Mystery Dance: Three Novels (57 page)

Julia pictured herself filing a report, talking to the police. Sure, she had physical evidence of an assault. Bruises, torn clothing, maybe some DNA evidence under her fingernails. But assault cases where the rapist was engaged to the victim, where the pair had a long sexual history together, were practically impossible to prosecute.

Her word against his.

Mitchell looked her fully in the eyes and gave a smile that would chill a cobra’s blood.

Because they both knew the truth. Julia’s behavioral disorder would end up on trial, not Mitchell. He could afford the best in criminal defense, and in the end, Mitchell would walk out of the courtroom laughing while Julia dripped into a black puddle of miserable self-loathing. The defense would have its psychological “experts” prod and poke her brain until she finally convinced herself that the attack was her fault, that she’d staged the whole thing because everybody knew that crazy people did crazy things.

Of course. What jury would convict an upstanding, respectable citizen solely on the wild accusations of a person known to be unstable? She could picture the defense attorney now, giving a sermon during closing arguments, the High Church of Reason against the damned and doomed who had the temerity to be less than perfect, those oddities who “saw psychologists,” who “received therapy,” who “had been diagnosed.”

Oh, yes. She would be crucified, her own fears used as the nails, her own frail attempts at recovery serving as the wood.

And Mitchell would be not only her Judas and her Pilate, he would also be the Roman soldier with the hammer.

She brushed past him, stooped, and gathered the box and her purse. “Get the hell out,” she said, dead inside.

“If it weren’t for the money, I’d have been out of here years ago,” he said, cocky again, untouchable.

“The money?” she asked his retreating back.

“We could have done it the easy way,” he said, brushing his hair back into place. “Now it’s going to get messy.”

The door to the hotel room closed with a whisper, but the door to the house in her head closed with a great groaning of hinges, the rattling of chains, the rusty screams of deadbolts being driven forever home.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The sun was sinking when Julia reached Elkwood. The mountain ridges glowed with autumn, as if capped by molten gold. The sienna and ochre of the changing leaves covered the slopes, the darker greens of balsam and spruce dotted the higher elevations. Shadows filled the long valley where the Amadahee River ran through the center of town, carrying its rich September smells of salamanders and mud.

By the time Julia had turned her Subaru up the hill toward Buckeye Creek Road, the anxiety that had nearly consumed her on the flight home was all but forgotten. The tall trees comforted her, and she was relieved to see again the pastures with their leaning locust poles and rusted barbed wire, the farmhouses set well away from the road, the cows attacking the grass with dull persistence. Here and there the tips of granite slabs protruded through the soil like great rocket ships preparing to blast into the heavens.

Though she had only lived in Elkwood for four months, this place had become home. When she’d first moved, it had been a desperate escape. Mitchell had simultaneously driven her away while demanding that she stay in Memphis. Dr. Danner had suggested this mountain town as a nice place to meet the future, and the referral to Dr. Forrest had been like a shipwreck victim pushed by waves onto the saving shore of an island.

Now the future was clearer even though the past was stranger and scarier than ever.

Now her future didn’t revolve around Mitchell and the caged security he had offered. Funny that he had turned out to be more unstable than she. Tomorrow she would return his two-carat diamond via registered mail. The memory of the assault was buried inside, waiting, a nest of snakes. She didn’t dare deal with it alone. The breakdown would have to wait for the chair in Dr. Forrest’s office.

Julia hadn’t yet decided when to tell Dr. Forrest about the skull ring. Perhaps next week. Right now, she had plenty enough memories and emotions to sort out. The immediate past left the freshest bruises. The healing would have to begin from the outside in.

Mrs. Covington’s house was dark as Julia drove past, the windows like slate. The apartments stood quiet across the road, spears of light cutting between drawn curtains. The Subaru’s headlights swept over Julia’s house as she pulled up, and she felt a rush of ownership. Despite its disreputable history, she felt comfort behind its walls. She decided she would talk to George Webster about purchasing it.

