Whispers from the Dead (13 page)

Mom didn’t say a word. She just waited, but I could see the hope in her eyes.

“I’ll come and watch,” I answered, although I wished I could do anything else but. I’d bring a book. I’d read. I wouldn’t have to look at the pool if I didn’t want to.

“Try,” Mom whispered when we arrived at the pool.

To please her I looked at the water and the people splashing and enjoying it, and did my best to tell myself I could enjoy it too. But I began to gasp with each breath, pressing my hands against the pain in my chest, remembering how my lungs had ached for air. I stumbled back to the safety and shade of a large oak tree, dropped to the grass with a shudder, and deliberately turned my back on the pool.

Mom swam laps for a while down at the deep end, then walked to where I was lying on my stomach and dripped onto my arms and book as she wrapped her hair in a towel.

As she sat beside me I scrambled to my feet and asked, “Ready to go home?”

“I’d like to sun for a while, then have another swim,” she answered. “Would you mind?”

“Mom, I came. I tried. Now I want to go home.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You don’t need to. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t. Stay and enjoy your swim. I can walk home in a few minutes.”

“It’s awfully hot, Sarah. Take the car,” she said.

“No, you drive it back. Really, I’d rather walk.” I kissed her on top of her head, turned to wave to Dee Dee, and strode out of the pool area to the street. It took only a few minutes to walk home.

As I unlocked and opened the front door Dinky streaked past me, not even bothering to curl between my legs as she usually did.

“Dinky!” I called, but she sat in the middle of the front flower bed, her back to me as if I didn’t exist. Only the rhythmic twitching of the tip of her tail showed me that she was upset. “Goofy cat,” I told her. “What are you mad about now?”

I shut the front door against the heat and hurried to the kitchen for water. Houston in August was not the place to go walking.

A tiny sound alerted me, and I tried to place it. What was it? A footstep? A board moving overhead? Or was it the click of a door closing?

I waited, not breathing, listening intently, and began to sense that someone else was in the house.

My first thought was Rosa, but it wasn’t Rosa’s presence I felt. Whoever was in this house was a living person, not a spirit, and he was just as aware of me as I was of him.

I heard another light movement, almost too small to identify, but it was over my head. Someone was upstairs.

Frantically I tried to think of what to do. What if I bolted through the kitchen door to the backyard and circled the house and ran for help? But anger overrode my fear. Why should I let someone prowl through our house, helping himself to whatever he wanted? While I was going for help, he could get away! It wasn’t fair!

As quietly as I could, I tiptoed to the kitchen telephone and dialed 911. In a low voice I gave the information to the police dispatcher. Okay. Now I could leave
the house. I hung up and edged toward the back door, but the doorknob moved uselessly in my hand. The dead bolt was locked, and the key, which we left in the door, was gone!

I heard a sound that seemed to come from the head of the stairs. He was coming closer. I’d be trapped in the kitchen, and it would take too long to try to unlock a window and tug it open. If the intruder was on the stairs, he could intercept me before I reached the front door.

Maybe I could get to my parents’ bathroom, lock myself inside, and climb out the window!

The phone rang. It would be the police dispatcher calling back, but there was no time to answer. I broke into a run, not even trying to be silent, and heard him do the same. As his footsteps clattered down the stairway and across the entry hall, I gave up hope of reaching that back bathroom. I dashed down the little hallway to the nearby guest bathroom, flung myself inside, slammed the door behind me, and locked it.

I leaned against the wall for support and waited in the darkness, not daring to turn on the light. It was easier to hear each separate sound in the dark. Unfortunately there was no window in this bathroom, no way I could escape.

I could see light under the door, where the sunlight reflected on the tiles. The pattern was broken as someone stepped in front of the door and stood there. What was he going to do?

The light pattern shifted as he stepped away from the door.

I let out a long swoosh of air, suddenly aware that I
hadn’t been breathing. I knew what I’d do in his place. I’d go to the kitchen and get a small screwdriver or a skewer—something long and thin—to put inside the hole in the center of the doorknob and jiggle the tumbler so the lock would open. I’d used that safety hole more than once when I was baby-sitting little children who could lock bathroom doors but couldn’t open them.

If that was what he had in mind, then my only chance was to get out of here before he came back! My hand was so slippery with sweat that it slipped against the knob.

I hesitated, too fearful to move. What if he was just outside the door, waiting? I thought of Dinky, silently poised to pounce on the birds that flew to our front lawn.

Was the person on the other side of the door also waiting, crouched and ready to spring if I should open this door?

The sound of a footstep, and he was back. Under the door the light was once more broken by the shadow from his shoes. I pressed back against the wall, well aware that I had nothing with which to defend myself.

I thought I heard the doorknob move. But I heard something else—a police siren—and it was coming closer.

There was a hiss as whoever was outside the door took a sharp breath. He had to have heard the siren. His footsteps left the hallway, moving silently but quickly.

The siren was shrill as the police car swung into our driveway. Heedlessly I threw open the bathroom door and ran into the entry hall just as an officer knocked loudly on the front door.

Unable to stop shaking or to keep my teeth from
chattering, I led the two police officers into the house and tried to explain what had happened. It was hard to tell them apart. They were both of medium height with medium-brown hair and probably in their mid-thirties. They told me their names, but I was so scared, I couldn’t remember them.

One searched upstairs, one down. They examined the front and back doors and some of the downstairs windows.

“There’s no sign of an intruder in the house, and no sign of forced entry,” one of them said. “Have you found anything missing?”

