House of Skin (24 page)

“I’m coming,” he shouted at the ringing bell.

He took his time making his way to the third floor. When he got to the master suite, he frowned, for the sound wasn’t coming from in here. The odor of a heavy bedpan hung in the air. Of course. That noisome shit-and-piss smell never disappeared. Myles made a face and sighed. As he was about to leave the bedroom he paused. The ringing had ceased.

He scanned the gloom of the master suite for her. He was walking toward the bathroom door when he noticed the bell sitting on the nightstand beside her bed.

What the hell?
 

Movement behind him made him whirl and cry out.

The sound, a secret slithering, continued. Yet Annabel was nowhere in sight.

He called her name but was answered only by another sound, an alien rustle inside the walls.

“Myles.”
 

Her voice came from outside the bedroom, somewhere down the hall. Sweating, he listened and moved down the corridor. He heard his name again and knew she was in the library, probably reading some of her weird magic shit.

He opened the library door, felt the blood drain from his face.

Annabel was standing naked before the hearth, the room around her freezing cold despite the fire she’d built and the heat of the summer day. She no longer looked wasted and frail. Her back was to him, and looking at the cleft of her buttocks, the smoothness of her legs, he felt the old desire kindle and grow. The shadows of the flames flickered and danced over her creamy skin, and Myles was moving toward her, time folding in on itself until he was back with her by the bonfire on the night he’d killed his brother.

She stood there with arms out and palms up, her feet wide and knees slightly bent. The fire, like a molten lover, seemed to lick her body, and though Myles felt chilled to the marrow he could see the sweat trickling down her contoured back.

He stood behind her and for a moment glimpsed her portrait above the hearth, the painting of her in those old-fashioned clothes, the white dress and the jewels. He’d asked her where she’d had it done and who had painted her, but she’d only laughed and changed the subject, and for the first time he wondered whether she’d really been playing dress up, whether the truth of the portrait were stranger, less comprehensible. He’d met her when David had, at one of their parties, but even then he’d thought she’d looked familiar, as though they’d seen each other as children or sometime else in the distant past.

He smelled the lust breathing out of her, and all around them came the sounds of the unseen creatures, the stealthy rustle and click he’d heard in the bedroom. Aching with the need to be inside her and trembling in fear of what hid behind the walls, Myles reached out.

And screamed.

For she’d swiveled her head to leer at him with blood red eyes, her fish-white teeth too long and too sharp. Her breasts swam and moved under her flesh, her pubic hair a nest of tiny vipers slithering in a shifting black clump, their diamond heads slithering into her vagina and out again.

He fell then and flopped onto his stomach. He buried his face in the crook of his arm to block out the sight of her, to escape her terrible scarlet eyes and her slithering flesh, but when he opened his eyes to find the door, the cold had gone and the rustling sounds had given way to the ringing bell. Myles glanced over his shoulder at the empty hearth, which gave no sign of having been used in months.

Whimpering, he pushed to his feet and back toward the master suite. When he entered, the ringing of the bell did not stop, and Annabel, in her white nightgown, lay watching him. Above the bedclothes he could see her thinning arms, pallid and frail from the sickness.

The bell dropped from her hand, landed on the rug beside the bed.

“What is it?” he asked, struggling to regain his composure.

Her eyes crawled over his body. “Why are you sweating?”
 

“None of your goddamn business. What do you need?”

“I’m cold, Myles.”
 

“Then why didn’t you have Barbara give you an extra blanket before she left?”
 

“Because I don’t like Barbara.”

Myles felt the chill return, icy fingers caressing his spine. He took a blanket from the dresser and spread it over her, careful to avoid eye contact.

“I said I don’t like her, Myles.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said. His throat felt dry and dusty, cornhusks in a drought. “She does a good job of looking after you.”

“And you do a good job of looking after her.”

“Don’t let’s start on that again,” he said.

As he drew the blanket over her arms and tucked it under her pointed chin, her eyes snared him. Try as he might, he couldn’t look away.

Annabel said, “Don’t touch her.”

He laughed but it came out wrong. “You’re deluded. Every girl you see you think I want to screw.”

She watched him, eyes large.

“I mean it, Myles.”

“Go to sleep, Annabel.” He turned from the bed and left the room. As he passed the library, he could almost pretend the sounds he heard were in his head and not the walls.

Chapter Sixteen

Sam was on edge. Though he hadn’t learned a single thing about what happened to Ted Brand, the more he learned about the man himself, the more he felt his disappearance wasn’t such a bad thing. Brand was no criminal, but he was no saint either. By Sam’s count, he had at least five girlfriends, a couple his age, the rest of them younger. He favored strippers and waitresses, brunettes mostly. None of them knew a thing about Brand’s whereabouts.

To make matters worse, it was only ten in the morning and Daryl Applegate was already driving him nuts

The deputy was breathing loud. The guy made sounds like an iron lung, strained and wheezy. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Applegate, mouth open, filling up the squad car with his eggplant breath.

“Daryl.”

Applegate turned.

“Yeah, Sam?”

“Close your mouth when you breathe.”

Daryl’s face pinched. “You know I got sinuses.”

“We’ve all got sinuses, Daryl.”
 

“Yeah, but mine are stopped up on account of my allergies. I can’t even breathe out of my left nostril.”

Sam sat quiet.

