“Sit down,” he said quietly. “Before you fall down.”
Robin sat. She sat and she stared while Walt arranged all the cartons on the table and folded paper towels into napkins and pulled cans of soda from the refrigerator.
“Pepsi okay?”
Robin nodded.
She watched as he sat down across from her. He rested his arms calmly on the tabletop and leaned slightly forward and brushed his long hair back from his forehead.
“Okay,” he said. “You’d better tell me.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” Robin replied. “And actually … I think I might be crazy.”
“Well”—he sighed—“better to find out now before this goes any deeper.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just tell me.”
She did. She started with the ad on the bulletin board and didn’t stop until her latest encounter with Skaggs and Parker. The whole time she talked, Walt sat there with his unshakable stare, only moving one time to take a sip of his Pepsi. When Robin finished, she sank back in her chair, let out a sigh, and waited for him to say something insightful.
“I think you should eat something,” was what he came up with. “It’ll help calm you down.”
“I was expecting some words of wisdom,” Robin said, sounding disappointed.
“Wisdom. Well.” Walt also leaned back in his chair. He put one hand to his chin and thought a moment. “It’s not good to rush into wisdom. I have to think about it first.”
“I’m scared,” Robin said.
“For who?”
“Claudia mostly. I think someone’s after her.”
“But someone definitely alive, I’d guess.”
“Then you don’t believe in powers beyond the grave?”
“Sure I believe. But I’m not so certain it’s just power driving that black car and turning off lights in houses and playing parlor tricks.”
Robin nodded. “All I know is that Claudia’s in danger. She thinks she’s doomed to follow the fate of her mother, and from what I’ve seen lately, she might be right. The rest of the family hated Lillith—and they seem to hate Claudia, too.”
“And say she’s crazy.”
“Yes.” Robin nodded sadly.
“And what do you say?”
“The poor thing is terrified. I would be, too.” Robin leaned forward and looked at him pleadingly. “Can’t we tell the police?”
“Oh, so we’re back to this again. And I still say, tell them what?”
Robin frowned and settled back again. “Our … thoughts.”
“Hmmm … I’m not sure they’d consider that hard, fast evidence.”
Robin frowned. “I just wonder what Skaggs is doing around there anyway.”
“Besides being a pervert?”
“You’re right. It is his greatest talent.”
“Well, the family’s new—what do you expect?” Walt shrugged. “Skaggs came cheap, and they haven’t quite discovered his impeccable character yet.” He held up an egg roll and studied it closely as Robin thought out loud.
“I can’t imagine why Parker would be out there with Skaggs.”
“Are you sure Parker was with Skaggs?” he asked. “Or did he just happen to show up about that time?”
“Like the way he just happened to show up the day Claudia fell down the stairs? And the way he just happened to be looking for Claudia today?”
“He could be telling the truth. Then won’t you feel heartless?” Walt scolded.
Robin considered this a moment. “He did seem pretty upset tonight. About Skaggs touching me, I mean.”
“I bet,” Walt said easily. “He thinks you’re pretty hot.”
Robin looked startled, her cheeks going bright pink. Walt reached casually for the soy sauce.
“What did you say?” Robin demanded.
“You heard me,” Walt said. “It’s not hard to figure out.”
“How can you say such a thing?” Robin sputtered. “With his arrogance and his—his—”
“All right, you don’t have to convince me how you feel about him.” The corners of Walt’s mouth twitched. “I’m just telling you what—as a guy—I know. And I know Parker Swanson would like to be … involved with you.”
“This is so silly.” Robin crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“We don’t have to. What would you like to talk about?”
“You can be so frustrating!”
“Um-hmm. It’s one of my strong points.” Walt broke open a fortune cookie. “This is yours. I’ll read it to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Robin said, sulking. “Not if it’s anything like the rest of my life these days.”
“You’re going to be very rich and marry an old man named Herk,” Walt recited solemnly.
Robin tried to glare at him but failed miserably.
She groaned. “I don’t want to laugh. I’m not in the mood. You’re not taking any of this seriously.”
“On the contrary, I’m taking this very seriously. I think someone could be in danger here, but I’m not sure it’s Claudia.”
Surprised, Robin looked up.
“No? Then who?”
For a long moment Walt gazed at her.
Robin watched him reach slowly into his shirt pocket and pull out a piece of paper. He leaned across the table and held it out to her, but she only stared.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
“It was on your front door when I got here tonight,” he said. “Didn’t you see it?”
Robin couldn’t speak. She could only shake her head.
“Which means either you were so upset that you just didn’t notice …” He paused and took a deep breath. “Or that someone—whoever it was—put it there after you came inside.”
Robin felt her skin go cold.
“I … I can’t read it,” she said.
“You don’t have to. I already did.”
Walt crumpled the paper in his fist and laid it on the table between them.
“It says … ‘Stay away from Claudia or you’ll be next.’”
The room seemed to recede around her.
Robin gripped the edge of the table until Walt’s face came slowly back into focus.
“We have to go to the police” was all she could think of to say.
