Sleep Tight

by Anne Frasier

  A few weeks ago, Mary wouldn't have believed what he was saying. She sat up a little straighter, bracing herself. "No, I didn't know that."

  "She didn't want you to. She wanted you to think of her as the sweet neighbor kid."

  Fiona was electric and charismatic. She drew people to her, and in a way, she cast spells on them.

  "She told me not to tell anybody about us," Gavin said. "She didn't want anybody to know that she was hangin' around with me. If I saw her in the hallway at school, I was supposed to act like I hardly knew her. I could say hi-something like that, because if I acted like she wasn't there that would have seemed weird."

  "Didn't that bother you?"

  He shrugged and pursed his lips. "I didn't think about it too much. I was just glad she wanted something to do with me at all. And the sex." He spread his arms. "How could a guy turn down sex?"

  "How did you plan your meetings?" she asked.

  "I didn't have a phone, so sometimes I'd call her from a pay phone, and if her mom answered, I'd pretend I had the wrong number. But usually she'd write me notes and hand them to me, saying they were from somebody else so nobody would know she was writing to me. The notes were always the same, telling me to meet her in the tree house in the woods behind her house."

  Mary remembered the strange feeling of deja vu she'd had at the high school in Canary Falls. In it, Fiona had been passing a note to Gavin. Now it made sense.

  "Here I was, fucking the smartest, hottest, most popular girl in school, and nobody knew about it. I kind of got off on it being a secret. It made it seem dangerous in a cool way. Something nobody else in the world knew about." He frowned. "Until her mother caught us."

  "Abigail Portman caught you with Fiona?"

  "Yeah," he said vaguely, as if struggling to remember. "We were in the tree house goin' at it, and her mother just pops in."

  "Then what happened?"

  "I pulled up my pants and got the hell out of there."

  "Gavin, do you remember if that was the night Fiona died?"

  He concentrated, trying to pull up the memory, then shook his head. "Everything's a jumble. Whenever I have fits, things get mixed up. Time gets weird. It's hard to separate my thoughts from reality."

  Had Gavin Hitchcock killed Fiona, or had he been a convenient scapegoat? A victim of circumstance? Had Gillian been right about him all along? "Try to remember. Did you have a fit the night Abigail Portman caught you with Fiona?"

  "Was it the same day?" he asked himself, perplexed. He finally had to give up and let it go. He couldn't remember. "All I know is that the day she died, I woke up in the woods a few feet from her. At first I thought she was asleep. Then I saw all the blood and knew she was dead. So I ran. I ran like hell. People saw me, saw the blood, and called the police. When they showed up to arrest me, I wasn't surprised. I still had Fiona's blood on me, and I thought maybe I did do it. I used to get weird ideas. I used to imagine killing people, and cutting them up. I fantasized about it, and drew sick pictures of guys with their arms cut off. Explosions with body parts flying through the air. Stuff like that. So I figured I probably did kill her.

  But Gillian never thought so, and finally I began to wonder too. And now I don't know. Sometimes I think I didn't do it. But if I didn't do it, who did?"

  Who did? His question echoed in her mind. And if Gavin was innocent, that meant someone had gone free while he served time for a crime he didn't commit…

  "I have to go," she said, getting to her feet. "Thanks for talking to me."

  He stood, nervously rubbing his palms against his jeans. "Will you call me?" He swallowed, fear in his eyes. "When you find her?" No matter how you find her? were the unspoken words neither of them wanted to hear.

  "Yes." Mary held out her hand.

  He stared, puzzled and suspicious before finally shaking with a surprisingly firm grip. "Don't forget to call."

  "I won't."

  Outside, Mary was sliding into the car when her phone rang. It was Anthony. "Research just got back to us with a lst of rose propagators," he told her.

  "I'll be right there."

  Chapter 30

  The light above Gillian's head came on. She squinted against the blinding glare.

