Dark Homecoming

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Dark Homecoming Page 27

by William Patterson


  But Thad had a very different point of view. Dominique had never been eaten by sharks. They’d brought her back. Somehow their little witches’ coven had summoned her bloated, waterlogged body back to this house. And now her spirit was getting ready to strike. He had to warn Liz. She and her friend should get in the car immediately and get as far away as they could.

  He could finish the shutters later. The hurricane wasn’t scheduled to hit for another couple of hours. It was more important that he find Liz.

  But she didn’t open her door when Thad knocked. He tried calling to her, but there was no answer. He tried the knob; it was locked. Concerned, Thad hurried downstairs. He found her friend, Nicki, seated in the study, reading a magazine.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Huntington,” Thad said to her.

  “She’s sleeping,” Nicki replied.

  “It’s really important I speak with her.”

  Nicki looked puzzled. “Can’t it wait? She said she wouldn’t nap long.”

  “No. I’ve got to talk to her now. Before the storm hits.”

  Nicki seemed anxious, as if she was hiding something. “I’m sure Mrs. Hoffman can give you instructions on preparing the house—”

  “It’s not that.” Thad glanced around, to see if anyone was around. Satisfied they were alone, he stepped into the study. “Look, you’ve got to get her out of here. Immediately.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not safe. When Audra died, there was a storm.”

  “Who’s Audra? Oh, wait, the girl who died here . . .”

  Thad nodded. “Believe me, it’s not safe. I can feel it. Something’s going to happen.”

  Nicki looked unconvinced. “Liz told me that all of the people who worked in this house were very superstitious.”

  “I’m not being superstitious. Look, there’s something in this house . . . a force. A bad force. You can believe it or not, but if you’re her friend, you’ll get her out of here.”

  “Well, I agree with you that there’s something bad in this house. And you can rest assured that I am going to do my level best to get Liz out of here just as soon as the hurricane blows over.”

  “It’ll be too late then,” Thad said, his voice getting desperate. “Please!”

  Nicki stood and approached Thad. She seemed to be studying his face.

  “You’re being sincere,” she said. “I can see that. You really believe these stories that Dominique haunts this house.”

  From the neck of his shirt, Thad pulled out the jade pendent that he wore around his neck on a chain. “This protects me,” he said. “I tried to get Mrs. Huntington to wear one, too, but I don’t believe she has.”

  “No, she has nothing like that around her neck.” Her eyes flickered away, as if she was troubled. “Look, I don’t know you, but I know that Liz likes you. So I guess I can trust you. Last night she claims she had a very disturbing encounter.”

  “What happened?” Thad asked.

  “She was up in the servants’ quarters . . . in a room there. I found her, terrified, screaming, curled up in a ball on the floor. Someone had tried to kill her, she said. A woman . . . with a knife.”

  “Dominique.”

  Nicki looked confused. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. Liz said the woman came out of a secret passageway in the closet—a passageway that went in between the walls of the house.”

  “In between the walls . . .”

  “You’re the caretaker of the house. Is such a thing possible?”

  Thad nodded. “There are such passageways. They were built in the 1920s so the people who lived there could hide their liquor. It was Prohibition. They built passageways to move the liquor in and out of the house.” He shook his head. “But you can’t come out of them the way she described, in some closet. You’d have to cut a hole in the wall to access them.”

  “Well, according to Liz, there’s an entrance through a closet in the room where I found her last night.”

  Thad looked at her. “The last room on the left, I expect.”

  “I believe that’s the one. How did you know?”

  “It was where Mr. Huntington used to carry on with Rita. It was hardly a secret. Maybe he used those very same passageways to meet her there.”

  Nicki shuddered. “I’ll level with you. Liz isn’t here. She went out on an errand. Don’t tell anyone else. She’ll be back in a moment. And whether you’re right or wrong about ghosts and imminent dangers, I’m going to take your advice. Liz and I are going to ride out this storm at a hotel. We’ll leave as soon as she gets back. I’ll find a way to convince her.”

  “Good,” Thad said. “And in the meantime, I have a certain closet I need to inspect.”

  60

  The first place Liz went looking for Roger was at his gallery. But when she arrived there, pulling up in Nicki’s little rental car, its windshield wipers swishing back and forth against the heavy rain, she’d found the gallery closed. The front windows were boarded over in anticipation of the storm. So she had decided to drive over to Roger’s house.

  Liz had never been to Roger’s house before. He’d made promises to have her—or her and David—over for dinner, but he’d never actually set a date. She had the address—it wasn’t terribly far from Huntington House—so she headed back that way.

  She decided not to call or text Roger ahead of time. She didn’t want to prepare him in any way for what she was about to ask him. She wanted to see the honest look on his face when she asked him if he’d had an affair with Dominique.

  Roger’s house, at least compared to Huntington House, was rather modest. It was all one floor, with lots of metal and spun glass. Probably not more than ten years old, Liz estimated as she turned off the ignition of the car and sat looking over at the house, waiting for the rain to subside just a bit. But that wasn’t happening anytime soon, she realized, so finally she pulled up her hood and made a dash for the front door.