“We can’t go to the police,” Walt said again, just as patiently. “They’ll say it’s just kids playing jokes on each other. Which it might be. Except it’s not funny.”
“So … so does this mean”—Robin swallowed hard—“that someone might try to … kill me or something?”
“I think someone is trying to scare you. Just like they’re trying to scare Claudia.”
“Well, they’re doing a good job. I’m scared.”
“You don’t have to be scared. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
Robin stared at him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I won’t let it,” Walt said simply. “Now.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, deep in thought for a long moment. “Why would someone want Claudia to think her mother’s after her?”
“To …” Robin shrugged. “I don’t know. To make her scared, like you said. To make her feel … stalked. Terrorized.”
“Try insane.”
“What?”
“To make Claudia think she’s losing her mind. Just like her mother supposedly did.”
“You said ‘supposedly.’ You think maybe Lillith wasn’t crazy?”
“Is Claudia? We don’t know what happened when Lillith was alive, but if someone keeps trying to brainwash Claudia into thinking her dead mother’s after her, why shouldn’t Claudia think she’s insane? Or more important”—Walt frowned—“why shouldn’t everyone else think Claudia’s insane?”
“You mean …” Robin’s mind was stumbling, trying to keep up. “You mean if people think Claudia is insane—”
“They’d have to prove it first. But say they did
. If she’s declared incompetent, what could happen?”
“They could lock her up? They could put her somewhere? An institution?”
“And what would she stand to lose?”
Robin looked baffled. “You’ve lost me.”
“Family support? Approval? Dowry? Inheritance? Allowance? Any of those ring a bell?”
Robin sat up straighten “There is some kind of an inheritance—something split between her and Parker, that they’re supposed to get when they turn eighteen.”
The grave implication hung in the air between them. Robin rubbed a chill slowly from her arms.
“Parker?” she said slowly. “Then you think … Parker is trying to make Claudia look insane so she doesn’t get to inherit her part of the family fortune?”
Walt shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m just speculating. We can only work with the pieces of the puzzle we have. There may be hundreds more pieces we don’t even know about yet.”
“Well, I don’t like being one of those pieces,” Robin shuddered. “Just because I happened to answer an ad on the bulletin board. In fact, I think I’ll go over to Manorwood first thing in the morning and quit.”
Walt nodded. “That seems the sensible thing to do.”
Robin nodded in unison, then stopped and sagged in her chair.
“I can’t quit.”
“Why not?”
“And just leave Claudia there with that … that vulture Parker?”
“We don’t know if Parker has anything to do with this or not. Remember? We’re just tossing out theories here.”
“Stop being so fair,” Robin grumbled. “And so nice.”
“I’m just trying to consider all the angles.”
“Walt, she doesn’t have anybody! I’m the only one right now who knows something’s going on—the only one who believes her! I mean, I’ve been right there with her, and I’ve seen things happen! I can’t just go off and abandon her!” Robin crossed her arms on the tabletop and buried her face against them. “Don’t you have any other theories you’d like to toss out?”
“Only one,” Walt said.
“And what’s that?”
“I strongly suspect Claudia’s not the only reason you’re keeping that job.”
Robin looked startled. “What are you talking about?”
Walt smiled. “Vultures.”
Saturday dawned dismal and rainy, with stormclouds boiling in a pewter-gray sky. Robin stood at the window a long time and stared out at the steady drizzle. She hadn’t been able to get Walt’s remarks out of her mind, and she’d gone over them relentlessly all night long. It infuriated her, his insinuation that she might have any sort of positive feelings for Parker. Imagine—Parker Swanson! After all his blatant arrogance and conceit—after all the things he’d obviously done to Claudia to keep her vulnerable and upset! Robin fumed just thinking about it. So what if Walt thought Parker cared about her—so what if Claudia said Parker talked about her! I don’t care—he doesn’t mean a thing to me!
In desperation she picked up the phone and dialed Faye. She’d waited too long to share all this with her friend—she needed to hear Faye’s jokes, needed to hear Faye tell her that she was being silly, that she was blowing everything way out of proportion as usual.
“Sorry, hon, but Zak picked her up early this morning,” Faye’s mother apologized. “Can I give her a message?”
Robin’s heart sank. “Just … no. No message.”
She felt alone and depressed. For the hundredth time she wished she’d never heard of Manorwood. For the hundredth time she made up her mind to march over there and quit her job.
But then the image of Claudia’s face came into her mind.
She saw Claudia’s face and she heard Claudia’s voice, Claudia’s terror, Claudia’s confusion, and Robin felt racked with guilt.
So she was surprised as she stood there at the window and heard the doorbell ring. It was only eight o’clock, and she wasn’t expecting anyone. And certainly not Claudia, whom she found standing on her porch when she opened the door.
“You’re soaking wet!” Robin exclaimed, dragging the girl inside. “Come have some coffee.”
“Are you alone?” Claudia asked nervously.
“Alone? Well, Mom drove up for some parent’s thing at my brother’s college, but—”
“I mean, is Parker here?” Claudia glanced around the entryway as though she expected her brother to pop out from the wall and terrify her.
“No, why would Parker be here?”
