Children of the Storm

surprised that he knew before she asked, had phrased it exactly as she had intended to, in a manner that seemed to make Saine himself slightly suspect.
        “He's helped with my investigation,” Saine explained.
        “How?” She remembered Bill's theory of a payoff.
        “He's done some footwork for me that I couldn't go to Guadeloupe to do myself,” Saine said.
        She had not expected this. “Footwork?”
        “When I first came to Distingue, when I first talked with Ken, he gave me what has amounted to my only promising lead in all this time. And since I couldn't go racing to Guadeloupe to follow up on it, he checked it out at my direction.”
        “What did he find?” Sonya asked.
        “Something interesting, but not incriminating. He gave me my one principle suspect, but I've had to wait for the man to make a wrong move before I can do anything.” He sighed. “Thus far, every move he's made has been cautious and disturbingly right.”
        “And who did Kenneth Blenwell point you toward?” she asked.
        “I'd rather not say just now.”
        “I think I have a right, as the governess and-”
        “I'd rather not say just now,” he repeated.
        There had followed an awkward silence, mutual goodnights, and Sonya had gone to bed, wondering if Saine was lying to her, or whether he was telling the truth. She had also to wonder if Blenwell had purposefully misled Saine, just as she and Bill had earlier discussed…
        
        She lay in the center of her bed, wearing blue jeans and a blouse, foregoing the comfort of pajamas so that, if Hurricane Greta should come close during the night and a rush for the storm celler was indicated, she would be presentably dressed. She could not seem to find a comfortable position, and she kept twisting and turning, lying now on her back, now on her side-though never on her stomach, since, with her back to the room, she kept feeling that someone was sneaking up behind her, an unreasonable fear, since the room was locked. The metal buttons on her jeans pressed into her hips, and her sore neck throbbed slightly -however, most of her discomfort was mental, not physical.
        The day had passed, and she had not yet written out her resignation. Of course, even if she had written it, there was no one to give it to, for Joe Dougherty had not returned from California as she anticipated he would when she first considered quitting. And even if he were here, he would be locked in like the rest of them, isolated both by the madman's actions and by the pressing weight of the tropical storm which was rapidly closing in on them like a heavy blanket, a hard and musty and uncomfortable blanket.
        She wanted out of this gloomy place. Since she had come here to forget her dead grandmother and her long-gone parents, she had had more occasion to be reminded of them, instead, than she would have had if she had remained in Boston. She wanted out.
        She thought about Rudolph Saine, glum and duty-bound, of his concern over Leroy Mills' mother, of his sentimental recollection of his own son-of what kind of fiend he just might be, below the dependable and somewhat attractive surface…
        And Mills, dark and watchful, reluctant to talk about himself, giving an air of secrecy, of quiet planning and careful calculation…
        It was useless.
        She suspected everyone.
        Everyone except herself and Bill Peterson. And if she wanted to be fair about it, she would have to add Bill to that list, for she had no proof that he wasn't the madman. What a mess, what a tedious and awful mess this whole thing had become. Where were the parties she had expected, the people who knew how to enjoy life? Why, instead, was she surrounded with these gloomy people, in this gloomy place? What was her punishment for?
        In time, growing increasingly nervous and farther from sleep by the minute, she took a sleeping tablet and lay down again, finally succumbed to the gentle drug and fell into a chiaroscuro world of vivid nightmares that formed in her mind, one after the other, haunting her fitful sleep.
        
        A screaming banshee woke her.
        She sat straight up in bed.
        Even when she had rubbed her eyes and was fully awake, the banshee continued to scream, its voice high and sharp, its cry a sickening ululation without meaning.
        For one awful moment, she thought that it was one of the children