Disturbed

by Kevin O'Brien

Molly grabbed her cell phone and dialed Kay’s number. It rang twice, and then she heard a click. “Kay?” she said anxiously.

  “Hi, you’ve reached the Garveys!” announced a recording of Kay’s voice. “But you’re out of luck, because we can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message after the beep, and we’ll get back to you. Better luck next time!” A few bars from “Maybe Next Time” from Cabaret played over the recording until the beep finally sounded.

  “Kay?” Molly said into the phone. “Kay, this is Molly next door. Can you pick up? I know it’s late, but — well, could you please pick up? I see your lights are still on. . ” She wondered if maybe Kay was in the bathroom. “Listen, call me back once you get this message, okay? I’m kind of concerned about something. Thanks.”

  Clicking off the phone, Molly went to the window again and peered out at Kay’s house.

  She couldn’t detect any movement over there. She retreated into Jeff’s study and looked out his window — down toward the start of the cul-de-sac. The NO OUTLET sign was still standing.

  But she still felt on edge. Wringing her hands, Molly checked to make sure the front, garage, and sliding glass doors were all double-locked.

  She really missed Henry right now. If he was still down at the end of the block, she would have called him, and he’d have been over within two minutes. They’d be cracking jokes right now and having a glass of wine.

  She decided if Kay called back, she’d invite her over to spend the night. Kay could ask as many questions about her family as she wanted. Molly didn’t care at this point. She just didn’t want to be alone. She kept looking at the phone, hoping it would ring.

  Finally, she returned to Jeff’s study and picked up the cordless on his desk. “Sorry, Jeff,” she murmured, dialing his cell number. He was supposed to be in Denver, and it was past midnight there. She would probably wake him. It rang four times before he answered, sounding groggy. “Hey, honey, what’s up?” he whispered. “You okay?”

  “I’m so sorry I woke you,” she said with a nervous sigh. “I’m just a little paranoid tonight. I thought I saw something outside the kitchen window just a few minutes ago. It was probably nothing, but I tried calling Kay, and there’s no answer. I know she’s home. Her lights are on. She might be passed out or something. She was over here earlier tonight, and belted back a lot of wine, but still. .”

  Molly realized she was babbling. She peered out the window at Kay’s house again.

  “Well, Kay does like her cabernet,” Jeff said. “You’re right, she’s probably passed out. I mean, the woman has a problem. You sure you didn’t just see a raccoon or something?”

  Molly moved into the family room. Through the sliding glass doors, she stared out at the spotlit, empty backyard. “Whoever or whatever it was — it’s gone now.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, honey. I feel awful for waking you up.”

  “Well, if you really think you saw someone outside, don’t hesitate to call the police. I mean it, babe. Don’t take any chances.”

  “No, I’m sure it was nothing,” Molly said. She didn’t want to call 911 about a little scare she’d had. She could get a reputation for sounding false alarms. The cops probably had enough residents on cul-de-sacs doing that to them lately.

  “I guess I’m just feeling on edge,” she admitted. “I got a strange e-mail from an old almost-boyfriend tonight. He works at an art gallery in Chicago. He said someone was in there, asking all sorts of personal questions about me, my family — and Charlie. He said the guy seemed like some kind of sleazy private detective. I’m sorry, but I can’t help thinking of Angela. I mean, she’s always trying to pry into my past. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hired this — this creep to go to my old hometown and ask questions about me.”

  Jeff sighed. “Listen, sweetie, I’ll talk to Angela, and get to the bottom of this. If she’s resorted to this kind of crap — well, I’ll put a stop to it. That’s ridiculous. I’m so sorry. No wonder you’re feeling jumpy. Anyway, Molly, I’m going to take care of it. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Thank you, honey.” The cordless phone to her ear, she was still looking out at the backyard.

  “I’ll be home in just about twelve hours,” Jeff said, soothingly. “Why don’t you pour a glass of wine and look for something good on TV, take your mind off things?”