The door was solid, the windows cold and empty. Behind that door were her computer, her clothes, her books, Mr. Ned the stuffed turtle. She thought of the baseball cards Walter had given her, left spread across the coffee table, and smiled. Such a small kindness became magnified by the comparative horror of her visit to Memphis.

This was a new past she was building, and the realization warmed her heart despite all the nasty mental baggage she had yet to unpack. She thought of that gospel song, “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus,” and figured the past need only extend to that morning’s awakening and the future was no more than the remaining hours until dark. She eagerly went up the walk, her purse clutched in front of her. She was so glad to be home that she barely glanced at the shadowy spaces between the trees, at the vast forest where crickets chirped and the nocturnal animals began their nightly scrabbling. What formerly had filled her with shivers of dread now seemed to offer more comfort than threat.

She drew a deep lungful of the Blue Ridge air that was moist and tangy with pine. She fumbled in her purse for the key, silently cursing herself for not leaving on the porch light. Her fingers brushed across the wooden box in her purse. She had carried a piece of the past here, a piece of Memphis. Maybe that had been a mistake. But she could worry about that tomorrow.

One day at a time
….

As she searched for the key, out of habit she tried the knob.

It turned easily in her hand.

The latch clicked back like the hammer of a gun, like the final beat of a heart.

Had she forgotten to lock the door, even after that first scare with Walter?

Impossible.

One thing Julia Stone never failed to do was to lock the door. That was Rule Number One for keeping Creeps out of the house. Unless, of course, they snuck in behind you, as Mitchell had.

Or were already inside.

Julia stood, frozen with her hand on the doorknob.

She replayed the scene in her mind of leaving for the trip.
Suitcase at your feet, slam door, insert key, turn, click. Check to make sure.

Yes, she had locked it.

Walter could be inside, doing some kind of repair.

Or it could be The Creep. The one who may have left a row of wooden blocks across the coffee table a few days ago.

Because you KNOW you didn’t put them there, don’t you?

Don’t you?

The autumn wind rattled the undergrowth. The branches that had been comforting moments before were now like the gnarled arms of wooden witches. Julia fumbled for the mace on her key ring, fingered the spray nozzle. If a rapist were waiting inside, she would give it to him full in the eyes, give him all the punishment she should have dished out to Mitchell. If it happened in the bedroom, she had the Louisville Slugger under the bed.

Or….

She glanced longingly at her car. She could get in, drive away, call the cops from the safety of a gas station.

And maybe Lieutenant T.L. Snead would get the dispatcher’s call. The Snead of unsolved cases, the Snead of coincidence.

No. She would not run this time. She would not let someone invade her house. Or mind.

She pushed the door a few inches, and it creaked like the lid of a wooden coffin. Fine hairs twitched like electric wires on the back of her neck. She tried to inhale but couldn’t concentrate on a relaxing breath.

Sweating in the chill night, Julia peered through the narrow crack.

Nothing but dark inside. Deep and endless dark, the kind of dark that jumped out and sank its claws into you, sharp dark, the kind that–

Stop it, Julia.

Her hands trembled.

A phone rang in one of the neighboring apartments. It purred faintly six times and stopped. Someone revved a car engine in the housing development that stood behind the wall of woods. A dog’s bark echoed across the black hills. The sounds of normal life.

She gripped the mace and shoved the door open with her shoulder, half-expecting the flash of an arcing blade. With her left hand, she reached across her body and raked her fingers across the wall switch. The lights burst to life like exploding stars.

The room was empty.

Julia went around the hall, her purse against her side, one hand holding the spray can of mace, the other clenched into a fist. Nobody in the kitchen. She kicked open the bathroom door.

Movement erupted along one wall. Julia’s forefinger tightened on the mace nozzle. A grunt died against her teeth before it became a scream.

Just her reflection, in the mirror above the sink.

Julia flipped on the light, eyed the shower curtain. No Creep would be that unimaginative, would he?

She reached out, touched the plastic, yanked it across the rod, mace poised. Nothing but the fiberglass stall.

