The Inn (23 page)

A
nnabel and Chad came through the front door shaking snow off their coats and boots. “Gosh, it's really coming down!” Annabel exclaimed.

“Sure is,” Chad agreed. “In another hour those roads won't be passable. The storm has come earlier than they were predicting. We got back just in time.”

“I'll make some hot tea,” Annabel offered, “if you don't have to rush right off.”

Chad nodded. “I want to take a look at the fireplace to make sure the flue isn't damaged. When you've got this bad of a storm, you should really keep the flue closed.”

“Oh, good idea, thank you.”

Chad headed off into the parlor while Annabel made her way to the kitchen.

She turned the corner and walked straight into someone standing there. She gasped out loud.

“Jack!” she cried.

Her husband smiled down at her. “I heard you say you wanted tea. I've already got some ready, baby cakes. I figured you'd come in chilled to the bone.”

“Oh.” Annabel was flustered for a moment. “Great, thanks.”

“Shall I pour you a cup?” he asked.

“Yes, please, Jack, thanks. And pour a cup for Chad, too. He's just checking the fireplace.”

Jack smiled as he lifted the steaming pot off the stove. “The fireplace?” he asked.

“Yes. He's making sure the flue closes. With the storm coming, we'll want to make sure.”

“Of course. Smart thinking.”

He handed Annabel a mug, the steam rising from it in waves.

“Careful, sweetie pie. Don't burn your tongue.”

She accepted the mug and held it in her hands.

“I'll pour one for Chad and set it here on the table for him,” Jack said. “Let it cool off just a little bit.”

Annabel cupped her mug between her two hands and stared at her husband. How sweet he seemed all of a sudden. He reminded her of the caring man he'd been during her hospitalization, how supportive he had been, how thoughtful. Jack had stuck by her through the worst of times. She had been so grateful to him.

This was the real Jack, she wanted to believe. The Jack of the past few days—mysterious and defensive—had been simply the product of stress and fear. And grief, over losing his grandmother. And worry, over the disappearances of Priscilla and Paulie and what that might mean to their business venture.

“Have a sip of tea, sugar babe,” Jack said. “Take the chill off.”

“Still too hot,” she said, blowing on the mug. “I sure hope we don't get snowbound. I don't like the idea of being trapped.”

Jack smiled. “Your old claustrophobia. Don't worry, angel heart. I'll dig a path from the front door to the street. You won't be trapped.”

A smile bloomed on her face despite her misgivings. “Thanks, Jack. So, Neville's gone? I didn't see his car.”

“Neville's gone,” Jack told her. “Drink your tea, baby doll.”

She blew on the mug again. “He called me, you know, before he left.”

“Neville did?”

“Yes.” She locked eyes on Jack. “He said he'd been locked in his room.”

Jack frowned. “Yes, he told the police chief that, too. Sweetheart, the key was in his door outside. He must have left it there himself, and then the door locked again when he closed it. It's a problem of these old doors.”

“You don't think he had any cause to say he was locked in?”

Jack laughed. “Who would have locked him in, and why?”

Annabel sighed. “I don't know, Jack. But we need to talk. Some very strange things have been happening. I understand when the police searched the chimney downstairs, they found none of the gunk that I put my hands into the other day. How did that all that get cleaned out?”

Jack looked mystified. “I don't know. Maybe . . . Zeke cleaned it out?”

“I'm wondering that myself.”

“I'll ask him.” Jack appeared as if a light suddenly went off in his head. “That could explain why the police found nothing.” He smiled over at Annabel. “You know, I was very cooperative with them. I figured it was better to show that we had nothing to hide than to act as if we did.”

“Oh, I'm glad, Jack.”

His smile broadened. “Drink your tea, honey. You're still shivering.”

Annabel returned his smile. Then she lifted the mug to her lips and drank.

“C
hrist,” Chad said in a low voice, checking the fireplace one more time to be sure.

That's blood
, he thought to himself.

He was squatting down, inspecting the floor of the fireplace, specifically the ash dump opening. It was a big panel, a good three feet by two feet, and all around its edges there was a sticky brownish-red liquid. When Chad touched his finger to it, he felt certain it was blood. Still fresh. Not dried.

Chad stood. He could hear Annabel and Jack talking in the kitchen. His first thought was to rush in and tell them what he found, but something stopped him. He didn't trust Jack. He was better off finding out what he could and taking the information directly to Chief Carlson.

He glanced over at the basement stairs.

Annabel said that the police had been here this morning and checked the ash dump downstairs. They'd found nothing.

