Tales of Sin and Madness (4 page)

“Where what happened?”

Claire sighed and dropped her shoulders. “What else, the little girl. Amanda Waters.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I think I remember reading something about a room with fairies and stuff like that on the walls.”

Julia didn’t recall anything about a room with fairies, but she hadn’t read as much about the case as Claire. “Well all the more reason to get out of here.”

“I hear that, sister. What have you got there?”

Julia followed Claire’s gaze and realized she was talking about the photo. “I found it on the floor.”

“And…?”

“What?”

“Did you lose it last time you were in here fucking some college stud?”

“I just…shit, let’s just get out of here, okay? We’ll stop off at Lucky’s. I’m buying.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all night.”

Julia tucked the photo into her cut-off’s right pocket then followed Claire out of the room with the fairies and elves and wands.

* * *

Julia awoke to a blindingly bright room and the temperature an already scorching ninety degrees. With eyes half-opened, she sat up and saw that she had forgotten to close the curtains. The windows were open but there wasn’t much of a breeze coming in.

“Brilliant Jules,” she muttered and then the dull throbbing she got only after a night of too many vodkas settled in. Her mouth tasted like an ashtray and her stomach felt queasy. She also needed to urinate badly, so she swung her legs over the side of the bed and hopped down. She stretched, farted and saw that her sheets looked like someone had dropped a bucket of water over them.

I’m surprised I’ve got any water left in me.

 Julia frowned. The photo lay just below the damp pillow.

Was I looking at it before I fell asleep?

She didn’t recall doing so – after getting home last night she had a cool shower then went straight to bed. Then again, everything after the third vodka was hazy. Julia shrugged, plucked the photo from the bed and put it on the bedside table, then hurried into the bathroom.

She emptied her bladder, washed her hands then stepped into the shower, turning on the cold tap a lot and the hot a little.

She showered for twenty minutes then hopped out. She felt nice and cool.

I’ll be hot and sweaty again soon enough
, she thought, patting her body lightly with the towel.

She didn’t mind the warm weather – but this heat wave was too much. She had planned on doing some writing today, but always found it hard to concentrate when the mercury was up so high.

Just have to write nude and keep plenty of…

There was a tiny mark just above her left breast. It was faint, like a smudge of dirt. She rubbed it, but the mark didn’t come off.

Damn dirty house
, she thought, thinking back to last night. She dabbed some soap on the towel and rubbed her skin even harder, but it still wouldn’t come off.

“Great,” she said, the smudge now surrounded by a red hue.

It looked like her body had decided to bestow her with a nice new blemish. It seemed so out of place. Her body was tanned, smooth and tight in all the right places – not bad for a woman approaching forty.

Probably a bruise
, she told herself as she hung the damp towel on the rack.

She left the bathroom and entered the kitchen where she prepared a bowl of fruit and some coffee – even if she was living in the fiery depths of Hell she would still need her morning fix.

Heat be damned
, she thought and continued with her breakfast.

* * *

It was impossible. She just couldn’t concentrate. The funny thing was, it wasn’t the heat that was the problem, nor the hangover.

Every time she tried to write, her mind would wander to the photo. Who were the people in it and how did it end up in the house?

She finished off her sixth cup of coffee, switched off the computer and headed into the room where the photo was waiting for her.

She picked it up, lay down on the bed and sighed. “You’re keeping me from writing, you know.” In the light of day the photo looked dirtier and more worn. It was faded around the edges, which she hadn’t noticed last night. But everything else looked the same – same smiling faces, same weatherboard house, same crease running down the middle. So why was she so fascinated by this remarkably mundane picture? So much so that it was interfering with her work?

Was it a puzzle to solve? Was that it? She had always loved mysteries and detective stories when she was young – it was the main reason she was writing them today – so it seemed natural that she would be interested in something like this. A misplaced photo left in a deserted house. A house that had been the scene of a most vile act.

Was it connected to that?
Julia wondered.

Highly unlikely, she decided. Still, the picture did look recent – the clothes, the hairstyles all looked modern and even the house and foliage looked similar to those in her neighborhood. Was it possible, then, that the family lived close by?

I know – the handsome young father is a real estate agent and he recently went through the abandoned house with a client and when he went to give the client his business card, the photo he kept in his wallet of his family fell out and he didn’t notice. That seems likely. Boring, but likely. Or how about this: the boy was taking the spaniel for a walk and decided to take a peek into the infamous house and while he was in there, something scared him and he took off, dropping the photo as he left
.

Either seemed plausible. Julia smiled and even though she felt silly, she closed her eyes and pictured the husband coming into her apartment, wearing only a pair of jeans, upper body tanned and muscled, the bulge in his pants straining to get out…

The girl screams and tears are flowing down her cheeks as the man starts forward, eyes glowing with evil lust…

Julia screamed and banged her head on the headboard. Her body was streaked with sweat and she was breathing hard.

Jesus Christ what the hell was that!

One moment she had been daydreaming about the guy in the picture, the next…

Julia sat up and touched the back of her head. It was tender, but when she looked at her fingers, there was no blood.

“I need to get out of here,” she said and hopped off the bed.

It was only when she picked up the phone and went to dial Claire’s number that she realized she was still clutching the photo. She placed it on the coffee table and rang her sister.

