by Ed Gorman
Home.
Jenny's entire life was reflected within these walls, from the framed baby pictures on her mother's dressing table to the high school clothes packed and stored in the attics, clothes her mother held on to as if they were religious relics.
Home.
Her parents stood in front of her now, gleeful and rosy as actors in a TV commercial about how cameras capture those perfect family moments.
She barely heard them. Her mind was comfortably collapsing amidst the familiar setting. She didn't have to be on guard, she didn't have to be suspicious, she didn't have to be afraid.
Home. Safety. Security. Peace.
***
Molly heated up apple cider in the microwave, explaining that just today Eileen had bought two gallons of fresh Wisconsin cider from a roadstand. She put cinnamon sticks in the cider, too, just the way Jenny had liked it since she was a little girl.
They sat in the breakfast nook. Jenny told them everything that had happened tonight. She spent a great deal of time discussing what she'd learned at the hospital, including how Gretchen had actually killed the two men.
"But why did you go out there in the first place?" her father said.
"Don't you see. Dad? He'd planted all these commands in my head. That's what those vans were doing. One of them was to return to the hospital."
"Well, if you'll remember," Tom Stafford said. "I warned you about him a long time ago."
"We're just glad you're home," Molly said, obviously wanting to steer clear of blame and recrimination.
Tom smiled, reached across the table and took his daughter's hands. "Your mom's right. We're just glad you're home and that's all that matters. The police'll take care of the rest."
"I think you've got an admirer in Mr. Coffey," her mother said. "He looks quite smitten."
"He's a very nice guy," Jenny said. "And I'm smitten with him, too." She told them about Coffey's novels, and what had happened to his wife and daughter.
Molly smiled. "I think you've finally met somebody your Dad will approve of."
"He's certainly a step in the right direction," Tom Stafford said. "He doesn't like ballet, does he? Or modern art?"
"Ballet, I doubt. Modern art. I'd have to ask him."
They both looked so healthy and handsome sitting across from her in their pajamas and silk paisley robes. Her father looked so Forbes-magazine distinguished with his clean white mane of hair. Her mother looked so young and vital.
"We're going to get this thing over with," Molly said, "and then we're going to take a nice family vacation."
"Paris," Tom Stafford said.
"I was thinking more Rome," Molly said. They both looked at Jenny.
Jenny said. "Do you really have to ask?"
"Oh, God, not London again," Molly said.
London was not only Jenny's favorite city but also her obsession. She liked the sense of history the city gave her. Plus she enjoyed the culture. She was an incipient anglophile, no doubt about it.
"Well,"Tom Stafford said. "I think I'll go back to my office a little while. I've still got some work to do on the Japanese project." His handsome faced grew taut with pain. "What a time to invest in Japanese retail. Their whole economy is collapsing over there."
Jenny wasn't much for the financial world, but she knew enough to be stunned by the Japanese economy starting to collapse so quickly. The term "house of cards" had never been more appropriate than in this matter. Once one of the great Japanese financial houses had imploded, others started falling down like dominoes. Less than a year ago, the venture capital side of her father's signature corporation had started investing heavily in retail outlets over there.
Tom Stafford stood up, walked over to his daughter and kissed her on the cheek. "It hasn't felt right in a long time in this house, honey. Now, all of a sudden, it feels right again."
She wished that some of his critics could see him now. They were always talking about what a cold and hard-assed businessman he was. But right now, tears silvered his eyes and his voice trembled with powerful emotions.
"Oh, Daddy," she said, and hugged him tight around the neck. They stayed like that for well over a minute. Watching them hug seemed to overwhelm Molly. She started crying, too.
"It really does feel good again in this house," Molly said after Tom was standing straight up again, looking very whiskey-ad sophisticated with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his silk robe and a pipe tucked into the right corner of his mouth.
"Well, I'd better go call my Japanese friends," he said.
"He works so hard," Jenny said, watching her father leave the kitchen. "I'll be glad when he retires."
Molly laughed. "Retire? Oh, he makes noises sometimes, but honey, can you imagine your father actually doing it? I can't. He'll have them put a flip phone in his coffin so he can keep on giving orders." Then, "More coffee?"
"No, thanks, Mom. And speaking of coffee, I'm hoping my own Coffey will call pretty soon. Let me know what's going on. In the meantime, I'd like to take a quick shower and change into some clean clothes."
"Sure. If he calls, I'll tell you right away."
She looked across the table at her mother. "God, I've screwed up so many things! I never should've given myself into Quinlan's power."
"Quinlan fell in love with you," Molly said. "He apparently decided to destroy you. Since he couldn't have you, I mean." She touched her daughter's hands again. "But all we have to concern ourselves with now is planning that vacation I was talking about. The courts and the lawyers will take care of everything else."
"I sure hope you're right, Mom."
"I am right," Molly Stafford said, lazily yawning. "Just wait and see."
***
She exulted in the shower. The warmth. The cleansing. The relaxing effect it had on her entire body and mind.
At one point, Jenny leaned back against the tiled wall and simply let the shower have at her. She felt as if every pore in her body were receiving individual treatment, being purged of dirt and grime.
