She shoved him away. “I’m not hysterical!”
But her face, so contorted and upset, made Neville think she might be.
“Annabel,” Jack told her firmly, “I think you should go lie down.”
She glared at him. She seemed to accept that she was beaten.
“All right,” she said, her voice quiet now. “Maybe I will go lie down.”
“That’s a good girl,” her husband said.
He moved over to the refrigerator and popped it open. “Think this bowl of Gran’s rabbit stew is still good?” he called over to Zeke.
“Sure it is,” the old caretaker said. “I’ll heat some for both of us.”
As they were distracted by the stew, Annabel turned to leave. Neville watched her with fascination. As she passed him, she paused for just a second, and spoke in a whisper that he could barely make out.
But he heard her.
“Go down there,” she said. “Key on a nail up above.”
Then she was gone.
Zeke was pouring the stew into a pan on the stove. Jack had settled down at the table, reading a newspaper.
Neville slipped out of the kitchen.
Every nerve in his body trembling, he found the door to the basement steps. He opened it slowly, hoping it didn’t creak. Then he scampered down into the darkness. Yanking the string to light the bulb overhead, he saw the base of the chimney. A chest and a rake were positioned in front of it. Right away Neville knew this was how Annabel had gotten the key that was on “a nail up above.”
But the door to the ash dump was securely padlocked.
And while Neville could see the nail protruding from the bricks above, there was no key hanging from it.
Somehow that fact confirmed for him that Annabel had been right.
There was indeed blood in that chimney.
Behind that small iron door, Neville was convinced, lay Priscilla’s body.
57
“You’re really going to keep working at that scary old place?” Tammy asked, sliding Chad’s scrambled eggs and home fries in front of him on the diner counter.
“I was hired to do a job,” Chad told her, “and I’m gonna do it.” He brought a fry to his mouth and took a bite. “My way of paying tribute to Paulie.”
“Well, I think that’s pretty brave of you,” Tammy said. “I feel bad for that couple that just arrived to fix up the place. Now they’re forever haunted by Roger’s hand.” She shuddered.
Chad smiled up at her. “How you doing with that, Tam? You dealing with his death okay?”
“I made a resolution when I got up this morning,” the pretty, dark-eyed waitress told him. “I was moving on with my life. I’m going to be just fine on my own.”
“Hear, hear!” Chad said.
“I’m going back to school, and I’m going to get a degree,” Tammy told him, before smirking. “If I can afford it on my tips from this place.”
Chad thought a moment. “You know, if I recall, you fixed your place up pretty nice. Refinished the floor yourself. Laid down some new tile.”
Tammy beamed. “That I did. With good advice from you.”
“I could use an assistant like you,” Chad told her. “It would mean going out to the Blue Boy Inn, but I could help you make a few extra bucks.”
“What would I do?” Tammy asked.
“Help me with painting and sanding, to start,” Chad told her, bringing a forkful of eggs to his mouth and afterward wiping his lips with the paper napkin. “Would it creep you out too much, going to a place where Roger’s hand was found?”
“Not at all,” Tammy answered. “When do I start?”
“Come with me this afternoon when you get off here,” he said.
“All right. I’ll have my mom pick Jessica up at school and watch her until I get home. She’s been after me to get a better job anyway. She’ll be happy to do it.”
“Then welcome to Appleby Contracting, Ms. Morelli,” Chad said, extending his hand across the counter.
They shook.
58
Annabel lay in bed. She hadn’t left her bed since coming up here yesterday afternoon, shaken by her discovery of blood in the chimney.
She was certain the blood wasn’t there anymore, however.
Zeke had cleaned it out. She knew that in her gut. That was why he’d locked it back up and taken the key, as Neville had reported to her late last night, so he could go back later and clean it all out. He would destroy the evidence of any body ever being stuffed into the chimney.
Since Annabel’s cell phone didn’t have reception, and she didn’t dare use the house phone, Neville had promised that he would drive into town this morning and tell the police chief what Annabel had found.
She realized the significance of the fact that she didn’t dare use the house phone.
It was because she was afraid of being overheard.
Jack and Zeke knew something. They were hiding something. Somehow, they were covering up the murders.
Might they—Annabel trembled to think it—have committed them?
She’d thought Jack was sound asleep that morning. But had he snuck out while she was at the store? Zeke had claimed to be in the attic. But he, too, could have come downstairs while Annabel was gone.
But why?
Annabel felt frozen. She lay there immobile on the bed. All night, she had been awake, listening as Jack breathed beside her. When he’d come in the night before, she’d pretended to be asleep. They hadn’t spoken a word. All through the night, Annabel had had the sense that Jack, too, was awake, lying beside her, waiting and listening for her to make a move. So Annabel had kept as still as she could, breathing shallowly but regularly, hoping he believed her to be asleep. In the morning, when Jack had finally risen and left the room, Annabel had let out a long, relieved breath.
It was unbelievable.
She was frightened of her husband.
Jack—who had stood with her through all her trials in the past.
