Legacy Of Terror

have a look around.”
    “He did,” Elaine said, shuddering. She remembered what Rand's pay had been for his diligence.
    “I know. I found his body just before I came up here.”
    “How would you know where to look?”
    He said, “I was sitting in my studio, at the window, and saw you and Gordon come out of the garage. You walked so stiffly and behaved so strangely, I was intrigued. Besides, I'd not forgotten your fear that the killer was one of us. Gordon has always been strange, eager to work and reluctant to play, sober, serious. When I saw the two of you, I began to think the worst. I went to the garage to see what had happened-and found Rand.”
    “You saved my life,” Elaine said. Again, she felt womanly, small and delicate in the capable shadow of a man.
    “You saved all our lives,” he countered. “You were the only one who faced up to an unpleasant possibility. We owe you a great deal.”
    At that moment, Paul Honneker blustered through the doorway.
    Elaine said, “You'd better call an ambulance. The police. And Lee.”
    Plainly shocked by what he saw, Paul said, “Right away!” He thundered down the steps and was gone in a moment.
    When they went back to Gordon, he looked at them and twisted his lips in an expression of deep hatred. Elaine felt chilled again. He said, “Dennis, you will give me that knife.” His voice had risen and had changed inflection so that it sounded exactly like a woman's voice.
    “It's Amelia,” Bess said, and she fell back against the sofa.
    “Dennis,” Gordon said, “your mother commands you to give over that knife!” His voice was definitely feminine, almost sensuous, attractive but for that underlying hatred.
    “You wouldn't believe that she had returned to possess him,” Bess said. “But now you can hear that it is true!”

Chapter 21
    Elaine stood by the pine trees, cool in their feathery shadows, her small hands held over her ears. Dennis stood beside her, alternately watching the lawn where the construction crew worked and watching her face as she made a squinted expression of expectation. He laughed at her, though not cruelly-and he made her wish that the blast would come so that she could drop her hands from her ears and lace her fingers through his.
    I've changed so much in so short a time, she thought. There was a time when thunder or loud noises did not bother me. But that had been before she had anyone upon whom she could rely. That had been when she was alone.
    When the explosion came, it was gentler, more muffled by the earth, than she had expected. She felt the ground tremble, saw clods of earth spin into the sky over the excavation, saw chips of granite and limestone peel up into the blue sky and rattle back.
    Jerry and Bess stood close behind Jacob Matherly where the old man sat in his wheelchair, watching the blasting operations. At first, Elaine had been surprised that no one had blamed the old couple and their superstitions for what had happened to Gordon. But, in the two weeks since Dennis had subdued his brother and ended the nightmare for all of them, she had come to see that no one could be blamed for the combination of circumstances which had plunged Gordon into an early, undetected madness. Jerry and Bess were both of Pennsylvania Dutch parentage, raised in homes where every room had a framed Himmelsbrief on the wall and every occasion called for a different charm. They sincerely believed in all that occult nonsense. You might as well try placing all the blame on Lee or Jacob (for their neglect of Gordon in the face of Dennis' more obvious need of comfort), or on Amelia Matherly for having been mad in the first place (a condition she could not, indeed, have helped). Jerry and Bess would have to live with their guilt; and that was punishment enough.
    And they must understand, by now, that Gordon was not possessed. He was an extreme schizophrenic personality-as the doctors said. He actually did believe he was his mother. Indeed, only in rare moments of lucidity did he any longer remember bis real name and situation. Though the doctors did not put it so bluntly, it appeared as if Gordon would have to be institutionalized for the rest of his life.
    “Here we go again,” Celia Tamlin said, sidling up to Elaine. She was very beautiful, despite her bandages, but she no longer generated any jealousy or dislike in Elaine. Because, Elaine thought, now I know that I'm pretty too. And I know that frivolity isn't such a terrible thing.
    The second explosion was larger than