Maybe it was Tony who frightened me. Or the way he made me feel. I wasn’t sure.
“If it’s the house,” he said, “maybe I can help you.”
He leaned back, breaking the spell, and I took a long shuddering breath. “How could you help me?”
“You’re forgetting. I know Adam. I know the story about the murder.”
“Did Adam tell you why he did it?”
Tony threw me a quick sideways glance. “There wasn’t much doubt. He was on medication for a couple of things—an antibiotic he was taking because of a viral infection and a steroid he was taking to build himself up for the football team. He’d been having trouble with depression, too, and a doctor had given him something for that. Adam said he was so over-medicated, he didn’t know what he was doing.”
“But murder?” I asked. “How could anyone not know he was killing someone?”
Tony bristled. “I’m on Adam’s side,” he said. “I don’t want him to go to prison.”
“There’s not much chance of that, is there?” I knew I sounded bitter, because Tony gave me another sharp look.
He was quiet for a few minutes, then said, “I guess it’s you I’m thinking of, Sarah, and not Adam. I don’t like to think of your being frightened in this house. You’re a very special person, and I want you to be happy, not afraid.”
“I—I’ll be all right.”
Tony moved closer and put an arm around my shoulders.
“You were frightened of something when I got here. I could see it in your face. What was it?”
“It was just—well, a sensation I had. It went away.”
Tony’s hand on my arm was warm and firm. “If you want to talk about it, Sarah, I’ll listen.”
I would have loved to have been able to tell him everything that had happened to me, but of course I couldn’t. Yet maybe there was something Tony could help me with. I asked him, “You came here to see Adam sometimes. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever meet any of the Holts’ household help?”
For just a second his fingers tightened on my arm, but he answered easily, “Sure. There were a couple of them over the years—maybe three.”
“One named Rosa Luiz?”
“Rosa Luiz?” His voice was strained. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. The name isn’t familiar.”
“She was young and slender with a small, narrow face and large eyes.”
He sat upright, turned, and peered into my face. “How do you know what she looked like?”
Stunned, I fumbled for an answer. “I—I found some things that belonged to her. She’d hidden them away under a loose baseboard in the closet in the maid’s room off the kitchen.”
“What were these things?”
“Money—both pesos and United States currency; a letter telling her that her uncle had died, which was addressed to her at a Mexican address; a silver religious medal; and a calendar.”
“A calendar! What kind of a calendar?”
“Just a small calendar, two years old. She’d marked off the days up to March third.”
He paused for a minute, breathing heavily.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“Nothing’s the matter,” Tony said. “I’m just trying to remember, as you asked me to.” Suddenly he added, “You didn’t mention the photograph.”
“There wasn’t a photograph.”
“Then how do you know what she looked like?”
I took a deep breath and the words tumbled out. “I saw the woman—Rosa—in a dream.”
I hated myself for telling. I’d done it again. I waited for the wary, embarrassed look to come into Tony’s eyes. But it didn’t. Tony looked at me seriously. “A dream,” he murmured. “I seem to remember there was a young woman. I think her name could have been Rosa.”
“When did she live here?”
He scowled, as though he were thinking hard. “How should I know?”
“I mean, was it a long time ago? A few years ago?” Why had I asked that? Was I testing him?
Tony leaned back against the sofa cushions, and his eyes narrowed again as he studied me. “The calendar you found should tell you that, shouldn’t it?”
Embarrassed, I blushed. There was no way to explain.
“Time for me to be going,” Tony said abruptly, and stood. He reached down for my hand and pulled me to my feet.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” I said. “I—I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony said. “I told you I couldn’t stay long. I’m going to be late as it is.”
I looked at the clock in the VCR on top of the television set. “Mom should be home soon,” I said. “I wish you could stay just a little while longer and meet her.”
“Sorry.” Tony stopped me as I turned to go toward the front door and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Sarah,” he said, “I don’t like to worry you, but I hope you’ve got Rosa’s things well hidden.”
“Hidden? Why?”
“Are they?”
“No. Not exactly. They’re in the chest of drawers in my room, but no one goes in there but me.” He looked so serious that it scared me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because no one should know about them. You haven’t told anyone besides me, have you?”
“I telephoned Mr. Holt to ask him about Rosa and told him I’d found—well, some of her things. And Dee Dee knows. She was here when I found them. She translated the letter for me.”
Tony sucked in his breath and muttered something. “I’m sorry Dee Dee knows. The fewer people the better.”
“Why?”
“Why? Oh, because Dee Dee spills everything she knows.”
“I asked her not to.”
He shook his head. “There’s no way of telling what those things of Rosa’s mean. Probably nothing, but we ought to keep quiet about them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She would have headed back to Mexico,” he said. “There’d be no way to find her, and in trying, you might stir up a lot of unnecessary trouble.”
“For whom?”
“For Adam and his family,” he said. “Probably for Rosa, too, since she was here illegally.” He took a deep breath, and his eyes were so dark and demanding that I shivered. He added in a voice so soft, I had to strain to hear, “And maybe for you.”
My voice cracked as I tried to talk. “Tony! Are you threatening me?”
“Oh, Sarah!” he said, as though I’d hurt him. “Don’t think that. It wasn’t a threat. What I said was only a warning.”
Chapter
Nine
Mom was disappointed that she had missed meeting Tony. “I wish he’d called in advance,” she said.
“He didn’t plan on coming. He just happened to be in the neighborhood,” I told her.
A little wrinkle flickered between Mom’s eyebrows. “Sarah, before you go out with Tony again, your father and I want to meet him.”
“Sure,” I answered quickly. “That’s taken for granted.”
“Just make sure Tony knows the rule.”
“I will. You’re going to like Tony, Mom. I promise.” Smiling, I rummaged through the nearest brown paper bag and said, “Nothing interesting in here. When I was a little kid, you used to bring me a lollipop.”
“Try the bag near the stove,” she said with a grin. “No lollipops in it, but I think you’ll settle for some red grapes. They look sweet enough to burst.”
I washed the grapes, put them in a bowl, and Mom joined me, munching on a handful of grapes as she leaned against the counter. “I stopped off at the civic-club office,” she said. “I signed up for a family membership at the swimming pool.”
When I didn’t answer, she added, “Whenever you’re ready to go swimming again, Sarah, the pool will be there.”
But I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
Dee Dee came over the next morning. “I saw your names on the club roster!” she said to
Mom and me. “Have you been swimming in the pool yet?”
“We haven’t had a chance,” Mom told her.
“There’s no time like the present,” Dee Dee said. “I’m subbing for another guard, so I’ve got to be at the pool in a few minutes. Why don’t you come with me? It’s a hot, beautiful day, and the water is going to feel wonderful.”
“I’d love to,” Mom said. She pushed a damp strand of hair back from her forehead and laughed. “It wasn’t hard to talk me into it, was it?”
They turned toward me.
“I’ll work on putting the books away. There aren’t many left,” I told them.
“No,” Dee Dee said firmly. “Come with us. If you don’t want to swim, no one’s going to make you, but you can watch us having fun and work on your tan. If you don’t have sunscreen, I’ll lend you mine.”
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.
Chapter
Ten
Mom 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.
Whispers from the Dead Page 9