“I must have been dreaming,” he said softly, running his fingers through his tousled hair. But then he noticed the kitchen door. Could the prowler be hiding in the kitchen? It suddenly occurred to him that if there was an intruder, he might be armed. Derek wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t about to take chances. He needed a weapon.
Looking around, he spotted a pearl-handled pistol on the mantel. It looked like an antique, and Derek prayed the intruder wouldn’t know the difference. Refusing to let himself be frightened, he shoved through the kitchen door and switched on the light. The white refrigerator and oven gleamed innocently. He could see his reflection in the backdoor window as he moved carefully around the kitchen. No one was hiding here. He went to the back door and twisted the lock. It was one of those doors where one needed a key to get out as well as in. There had been no time for a prowler to escape—if indeed it was a prowler he had heard.
He sank into a wooden chair. “I’m sure I heard something.”
It might have been his imagination. After all, this was an old house, with creaking boards and drafts. He had heard some explainable noises, and nothing more. Laughing at himself, he stood up and headed out of the kitchen.
The door to the basement started to rattle.
Derek turned abruptly, aiming the gun. Why hadn’t he thought to check the cellar? Was that just the wind? He heard a scratching noise. The wind didn’t scratch. . . .
Derek refused to be afraid. He reached and jerked the door open. His gun was pointed at the black, shiny nose of a puppy.
“I don’t believe this,” Derek groaned, putting the gun on the counter. He knelt down and stroked the little Weimaraner’s ears.
“How’d you get stuck down there?” he asked, wondering if a puppy’s high-pitched yapping could sound like laughter. “There’s a good boy. Poor doggy, locked in a cellar.”
He peered down the stairs into the inklike blackness. “Locked in a dark and cold cellar, too,” he said. He stood up and beckoned the dog. Lad followed him from the room. Derek returned the gun to its stand on the mantel, then headed upstairs, Lad at his side. Feeling somewhat embarrassed by the incident, he decided to keep it to himself. Afraid of a little puppy!
He had no idea that Lad hadn’t barked once that night.
The therapy room was completed just a few days later.
“It’ll be best to get your muscles toned,” Derek said as he fastened a cushioned leather cuff to Gary’s left ankle. “Once you’re used to this equipment, you can move on to bigger and better things.”
“Like walking, I hope,” Gary said. His leg moved up and down with little difficulty, the cable squeaking from newness.
“Let me add a little more weight to that,” Derek said. “It looks too easy.” He added a ten-pound weight. This time Gary groaned when he moved his leg.
“Pretty soon,” Derek said, “you won’t feel it. For a guy who broke both legs, you’re in pretty good shape, Gary. Say, nobody ever told me the details of your accident. If you don’t mind, I’d be interested.”
“They didn’t tell you what kind of injury you’d be dealing with?” Gary asked impatiently.
“Of course,” Derek said. “But part of therapy is knowing how the accident occurred. I want to know on a professional basis, but if you feel uncomfortable about it, then—”
“No, it’s not that,” Gary said. “It’s just that we don’t like to talk about it. Let’s just say I came into one of the rooms up here one night and found a prowler. We had a fight, and he pushed me out the window. That’s all you need to know, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” Derek said, wondering why Gary was so reluctant to talk about the accident. He decided it was some family matter and did not pursue it.
Gary asked when he would be able to start using crutches.
“I want to warn you,” Derek said, “practicing with crutches is a frustrating and sometimes painful process. You’ll probably fall down a lot, and you’ll need your muscle strength to get back up again. But don’t worry. One of these days, you’ll be playing racquet ball with me.”
“I don’t know how to play,” Gary said.
“If you promise to cooperate with me,” Derek said, “I promise to teach you the game.”
The two men shook on it and continued with the routine. They could hear Melanie down the hall, singing as she worked in her studio.
“Melanie’s a beautiful woman,” Derek said. “You’re lucky to have her.”