  She'd spent the first three hours of solitary confinement standing with her back to the door. When her legs couldn't hold her up any longer, she'd felt around in the darkness to gingerly settle on the edge of the mattress, where she'd been ever since. She heard the rattle of metal; then the wooden door opened, shimmying against the cement threshold. She got to her feet in preparation for Mason's arrival.

  In the short time she'd been with him, her old life had taken on a hazy, unreal quality. She remembered Blythe and Mary and Gavin, but they didn't seem as solid and substantial as Mason and this house.

  In the back of her mind, she reasoned that the distance was brought about by drugs, lack of food, and fear, but that knowledge didn't make her other life seem any more real.

  She searched Mason's face, looking for signs of his earlier impatience and lack of interest. His expression was blank, unreadable.

  "I'm glad you're back," she said cautiously.

  "Have you been good?"

  "Very good."

  "You didn't eat?" He picked up the sandwich from the mattress. "You didn't drink the water?"

  "I forgot."

  His lips curled. "Don't lie to me. I hate lies."

  "Okay, I didn't forget," she said, quickly changing her story. Why had she said something that was so obviously untrue? She had to be more careful. "I was afraid you may have put something in it that would make me go to sleep, and I didn't want to lie down on the mattress. I was afraid to go to sleep here in the dark."

  He tossed the sandwich to the floor. Then he took her by the arm and pulled her behind him, out of the room, through the winding basement, and up the stairs to the kitchen. He told her she could use the bathroom, and she hurried down the hall, shutting the door behind her.

  In the bathroom by herself, she tried to gauge what his mood had been. Not much better than this morning. She was going to have to do something, come up with something that might impress him. Be somebody he wanted to keep. Because if he didn't want to keep her…

  She splashed water on her face and was shocked by her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looiced like a junkie.

  He was waiting for her outside the door. "Come on."

  He led her into the kitchen, where he began frying pork chops in a skillet on the stove. "Can I help with something?" she asked, forcing herself to become a part of the surreal domestic scene. She had to act as if nothing odd was going on.

  "Cut the potatoes for potato salad." He motioned toward the sink, where she found a pan of boiled potatoes along with a knife.

  She picked up a peeled potato. By allowing her to use the knife he demonstrated the control he felt he had over her. It would be foolish to try to stab him. Odds were against her, and an attack would infuriate him-possibly enough to kill her.

  "I love potato salad." She began cutting the potato into small squares, trying desperately to come up with harmless conversation. "Potato salad and baked beans. They just go together, don't you think?" Nothing intellectual, but it was all she could produce at the moment.

  "I guess so."

  Engage him. Make him answer questions. "What about apple pie? Do you like apple pie?"

  "Yeah."

  "Made with Jonathan apples. Maybe a few Golden Delicious thrown in, but mostly Jonathans."

  "My sister used to bake pies." Upon mention of his sister, his voice suddenly became infused with life.

  Small talk. Small talk was good. "Really? What kind?"

  "Cherry. We have a cherry tree in the backyard. She was always baking cherry pies. And blackberry, when they were in season. She made a lot of apple pies too."

  "I'd like to bake an apple pie for you," she ventured. "Would you let me do that?"

  "No." The flash of elevated mood drained from him.
"It wouldn't be right."

  That had been careless of her. He apparently revered his sister. He wouldn't want Gillian trying to take her place. "How about a cake? Is your birthday anytime soon? I could bake you a cake."

  He turned and stared. He had the strange eyes that murderers sometimes had-flat, dark, opaque.

  Had she said something wrong?

  "My sister is coming home soon."

  Home? Does home mean what I think it means? Her heart began to hammer. "She's coming here?" Stay calm, she told herself. Don't let him see your interest.

  "Tomorrow."

  Tomorrow! She could hold out one more day. Of course she could hold out one more day. His sister would make him release her, maybe even make him go to the police. "We should have a party," Gillian said. "With cake and ice cream."

  He smiled. He actually smiled.