  “Well, I’m about a third of the way through Exodus. I think I’ll go back to it and watch until I get sleepy. I’m feeling better already. I think I just needed to hear your voice. . ”

  After she said good-bye to Jeff, Molly hung up the phone. Just about twelve hours until he was home.

  Molly told herself she could be all right by herself till then.

  Sitting in a cushioned chair by the window, Jeff clicked off his cell phone. The room in the Jantzen Beach Red Lion was dim, and from the window he had a view of the Columbia River and the Portland Bridge. He was in his undershorts.

  He strolled into the bathroom, took a pee, and washed his hands. Stepping out of his shorts, he slipped back under the covers.

  “Was that your wife?” the woman lying beside him in bed asked.

  Jeff nodded, and then nuzzled up next to her, kissing her shoulder. “Yeah, she just had a slight case of the jitters. . ”

  Their legs were still tangled together under the sheets, and he kissed her shoulder. “I love the way you welcome me home when no one else is around,” Jeff whispered.

  Smiling, Molly lazily ran her fingers through his dark hair. The curtains in their bedroom were closed, but she could hear rain tapping against the windows. She felt so satiated — and safe.

  Last night, she’d had another glass of wine and watched the rest of Exodus, which went on until nearly three in the morning. Then under a cozy throw from Restoration Hardware, she’d read four chapters of the latest Susan Wiggs. It was starting to get light out when she finally fell asleep on the sofa.

  Kay had never called back. But Molly wasn’t too worried about it. The NO OUTLET sign had still been standing at the end of the block when she’d checked shortly after waking up at ten o’clock. And then Jeff had come home a little after one, and suddenly nothing else had mattered.

  “I’ll wait until tomorrow to call Angela,” he said, caressing her arm. “I just want you to know I haven’t forgotten. I’ll phone from the office, and find out if she has anything to do with this guy in Chicago. I’d do it today, but I don’t want the kids around, getting wind of this. They shouldn’t know their mother can be pretty awful sometimes. Anyway, rest assured, I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  Molly leaned over and kissed him on the forehead — and then on his lips. “And they say chivalry is dead,” she whispered.

  He gave her a wry smile. “You know, another thing I haven’t forgotten about is this old boyfriend e-mailing you. . ”

  Molly started to laugh. But then she heard a car coming up the cul-de-sac, and it sounded like it stopped right in front of their house.

  “Oh, God, is she bringing the kids back now?” Molly muttered, jumping out of bed. “She’s at least two hours early.” Swiping her discarded jersey top from the floor, Molly held it in front of her as she ran naked to the window. She pushed back the curtain, and peered outside.

  An SUV had stopped next door in front of Kay Garvey’s driveway. Madison climbed out of the car, and hurried toward the front door. She was wearing hot-pink Converse All Star high-tops today. She shielded her head from the rain.

  With a sigh of relief, Molly turned away from the window and tossed aside the jersey. “False alarm,” she said. She jumped back under the covers and nestled next to Jeff’s warm, naked body. She heard Kay’s front door slam, and the SUV driving away.

  Jeff kissed the side of her neck, and she shuddered gratefully. “So — why was your old boyfriend e-mailing you?” he asked. “Should I be worried?”

  “He just wanted to tell me about that guy coming around the gallery,” Molly said.

  “So what’s this old boyfriend’s name?
” Jeff asked, gliding a hand down her stomach. “And how long were you two an item?”

  Molly giggled. “You’re jealous, I like that. His name is Doug, and we dated for only a month. But we were pretty crazy about each other for a while.” She nudged Jeff. “As much as I relish torturing you, I have to be honest. He’s now seeing a concert cellist named Kate, and it’s serious. So you have nothing to worry about, sweetie.”

  “That’s a relief.” He kissed her cheek. “I was thinking I might have to hire my own private detective to keep tabs on you.”

  Molly worked up a smile. It was a little too soon to joke about private detectives. But she decided not to say anything. She just stroked his hair.

  Next door, she heard muffled screams. It sounded like Madison was laughing — way too loud — about something. Molly resented the noise. It intruded on this rare quiet moment with her husband.