Embarrassed, because I hadn’t thought to look, I took a quick tour of the house. Everything seemed to be in place. Mom’s shoulder bag was lying on her bed; and the wallet, with money inside, was in place. I checked Mom’s jewelry box. She didn’t have much of the real stuff—just her watch and a couple of rings—but they hadn’t been touched.

Upstairs was the same. Tiny dust motes drifted through the bands of sunlight that spilled from my window onto the carpet. Dinky, who had strolled in when I’d opened the door to the officers, paraded past me, jumped to the bed, and settled, her eyes accusing me of allowing her peace to be disturbed.

“What do you know about this, Dinky?” I asked her, but her only answer was to squeeze her eyes shut slowly and pretend I wasn’t there.

“Did you actually see someone in the house?” the first officer asked me as I rejoined them downstairs.

“No. I just heard someone.”

“Houses pop and creak with temperature changes. Maybe you heard the air conditioner start up.”

“No. I heard footsteps. He—he was standing outside the bathroom door.”

“Did he try to open the door?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Did you see the doorknob move?”

“Not exactly. I—I didn’t turn on the light.”

They gave each other a patient look, and I felt my cheeks burn as my face reddened. “I didn’t imagine it. Someone was here.”

One of the officers gave me his business card and said, “If you have any more trouble, just call us.”

“You don’t believe me.”

The other wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one hand and replaced his hat. “No sign of forced entry,” he said, “and nothing missing, so far as you can tell. If it were someone burglarizing the house, he probably would have taken your mother’s watch and rings. He’d definitely have taken the cash, and maybe the credit cards.”

“I guess,” I answered, but another thought hit me. “Unless he didn’t come here to steal anything.”

The officer with his hand on the doorknob paused and turned to look at me. “Have you had any strange phone calls? Anyone following you? Any reason to think you might be a target?”

“No.”

The other officer nodded toward the card in my hand. It was obvious he was getting impatient. “Call us if you need us,” he said.

“Thank you,” I mumbled as they left the house. I knew they didn’t believe me.

“Why was someone in this house?” I asked aloud. “Why? Why? Why?”

The next thought startled me:
Who?

I didn’t have the answer.

M
om and the police car passed each other as she drove into our street. I waited outside while she parked the car. I knew there’d be questions.

“It looked to me as though that police car came out of our driveway,” Mom said before I had a chance to tell her a thing. Her suit was almost dry under the shirt she was wearing as a cover-up, and her towel was draped around her neck.

“It did,” I said. “I called the police.”

Mom stopped in mid-step and stared at me. “Why? What happened?”

“Come on inside. I’ll tell you all about it.”

She followed me into the house and back to the kitchen, asking, “Was someone trying to break in?” A sudden thought struck her, and she grabbed my shoulders, searching my face. “Sarah! You’re all right, aren’t you?”

“Mom!” I had to shout to get her to pay attention. “Stop asking so many questions! Just listen to me!”

“Tell me first about
you
,” she demanded.

“I’m fine. No problems.”

“Then what—?”

“Sit down, Mom, and give me a chance.” I practically pushed her into the nearest kitchen chair and sat beside her. “When I came home, I went straight to the kitchen for a drink of water. While I was in the kitchen I thought I heard someone moving around upstairs, so I called the police.”

“Did they catch him? Oh, my gosh!” Her right hand clasped her left wrist. “My watch! It was right there on the nightstand! And my handbag! The credit cards!” She was half out of her chair.

“Whoever it was didn’t take anything,” I assured her.

She looked puzzled and sat down again. “Nothing? Who was it? Did you see him?”

“No.” I took a deep breath that ended in a sigh. “Mom, I know I heard someone run down the stairs. I locked myself in the guest bathroom, so I didn’t see him, but I heard him.”

“Why didn’t you try to get away from him by running out the back door?” Mom asked. “That would have been quicker and safer.”

“Because the dead bolt was locked and the key wasn’t in the door.”

We both looked at the door at the same time. “There it is,” Mom said. “On the floor right under the lock.”

“It wasn’t there then! I would have seen it! That’s why I ran to the bathroom. I heard him run down the
stairs. He came down the hall toward the bathroom. I could even see his shadow when he stood in front of the door.”

Mom’s eyes were wide, and her mouth opened. “But—”

“Please don’t interrupt. Let me tell you. I don’t know if he was going to try to unlock the bathroom door or not. When he heard the police siren, he left.”

“The police must have seen him.”

“They didn’t. They searched upstairs and downstairs and didn’t find any sign of forced entry. And nothing was missing.” Bitterly I added, “They practically said they thought I imagined the whole thing.”

Mom looked troubled. She reached over and took my hand. “Is there any chance that you could have, Sarah? The key
is
there.”

“No,” I insisted.

Her glance was searching. “Sarah, you’ve never explained what frightened you when you first set foot in this house. Could what happened here today be tied in with that?” She took a deep breath, and I could see the fear in her eyes. “Does this all have anything to do with that spirit you once imagined was with you?”

“No!”

“Well, then,” Mom said brightly, as though she were doing her best to support me, “I’ll get out of this bathing suit and we’ll take another look around.” In spite of her words, I could see the doubt in her eyes, and it hurt.

In less than five minutes she returned, her hair still damp and uncombed. “I’ll take the downstairs, you take
the upstairs,” she said, and disappeared into the dining room, where I knew she’d count the silver.

I automatically went to my own room first. Nothing had been disturbed, including a handful of change I’d left on top of the chest. One by one I repeated the opening and checking of each drawer, starting at the top. Nothing had been touched. But as I tried to close the bottom drawer it seemed to stick, resisting my efforts. It was as though someone were tugging it out as I was trying to push it in. I suddenly stopped, and the drawer wobbled, jumping back an inch.