Washing her hair felt especially good. She'd cut it very short, back in her commune days. She knew why Quinlan had insisted on this. Demonstrated his command over her. Demonstrated that she was more concerned with obedience than vanity. But she still wouldn't sleep with him. And that, apparently, had driven him quietly crazy. Why else would he focus all this murderous attention on her, enlisting her own shrink to help destroy her?
She wondered where Coffey was at this very moment. Her feelings for him had changed so quickly. She felt attached to him in a way she'd never felt attached to anybody. She liked him and maybe it was as simple as that. He wasn't perfect or ideal in any way. But she liked him and trusted him and depended on him-and in turn she allowed herself to be trusted and depended upon by him. She'd never extended herself to a man this way before. And she liked it. It was different from simple romantic love-it was romantic love but a lot more, too.
She wondered where Coffey was at this very moment.
***
There is a weariness now. Panic, too, of course. But the weariness is predominant. He is headed for the den. His retreat. He locks the door. But turns on no lights.
He is familiar with everything in the den, Tom Stafford. Why does he need lights? He sits in the Louis XIV chair at the desk and stares at the phone. Momentarily, he feels too weary to even lift the receiver.
He was this weary when he learned that Jenny was not his daughter. A harmless annual physical report mixed in with some of her other insurance papers. Five years ago. A blood test listing her type of blood. She could not possibly be his daughter. Hiring a private investigator. Checking up on the most likely father. Ted Hannigan. Suspicion confirmed. Jenny and Ted share the same rare blood type. Plotting his revenge. As a secret stockholder in Sigma, he asks Quinlan to help him. And Priscilla. They start feeding Jenny drugs that destroy her sanity. Lead to depression. And hospitalization. Inch by inch her mother and she suffer. His pleasure. The doting father. Watching Jenny de
stroyed. But even that isn't enough. His rage has taken him over and there is something dead in him now. His only pleasure is their pain. How could Molly deceive him this way? Jenny not his daughter.
He picks up the phone.
"I knew it would be you," Quinlan says.
"She's here."
"I figured that."
"It's coming apart. Everything is coming apart."
"Cummings and Coffey figured it out, my friend. I suggest you do what I'm doing."
"And that would be what, exactly?"
"Leave the country. I wanted to end on a high note here-turn her over to the police. But now the police'll be looking for me."
"Where're you planning to go?"
Quinlan laughed. "You don't really expect me to answer that, do you?"
Stafford wants to say more. Much more. He's never much cared for the crazed, arrogant Quinlan and now is his last chance to express his feelings.
But Quinlan doesn't give him the opportunity.
He hangs up.
Leaving Stafford in the den. In the darkness. In his own dead dazed mind.
***
She had just started running the hairdrier when she heard it. She disliked hair driers-and ceiling intake fans-for this reason. They distorted all sound. You could never be sure what you were hearing outside the bathroom.
But she'd heard something. At least, she was pretty sure she had.
She clipped off the drier, standing at the double sink in a nubby pink cotton robe, bra and panties underneath. Hair still very wet.
So what had she heard? She heard nothing now, that was for sure.
That was another thing she hated about hair driers. Sometimes, they made you think you'd heard something when you hadn't. The roaring of the drier motor played tricks on you.
She listened a bit longer, then went back to drying her hair. This time, the motor sounded louder than ever, gave her an unnerving sense that all sorts of terrible things were going on in the house-that the white noise of the motor was keeping from her.
And then she heard it again. Or thought she did. A sound that should not be in this house. A sound that was being hidden from her by the sinister, isolating roar of the drier.
She put down the drier, clicked it off, and went to the door. Out into the hallway.
The hallway went dark as she stepped out. The hallway was never dark. The hallway was not supposed to be dark.
Then she noticed that there was no light shining from downstairs up the grand staircase.
Was the entire house dark?
And what was the sound she'd heard behind the roar of the hair drier?
She got her answer quickly. For now-with no drier to muffle it-the sound came quite clearly to her.
The sound was a scream.
***
This time of night at the hospital always reminded Gretchen of summer camp. People winding down for the day, talking softly against the night, sleepy and idle talk mostly, and a sense of peace everywhere. She'd liked camp. Well, her first year there she'd liked camp. Her second year, she'd been with the marijuana. Just two joints, but the counselor had acted as if Gretchen were the biggest dealer outside Colombia for God's sake. They wouldn't let her come back the following year, but by then Gretchen didn't care anyway. She'd met Earl at the mall, and her life had never been the same since meeting Earl. But as much as she'd loved Earl, she didn't love him half as much, not even a quarter as much, as she loved Quinlan.
She worked her way between the dormitories. She would have preferred a moonless night. Lights were going off in various rooms. Breakfast was at 6:05 a.m. Even on Sundays. With the keys she'd had duplicated, she had no trouble getting in the front door, no trouble getting on the elevator, no trouble getting on his floor.
She kept the .45 pushed deep down in the pocket of her gray uniform trousers. She was going to surprise them completely.