  “Liz!” Roger exclaimed when he saw her. “Is anything wrong?”

  “I just needed to speak with you. May I come in?”

  “Of course, of course.” He stepped aside so Liz could enter. “Is it okay to drive? I’ve just been watching the news. Looks like we are about to receive Caroline full-force.”

  “Just a lot of rain so far,” she told him. “I think we’ve got a little time before it hits.”

  She glanced quickly around the room. And the first thing that struck her was how similar Roger’s house was to his gallery. Every wall was cluttered with paintings not unlike the ones Liz had seen at the art show—disturbing images of headless statues and floating eyes and obelisks set against bright red backgrounds.

  “May I take your coat?” Roger was asking.

  But she barely heard him. Liz’s eyes had fixed on a sculpture on a table in a prominent spot in Roger’s living room. It was the bust of an angel—with black wings and the head of a cow.

  “I see you still don’t fully approve of my taste in art,” Roger said, coming up behind her. “Some of them are pieces by Naomi Collins. I often display the work of my artists here in my home. Helps when I have parties to promote the gallery.”

  Liz said nothing as he took her coat, shaking the rain off it in the foyer before hanging it on a rack.

  “May I pour you some sherry? Or something stiffer?” Roger smiled. “It looks as if you could use it.”

  “No, thank you,” Liz said, pulling her eyes away from that obscene cow angel. “I’m still recovering from all that wine last night.”

  “Is that why you’ve come, Liz? You’re upset by what I said.”

  Liz had a flash of memory from the night before. Roger’s brown eyes, so full of compassion. “Then can I tell you that I love you?” He had kissed her after that.

  She had liked it. She had felt so good, so happy, so safe, in Roger’s arms.

  Liz took a deep breath and looked over at him now. “I’m not upset,” she told him. “But I do need to ask you something, and I need you to be h
onest with me.”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you have an affair with Dominique?”

  There it was: the expression Liz had hoped not to see. Roger’s eyes revealed the answer to that question before he even had a chance to speak.

  To his credit, he didn’t try to lie. “Yes,” he told her. “Yes, I did.”

  “And David knew about this?”

  Roger nodded.

  “That was part of the reason for his breakdown?”

  He sighed. “I heard my father was in town. I see he’s paid you a visit.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “He’s always hated me. I wasn’t the son he wanted. I could never do what David did, which was to kiss Dad’s ass and follow his orders without question.”

  “Did you love her?”

  Roger’s eyes focused on her. “Not the way I love you, Liz. You are good. She was evil. You are life. She was death.”

  She felt as if she might cry, but she held back the tears. “I don’t know what to say. Except now I understand why David hated her so much.”

  “And why he hates me.”

  “Was David with her on the yacht on the day of the accident?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Detective Foley asked me. I didn’t really think about it at the time. Now . . . well, now I’m wondering.”

  “Yes.” Roger looked at her emotionlessly. “David was with her.”

  “So . . . he made it back safely, but she drowned?”

  “That’s right.”

  Liz felt dizzy, much as she had back at Huntington House while talking with her father-in-law. She steadied herself by leaning against the back of Roger’s couch.

  “But that’s not the official story,” she said. “The official story is that Dominique went out alone. Why not tell the police and the Coast Guard that David was on board too?”

  “Because he didn’t want to be accused of murdering her.”

  “Surely he can’t be blamed for a storm.”

  “But Dominique went overboard before the storm. At least, that’s what the captain later asserted.”

  “The captain? I didn’t know there was a captain on the yacht that day . . .”

  “In the official account, there wasn’t.”

  Liz couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They slid down her cheeks and dropped off her chin. “What are you telling me, Roger? That David killed Dominique?”

  He remained emotionless, just standing there across from her, staring at her. “Given what he’d discovered,” he said, “he would have had reason, wouldn’t he?”

  “And Rita? He killed her, too, because she was going to tell me.”

  “Oh, Liz.” Roger’s gaze softened, and he held open his arms.

  Liz rushed forward and allowed him to hold her. She sobbed against his chest.

  “There, there, my love,” Roger said softly, his lips near her ear. “I’m sorry I never told you about Dominique. It was in the past. I thought it was no longer relevant.” He gently lifted her chin with his fist. “If it matters, she hurt me, too. You see, I wasn’t the only one she was cheating on David with. There were others . . . bellboys, gardeners, deliverymen. She was an evil woman, Liz. She’s destroyed David, but you see, I won’t let her destroy me.”

  “He’s going to go to jail,” Liz said, the reality of her husband’s predicament fully hitting her. “He might even be . . . put to death.”

  “Sweet girl, don’t think about any of that right now . . .”

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, pulling out of Roger’s arms. “I’ve got to get back.”

  “Yes, my love, you should go back. But remember, I am always here for you.”

  She managed a small smile in his direction. “I appreciate that, Roger. Your friendship means the world to me.”

  “You forgive me for not telling you about Dominique?”