Chad surmised that the door to the ash dump at the base of the chimney would still be open. The cops surely didn't lock it up again.

He needed to take a look. Then, depending on what he found, he'd hightail it out of this creepy old place straight down to the police headquarters. And he might just take Annabel with him, just to be safe. He liked her. He wasn't going to abandon her if, as he was starting to think, somebody in this house was a murderer.

And that somebody was very likely her creepy husband.

Listening as Annabel and Jack continued to talk in the kitchen, Chad made his way stealthily across the parlor and out into the hallway.

He paused, listening. He didn't want that weird old guy Zeke to spot him.

Chad made a dash for the basement stairs. He hurried down as quickly as he could without making too much noise.

He yanked the overhead light on.

He could see the chimney across the room, hunched over like a crippled Atlas, the sagging floorboards of the first floor the world on his shoulders.

Chad approached slowly. The dim light overhead outlined the small metal door on the side of the chimney. He could see that the door was shut tight. But there was no longer any padlock dangling from its handle.

He reached over to pull the door open, but then stopped. His hand hovered in midair.

What are you afraid of?
he asked himself.

He wasn't sure. But suddenly Chad was very, very afraid.

He forced his hand forward and gripped the door.

He tried to pull it open, but the old metal was stuck. Chad shook it a bit, and then gave it a good hard yank, and all at once the door swung open in his hand.

He had uncorked a river.

A cascade of blood burst forward, splashing out from the chimney onto the floor, wetting Chad's shoes and turning them red. The flow only stopped when the doorframe became wedged with pale white human flesh.

Neville's head, in fact, severed from his shoulders.

He stared out at Chad with wide, terrified eyes, his dead mouth in an eternal silent scream.

Chad, however, wasn't nearly so silent.

He let out a scream and turned to run, only to be met on the staircase by a woman.

A woman he'd never seen before.

A beautiful woman with long gray hair, dressed in a long, flowing white dress.

“Hello,” the woman said calmly.

Chad opened his mouth to ask her to please get out of his way, to run as fast as she could out of this house, when he felt the pain in his abdomen. He cried out, then looked down and saw blood collecting behind his shirt.

The woman had just stabbed him with a knife.

A
nnabel heard the scream below her and spun around.

“What was that?” she called out.

Jack just smiled. “Don't be so jumpy, baby cakes.”

“Didn't you hear—?” She turned to run out of the kitchen toward the basement stairs, but suddenly her knees buckled. Her legs were too weak to hold her. She started to fall, but grabbed the table to steady herself.

“You okay, sweetheart?” Jack asked, his voice eerily calm.

“My head,” Annabel murmured.

The room was spinning. She was passing out. Something was happening in the basement, and she was losing consciousness....

Annabel looked over at Jack. He was watching her compassionately, but not moving a muscle to help her.

“You . . . drugged the tea,” she managed to say.

She heard a second scream from the basement.

“Chad,” said Annabel, just as she crumpled to the floor and blacked out.

T
he light was different when Annabel woke up. She had the feeling that she'd been out for a long time. She realized she was in bed, in her room. She was alone.

She tried to stir, to sit up, but found her body was numb. She could barely move her hands or feet.
What did he give me?
That monster!

A monster she had once loved—and who, until a very short time ago, she had still been willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Just as he may have killed Priscilla and Paulie.

Annabel's mind was racing. She thought she could see things clearly now. Jack had killed Priscilla the night they got drunk. He had stashed her body somewhere—the fireplace!—and Paulie had found it the next morning. That was why he'd had to kill Paulie, too. Jack had stuffed both their bodies into the chimney. Annabel had gotten their blood on her hands! And maybe—the idea hit her like a lightning bolt—maybe Jack had killed Cordelia as well. Richard had seemed to doubt the coroner's ruling of accidental death. Had his grandmother discovered his crime as well?

Another memory suddenly struck Annabel. She gasped out loud.

Chad! Right before she'd blacked out, she'd heard Chad scream.

“Oh, no,” she moaned.

At least Neville had gotten away.

She had to get out of there. She had to run. She had to get Richard.

With great effort, Annabel managed to sit up in bed. It was morning. That much she knew. Although they'd lost power, leaving the electric clock on one side of the bed dark, the batteries in the clock on the other side had kept it ticking. The time was 10:15. Annabel realized she had been unconscious all night.

She needed to move. But she doubted she had the strength to swing her legs off the bed, let alone stand and walk. She was breathing heavily from the exertion. She looked helplessly across the room. Through the window she could see the storm was still raging outside. While she'd slept, the snow had piled up at least three feet. The whole world outside her window looked white. She could barely see the trees. Everything was just a washout of glaring whiteness.