* * *

As she was getting ready, she glanced at the closet mirror and saw that the bruise, or whatever the hell it was, had gotten bigger.

Impossible
, she thought and stepped closer to the mirror.

But sure enough, the dark blotch had doubled in size since this morning. “Great, just great. Why couldn’t this happen during winter?”

With a loud sigh, she pulled off her white tank top and delved back into the closet to find something that would cover the mark up.

* * *

“They never caught the guy.”

“What?”

“The guy that killed Amanda Waters, that’s what.”

“Oh, right. Yeah I knew that. So?”

“I’ve been re-reading everything about her abduction and murder. Wanted to refresh my memory since, well, since we were at the house where it happened.”

“Thought you said the place should be burned down?”

Claire nodded and shoved a heap of salad into her mouth. “It should be,” she mumbled. She swallowed. “Doesn’t mean I can’t read up on the case.”

Julia scanned the crowded café. Even though they had elected to sit outside with all the smoke and hot air – Julia hated air conditioning even more than cigarette smoke – she still felt closed in and uncomfortable. She had hardly touched her club sandwich. “Did you keep all the articles or something?”

Claire shrugged. Her round, pasty shoulders jiggled. “Yeah. That weird?”

Julia nodded. “Sure. But look what I do for a living.”

Claire grinned and continued devouring her Greek salad. “So anyway, I was right. That’s where they found the little girl. In that room with all the fairy stuff on the walls. I tell myself I shouldn’t read about it. It scares the shit out of me. I can’t believe I was there last night. The things you talk me into. Julia?”

At the sound of her name Julia looked up. “Huh?”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, sure.” She hadn’t.

“What’s the matter? You sound like crap on the phone, tell me you have to get out of the apartment and want to meet me for lunch, then when you’re here you’re off on another planet. And what’s the deal with that top? It’s hotter than Hell and you’re wearing a shirt with a collar? Usually I have to beg you to put on some clothes.”

“Just…it’s my writing. I’m having trouble with it in this heat. It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit it’s nothing. It’s that house isn’t it? It’s gotten to you.”

Sometimes Julia hated that her best friend was her sister. She couldn’t put anything past her. “Well it got to
you
, didn’t it? You’re the one reading up on the murder.”

“You’re right, my love. But at least I admit to being affected by it.”

Julia stood up suddenly. Claire jumped back a little. “What?”

“Let’s go. This place is too crowded.”

“Okay,” Claire said, eyeing Julia’s half-eaten sandwich.

“I’ll get us a doggy bag, okay?” Julia said, taking her purse out of her handbag.

“No, I’ve got this one. You paid for the drinks last night.”

“It’s okay, really…” The photo fell onto the table.

“Hell, Jules. You’ve still got that thing?” Claire reached out and picked up the photo. She studied the small, wrinkled picture. “Hey, the father’s pretty cute,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “You know, they look kinda familiar.”

Julia snatched the photo from her sister and pocketed it.

“And you’re carrying it around with you?” Claire chuckled. “Why?”

“I dunno,” she snapped. “No reason. Jesus, do I have to tell you everything? I like it. It…” she thought of the most plausible answer that came to mind, “it helps with my writing. Like a muse, a reminder of the house.”

Claire stood and put up her hands. “Okay, whatever. Make peace, not war, remember?”

Julia threw down two tens, put away her purse then walked out from under the annexed café and into the glaring sun.

“Hey, what about the sandwich?” Claire called.

“Just take it and eat it on the run,” Julia called back, shoving her hand into her left pocket to make sure the photo was definitely there.

It was and it made her feel a whole lot better.

* * *

Julia listened as the phone rang out for the fifth time that night. She knew it would be either Belinda or Cindy. She usually went out with her old college friends Saturday nights.

Julia didn’t feel like it tonight, though. She didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone, and that included whoever was on the phone. She considered taking the phone off the hook, but couldn’t be bothered getting up to do so.

She lay naked on the bed, on her side clutching the photo, the window open, curtains drawn but billowing with each sigh of the wind. The television was on but the volume was low.

She had been staring at the photo for the past few hours. Claire had been right – the house had affected her more deeply than she first thought.

The spot on her body had grown since this afternoon. It now ran from the top of her left breast to the center of her chest – a sort of oblong patch roughly the size of a matchbox. She had no idea what it could be: cancers didn’t grow that fast, and it didn’t hurt like a bruise would.

Had she picked up some disease from the house?

She didn’t want to go to the doctors – they terrified her. She wanted to tell Claire about it, but not tonight. Tonight she just wanted to lie in bed with the photo. It was the one thing that gave her comfort, the one thing that kept her mind off the heat, the writing and the blemish.

She smiled at the family in the photo, pretended they were smiling back at her. She had named them – the man was Sebastian, the woman Heather, the boy Craig and the dog Sammy. Silly, she knew, but she didn’t care. There was something about the photo, something special. She was drawn to it.

She still wondered who they were, where they lived and what the photo was doing in the house. But those questions seemed less important now than the photo itself, the energy and solace it gave her.

She turned on to her back and blinked hot sweat from her eyes. The heat was getting to the picture too. A small portion of the photo was completely gone, as if what used to be there never existed in the first place.