Liz shook her head. “No. I’ve tried calling, emailing. . . nothing.”
“When he gets wrapped up in business . . .”
“Don’t make excuses for him. I’ve decided that if we are going to make this work, he and I are going to need to have a very honest conversation when he gets back.”
“That’s probably smart.”
“He can’t just go off like this anymore with only the occasional contact. Maybe his first wife allowed it. Maybe it didn’t bother her. But I’m not okay with it.”
“Oh, I think it bothered Dominique as well. She just . . . found other distractions.”
“What do you mean, other distractions?”
“Well, she became so . . . involved in her causes, you know.”
“What causes?”
He shrugged. “Various clubs.”
Liz sighed. “I don’t see myself ever being a Palm Beach club lady.”
“No. I don’t see you that way either.”
“Anyway, David and I are going to have to come to some terms. I’m trying to remember the warm, caring David I knew when we met on the ship, and the man who was so sweet, so considerate, all during our honeymoon. It was really such a magical time. He was so kind, so interested in everything I thought and felt . . . I have to believe that David is still there.”
Roger gave her a small smile. “There are many sides to David.”
Liz was about to reply when she caught sight of something up ahead on the path. “Are those statues?” she asked.
“Yes. A sculpture garden. David bought most of the pieces from my gallery. Well, Dominique bought them, but it was David’s money.”
Liz was walking faster. “Is that an angel up front?”
“Yes,” Roger was saying, and he sounded a little embarrassed or uncomfortable. “It’s a sort of angel, I guess.”
He hung back, walking more slowly as Liz hurried toward the sculpture garden. What struck her first about the angel was that its wings were black, despite the rest of the piece appearing to be white marble. But as she got closer she let out a little gasp as she discerned the sculpture’s head.
It wasn’t like any angel she had ever seen before.
It had the head of a cow.
“What the heck?” Liz asked, standing in front of it, looking up into the cow’s flared nostrils.
Roger still stood a few feet away, almost as if he didn’t want to come any closer. “I knew you were going to find it bizarre. I saw how you reacted to Naomi Collins’s pieces at the gallery. You’re going to think the only art I feature is strange and twisted.”
Liz laughed. “Everyone’s got to have an angle, right?”
She made her way into the sculpture garden alone.
“And I guess ‘strange and twisted’ does describe these things,” she said, getting a look at the other pieces standing on pedestals.
Some of the sculptures seemed innocuous enough to Liz’s eyes: a plain copper triangle; a six-pointed star made out of metal; a white marble obelisk that looked like a miniature Washington Monument. But others were just as weird as the cow angel. A porcelain little girl with three eyes, hands raised to the sky. A dog with two heads. A hand reaching up from a box.
“Dominique picked these out?” Liz asked. “And David actually paid for them?”
Roger didn’t answer right away.
Liz had approached the porcelain little girl, inspecting her three eyes up close. No pupils had been etched into the porcelain. The eyes looked blank.
“Do these have some sort of meaning?” Liz asked Roger. “I mean, is there some sort of symbolism I just don’t get?”
Again Roger didn’t answer. Liz looked up. She didn’t see him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not judging you or your gallery. I’ve never understood art, especially abstract art. I guess I’m just a Thomas Kinkade sort of girl. Norman Rockwell. I like art that is easy to understand.”
Still no reply.
“Roger?”
Liz turned, wondering where he had gone. As she did so, she noticed movement between two of the sculptures a few feet away from her.
“Roger?” she called.
Had he just run between the obelisk and the two-headed dog?
Someone had. There was someone standing there.
“Roger?”
Liz approached.
“Roger, why don’t you answer me?”
Suddenly, the person hiding behind the sculpture leapt out at her, maybe a foot and a half away from her.
And it wasn’t Roger.
It was a woman. She had long, cascading gray hair and was wearing a white robe. And her face—it was the most hideous thing Liz had ever seen. Twisted, broken, burned. It was almost as if there was no face at all surrounded by all that hair—just a pulpy purple mass with two black holes for eyes.
Liz screamed.
“Liz!”
In her terror she could hear Roger’s voice behind her. She turned and ran—and not knowing where she was running, suddenly collided with him. His arms wrapped around her.
“Liz, what is it?”
“That—woman!”
“I know these sculptures are weird, Liz, but you don’t have to be scared of them.”
“No! That woman! Over there!”
She pulled her face off Roger’s chest and looked behind her.
“Where?” Roger was asking. “What woman?”
She was gone.
“She must have run away,” Liz said, casting her eyes through the sculpture garden. There was no movement anywhere, only the occasional flutter of chirping birds in the trees.
“She frightened you terribly,” Roger observed.
“Her face! Oh, Roger, her face! It was all . . . deformed!”
He looked at her oddly. “Are you certain you saw a woman, Liz?”
“Yes, of course I am. She was right in front of me. I saw her clearly, as plain as I’m seeing you right now.”
“Because . . . I was approaching you at the moment you screamed. Your back was to me. And I saw no one.”