Annabel felt as if she was going mad.
She smelled coffee brewing downstairs. She had yet to hear a car crunch across the gravel driveway, so Neville had not yet left for the police station. If he didn’t leave soon, she would jump up when she heard Officer Burrell make his daily drive-through checking on the place. She’d scream from the window for him to come in and arrest Jack and Zeke!
But for what?
Maybe she was going mad.
Annabel tried to focus, to make sense of what was happening. She was fearful that Jack was involved in murder—or that he was covering it up. But such an idea was crazy! She couldn’t think straight. Jack and Zeke were hiding something in the attic. That much Annabel knew. And then they had prevented her from exposing the blood in the basement.
Sugar cakes, you know sometimes you see things that aren’t there....
Was that it? Was she was just imagining things?
Maybe Jack and Zeke really had been fixing the rafters and the floorboards in the attic. Maybe that really had been wet soot in the chimney.
Annabel heard a sound.
She sat up on her bed. Looking across the room, she watched in disbelief as the panel on the far wall slid back. The same panel where she had found those terrible books. Zeke had never nailed it shut.
From the darkness behind the wall within emerged two little blue feet.
“No,” Annabel murmured, pulling her legs under her and wrapping her arms around her body.
Tommy Tricky crept out of the hole in the wall.
He looked up at her, his blue eyes shining.
He gnashed his sharp little teeth.
But then—even worse—his twin emerged from the dark space, following him out into the room.
The two little creatures stood there looking up at Annabel. She was so terrified she couldn’t make a sound.
Then they gave a little laugh and dashed across the room, under her bed.
Annabel screamed at the top of her lungs.
Her fear
turned everything white. Blindingly white. The next thing she knew Jack was standing over her, trying to hold her down on the bed, telling her to calm down and stop screaming. Zeke was there, looming over her as well. And Neville, too! They were all in on it! They were all out to get her!
Annabel passed out.
59
Neville left Annabel’s room completely mystified.
“What happened to her?” he asked Jack and Zeke. “She seemed fine earlier.”
“She has a history of hallucinations, of histrionics,” Jack said, peering in at her one last time, making sure she was resting comfortably before he shut the door. She had seemed to calm down, but Neville thought she might start thrashing about again anytime, so great had been her distress. “Her doctors told us she could occasionally have relapses,” Jack continued, and he looked sincerely worried about his wife.
If that was so, Neville thought, perhaps he’d been wrong to believe Annabel’s story about blood in the chimney.
He would wait for a while before talking with the police. Jack seemed perfectly reasonable; it was Annabel who was the raving lunatic at the moment. Neville didn’t want to start trouble.
In fact, all he wanted to do was leave. He was certain now that Priscilla wasn’t coming back. He just wanted to get on an airplane and go home, get back to work, visit his parents and his brother and his nieces and nephews. Neville just wanted some normalcy in his life again. The past few days were enough fear and confusion and chaos to last a lifetime.
But he couldn’t leave. Not quite yet. He liked Annabel, and he wanted to make sure she was all right. Tomorrow, he figured. If she was up and about tomorrow, talking sensibly, he’d leave tomorrow.
“I’m going to the store,” Jack announced. “Not Millie’s market, but the supermarket in Great Barrington. I want to get some real groceries. Frankly, I need some meat. Some steak and potatoes, since all that’s in the fridge are Annabel’s vegetables.” He smiled over at Neville. “Can I get you anything, buddy?”
“No, thank you,” Neville told him. “I’ve come to quite enjoy carrot and cucumber sandwiches.”
“Have it your way,” Jack said. He turned to Zeke. “You’ll look in on Annabel? If she wakes up, tell her I’ll be back in about an hour.”
“Will do,” the old man replied.
Neville watched from the window as Jack drove off.
“I’m going to finish some work in the attic,” Zeke told him. “If the telephone rings, you can let it go to the answering machine.”
“I’m happy to answer it and take a message for you,” Neville said. “I’m just going to settle down here in the parlor and read a book.”
“Very good.”
Neville took a chair opposite the fireplace. How he wished there was a fire crackling in front of him, sending off waves of heat across the room. The day was so terribly cold. Neville shivered a little, buttoning his wool cardigan sweater all the way down. Opening his book, he began to read.
60
Upstairs, Annabel was awake. She lay rock still, listening to Tommy Tricky and his twin whisper under her bed.
“Let’s get her.”
“No, not yet.”
“But I want her.”
“Leave her!”
I’m going mad, Annabel thought. Stark raving mad.
There was no such thing as Tommy Tricky. But here she was, listening to his voice. And there were two of him.
Knowing that she had gone insane gave her a weird sense of peace. She just lay there, not moving, listening to the little men scuttle around under her bed.
61
“Hello?”
A man’s voice startled Neville awake. He had fallen asleep reading his book. His head was down on his chest. He leapt from his chair.
“Hello?” the man called again.
Two people had let themselves in and were now standing in the foyer. The man who’d been calling was Chad Appleby, the contractor. The other was a pretty, dark-haired woman Neville had never seen before.
