Out in the hall, she looked across to see if Ariel’s bedroom door was open. Seeing that it was, she was relieved. Perhaps she’d already gone downstairs for breakfast.
What had really happened in the kitchen last night?
Her fragile mood fell.
Across the gallery, Ariel’s door slammed.
“Ariel?” she cried.
Behind her, her own door also slammed shut, causing her to jump. She looked back, stiff with fear, to see the heavy door standing closed and silent as though it had been that way all morning.
But it wasn’t over. She heard other doors in the house slamming—doors above her and below—and pounding footsteps, as though several people were racing to shut them, as though they were playing a great, noisy game.
She crouched there in the hall, covering her ears, her eyes shut as tightly as she could make them. Waiting, waiting, waiting for it to stop.
Rainey was still shaking. Even after she heard the front door slam, she stayed where she was until the vibration beneath her feet stopped as well.
Opening her eyes, she stood. She had to find Ariel.
She ran for Ariel’s room. Every door she passed was now open. Even Ariel’s was open, just as it had been when she first came out of her own bedroom.
Sweet Jesus, what’s happening?
“Ariel!”
Ariel’s bed was empty and unmade, but then Ariel never made her bed anymore. The en suite bathroom, and the rest of the room: empty.
“Where are you, honey?”
The house had a late-morning stillness about it. Above Rainey, the painted stars looked down, mute and unconcerned.
Chapter 58
Allison leaned against the headboard, her legs curled beneath her to keep her feet warm. Even with the socks and extra blanket the other man had brought her a long time ago, she couldn’t get warm. The candlelight was so dim that another person might find it difficult to see where the crochet needle ended and the last bit of blue yarn began, but she could see well enough. She even fancied that she could see in the darkness almost as well as a cat. There were times when she woke up in the blackness and made her way to the sink without even lighting a candle.
She had almost come to the end of the yarn and was in a hurry to finish so she could tie it off, and then untie it and unravel it again. The only thing that troubled her was untying the tiny knots when she came to the end of each skein. It hadn’t been as hard when the yarn was new, but now it was wearing thin in some places. Some bits were so worn that she let them break, chewed away the weak parts, tied the yarn back together, and started again.
The work was making her anxious in a way she’d never been anxious before. The thing inside her was worried, too, and wasn’t able to soothe her any longer. It was much bigger now, and fretted and rolled and nibbled at her, often waking her from sleep. Yet it hardly spoke at all. Had it sensed something that she couldn’t? Was it time? She wanted to tell it not to worry, that they wouldn’t have to leave, but she knew she couldn’t lie.
Then one day, Michael told her that the other man had gone away, and that he wouldn’t ever come back to try to take her away. That this was where she belonged.
“Yes! Yes!” she said, taking her hands in his and covering them with kisses.
Why did he look at her so strangely? Had she done something wrong? No. He always told her right away when she messed up. Still, it worried her. If he was unhappy, he might decide to make her leave after all.
Then he laid a dainty set of pearl-handled scissors across her palm, and she felt the weak, happy approval of the thing inside her. When she caressed them with her other hand, the thing inside rolled about with some of its old familiar joy.
“You’ll know what to do with these when the time comes,” Michael said.
The scissors were so light that she could hardly imagine they would cut anything. What had he meant about knowing what to do with them? She thought of the blanket she’d stuffed beneath the bed when she heard him coming in. Her teeth hurt sometimes from chewing off the bits of the yarn. The scissors would be helpful. But the scissors also brought other thoughts that she couldn’t bear to examine too closely. Thoughts that brought a strange, mirthful smile to the thing inside her.
When Michael was gone, she took them from the side table where she had laid them aside, folded them closed, and hid them beneath her pillow.
Chapter 59
Ariel knew no one could hear her, but she continued screaming for her mother and pounding on the door until she could barely lift her arms.
No one knows I’m here. No one knows.
She sank to the floor. Closing her eyes, she willed it to be a bad dream. Her mother would wake her by gently shaking her shoulder, and they would have breakfast together, and she would never be cruel to her mother again. She would forgive her, and stop punishing her for letting her father die. She would go to the doctor just like she’d asked. They would be friends, like they were before. She would even help her set up her business, and try to make new friends now that she didn’t look so much like a freak. It would all be different.
I promise I’ll be good. Mommy, I promise, promise, promise!
Her mother loved her. They would be happy.
Then she remembered.
Jefferson.
Jefferson would find her. If he had a girlfriend he was bringing here, he would definitely be back.
Newly hopeful, she went back into the bedroom and took a long drink from one of the water bottles in the refrigerator. She was hungry, too, but the cheese didn’t look appetizing at all.
She wished she had her phone. He’d never answered her text about his mother, but surely he would try to, soon. When she didn’t answer, he’d come looking for her and would know to look here.
What was she going to do here until someone found her? She perched on the edge of the bed. There were the other rooms down the hall. Their doors were closed, and something had to be inside them. Maybe a way out?
No. I won’t look.
But she couldn’t stand it, sitting there like some kind of prisoner. Stupid door! It was probably just jammed.