“That means I'm trapped here,” Annabel said out loud. “I can't get out and nobody can get in.” She shuddered. “It's just me and Jack.”

And Zeke. Unless Jack had killed him, too.

But even if he was alive, was Zeke friend or foe?

Annabel began to sweat. She wasn't sure what scared her more. Jack—or the claustrophobia of being snowbound in this house. The two together threatened to push her back over the edge.

He'd been lying to her. Playing her. He'd known what he was doing. Lulling her into a false sense of security. Then he'd drugged her.

But why? What was Jack's plan?

What had turned him so insane?

“I've got to get out,” Annabel said, and summoned every fiber of her being to move her legs off the bed and touch her bare feet against the cold wood floor.

He undressed me
, she realized.
Jack took off my clothes and put me in my nightgown.

Had he done other things to her?

She shuddered, remembering the night he had raped her. Yes, that was what it was. Her husband had raped her. She had tried to deny it to herself, but no more.

Jack was a monster.

But why? How? What had turned him into something Annabel no longer recognized?

She grabbed hold of the bedpost and pulled herself to her feet. She let out a groan doing so. Whatever she'd been drugged with still had a heavy grip on her body.

Standing, she had a better view of the outside. The snow had covered Jack's car in the driveway. She couldn't even make out its outline in the parking lot. The driveway was completely inaccessible. She had thought earlier that there were at least three feet of snow out there. Now that she could see the ground better, she revised that estimate up to five feet. From her second-floor vantage point, Annabel could see that the snow had drifted across the front porch, completely covering the front door. If she tried to leave by that route, she would be faced with a solid wall of snow. There was no way she could walk out of this house, even if she got her legs to move more freely than they did at the moment.

The snow was still coming down, too.

Annabel realized with a cold certainty that she was trapped.

Her palms started to sweat again. She began to shake uncontrollably. Stiffly, she wrapped her arms around herself.

“I've got to try,” she said out loud. “Maybe I can go out the back door.”

But what then? Maybe, despite the drifts and the blowing snow, she could make her way to Millie's store, the closest inhabited place to the Blue Boy Inn. Annabel thought she had cell reception there. Even if not, she could just hide out there until someone came by, as she didn't imagine the store was open in this blizzard.

She'd need to be dressed more warmly if she was going to try walking through that snow. With great effort she shuffled over to her dresser. With even greater effort, she pulled open the drawers. She let out a gasp. All her clothes were gone.

“No,” Annabel cried.

Her cell phone. Her gaze swung around the room. She didn't see it.

It's in my purse downstairs
, she remembered.
Jack surely has it.

If she could get downstairs without Jack stopping her, she could call 911 on the house phone. It was an old model, with no cordless handsets that required electricity. If the phone lines weren't down, it should still be working.

She took a deep breath. With superhuman exertion, she put one foot in front of the other and walked. Steadying herself against the dresser, she made her way to the door.

She tried the handle. Of course it was locked.

But at least Neville had managed to escape. Annabel suddenly felt she wouldn't be as lucky.

She began to hyperventilate. Her knees threatened to buckle, dropping her to the floor. She leaned up against the door to keep herself upright. She began to cry.

“You'll stay in there until you learn to be a good girl,” came a voice through the door.

Annabel pulled back.

It was Daddy Ron.

“Look around, Annabel. Look around and see who's in there with you.”

“No,” she whimpered.

“Go ahead. Turn around. He's right behind you. Can you hear him?”

Annabel listened. Yes, there he was. She could hear Tommy Tricky behind her, gnashing his sharp teeth.

“He's not real,” Annabel cried in a terribly small voice.

“Oh, don't say that,” hissed Daddy Ron through the door. “That gets him mad. He doesn't like it when little girls don't believe in him.”

She was crying like mad now, her body heaving.

This is crazy,
Annabel thought, trying to get ahold of herself, to stop her plunge over the edge.
This can't be happening. I'm an adult, not a little girl locked in a closet.

She turned and looked over her shoulder, just in time to see something scurry under the bed.

“No!” she screamed.

She was hallucinating again. That was the only explanation. She had to get out of this house! Even if it meant trudging through the blizzard. She'd rather freeze to death out there than go mad inside this house!

She walked slowly, awkwardly, over to the bed. Summoning all her strength, she grabbed hold of the side of the bed and shoved. It took a second, but then the bed slid across the floor.

And sitting there, underneath, his blue face alive with a mouthful of teeth, was Tommy Tricky.

Annabel screamed.