for a moment, too shocked to move. No one is coming.

I charged through the door and was greeted with such a whirl of smoke I nearly ran out. No one is coming. I called to Etienne, but in the roar of the fire, I couldn't even hear myself. I knew he'd gone to the bottom of the staircase where Gabrielle's body lay. I fell to my knees and crawled toward the spot.

A loud crack sounded above and a long, flaming span of the banister careened down, nearly hitting me. I wanted to call out, but knew I had to conserve my breath. I crawled on in the dark and the noise, waving an arm in front of me with each movement. Just when I thought I would have to turn back, I hit something. Etienne's strong calf. I pulled on his pants leg, shouting, ”We have to go!”

With Gabrielle in his arms, he took a step toward me.

For a moment, I feared I'd gotten turned around in the fire and wouldn't be able to find the door. I decided I had to back out on my knees, exactly as I'd come in. I pulled on Etienne's ankle. Step this way, step this way. Slowly, so slowly, we moved back across the room. Etienne coughed continuously in the smoke-filled air. The moment my foot hit the threshold of the doorway, he staggered to a stop.

”We have to go!” I screamed. ”We have to go out. Now.” I pulled myself up, hugging Etienne and the still body of Gabrielle. The stairs burned around us, flames leaping. I gasped, even the few feet I gained by standing made it more difficult to breathe. I put my arms around his waist and pulled him the last few steps out the door.

Outside, breathing heavily, I moved behind Etienne, pus.h.i.+ng him down the steps and then down the lawn away from the burning building. Finally, when we were at the midpoint between the house and the pavilion, he laid Gabrielle gently in the gra.s.s and we turned and looked back.

The inside of Windsholme was an inferno. The stone walls that had protected the house from the porch fire now had the opposite effect. Inside, the flames built and roared as if they were in a giant, stone oven. As Etienne and I stood and watched, flames leaped out the windows toward the wooden gables and up into the roof.

”Is Jean-Jacques somewhere in there?” I asked Etienne.

He shook his head. ”He never was. He never has been.”

A noise like a freight train barreling through the night sounded as a third of Windsholme's roof caved in. Slates fell into the house and flames shot thirty feet into the sky.

Etienne fell over the broken body of his wife and wept.

I heard a shout behind me. It was Quentin Tupper, running up the lawn. ”I saw the flames,” he panted. ”From my house. The Coast Guard's on its way.”

And soon they all were there. The Coast Guard, the Busman's Harbor Fire Department, the harbormaster, along with Lieutenant Binder and Detective Flynn.

Chapter 51.

When it was almost dawn, after we'd been questioned separately for hours, they loaded Etienne and me onto a Coast Guard s.h.i.+p. We sat together in the stern, both of us covered in soot. My eyes still blinked from the irritation.

Lieutenant Binder went off to attend to something, calling to Detective Flynn who'd been watching us. I had the feeling Binder left Etienne and me alone on purpose. It wasn't like either of us could go anywhere, and there was so much to be said.

”Etienne, what happened?” I had to know. I wouldn't be able to make sense of anything that had happened to us until I did.

Even through the grime, I could see his sadness. ”Gabby did not do well with . . . with what happened with Jean-Jacques. You have noticed this?”

”Yes,” I said.

”No one has understood how badly it has gone for her. I talked to your father about it, back when it began. But soon, he was sick with cancer and had troubles of his own. Gabby just got worse.” Etienne was another person who was missing my father. His best friend, his confidant.

”But I don't understand-”

”This spring, someone cleaned up the playhouse. I don't know who it was. I thought perhaps Sonny had done it for the kids, but he said no when I asked him. Gabrielle took this as a sign Jean-Jacques was back. She became convinced he was living here on the island.” Etienne's voice caught.

I attempted to imagine what he was going through at that moment, but could not.

”I tried to reason with her. I took her everywhere on the island. But wherever we were, she claimed Jean-Jacques was somewhere else. Gabby left food in the playhouse. She went into town and purchased the clothes you saw, which she lovingly washed and folded.” Etienne paused, then regained control. ”I didn't know what to do. I talked to her doctors. They prescribed medications. They said it was an obsession, but I knew it was something else. I believed she really saw and heard him.”