  Jeff sat up halfway, reclining on one elbow. He shot a look over his shoulder toward their window. “Well, that’s annoying as hell. Jesus, listen to her. . ”

  Molly realized it wasn’t laughter coming from next door. Those were screams. A chill raced through her.

  Tossing back the covers, she climbed out of bed and grabbed her jersey off the floor. She quickly put it on, then went to the window and pulled back the curtain. She peeked out the rain-beaded window.

  The door off Kay Garvey’s bedroom flung open, and Madison staggered out to the balcony. Her screams were much louder now. “Oh my God!” she shrieked. “Someone help me! She’s dead! My mom’s dead! Dear God. .”

  Stunned, Molly stared out the window at her. Automatically, she glanced toward the start of the block — at the NO OUTLET sign still standing there. She looked over at Madison again, screaming and crying hysterically on her mother’s balcony, the rain drenching her.

  “No,” Molly whispered, clutching her stomach. “No, it can’t be. . ”

  The dollhouse sat on a worktable in the private little room. It was a perfect replica of Kay Garvey’s house, right down to the small balcony off the master bedroom where Kay was murdered. Constructing the miniature house was the result of two weeks of intense work.

  The man who killed Kay Garvey wasn’t much of a photographer. Still, out of the hundred photos he’d taken, he’d managed to snap twenty good shots after breaking in two weeks ago when Kay and Madison weren’t home. Between the photos and the intruder’s description, the dollhouse-builder had a pretty accurate idea of the layout. No time was wasted working on the first-floor rooms. That section of the dollhouse was closed off, boarded up.

  The murder was planned for upstairs, and that was where all the detail work was done in the miniature house. Kay’s bedroom, along with its furnishings, was almost an exact match — down to the yellow carpet and the peach-colored curtains and bedspread.

  And in that little bedroom was a hard rubber, flesh-colored doll about the size of an index finger. It was a woman — with hair quite close to Kay’s pale straw color. The blond doll was lying on the floor of that miniature bedroom — beside a nightstand.

  Wrapped around the small figurine was a tiny piece of lavender silk, cut from Kay’s blouse.

  She was just the first.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Six months later

  The three seniors primping in front of the lavatory mirrors weren’t the most popular girls at Roosevelt High School, but it wasn’t from lack of trying. They were intensely concerned about their appearances and getting noticed. But they were also just a bit too full of themselves and catty for anyone to really like them. Still, as long as they stayed within their little clique, they didn’t have to worry.

  At least that was the snap judgment of the woman who entered the girls’ room and briefly interrupted their conversation. The three girls stopped gossiping and fussing with their hair to stare at her in the mirror. They probably thought she was a teacher. One of them whispered to the other two.

  “I don’t care,” remarked the tallest one, a tawny redhead. “It’s between classes. We have every right to be in here.”

  The woman stepped into a stall and closed the door. But she didn’t sit down on the toilet. She just stood there, listening to two of them argue about whether or not a popular teen heartthrob was gay. The third one seemed to be having a different conversation — with someone else. The woman figured she must have called another friend on her cell phone.

  She flushed the toilet and emerged from the stall to wash her hands at the sink. She was right. One of the girls was on her cell phone, and another had just pulled out her BlackBerry. That left the tall redhead with no one to talk to, but she was busy applying lip gloss to her mouth.

  The woman made eye contact with her in the mirror. “You don’t happen to know Madison Garvey, do you?” she asked.

  The girl glared at her and shook her head.

  Not looking up from her keypad, the one with the BlackBerry piped up: “Oh, God, Madison Garvey? Isn’t she the weird-looking freak with the Converse high-tops?”

  “Shit, I know who you’re talking about now,” the redhead said, rolling her eyes. She went back to her lip gloss application. “She wears those dorky Converse shoes all the time. I guess when you look like an albino you have to do something. She thinks she’s really funny, too. As if. . ”

  “I hear she used to be a big deal at James Monroe High,” the BlackBerry girl said, eyes still riveted to her apparatus. “But she moved here, because her mother died. Now she’s living with her father and her stepmother. I guess her old lady got really drunk one night and killed herself—”

  “Suicide?” the redhead asked, looking at her friend’s reflection in the mirror.