Heart racing, Julia spun and returned to the hall. Only one room left to check.

Of course. Her bedroom.

The ultimate violation, that of the inner sanctum.

The door opened with a whisper. A breeze blew across the room. The window was open.

Go back now, girl. It’s okay. No one can blame you for being scared. This isn’t just your disorder speaking. It’s ME.

Sure, she could flee. She could surrender.

Just like always.

She clenched her jaw and stepped inside. The first thing she saw was the clock, numerals blazing like the reddest of hellfire against the darkness.

4:06.

If she were holding a gun instead of a spray can of mace, she would have emptied the cartridge into that digital demon to exorcise the obscenity of its frozen time.

She could no longer fool herself that no one had been here, that she’d only forgotten to lock the door and left the window open and, gee, what an absentminded little thing she was.

No, some Creep had waltzed in, removed the clock from her trash, restored its strange programming, and left it as a message to Julia.

A message that he could get in any time, no matter how many locks she held keys for.

Why would a Creep advertise? If he wanted to jump her, he could wait in the dark wings for his moment and reach out like the long fingers of the past. Just as Mitchell had done.

The memory of her fiancé’s attack flooded through her, made the room grow fuzzy, and she almost lost her balance. Then she shook her head clear. If the Creep were still here, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

Julia eased into the room, elbowing the switch up and blinking against the sudden light.

Her room looked the same, except for the clock. The bed not quite neatly made, Mr. Ned and some CD’s on her shelf, the Jefferson Spence paperback parted open on the bedside table. The window screen was gone, and the lace curtains shifted in the breeze like uneasy ghosts.

Julia crossed the room and closed the window, sliding the latch into place. Walter was right, the windows were of solid construction. She saw no scars in the frame that might indicate a forced entry. Either she’d overlooked a lock, or some Creep had access to a copy of her house key.

Without looking at the clock, Julia grabbed it, yanked the plug free of the wall, and tucked it under her elbow. She wondered if, even powerless, the clock’s digits still blazed.

4:06. Why 4:06?

A thought fluttered at the edges of her memory, like a lost bat that disappeared back into its cave. She had so deliberately kept herself from remembering that the past had become a place that she visited with effort, a place that required a travel agent. She would only go when Dr. Forrest told her so.

She went back through the house, locked the front door, and then checked all the other windows. She would unpack under the morning sun. For now, she was safe enough. As safe as she could ever be inside her own head.

Unless someone had a key to her head as well as her house.

Julia took a plastic shopping bag from the great mound of them under the sink. She slid the errant clock into the bag and tied it tightly closed. She wrapped a second bag around it for good measure and then tucked it under some coffee grounds and an ice cream box in the kitchen garbage. Maybe tomorrow she would find a big rock and smash the clock to bits.

Killing time. The image was almost funny, but the persistent buzz of adrenaline still tickled the surface of her skin. She felt as if she were being watched.

Was someone still in the house?

No, she had checked all the rooms. The attic access was in the bathroom. She’d covered a case in Memphis where a Creep had crawled through the maintenance access of his apartment, climbed over the rafters to the next unit, and drilled small peepholes in the bedroom ceiling. The woman had come home one day to find Sheetrock dust on her bedspread, saw the holes, and called the police.

The Creep was caught, but the woman never knew how many times he had watched her through his little series of spy holes. A hundred hot showers couldn’t wash that kind of violation from your skin. Could the victim ever again undress without a tiny paranoid shiver? How much therapy had the woman needed before she’d quit scanning the ceiling of every room she entered?

Paranoia was partly a survival instinct. But at some point you had to let it go.

Julia thought of calling Dr. Forrest. Her wristwatch said eight o’clock, plenty early enough. But she suspected Dr. Forrest had a lover, the man Julia had overheard in the background of several phone conversations. Julia hated to be so needy, so dependent, so demanding of the therapist’s time and attention. Most of all, she didn’t want Dr. Forrest to tire of her.