“Had surgery on it,” Applegate went on. “Doctor said it was a real roto-rooter job. Didn’t do any good though. Still can’t breathe with the left and can barely breathe with the right.” Daryl made an exaggerated sniff to illustrate his point. “See? It’s like breathing through one of those coffee straws.”

“Okay, Daryl.”

The car turned onto County Road 500, asphalt becoming gravel. Sam rolled down his window and spat. The summer air felt good on his face, so he thumbed the window down all the way and cocked an elbow in the opening. The sounds of the tires crunching on gravel drowned out some of Daryl’s wheezing.

He came to Julia Merrow’s lane, turned.

“Now make sure you keep quiet and let me do the talking.”
 

“Sure, Sam.”

“Julia’s a good girl, so don’t treat her like a suspect.”
 

“Right.” Daryl undid his seatbelt, reached down, shifted his gun in his holster.

“What the hell you doing with that?” Barlow asked. The stupid oaf carried his Ruger everywhere, was always messing with it, tempting fate.

“Nothing, Sam. Just making sure it’s holstered right.”

“Why do you need a gun anyway?”

“We’re interrogating a witness.”

Sam hit the brakes. Applegate slid forward and caught himself on the dash.

“What’s the matter?” Daryl asked.

“One, she’s not a witness. She said she didn’t see anything, and I believe her. I’m just double-checking because we’ve got nothing.”

“It could be she’s lying,” Daryl said and nodded down the lane toward the house, which was barely visible through the dense pines and firs.

“She’s not,” Barlow shot back, loud in the squad car. “And secondly, this isn’t an interrogation. An interrogation happens at the station. This,” he said, nodding toward the house, “is a private residence. And the girl who lives here hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Fine,” Daryl said, wounded. “All I meant was it’s better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have one.”

Sam let off the brake. “You’ve seen too many police shows.”

“It’s still true. Why would you talk to her again if you didn’t suspect her?”

“It’s just a precaution,” Sam replied.

Sam chewed the inside of his mouth. He knew he should have left Applegate back at the station, but the dumb shit was driving Patti nuts, and as a favor to her Sam took custody of him for the day. Now, he wished he’d dropped him off on the roadside somewhere.

The cruiser pulled up next to the little white farmhouse, and Sam felt his heart ache for a moment. Applegate made to get out of the car, but Sam grabbed his arm.

“What?” Daryl asked.

“What are you gonna do in there?”

“Keep my mouth shut.”

“What are we doing here?”

“Just talking. She’s not a witness and we’re not questioning her. Alright?”

They both looked up. Julia stood on the porch.

They climbed out of the car. Sam could smell the forest around them, the dandelions dotting the yard. Julia watched him, no expression he could read. She wore a red tee shirt, tight, and beige shorts.

“Morning, Julia.”
 

“Hello, Mr. Barlow.”

“Now darn it,” he said, approaching the porch, “I told you to call me Sam. Makes me feel old when you start saying mister and sir.”
 

“Okay,” she said and smiled, though he could see her heart wasn’t in it.

“Remember me?” Daryl put in.

Barlow shot him a look. Julia watched him without speaking.

“We used to have the same piano teacher when we were little. Until I gave it up to focus on sports.”

Julia didn’t respond.

“Mrs. Weybright?” Daryl said. “Remember her? Used to make you start all over if you hit a wrong note.”

“I only went to her for a little while during kindergarten. My grandma taught me after that,” Julia said.

“Yeah, she wasn’t much of a teacher. Dead now.” Daryl cleared his throat. “Julia, we’d like to ask you a few questions about the night of April the Fourth. Do you remember where you were that evening?”

Julia looked at Sam. “I thought we already talked about this.”

Sam was watching Daryl, seething. Glaring at the deputy, he replied, “We did, Julia. Deputy Applegate is speaking out of turn.”

Daryl opened his mouth to reply but Barlow cut him off, looking at Julia now. “The problem is, we’ve had no luck finding him. I know you had nothing to do with whatever happened to Ted Brand, but I’m hoping you’ve maybe seen or heard something that could help us.”

She shook her head slowly. “Not that I can think of.”

“I know it’s an inconvenience, but would you mind if we came in?”

Julia glanced at Applegate, seemed about to demur, then her expression relaxed and she said to Sam, “Of course.”

She moved toward the door, Applegate following. Sam gripped the deputy by the arm. “You talk again and I’m gonna shove that revolver up your ass.”

Sam held Daryl’s eyes a moment longer.

With a sour grunt, Sam mounted the steps and opened the screen door. It banged Daryl on the shoulder as he passed through.

Out on his run Paul remembered he’d forgotten to check the mail the day before. When he spied the envelope from Twice Bitten Books, he felt his stomach flutter.

He exhaled, reading the rejection. A form letter.

Disappointed and relieved, he jogged home.

The girl was sitting at the kitchen table, the hanging light making a shiny oval on her forehead. Barlow scooted a chair up to the head of the table, beside the girl. Daryl sat across from Julia, watching her. Her red tee shirt stretched taut on her breasts, and as he stared at them, at the supple skin of her throat, he saw goosebumps materialize, and when he looked up he realized that she was watching him watch her. She folded her arms to cover her breasts. He felt his throat go dry.

“Julia,” the sheriff said to break the silence, “you’ll have to forgive Deputy Applegate. He’s not around people much.”

Daryl grinned, then realized what the sheriff had said.

But Barlow had gone on, “To be honest with you, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here. It could be serious or it could be Brand decided to take a vacation. What would help us—what would help us a great deal—is if you could expand on what you told me at the library.”