  “No, she passed out and hit her head on the toilet or a table or something. Like I say, she was a drunk. She bled to death.”

  “If I had a dipshit daughter like that, I’d drink, too.”

  The one with the BlackBerry laughed.

  “You guys!” the girl on her cell phone said. “We’re going to be late for Lawson’s class. Remember last time?”

  “Oh, shit!” the redhead said, throwing the lip gloss tube into her purse. She started giggling, and so did her friends. The three of them hurried out of the bathroom, their laughter echoing off the tiled walls.

  The woman stood there for a moment. The tall redhead had merely glanced at her, and the other two hadn’t even bothered to look up from their gadgets. Kids with cell phones and BlackBerries had a way of not noticing things around them.

  Obviously, they hadn’t seen under the far stall door, the feet of another girl — and she was wearing a pair of green Converse All Star high-tops.

  The woman heard her muffled sobbing.

  She knew who was on the other side of that stall door — a slightly gawky-looking girl whose stepmother didn’t let her get away with anything.

  Madison Garvey’s onetime counselor, Mr. Corson, would have been happy to know — as miserable as she felt right now — Kay’s daughter was on her way to becoming a better person.

  “Stop. . just a sec. . stop it,” she whispered, pushing him away. “Did you hear that?

  “Hear what?” Rob Sessions asked. The handsome, blond-haired eighteen-year-old stopped nibbling on her ear for a minute. He was practically on top of Sarah Manning. Tangled up in one corner of the couch in the Sessions’ family room, they had an old Seinfeld rerun on the big-screen, plasma TV.

  This was Rob’s third date with the pretty brunette, whose breasts — he thought — could have been bigger. Then Sarah would have been a real knockout. Still, that Thursday night, three days before Halloween, he was discovering that Sarah was a good kisser. Damn good.

  “Didn’t you hear the noise outside?” Sarah said, squirming out from beneath him. She grabbed the remote control and turned down the volume on the TV. “It was like somebody walking on gravel. Didn’t you hear it?”

  Rob shook his head. But there was a small strip of gravel along the north side of the house — below the family-room windows. R
ob squinted at the darkened windows and saw nothing. He listened for a few moments. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe it was the TV.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Now, where were we?”

  He started to fondle her breasts over her blouse, and Sarah didn’t protest or push his hands away. This was a very good sign. Rob was beginning to wish he’d sent his best friend, Luke, home — instead of out to score some beer and pot. Rob realized he had a pretty good chance of getting laid tonight. And Luke would be back any minute now, damn it.

  He figured once his pal returned with the brew and the bong-feed, he’d allow him a few hits, and then give him his walking papers. Luke was a good buddy. He’d understand. Opportunities like Sarah didn’t come along every day.

  Rob’s parents had left two days ago for Phoenix to visit his older sister, Cathy, and her husband, Mike. That left Rob alone in the house for a week, and he intended to make the most of it.

  Last night, Luke and two other friends had come over. They’d all eaten McDonald’s and drank Thunderbird while watching porn on the big TV. Tomorrow night, Rob was thinking of having a bunch of friends over. In fact, word was out all over Federal Way High School: Party at Rob Sessions’ house on Laurel Lane.

  Maybe that explained why the DEAD END sign at the start of the cul-de-sac had gone missing this morning. Somebody was playing a joke. Just two weeks ago, Rachel Porter, one of the most popular girls in their class, claimed someone had stolen the NO OUTLET sign at the end of Larkdale Court, where she lived. It turned out Jim Hall and some of his buddies from the football team had swiped the sign as a gag.

  Sarah had noticed the missing sign when Rob had turned down Laurel Lane in his dad’s BMW on their way here tonight. She’d freaked out a little. But Rob had assured her that someone was just probably playing a gag. Besides, together, he and Luke could take on this Cul-de-sac Killer nut job.

  Obviously, Sarah wasn’t totally reassured, and every little noise outside threw her into a panic. Rob didn’t mind her being a little scared and vulnerable, except when it put a crimp in the make-out proceedings.