“You had to have seen her. She was right there.” Liz pointed to the spot beside the two-headed dog. “Right there! She jumped out at me.”
“I believe you. I just didn’t see her.”
Liz looked from the spot up into Roger’s eyes. “How could someone like that get on the property?”
“Well, that’s just it. No one can get onto the estate. You’ve seen the gate out front. And the wall that surrounds the estate is pretty damn high.”
“She must have climbed over. She looked mad, Roger. Not just deformed, but insane. Her eyes—it was if she had no eyes at all!”
He took her hands in his. “You do know you’re sounding a little hysterical, don’t you?”
“But I saw her!”
“I believe you.”
“We need to tell Thad. Get somebody out here looking for her.”
“Yes, of course.” He sighed. “But Liz, you do realize you’re sounding rather like . . . well, like the way you did when you were talking about witchcraft and ghosts.”
Liz broke free of his hands. “You think I imagined it. You don’t believe me at all.”
“I believe that you believe you saw something. That you’re convinced of it.”
“She was standing right there!”
“I’m just saying . . .”
Liz let out a long breath. “Do you think I . . . do you think it’s possible that I . . . imagined what I saw?”
“I don’t know, but it’s possible. You’ve been pretty on edge these last few weeks, living here in this house. And these sculptures . . . they can get anyone’s imagination racing.”
Liz covered her face in her hands. “It was so real. She was so real!”
“And maybe she was. We’ll have Thad make a thorough search of the grounds. Point is, I just don’t want you getting yourself all upset and anxious again.”
“Right,” Liz said, more to herself than to Roger. She low
ered her hands. “I don’t want to feel that way again. It was horrible, terrible. You brought me out of all that.” She looked over at Roger. He smiled at her.
“Liz, you’re an extraordinary woman,” he said, drawing close to her. “I really hate seeing you in distress.”
She managed to smile. “Now that you’re here, I feel better.”
He touched her chin with his thumb and forefinger.
And—before either seemed aware of what was happening—he kissed her.
For a second, Liz felt as if she were floating on air. Her head tingled. Every muscle in her body seemed electrified.
And then she pulled away.
“I—I am so sorry,” Roger said.
“It’s all right,” Liz said, not looking at him.
“No, it’s not. I—I shouldn’t have done that! I didn’t intend to—it just—it just happened!”
“I know,” Liz said, finding the strength to look at him again. “It just happened to both of us. It was the intensity of the moment—and our connection these last few days.”
“I’m sorry, Liz.”
“It’s all right.” She tried to smile. “It was nice.”
“That it was,” Roger said.
“But it can never happen again,” Liz added.
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“Let’s go inside. Have Thad check the property. If he doesn’t find anyone, then I guess I imagined it. But I’m telling you, Roger, there could very well be some homeless woman out there who climbed over the fence . . .”
Even as she said the words, Liz glanced up at the wall that surrounded the estate. The nearly eight-foot-tall, solid stone wall . . .
“. . . or got through the front gate somehow . . .”
“Of course,” Roger said. “Let’s go in and make the report.”
Liz stopped. “Will you do it for me? I hate to ask but . . . well, Thad is already a rather superstitious sort . . . he’ll get talking about ghosts and I’ll just get all worked up again.”
Roger nodded. “Of course. I completely understand. I’ll speak to Thad.”
“Thank you.”
They headed back inside. Overhead, in the trees, a green, black-hooded parakeet began to squawk, setting off a handful of others, until the entire property echoed in angry cries.
31
Rita felt the thing move from across the room.
She had left the vodou doll in her purse, which was strapped tightly closed and hung on a hook in the servants’ lounge. But as soon as Rita walked into the room, she felt it move, as if she were holding it in her own hands.
She rushed over to her purse and opened it, looking down inside.
Sure enough, the doll was moving, writhing, its little arms reaching up toward her.
“David,” Rita breathed, and she felt her heart leap.
The doll continued to rock back and forth.
“He’s coming home!” Rita whispered to herself. “He’s coming home!”
32
“Did you speak to Thad?” Liz asked Roger as he came in from outside.
She was standing anxiously at the window, looking out into the lush greenery, trying to convince herself that she’d hallucinated the whole thing. But what was worse? That some strange woman was prowling the grounds, or that she, Liz, was still so unstable as to imagine such a horrible thing?
“Yes,” Roger assured her. “He said that he and some of the others would look over the whole estate.”
“Then I’m just going to put it out of my mind for now,” Liz said.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
He stepped toward her. Liz felt a twinge of nervousness, remembering their kiss, and feared her hands might have been a little sweaty when Roger took them in his, a gesture that had always reassured Liz, up until now.
“I don’t want to leave until I know you’re okay,” he said to her. “And that we’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” Liz said, trying to sound convincing. “And so are we.”
She looked into his eyes. His beautiful, kind, compassionate eyes.
“Good,” Roger said. “You know you can call me whenever you need—”
“Well,” came another voice, booming through the room and interrupting them, “she won’t need to do that anymore.”