“I know,” Gary said. He studied the sadness in his therapist’s eyes for a moment, then asked, “What was your wife’s name?”
“Elaine,” Derek said. “She was beautiful, too. Her hair was clear down to her hips, and the lightest blond color. She was only thirty-two when she died. Her car was—uh, was struck by a drunk driver doing ninety. The engine exploded.”
“I’m sorry,” Gary said, feeling uncomfortable. Grasping at straws, he said, “Do you play a lot of racquet ball?”
“Three nights a week and every Saturday, when I lived in Jersey,” Derek said, smiling again. “There was a little gymnasium there that didn’t charge too much for court time. I miss it.”
“I sometimes see ads for a local health club in our town paper,” Gary said. “It has a court. Why don’t you join?”
On Saturday Derek did drive into town to look up the club. Halfway there, he spotted a young woman hitchhiking. Derek, who never picked up strangers, ignored her. Silver lampposts and patches of sand and sparse, scrubby foliage shot passed him. Something about this barren section of Belle Bay made Derek uneasy. Why was that? He was never unsure of anything!
It was the woman, of course. She had looked like a pitiful refugee, her eyes huge and staring. Derek looked in his rear-view mirror, his breath catching in his throat when he saw her eyes. They seemed to be pulling him, making him turn the car around and drive back to her. Without understanding why, he stopped and opened the door for her.
“Where do you want to go?”
The woman said nothing. She stared straight ahead through vacant blue eyes. There was a strange smell about her, a faint mixture of sea wind and rotted meat. Rotted meat? Derek was disgusted at the thought. Close-up, the young woman’s appearance disgusted him even more. She was so pale it was painful to look at her, especially since he could see the veins beneath her skin. Her eyes had a filmy quality, and the blond hair that hung around her shoulders looked as if it hadn’t been combed in weeks. Even stranger were the clothes she wore—corduroy pants, a flannel shirt, and fur boots. On a warm spring day.
God, have I ever picked up a loser, Derek thought, starting the car again.
“Just tell me where you want to get off,” he said as he drove down the road. He was annoyed at himself for giving in to a ridiculous impulse and letting this stranger into his car.
All of a sudden, the woman pressed her hand on top of his. It was as cold as ice. Derek looked down at it, keeping a firm grip on the steering wheel, although he wanted to pull away from the freezing touch of her fingers. Her hand was chapped red. It was as if she had just stepped out of a snowstorm.
“Hey, let go!” Derek cried. “What’s wrong with you? Do you need a doctor?”
She made no reply, but took her hand away. Derek turned his eyes from the road for a split second. The woman was making gestures as if she were crying. Derek couldn’t see any tears, though her small mouth hung open and her shoulders heaved. She stared down the road.
“Mel . . . Mel . . . Mel . . .” she moaned.
Derek, his eyes on the road once more, patted her arm and told her he would get help. She stiffened. Her sobbing stopped with a huge gasp, and she doubled over as if she were going to be sick. Derek quickly pulled the car off the road, got out, and ran to open the door. But when he tried to help her out, she collapsed to the ground. Her eyes stared glassily, and she made no sound.
“Jesus in Heaven,” Derek whispered.
He hesitated, afraid to touch her. All sorts of visions came to his head. Everyone
would start asking questions, and they might even accuse him of killing this woman. She had been in his car—how could they think otherwise? Why should he jeopardize his life and career for one crazy addict? He didn’t need that kind of trouble.
Derek looked up and down the road, surprised at how calm he was. There was no one around, no one to see him lift her—why was she so stiff, he wondered?—and carry her to a nearby clump of bushes. He put her down there, glad to be rid of her.
“Sorry, lady,” he said as he hurried back to his car, “but I don’t know you from Adam. I don’t need your problems.”
He thought at first about forgetting the entire incident, but his sense of decency got the better of him. He parked his car in the center of town and walked to a phone booth.
“Belle Bay police department,” a voice said. “Bryan Davis.”