  Relief washed through her, and her muscles relaxed.

  "You could put her name on the cake." Before her eyes, he transformed again, suddenly turning timid and shy.

  "Yes! Welcome home… What's your sister's name?"

  "Jo."

  "Welcome home, Jo."

  They ate their meal of pork chops and potato salad. Gillian's stomach had shrunk, and she couldn't eat much, but Mason didn't seem to notice. Nor did he seem to notice that she didn't drink any of the wine, only water from the same pitcher he used.

  Tomorrow. She would be good. She would be good. She would be so good.

  When they were done eating, he led her to the bedroom and dressed her in a low-cut, tight red dress.

  I'm like his Barbie doll.

  In the living room, he sat her down on the ottoman. He knelt behind her and began touching her hair, brushing it until she closed her eyes and exhaustion washed over her. She felt him putting makeup on her face, her cheeks, her lips. When he was done, he lit candles, turned off the lamp, and pulled out a book, settling on the floor at her feet.

  "Shall I read to you?" he asked. "Would you like that?"

  "Yes. Very much."

  He chose the last paragraph in the overture of Swann's Way. It was perhaps Proust's most beautifully written passage about memory and the madeleine.

  The paragraph was long and mesmerizing, wrapping the reader in bittersweet poignancy. Mason made it halfway through before he began to sob. The book dropped to his lap, and he buried his face in his hands.

  "Here-" Gillian picked up the heavy volume. It automatically fell open to the page he'd been reading. In a soft voice she finished the paragraph for him, reading about the Japanese paper, the flower gardens, the whole of Combray springing up from a single cup of tea. When she was finished, she quietly closed the book and sat in silence. Out of seven volumes, he'd picked her favorite passage.

  His sobs subsided, and he pressed his lips to her bare knee, hesitated, and then kissed her flesh again. "You're so beautiful. I want to take pictures of you," he whispered, looking up at her from his position on the floor. The flatness had left his eyes, as if his tears had momentarily cleansed them. "Would you mind?"

  She didn't think she'd been drugged, but she felt strange and floaty and exceedingly calm.

  He posed her, taking photo after photo. Some demure, some provocative.

  "I have a lot of pictures," he said when he was finished. "Would you like to see them?"

  "Yes."

  He pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.

  "I don't want to go back there," she said when she saw where they were heading. She tried to twist away, but he was too strong.

  "Only for a little while."

  Her feet were bare, and the steps were rough. The dirt floor, when they reached the basement, was damp and cold as they wound through the catacomb-like structure.

  "Entrez," he said with a flourish, pushing her into a room she'd never seen before.

  In front of her was a wall of photos. Several were of Holly lying on the ground, half-nude-all variations of the cut-up negative they'd found in the trash.

  Gillian moved to the next wall. April Ellison. Wearing a red dress, posed provocatively. A breast showing here, a thigh there. Various parts of her body were also enlarged. In several photos, she had no eyes. Just bloody raw pits where the eyes had been.

  She turned to an unfinished wall. Photos of her. Oh, God. It was disturbing to see herself lying in bed, unconscious and in various stages of undress. There were several of her breast with its rose tattoo.

  "Here are my favorites."

  He led her in the next display.

  In front of her was a collage, eight-by-tens of body parts that went from ceiling to floor. At first they seemed random, but when he pulled her back, she was able to see that the enlargements made up an entire picture-of a girl lying in a bathtub. She was naked, and she was posed, her eyes open, flat, and dead. Very, very dead.

  Gillian had always imagined that Charlotte Henning's death had been an accident, and that when Mason found her dead he'd quickly taken her body and dumped it in the river. Instead, he'd played with it. He'd made her pose for him even in death. And then he created this eight-feet-tall monument to the murder, a shrine to himself.

  The sight of the photos made her insides curdle, made her feel sick to her stomach.

  He was watching her. He'd jammed his hand into his pocket and was rattling the dice as he waited nervously in anticipation.