They both turned.
David was standing in the doorway to the parlor, glaring at them. Immediately Liz and Roger let go of each other’s hands.
“David!” Liz exclaimed.
He said nothing, just kept looking at them.
Liz rushed to him. “You’re home! Why didn’t you let me know?”
“I thought I would surprise you,” he replied. “Apparently I have.”
“Welcome home, brother,” Roger said.
David didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at Roger. He kept his eyes on Liz.
“How long have you been here?” Liz asked, taking David’s hands, aware that she was trembling.
“About half an hour. I went down to see my horses. Always the first thing I do when I come home.” His eyes were burning accusation at her. “Then I hoped to find my wife waiting for me . . . happy to see what I had brought her.”
“Brought me what, David?”
He gestured with his head back into the parlor. Liz peered past him and let out a little gasp.
The parlor was filled with flowers—roses mostly, white and red, accented with the occasional yellow daisy.
“I sent them on ahead, to arrive a few minutes before I did,” David explained.
Liz wandered into the parlor, overwhelmed by the rich, sweet, musky fragrance of the roses. “Oh, David, how beautiful . . . why didn’t Mrs. Hoffman come and get me?”
“Apparently she didn’t know where you were,” David said. “She said you were out on the estate somewhere.”
“I was showing her the sculpture garden,” Roger explained, coming up behind David. Liz saw the look that passed between the brothers.
For a moment, Liz considered telling David what she’d seen—or what she’d thought she saw—out there in the sculpture garden. But she knew she shouldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if Thad’s search of the property turned up empty.
“David,” Liz said, taking her husband’s hands again, “if I had known you were coming, I would have been here waiting to greet you at the front door!”
“You’re all she’s been talking about ever since you’ve been gone,” Roger added.
David said nothing, just kept looking at Liz.
“The roses . . .” Liz lifted one to her nose and inhaled the scent. “David, they’re so beautiful. Thank you.”
“I’m going to leave you two alone,” Roger said, smiling broadly. “Remember, you’re still newlyweds. Three’s a crowd, I think.”
“David,” Liz said, anxious to extinguish any suspicion that might be brewing in David’s mind, “Roger’s been very kind to me. He showed me around town, kept me company. He knew how lonely I was for you.”
“Well, then,” David said, finally addressing his brother, “I guess I owe you a great deal of thanks.”
“No thanks necessary. It was my pleasure.” Again Liz saw the look that shot between the two brothers, weighted with so much unspoken. “All I ask in return is that you both will be my guests at my upcoming gallery show. Liz has the details.”
“We will make sure to be there,” David told him, but his voice was cold, not warm.
“Excellent.” Roger smiled again. “Now—the two of you need to spend some time reuniting. Please don’t bother showing me out. I know the way.”
“Yes, you do,” David said, turning away from him.
“Thank you, Roger,” Liz called after him. “For everything.”
He gave them a little wave and then disappeared into the foyer. Not until she heard the front door open and close did Liz speak again.
“David, I’m so happy you’re home.”
“Are you?” He turned cold eyes to hers.
“Of course
I am. Surely you’re not thinking—”
“Surely I’m not.” His expression softened. “Darling, my brother isn’t to be trusted. He’s always been a rebel in our family. A troublemaker.”
“He was the perfect gentleman with me,” Liz said, her eyes flickering away as she recalled their kiss.
“I’d prefer you not see him alone from now on,” David said.
Liz felt a little electrical jolt of anger. She spoke carefully but firmly. “Look, David, I’m not a child. I’m your wife. An equal partner in this thing we call our marriage. You left me alone for weeks in a strange house and a strange town. He showed me some friendship, offered some companionship. I can’t be told whom I can see and whom I cannot.”
“Liz, I’m just telling you—he’s a troublemaker—”
“I don’t know what happened with Dominique.” Liz surprised herself by how strong and confident she sounded. “I know she didn’t like Roger, and he didn’t like her. But now that you’re back, David, it’s time we got one thing straight.” She paused. “I am not Dominique.”
He looked at her as if she were mad. “I am well aware of that, Liz.”
She allowed her voice to soften, but just a little. “I am very happy you’re home, David, and a part of me just wants to run over there and jump up into your arms and go upstairs with you and make love all the rest of the day. But not until I have a chance to say what’s been on my mind these last couple of weeks.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“You were a real jerk to leave me so soon after we got here. You were an even worse jerk to get angry with me on the phone for being upset about being questioned in a murder investigation. And you were pretty jerky, too, in not telling me everything about what had happened in this house, and the stories about your dead wife.”
“What stories?”
“That she practiced witchcraft and that her ghost still walks these halls.”
David shook his head. “These damn servants . . .”
“Yes, maybe they are all a pack of superstitious gossipmongers, but that’s precisely the reason you should have prepared me before you left.”
He sat down on the couch quickly, as if he might suddenly have felt faint, nearly upsetting a spray of red roses on the table beside him. “I’m sorry, Liz,” he said. “Truly I am.”
Dark Homecoming Page 16