“I—I want to report a body,” Derek said carefully, keeping his voice low so that passers-by wouldn’t hear him.
“A what?”
“A body,” Derek repeated. “I saw it behind some bushes on Houston Street, near Walher.”
“Hey, wait!” Bryan cried. “Who are you?”
But Derek had already hung up. By the time he reached the health spa and signed the membership papers, he had pushed the incident with the girl from his mind. He was choosing a racket even as Bryan Davis reached the designated intersection.
“Over there,” Bryan said to the cop with him. “I think I see something, Jack.”
“It’s just an old towel,” Jack said, kicking it aside to show that the ground beneath was empty. “You suppose this is what our caller saw?”
“I don’t know,” Bryan said. “He sounded pretty upset. Let’s look a little further.”
As he poked through the clumps of bushes scattered here and there on the roadside, Bryan took note of the fact that no cars had passed them. Chances were, no one else had seen the body—if indeed there was one. After a few more minutes of searching, Bryan straightened himself and sighed.
“Jack, we’re wasting our time,” he said. “It was just a wild-goose chase.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Jack said. He was looking at some point behind his captain. “Nothing surprises me anymore.”
Bryan turned around and followed Jack’s gaze. He could see the huge VanBuren mansion at the top of the nearby hill. Bryan wondered how the family was doing, especially Gary.
“I sometimes see his wife driving him through town,” Jack said, as if reading Bryan’s thoughts. “He’s still in a wheelchair, you know.”
“It was a hell of a fall he had,” Bryan said grimly. He clapped Jack on the shoulder. “Let’s get back to the station. Well just assume the caller was seeing things, okay?”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Jack said, “I’d like to believe we aren’t going to have any more trouble here.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Bryan said as he got into his car.
4
As soon as breakfast was over, Derek turned to Gary and said, “Why don’t we get started now?”
“Right away,” Gary said. “I’m having some clients here this afternoon, so I want to get this done early.”
Melanie looked over her shoulder. “Honey, I’m going to be taking my new painting into town today. Do you mind if I’m not here?”
“I’m sure I’ll be okay,” Gary said. Melanie often helped him by answering phones or bringing coffee when he was with his clients.
“I hope you sell that painting,” Derek said.
“Thanks,” Melanie said. “If I do, I’ll probably sell a few more. The mayor’s wife is filthy rich.”
“Then don’t take less than five hundred dollars,” Gary said laughing.
Later that morning, Melanie carefully laid the painting in the back of the station wagon. As she walked around to her door, she looked up at the ominous gray clouds in the sky. A faint rumble of thunder told her it would rain within the next hour.
Melanie switched on the radio as she drove down Starbine Court and thought how pretty everything looked that afternoon. The approaching storm gave the air a clean, cool scent. She could see the stretch of beach through the sparse woods; it was empty except for a young couple and their dog. The usually still waters of the bay were churning now, and sea gulls anticipated the storm with high-pitched cries.
Melanie shuddered suddenly. Though it was April, she had felt a wind so cold that goose bumps crept over her skin. Keeping one hand on the wheel as she turned a corner, she tightened the belt on her raincoat. She heard something thump behind her and looked quickly over her shoulder. The painting had shifted a little, but no harm had been done.
“I sure hope I sell that,” she said out loud as she drove through the center of town. She pulled into the parking lot next to the town hall, surprised to see how full it was on this gloomy day. She found a spot at last, then switched off the engine. Crossing her fingers for luck, she went around to the back of the car to retrieve the painting. But when she pulled it out, she nearly dropped it. There was an ugly red smudge mark right in the middle of it.
“Oh, no!” Melanie whimpered, propping it against the door. “I don’t understand. I worked so hard on it. And I know that paint was dry!”
Something told her, though, that this wasn’t paint. Carefully she touched the spot. It was thick, but not as thick as oil paint. Melanie brought her finger to her nose. It wasn’t paint at all. It was blood.