The entire floor being Quinlan's, Gretchen had to look around to find which room he was actually in. He had a nice spread up here.
She wandered through the library, the viewing room, the living room, the room where he kept his scientific equipment including his telescopes. Nothing, no sign of them.
She next tried the master bedroom. She was convinced that she'd find them there. She was ready, too. The gun in her hand. She put her ear to the closed door. Nothing. Not a whisper of a sound on the other side of the door.
Maybe they were gone. The sudden thought chilled her. She felt a swirl of overwhelming emotions-loss that he might have deserted her, wild terror that she would be left to make her own decisions in a life without him, and rage that Priscilla had come between them, had somehow stolen him.
She raced around the same places she'd covered only minutes before-bedroom, library, the room with the telescopes. Nothing-no Quinlan.
And then she heard them. Far, far back she heard them. She tried to imagine what room they were in but couldn't. She began to slowly move toward their voices, drawn like a wild animal to a campfire on a cold night. Shelter and protection was what she needed. And only Quinlan could give her those things.
She followed a long, carpeted corridor that moved toward a large window at the far end of the building. Through the window she could see the front of the commune, gates and guards and fencing that gave the commune the feel of a military outpost.
The conversation grew louder. It wasn't conversation she wanted to hear.
Priscilla was saying, "We have to face it, sweetheart. We need to move on and very quickly. The police'll be here by tomorrow asking questions. Everything would have been fine if that Coffey character hadn't gotten involved. But it's all coming apart and you know it. We can be in Paris by tomorrow night-way ahead of the cops."
"I suppose you're right," Quinlan said.
***
Gretchen was trying to read his mood by the tone of his voice. She couldn't. He sounded simply businesslike.
"We'll be free, darling," Priscilla said. "No more of the commune bullshit keeping you tied down here. No more hiding our experiments. The Germans and the Russians'll be much more accommdating." There was a pause and then a long silence accompanied by a rustle of clothes. Kissing. They were kissing. Gretchen made a face and then tightened her small hand into a fist. Bitch. You bitch. No wonder Quinlan was always cheating on Gretchen. It wasn't his fault. She could see that now. Not his fault at all. Not with all these women throwing themselves at him. Deep down, Quinlan was probably a very faithful man. But how could he help himself? You couldn't hold men responsible, you really couldn't. Men were weak. They thought with their crotches. They could easily be led astray. No, this wasn't his fault at all.
They were in the small office that Quinlan used late at night. For some reason, he liked the little hutchlike place. He only reluctantly let anybody in there. That's another reason Gretchen resented Priscilla. What right had she to be in here when Quinlan kept even Gretchen out? Pushy, that's what she was in there. Priscilla was one of those people who pushed and pushed and pushed until you finally had to give in and let her have her way.
No more. That was going to end tonight. Indeed, that was going to end right now.
Filling her hand with the .45, Gretchen kicked the partially open door so hard that it slammed backward against the wall.
Then she went in, swearing at Priscilla and waving her gun around.
***
There were no more screams.
And there was no light either.
Jenny stood in the doorway of the bathroom, trying to adjust her vision to the darkness. She knew the house very well, of course, and had a good sense of where things were. But still, between the screams and the loss of electricity, she was disoriented and frightened.
She didn't call out. She knew instinctively that she needed to move away from the bathroom without giving away her position. She didn't know who had managed to get into the house-or what they'd managed to do once they'd gotten in here-but she decided to move about as quietly as possible.
She moved down the hall toward the staircase, passing a grandfather clock that chimed the quarter hour. The sound was both familiar and alien. As she neared the staircase, she paused. Her parents' room was on her left. She had to look in there. She had just realized that she hadn't heard her parents' voices since before taking her shower. Which made the scream and the lights going off all the more sinister.
She tiptoed across the hall. The door was closed but not locked. She opened it silently and peered in. In the pale moonlight, everything looked perfectly ordinary. The canopy bed, the huge European furnishings, the Chagall prints, the built-in giant-sized TV screen, the bathroom off the bedroom… This was how the master bedroom always looked. Then her eyes lingered for a time on the partially open door leading to the master bedroom toilet. Could somebody be in there?
She didn't want to check, but she knew she had to. She crossed the master bedroom and stood before the bathroom door. She listened. A dripping sound from inside. The sink. A steady drip. Any other sound? She listened even more intently. No, no other sound.
Of course, if someone were lying dead in there, they wouldn't make any sound at all.
She put a tentative finger to the door and eased it inward. She peered inside. There were shadows that revealed only parts of the interior, like a modern painting-angle of cabinet mirror above sink, one water faucet, half of toilet, angle of towel rack. She saved the tiled floor till last and when she looked down she made a sick, sobbing sob in her throat.
There were just drops of the stuff, and not very big drops at all, but she knew just what they were, the drops. And just what they signified.
She pushed the door further inward and walked into the bathroom. Under other circumstances, going into the bathroom this way would have scared her. She would have been waiting for somebody to jump out from behind the door. But not now. Not since seeing the drops on the floor. She thought of her mother, her father. Wounded. Or dead.