“I thought I heard him last night,” Claudia looked a little sheepish. “I thought I heard him tell Grandfather that he was going to come and see you this morning. I don’t want to be here if he’s going to be here.”
Robin felt a tingle of apprehension but kept her voice calm. “No, he’s not here. Why? What’s wrong?”
“I found something this morning,” Claudia whispered. “Something … horrible.”
Robin stared at the pitiful little figure dripping all over the hall rug. Claudia’s face was gaunt and haggard, and she looked as if she might collapse at any moment.
“What was it?” Robin asked gently.
“A … a hand.”
Robin stared at her.
“A hand,” Claudia said again. “On my pillow.”
“You … found …”
“You act like you don’t believe me!” Claudia cried. “You act like you don’t believe me, but it’s true! I woke up and it was there on my pillow—right beside my head! And all this blood—my mother’s blood, I tell you—my mother’s hand!”
“Oh, Claudia—”
“You sound just like them! Humoring me! And all the time you don’t really believe I saw what I saw!” Claudia’s voice broke, and she swayed dangerously. Robin reached out and caught her and ushered her into the kitchen. She sat Claudia down in a chair and poured her a strong cup of coffee.
“Drink this,” Robin ordered. “It’ll make you feel better.” A hand … a hand. Some kind of rubber contraption—some Halloween prop—Parker must have put it there while she was asleep—
“I screamed,” Claudia said in a weary monotone. “I screamed and I screamed. I ran out to the hall, but I couldn’t find anybody. I ran downstairs and finally found Winifred, and I brought her back to my room.…” She lowered her eyes, blinking back tears. “But it wasn’t there anymore. The hand. It just …” her voice faded, “wasn’t there.”
Of course it wasn’t, Robin thought bitterly, Parker hid it somewhere, but aloud she said, “Claudia, are you sure it wasn’t—you know—part of a costume or something—”
“It was real!” Claudia clenched her teeth, and her chin lifted defiantly. “I think I can tell a real hand from a fake hand, Robin. I’m not that crazy yet!”
“No, Claudia, that’s not what I meant at all—”
“It’ll be soon, though,” Claudia murmured, and Robin had to lean forward to hear her.
“Soon?”
“Yes.” The girl nodded mechanically. “I can feel it. She’ll come for me soon. She’ll come for me, and this time when it happens, I won’t be able to escape like I have all those other times. This time”—her voice trembled—“she’ll have me at last.”
Robin sat down on the other side of the table. Her knees felt suddenly shaky, and her cup trembled in her hand.
“I know how it’ll happen,” Claudia whispered.
“Stop talking like that,” Robin said, but Claudia didn’t seem to hear.
“Because … sometimes I dream about it.” Claudia’s lips barely moved. “I’m standing on a high, high cliff. And she’s there—down at the bottom—holding out her arms to me. ‘Jump, Claudia,’ she says, ‘jump and I’ll catch you.’”
Robin reached for the girl’s hand. It was ice cold.
“I’ve told my dream to Parker,” Claudia’s brow furrowed slightly. “And to Winifred and Grandfather. But they always tell me it’s just a nightmare.” She smiled softly. “I know better.”
“Come on, Claudia, don’t do this—”
“And you know …” Claudia murmured, “I don’t think I’ll really mind. It’ll be … a relief.” Her eyes lifted slowly, and their chilling resignation sliced straight into Robin’s heart. “A relief,” Claudia whispered. “No more running … ever again.”
“I’m going to call your grandfather,” Robin said. She started to get up, but Claudia’s hand clamped down on her like a claw.
“Don’t … please. You know what he’ll do. He’ll say you’re on his side, and he’ll be glad. And then he’ll put me somewhere, and I couldn’t bear that. Please, Robin. Please. I’d rather die. Really. I’d rather be with … with her … than locked up somewhere with strangers.”
Robin gazed into Claudia’s eyes. She saw their pain, their immeasurable sadness, and suddenly she felt something boil up inside her—something hot and mean and angry. “Crazy old Claudia,” Parker had said. “Crazy old Claudia—”
Biting her lip, Robin stood up and gave Claudia’s hand a firm squeeze.
“You won’t have to go anywhere, Claudia,” she said. “I promise.”
Claudia looked confused, but Robin only smiled at her.
“I have work to do,” Robin said.
“You mean … at the house?”
“Yes, but there’s something else I have to do first. Will you be all right at home for a while? Can you wait for me there?”
Claudia nodded, an obedient child. “If you want me to.”
“Good. I’ll come as soon as I can.”
Robin watched Claudia go off down the sidewalk. She went upstairs and got dressed, and then she left the house.
But this time she didn’t go straight to Manorwood.
This time she walked all the way into town and went determinedly into the police station.
Robin had never felt so humiliated.
As she walked slowly out of the building, she stood a moment blinking back tears, wishing she could just disappear into the cracks of the sidewalk.
Why didn’t I stop to think about what I was doing? Why didn’t I at least wait and talk to Faye about it first?
Because I couldn’t wait for Faye to get home. And because Faye doesn’t even know what’s going on. And where would I even start trying to explain it all to her now?
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