  “Yes,” she said. “She used you, just as she used so many others.” She choked up. “Just as she used David.”

  They walked to the door and Roger helped Liz back into her coat. “You’ll see, my love. When this storm is over, and the sun shines again, all will be better.”

  “I’m afraid then it will only be worse,” Liz said. “If David doesn’t come home on his own, they’ll have to extradite him . . . and then there will be a trial . . . the headlines are just going to go on and on . . .”

  “Listen to me, Liz.” Roger gripped her by the shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “By this time tomorrow, everything will be better. Can you not feel the power that approaches? This storm is going to be one of the great ones. Let’s not be afraid of its power, my darling, but instead, let’s harness that power to fulfill our dreams.”

  “I’ve never heard a hurricane described that way,” she said.

  “Feel the power, Liz. Tap into it.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I will see you very soon, my love. Don’t despair. Better days are ahead of us.”

  She tried to smile, but Roger’s words were almost unfathomable to her. What was he talking about? As Liz turned to leave, her last glimpse before leaving the house and heading out into the rain was that terrible, awful cow-headed angel with the black wings.

  61

  There it was, Thad realized. The seam in the back wall of the closet. How had Thad never discovered it before? He’d been caretaker at Huntington House for a long time. But he did very little work in these mostly unused servants’ rooms. He supposed that was why whoever had made this entrance had placed it here, because it was less likely to be discovered.

  Now he had to figure out how it opened.

  Thad pressed his fingers along the seam, much the way one opened a roll of Pillsbury dough. Harder, harder, he pressed, moving his fingers down toward the floor. And then, just as he expected, the panel popped open just a little bit, making a scraping sound as it moved away from the rest of the wall.

  Thad shined his flashlight inside.

  He saw nothing but cobwebs. But a little farther down, he spotted a ladder. Rather like a library ladder, flat against the wall. It went up into an opening in the attic and down through another opening into the floor below.

  He took a step inside the passageway. Thad was a big man, so it was a tight fit. He could barely turn around; his shoulders touched each side of the corridor. He made his way to the ladder, aiming his flashlight first up and then down. He could see nothing. Which way to go? He decided up, and took the first step, shining his flashlight ahead of him.

  The ladder led into the attic, but not the part of the attic he’d been in many times. Thad had always noted the peculiarity of Huntington House’s attic. It was a warren of small rooms, which were accessed only by going through one to get to another. There was no central corridor, no open space. Now he understood why. This was where they met, those witches, he thought to himself. This was where they conducted their rituals.

  At the top of the ladder, Thad swung his flashlight around. A maze of very narrow corridors led off in various directions. He realized these passageways were the insides of the walls of the attic rooms.

  As soon as he took a step forward, he smelled the gardenias.

  “I’m not afraid of you, Dominique,” he called out, touching the pendant around his neck.

  Thad aimed his flashlight down each of the four passageways that led off in different directions. All he could see were cobwebs. But closer to him he noticed something else: a light switch on the wall. He flicked it up, and a series of bare lightbulbs along the ceiling sputtered into life, casting a dull yellow light down the passageways.

  He wasn’t sure which way to go. Where did these passages lead? Thad chose the corridor closest to him, where he thought perhaps the smell of gardenias was the strongest. He had taken only a few steps when he caught the scent of something else, something both sweet and sour.

  “Hello!” he called, peeling cobwebs from his face.

  From outside he could hear the wind starting to beat the house. He had left t
he windows unfinished. The storm was approaching, and Mrs. Hoffman was going to be angry with him. He should turn around right now, go back down the ladder, and get back to work. But something compelled him to go on. The smell of gardenias was getting stronger, but now it was braided with something else, something foul, something that reminded Thad of the dead mice he’d find in the basement.

  At each bend of the corridor Thad noticed more ladders going down through openings into other parts of the house. The walls are all passageways, he realized. Every single wall in the house.

  The stink of dead mice now threatened to overwhelm him. But Thad knew whatever lay putrefying up here was a lot larger than a mouse. The odor had become so thick, so gaseous, that he could nearly taste it on his tongue. He clamped his hand over his mouth and nose. He was just about to beat it the hell out of there and go downstairs and tell Mrs. Hoffman what he’d found when he turned a corner and beheld the source of the stink.

  The corridor dead-ended against the wall. And there, propped up in sitting positions, were three corpses. Thad suppressed a scream and forced himself to draw closer to the grisly sight with his flashlight. The corpses were women, he discerned, two of them very decomposed, little more than purple rotting flesh and protruding bones dressed in long gray robes. From the hair on one of them Thad deduced she had been African American, but that was as much as he could tell. The third corpse wasn’t nearly as decayed as the other two. Its face was gray and sunken, but its hair was still blond and its facial features still identifiable. Thad noticed the little blue star that was tattooed on the corpse’s neck.

  He covered his mouth and nose more tightly with his hand, fearful he was going to vomit. The three dead women looked like deflated balloons. Except that, in this case, instead of air, all three appeared to have been drained dry of blood.

 

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