Quickly she examined her own hands and arms for signs of a cut. That was fresh blood—it wasn’t as if one of the kids had touched it earlier on and had been too scared to tell anyone about it. Yet Melanie’s skin was unbroken. It was almost as if someone had done this on purpose. But that was impossible.
Suddenly she heard a voice right behind her. “What happened to your lovely painting?”
An attractive, well-dressed middle-aged woman was at her side. The woman was shaking her head.
“Who’d do such a thing?” she demanded. “It looks as if someone rubbed red paint on it.”
“It’s—” Melanie stopped. Why should she tell this stranger the red mark was blood? How could she, when she hardly believed it herself?
“Did you paint it?” the woman asked. “It’s beautiful, in spite of . . .”
Melanie nodded. “I was going to sell it to the mayor. I don’t think I could even give it to him, now.”
“It’s really not a big smudge,” the woman said. “Do you think you could paint over it?”
“I don’t know,” Melanie said sadly. “I don’t know if it would do any good.”
“Yes, it would,” the woman said, taking Melanie’s arm. “Come inside with me, and we’ll talk about it. I’m Sarah Kaufman; I’m the mayor’s wife.”
Melanie and Sarah shared coffee in an empty office, discussing her work as a painter.
At last, to Melanie’ delight, Sarah wrote a check for one thousand dollars, explaining that she wanted Melanie to do two paintings for her, one of the duck pond and one of the local church. She asked if Melanie could put pink roses in that one. They were her favorite flowers, she explained. They also agreed that four hundred and fifty dollars would be a fair price for the damaged painting if Melanie could repair it successfully. Sarah Kaufman was a sympathetic woman, and Melanie found herself lingering on after they had completed the transaction, talking about her home and Gary’s unfortunate accident.
When Melanie left the town hall, it was starting to rain, so she pulled up the hood of her raincoat and ran down the steps to her car. She was surprised to see a young woman sitting on the back fender. Melanie, feeling elated with the check in her purse, smiled at her. The woman did not return the smile, but watched Melanie as she walked to her door and got in the car.
When Melanie started the car, the woman was still sitting on the fender. Melanie hit the horn, to no avail. Sighing in exasperation, she got out of her car. She tapped the woman’s shoulder.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to m
ove my car.”
The young woman said nothing, but stared up at Melanie. There was something in her glassy blue eyes, something cold and vicious, that made Melanie shudder. The woman seemed strangely familiar. Melanie studied her for a moment, then decided she didn’t know her after all. “What is it you want?” Melanie asked. “Money? A ride?”
The young woman shook her head and smiled for the first time. It was a thin evil smile.
“I want you to die,” she said.
Melanie gasped and turned quickly to run into the hall. She found a security guard and brought him outside. But when they reached the car, the woman was gone. Droplets of rain covered up any indication that she had been sitting there.
“She was right there,” Melanie said, pointing.
“She probably ran away when she saw me coming,” the guard said. “I wouldn’t worry about it. You know kids these days. Probably some smart-ass teen-ager.”
“You’re right,” Melanie said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”
“It’s my job, lady,” the guard said.
When she arrived home, Melanie gathered the family together and held up the check for everyone to see. She told about her meeting with Sarah Kaufman and how the mayor’s wife had commissioned her to paint two pictures.
“That’s a lot of money,” Kyle said.
“But what about the other picture?” Gary asked.
“I couldn’t sell it,” Melanie said sighing. “Somehow, part of it wasn’t dry yet, and it got smudged.” There was no point upsetting everyone with the truth.
“But you finished that several days ago,” Gary pointed out.
“I know,” Melanie said. “I guess—well, I guess this damp weather we’ve been having kept it from drying. It’s all right, though. Mrs. Kaufman says she’ll pay four hundred and fifty dollars for it when I fix it.”
Despite her feelings of misgiving, Melanie related the story about the strange young woman. She described the glassy blue eyes and scary smile and related how the girl had disappeared before the security guard could chase her away.
Ghost House Revenge Page 3