“I’m sorry to just barge in on you,” Chad said, “but we knocked and no one answered the door.”
“Oh, it’s quite all right,” Neville told him. “But I’m afraid Jack has gone up to Great Barrington and Annabel is . . . taking a nap. She wasn’t feeling so well, you see.”
“No problem,” Chad replied. “I’m just here to take some measurements. This is my assistant, Tammy Morelli.”
“How do you do?” Neville asked, smiling over at the woman, who nodded hello.
“I’ll need to go down into the basement,” Chad said. “I need to make sure the floorboards are going to be strong enough for when we take out that wall.”
“I’ll walk down with you,” Neville offered. “I know where the string for the light is.”
“Thanks.” Chad turned to Tammy and tossed her a measuring tape. She caught it expertly. “In the meantime, start measuring the windows and moldings like I told you, okay? Not just the ones on the first floor, but on the second floor, too. We’re going to order all the new windows at the same time.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” Tammy said.
The two men set off down the stairs into the basement.
“Here’s the light, right here,” Neville said, when they reached the bottom. He pulled the string.
“Thanks,” Chad said. “I can find my way from here.” He switched on his flashlight. “I just want to inspect the floorboards.”
“Actually,” Neville went on, “I came down so I might ask you a question.”
“What’s that?”
“Annabel was a bit concerned earlier when she found a dark, brownish-purplish substance inside the chimney down here. Apparently, when she opened the ash dump, it was full of the stuff.”
“Brownish and purplish?”
Neville nodded. “She thought it looked like blood.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Given everything that happened here, to your friend and my girlfriend, well, I thought you ought to know. And if there was any way you could take a look at it . . .”
Chad swung his flashlight over to the door to the ash dump. “Why the hell is it padlocked?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Neville said. “And the key has been missing ever since Annabel looked inside. Zeke said what she saw was wet soot.”
Chad made a face. “Who ever heard of purple wet soot?”
“Well, I guess that’s right. I was going to mention it to the police . . .”
They had reached the base of the fireplace. “I’d say that would be a good idea,” Chad said. “I mean, if it’s a clue to what happened—” He stopped speaking abruptly. “Hey,” he said. “Listen.”
They put their ears close to the ash dump door.
“Something’s in there,” Chad said.
Neville listened. There was indeed something in there.
And it was eating!
The sound of chomping and chewing came from inside the old brick chimney.
62
Tammy stretched the measuring tape across the windowsill on the second-floor landing. She noted the length and jotted it down in a little pad. Then she did the same for the height.
This place wasn’t so creepy. All her life Tammy had heard stories about the Blue Boy Inn. There had been lots of deaths and disappearances up here. Kids in school called it a haunted house. Her mother used to say the place was “cursed.” She hadn’t even liked to drive by on the road on the way to Millie’s market.
But the English guy who’d greeted them had been pleasant enough. And once Chad was through with his renovation, the place was going to be real bright and sunny. It would be like a modern showplace, according to the plans Tammy had seen. She was excited to be in on it. This would be good for her. A real change, and Tammy needed a—
“I told you, no more!”
An old man’s voice suddenly cut through the stillness of the upstairs corridor.
Tammy tried to ignore it, but the voice came again.
&nbs
p; “Get back here!”
The voice was coming from the steep, narrow stairs at the end of the corridor. Tammy assumed they led to the attic. She took a few steps in that direction, pausing at the foot of the stairs to listen.
She could hear people moving about. There was some kind of struggle, it seemed. The old man spoke again, but softer this time.
“Stop this,” he urged. “There are people in the house.” And then he added, insistently, “Shhh!”
Now Tammy was distracted by a sound behind her. She turned away from the stairs and looked back down the hallway. A woman was emerging from one of the rooms. She was dressed in blue jeans and a wrinkled oversized T-shirt. She looked a wreck, as if she hadn’t slept in days. Her long auburn hair was all mussed up. Her eyes caught Tammy’s.
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“Tammy Morelli. I’m working with Chad, the contractor.”
The woman’s eyes softened. “Then you’re real,” she said, a small smile fluttering across her face. “Good. That’s good.”
She made her way down the stairs.
How very strange.
Tammy thought she might have to revise her earlier impression of the Blue Boy. It was indeed pretty creepy after all.
63
“Annabel!” Neville exclaimed. “You’re up! Are you all right, my dear?”
“I need to take a walk,” she said. “Clear my head.”
He thought she looked terrible. “It’s very cold out,” he told her.
She didn’t reply, just yanked on her coat. Behind Neville, Chad now appeared, emerging from the basement stairwell.
“Hello, Annabel,” the contractor said.
She grunted a reply.
“Are we still on for tomorrow morning?” Chad asked. “To take a drive up to Great Barrington and pick out some tile and paint?”
Neville watched as Annabel turned to look at him. Her eyes seemed dull and gray. It seemed almost that she didn’t recognize Chad. She stared at him for several seconds, as if she was trying to process what he was asking her.
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