She got up and went back to the hallway. This time, instead of banging, she tried to tease the door handle, just like her dad had showed her to tease a cork out of a bottle when he let her be their sommelier at dinner. Putting her ear to the monstrously thick wood, she listened for the lock’s inner-workings. Nothing. The handle turned easily but it was as though it wasn’t connected to anything.
“Daddy,” she whispered. “Daddy, if you’re here, please help me.”
She knew she was being childish. The memory of him appearing in her room was getting dimmer all the time. The memory of his face smiling at her, the memory of him laughing at some stupid joke she’d told him on the way home from dance class that day. It was all fading away.
She couldn’t remember anything that happened after she pulled the mail from the box in St. Louis. The world had just ended. Now it was as though she’d been transported from that moment to here, in this hidden place. Nothing had happened in between. That time was lost.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said to the darkness. “I wish you were here with me.”
The answering voice might have been a distant sigh.
“Button.”
Chapter 60
It was the second day in a row Gerard had spent time at the sheriff’s office, and he was grateful to leave. As soon as he got back to his truck, he took out his phone to call the funeral home to tell them to just go ahead and cremate Karin without a service.
Screw Molly and her parents.
When he’d signed in at the sheriff’s office front desk that morning, he’d noticed Molly’s name just two lines above his. The detective told him not to worry about it, but wouldn’t give him any information. Which told him that she’d come by to make his life harder. She and her parents deserved zero consideration. Such a bitch! What in the hell had he ever done to her?
But he knew i
t was what he hadn’t done. He hadn’t looked to her for consolation. He’d known for a long time that she had been interested in him long before he and Karin were married. Molly wasn’t as forward as Karin was. She had a lot of issues that were the exact opposite of Karin’s. If Karin couldn’t keep her hands to herself, Molly couldn’t figure out what to do with hers. So lovely, but so awkward. Her crush on him had been almost charming a few years earlier, but now it was just a problem. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t attracted to her. It was his fault that he hadn’t been able to judge the depth and inappropriateness of her feelings. In her mind, he’d treated her badly. Now she was going to make him pay. Hadn’t she told him as much?
He looked down at the phone. No, he wasn’t going to call the funeral home. He couldn’t do it.
I’m not that much of an asshole.
His own parents were on a missionary trip in Turkey with a doctors’ charity. They had been fond of Karin, but they wouldn’t be able to get back for the service. It was only right that Karin’s parents should be there to mourn their daughter.
Instead of calling the funeral home, he listened to the messages that had piled up on his voicemail. The last was a polite, formal message from one of Karin’s clients who had planned to sign a contract with him to build a house, but was now canceling. “In light of recent events . . .”
Recent events.
He’d been wrong in thinking that he was going to be cut some professional slack because of Karin’s death. It was going to screw him up in every possible way. It was even possible that his business—which up to now had been incredibly solid—could fail. His work was the only thing he truly gave a damn about now besides Ellie.
There was a temptation to let it go, to just give up, and maybe leave Old Gate. Leave Virginia altogether. Start somewhere new. He’d never been one to give up on things. Look how long he’d stayed with Karin, even in the face of the crap he’d been dealing with for years. Maybe it was time.
But what did he have left to give?
What had he given Karin? Cover? Maybe legitimacy. Affection. Companionship. An amazing house. A strong base to live from. Love? Yes, he had loved her.
What had she given him? Loyalty? No. Affection? Yes. Companionship? Some. Sex? Definitely. Maybe even love. He was no longer certain of it. Her addiction had controlled her. In the end, Karin was always about Karin. In her line of work, she had had to make it appear that other people’s emotions and desires were important to her, and she’d gotten good at faking it.
Like she’d faked it with him. He’d let her get away with it, even encouraged it.
What kind of man am I? What have I done?
Were all women like Karin?
He pictured Rainey Adams’s cheerful smile the first day she’d opened the door to him at Bliss House, her look of interested concentration when they worked together on the remodeling plans, the fear and worry in her eyes when she felt she had to protect her daughter from him.
No. Not all women. But did he even deserve to be with a woman who wasn’t like Karin, no matter who she was?
On his way home, he drove past the hospital. Poor Bertie Bliss was still inside. Rainey had been right to give him shit about beating up Jefferson just hours after someone had attacked his mother. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t known when he went over there. He should have listened when Rainey tried to stop him. But he hadn’t been able to stop. It was as though the violence was gaining momentum. Three major acts of violence in a little less than a week, and all of them attached to him in some way. Three acts of violence, beginning with Karin’s death.
But the trouble for him had started before that. It had started with the pregnancy, and Karin’s silence.
Karin didn’t trust me any more than I trusted her.
That was a fact he could never change.
Chapter 61
Bertie was freezing, but she couldn’t tell anyone she wanted a blanket. She’d listened to chatter about her blood pressure and pulse and the color of the contents of the embarrassing catheter bag attached to the side of the bed. But nothing about helping her feel better. Her head ached as though the top of it had been sawed off and her brains scrambled with a large metal fork. She could think, but only barely. Images came slowly. Painfully. She wasn’t sure if she would even be able to speak. Right now, though, she wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to make the effort ever again.