  She quickly tried to pull on a blank mask, but it was too late. Nothing she now did or said could erase the horror and revulsion he'd seen in her face.

  "Bitch!"

  He grabbed her and dragged her through the passageway to the room where she'd spent the day. Adrenaline shot through her and she fought him, trying to wrench free, but her lessons in self-defense evaporated before his rage.

  She gripped the doorjamb, her bare feet planted on the floor. She couldn't go back in there. He shoved. She stumbled forward.

  He followed. He wrapped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze. Her breath was cut off. In survival mode, forgetting every technique she'd learned, she grabbed his wrists and tried to free herself. Suddenly he let her go, and she dropped to her knees, coughing.

  "Close your eyes and hold out your hand," he commanded.

  Wheezing, tears running down her cheeks, she did as he said.

  He placed two small objects in her palm and closed her fingers over them. "A little gift for you, since you liked my photos so well."

  She heard the door slam. The lock slid home.

  On her knees, she opened her hand.

  Lying in her palm were two shriveled blue eyeballs.

  Chapter 31

  Mason had been looking forward to this day for so long that he couldn't believe it was actually here. So engrossed was he in the anticipation of meeting his sister that he forgot to watch his speed. He glanced down-the speedometer had crept above sixty. He let up on the accelerator.

  He'd allowed Gillian out of the basement long enough to bake a cake. She'd done a decent job, he had to admit. At least she was good for something.

  She'd broken riis heart, that's what she'd done. Reacting that way to his photographs. His photos were a part of him, they were a part of who he was, and up until that point everything had been going so well.

  She'd hurt him. Hurt him deeply.

  Girls were worthless. That was the bottom line. He would have to tell Jo that he was never going to find the right girl for him because the right girl didn't exist. They were good only for baking cakes and having babies, and he didn't want any kids and he could order a cake from the bakery.

  Girls were deceitful. So full of lies. They were packages that looked enticing, alluring from the outside, but when you opened them up they were full of maggots.

  Except for Jo. Jo fell into a completely different category. She was a saint. She was perfect. She was beautiful inside and out.

  When at last she stood before him, he was so glad to see her that he lifted her into the air and hugged her. She laughed, not in the mean way Gillian had lau
ghed, but in delight and joy. She loved him. She'd always loved him, and oh, how he could bask in the warmth of that love.

  On the way home he talked her ear off, telling her everything that had been going on while she'd been gone, telling her about his roses and how he'd taken good care of the house. He yakked and yakked and yakked.

  Should he mention Gillian? he wondered when the conversation reached a lull. Should he even let Jo meet someone he wasn't going to keep? Someone who might disappear the way Seymour disappeared?

  But it would be good to demonstrate to Jo that at least he'd made an effort to find a mate. That he'd kept his promise to her and that he'd been serious about it even though it hadn't worked out.

  Was it anybody's fault that neither of them had known he was simply destined to be a bachelor? What was wrong with that, anyway? What is wrong with that?

  Maybe Jo would extend her visit. Maybe once she was back, once she saw the house, she would want to stay longer. To hell with the people in town who'd snubbed her. She didn't need anybody else. Neither of them needed anybody else. Not as long as they had each other.

  When they got home Jo went to her bedroom, saying she wanted to lie down awhile.

  That was okay. It gave Mason time to get things ready for her party. While she was resting, he set the table.

  Three places.

  He decided to allow Gillian to participate. At times she could conduct herself with propriety, and surely with his sister gracing the house Gillian would be on her best behavior.

  He got out the china and silverware. He put party favors at each setting. In the refrigerator was soft-serve ice cream from Dairy Queen-Jo's favorite after homemade. When he was little, she used to make homemade ice cream. He would turn the crank until he thought his arm would fall off. Jo always said the hand-cranked kind was the only kind to make if you were going to the trouble. Mason liked being able to do something, and the machine wasn't noisy like the electric ones. Those could send a person running out of the house.