Escape the Night by Richard North Patterson

Author:Richard North Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497679146
Publisher: Open Road Media

CHAPTER 7

Peter Carey sat watching the lights on his telephone dance with calls he would not take. There were two quick raps on the door; Ruth Levy peered inside to ask, “Are you all right?”

She gave him a deep, black look: did she seem so vulnerable to others, he wondered, or just to him? “Sorry,” he answered. “You shouldn’t have had to sit through that.”

Ruth gave a dismissing shrug. “Barth deserved it. As for Phillip …” Ruth’s eyes darted to the photograph, and then she caught herself. “Phil shouldn’t be playing with someone like Barth.”

“He was right, though—I acted crazy.” Carey had felt out of control, as if stumbling in the fountain before his father caught him. The pounding started in the back of his neck.

The woman’s long black hair spilled in his father’s lap …

“Want some aspirin?” Ruth was asking. “Tylenol, cocaine …”

Carey pointed to his desk drawer. “Thanks—I’ve got aspirin in here.”

The clippings said that Phillip saved him …

“Sure.” Ruth frowned as she reached for the door; Carey thought the effect was almost pretty.

“Ruthie.”

She turned; her glance was startled, expectant: for an instant she seemed a young woman.

“About the meeting,” Carey said. “I didn’t want that to happen. I’m not sure why it did.”

Ruth gave him a last pensive look. “I know,” she said, and then closed the door behind her.

Phillip flung it open. “Are you receiving?” he asked. “Or is admission confined to Ruth?”

Peter slammed the drawer shut; oddly, Phillip remembered catching him with a flashlight under his blanket after bedtime, counting the baseball cards he had surprised him with at dinner. “I’m receiving anyone who knocks,” Peter said.

Phillip forced a placating smile; the cold response turned his memory to anger. “Look, Peter, I thought we’d better have a talk.”

The words sounded harsher than intended. Turning away, Peter answered woodenly, “My fault, Phil—I shouldn’t have blown up.”

There was little heart in the apology. For a moment, Phillip wondered if he should have shown more outrage: Peter was no more a fool than Charles, and even less predictable. “It was quite ugly, Peter—but not, perhaps, beyond redemption. A simple apology to Barth …”

Peter’s eyes snapped up. “No.”

“Peter, look at us.” Phillip shook his head. “This place has turned three generations of Careys into pit dogs. You made that point today, better than I ever could.”

“From which you conclude—what?”

Phillip shrugged. “What does it matter if the firm goes to Barth?”

Peter shook his head. “It does, though,” he said with weary finality. “It matters to me.”

Ungrateful bastard, Phillip thought, and then felt guilty. “I’ll tell Barth,” he answered crisply, and left.

Barth picked up his telephone.

Without preliminaries, Phillip Carey said, “There’s nothing I can do with him.”

Barth twisted with outrage and frustration. “You’re frightened …”

“I just don’t wish to push him—not when he’s this volatile. Nothing’s worth that.”

“Not eight million dollars?”

“No.” Phillip paused. “Not even that.”

Instinctively, Barth probed what he could not yet define. “There are other means of persuasion.”

There was silence. “Are you threatening me, Barth?”

Phillip’s voice was tight; Barth’s own grew soft.

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