The Judge was nearby, talking to someone else in the room. He was being just as bossy with the nurse as he always was with her. Her mother had warned her how it would be.
“It comes naturally to men like Randolph, even when they’re young,” she’d said.
Bertie had laughed. “I just let him think he’s in charge.”
Her mother had been tight-lipped after that, waiting for Bertie to come around. To understand. But it was her mother who didn’t understand. Bertie’s many friends didn’t understand either. Over the years, they all imagined that she’d begun to see herself through the Judge’s eyes. They didn’t understand that she was content. She had everything she’d ever wanted. She didn’t need their approval or appreciation. Nor the Judge’s. She knew he loved her as much as he was capable of loving anyone. It might not have been enough for another woman, but it had been enough for her. And she had Jefferson, who (almost) never disappointed her.
The truth was that her expectations for Jefferson weren’t terribly high. His academics weren’t impressive like his father’s (hers had been less than stellar, so why should she judge him?), and he seemed satisfied with his life in Old Gate. That surprised her. So many children wanted to get away as fast as they could.
But there was a problem. Some terrible complication was about to tear down everything she had worked so hard to build: her comfortable marriage, her position in the community, her social standing and extensive circle of friends. Her home. Her only problem was remembering what it was. The only thing she could do was lie here and think and keep trying to remember.
She’d come downstairs later than usual. The Judge had said he would get breakfast in town and had already left the house by the time she got up. Rainey was coming over for coffee because there was something she wanted to talk to Rainey about. It had been important, and she’d wanted both the Judge and Jefferson out of the house. Jefferson . . . what had Jefferson been doing? Was he still asleep?
Damn it. What was it? What did I need to say?
Oh, Lord. Her head hurt so badly. She wanted to touch her hand to it but couldn’t lift her arm. It was something about Rainey and the house and someone else. More than one someone else.
You’ll be a Bliss, Bertie! Bliss, as in happily ever after. Forever. And the house, Bertie. Maybe you can get the Judge to buy Bliss House back. There were always Blisses in that house.
Her friends. What did they know? She’d been so young when she married the Judge.
Of course she’d imagined bringing the house back into the family, even after the tragedies there. Then her mother-in-law had come to visit one day when Bertie was pregnant with Jefferson, and told her that it was absolutely out of the question. She’d told her the truth about Michael, too. Bertie had listened and was almost convinced. Then her mother-in-law died, and there was the business with the doctor who’d bought the house from her. And not so long ago that awful Peter Brodsky had killed his sweet wife, Mim. Finally, Bertie understood that it wasn’t him, but the house, that was really responsible.
Rainey, Rainey, Rainey! Why couldn’t you stay away? That house means heartache for you. There are hidden things. Horrible things.
Why can’t anyone hear me?
Bertie tried to turn her head, to open her eyes. Open her mouth. But nothing happened. Then she remembered:
She’d been in the kitchen, making a cinnamon raisin braid for Rainey’s visit. Jefferson was upstairs, sleeping. He always slept late when he was home, just as deeply as he had when he was a toddler. There was a wasp at the window, flying at it, trying to get out. The kitchen was
already warm with sunshine, and the oven was heating, and she’d gone to adjust the thermostat in the front hallway down a degree or two. When she’d come back, there was a man in the kitchen.
His face was covered with some kind of wooly balaclava, which made him look ridiculous against the flowers and sunshine at the garden window. But she didn’t laugh. Despite the mask, he seemed familiar. Something about the sunshine and the windows made her think she knew him. But he was obviously there to rob them or do them some kind of harm, so she opened her mouth to scream. Before she could make more than a squeak, he jumped at her, knocking her down.
Her knees hit the floor first, then her breasts and belly. The stone kitchen floor had never seemed harder, and the man pressed his knee into her back to keep her there.
Not in my own kitchen!
She tried to roll away from him, to get him off of her, but he had her by the hair. How many times had she been afraid when she and the Judge were in DC, or even Charlottesville, walking at night? How was it possible that this was happening here on her own floor?
He pushed her face into the stone, once, twice, and she felt something break. Pain seared in her head, and blood flooded her mouth and sinuses.
He got off of her, but she couldn’t move or make any sound. She heard him moving around the kitchen. Not quietly. He was messing with the pots and pans hanging from the rack above the stove. The pain in her head made her feel confused, but she wondered what he might be doing. No one robbed people of their pots and pans. The rattling stopped and she heard his shoes scuffing lightly across the stone.
She had to get away, to get up and call for Jefferson, but the blood in her mouth kept her from speaking. Dragging herself to her knees, she reached for the cabinet to steady herself, but she missed it.
The man came to stand over her, one of her precious antique copper kettles in his hand—the one she’d bought in London and had such a problem shipping home. She shrank away, still reaching fruitlessly for the cabinet, the wall, anything. By God’s mercy, she’d felt only the first blow.
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