by John Saul
Muffin!
Maybe that was it! Maybe it wasn't Jared at all! Maybe Muffin was trying to get back in, and somehow she'd known it!
She crossed to the window and looked out into the night. "Muffin?" she called. Then, trying to keep her voice soft, so only the cat would hear it: "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Come on, Muffin!"
"Kim?"
Startled by her brother's voice, Kim whirled around to find Jared glaring at her.
"Jesus, Kim," he said, "what are you doing in my room? What time is it?"
"Three-thirty," she told him. "Something woke me up. I was worried about you—"
"Yeah, right," Jared said, his voice harsh with anger. "You were so worried about me you came in and started hollering for your damn cat."
Kim's mouth dropped open in surprise. Jared had never spoken to her like that—never! "I was worried about you," she protested. "But when Scout went to the window, I—"
"Will you just go back to bed?" Jared cut in.
"Well, sor-reee," Kim shot back. "Next time I get worried about you, I'll just go back to sleep!"
"Fine!" Jared said, flopping back down onto his pillow and turning his back on his sister. "Just leave me alone, okay?"
Well, if that's how you feel, fine! Kim said to herself as she moved toward the door. But before leaving his room, she turned back. "Jared?" she said. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Jared emitted an exaggerated sigh. "What do I have to do, take a physical? Just shut the door and leave me alone!"
Kim slammed it hard enough to make him jump.
"Jesus," he complained to Scout, now at the side of the bed, pawing at him. "Like it was my fault or something!" But as he turned over to go back to sleep, he had a vague memory of a dream he'd had—a nightmare, in which he'd been running through the halls of the house, trying to get away from Sister Clarence, and Father MacNeill, and a big, black guy who looked kind of familiar but whose name he couldn't quite remember.
But it hadn't been Kim who finally came to his rescue. It was his dad.
His dad! Yeah, like that would ever happen! If he was ever really in trouble, his dad would probably be too drunk to do anything but watch him die. Then, remembering what he'd overheard earlier, when his parents were fighting, he wondered if his mother really meant it this time about leaving. Probably not—she'd said it all before. Jared turned over in bed again, and Scout scratched at him again. "What's with you, boy? Just lie down and go to sleep, okay?"
But instead of lying down, the big dog ran to the window and scratched at the screen. Realizing the dog wouldn't leave him alone, Jared moved to the window and crouched next to Scout, looking out. "What is it, boy?" he asked. "What's out there?" Scout bounded to the bedroom door, whimpered eagerly, and scratched at it. "Okay, I get the message," Jared groused. He pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt, and shoved his feet into a pair of sneakers.
When he opened the bedroom door, Scout raced for the stairs. The dog disappeared through the dining room, toward the kitchen, long before Jared reached the landing. He paused halfway down the stairs, listening for any sign of his father. Chances were he'd passed out hours ago, but you never knew.
Jared decided he didn't even want to think about it.
He hurried down the rest of the stairs, made his way through the dark dining room and into the kitchen, where Scout stood at the back door, scratching and whimpering to be let out. Jared peered through the window, searching for whatever Scout was upset about, but he couldn't see anything.
He was about to open the door and let the dog outside when he remembered what had happened to Muffin. According to Kim, the cat had just gone out the window and disappeared.
More likely, he thought, a raccoon got her, or a bobcat, or something.
Dumb cat.
Still, if there were something out there, and Scout went after it...
Sighing, Jared poked around in the service porch until he found an old piece of clothesline. Giving it a couple of yanks, he decided it would hold, and tied one end of it to Scout's collar. Then he let the big retriever out the back door, expecting the dog to move a few steps out into the overgrown yard and lift his leg. Instead, Scout raced off toward the carriage house, the rope burning across Jared's palm as the dog pulled it through his fingers. Throwing a couple of quick loops around his wrist, the boy reined the dog to a stop, but when Scout continued to pull, Jared started down the back steps into the yard.
Scout led him around to the back of the carriage house, then reared up, placing his forepaws on the building's siding.
And in the moonlight, Jared saw it.
Hanging with head down, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, was Muffin.
Or at least what was left of Muffin.
The cat's hide had been nailed neatly to the wall, the legs spread, even the tail tacked in a curve so it looked as if Muffin were trying to climb down the wall.
It was just out of Scout's reach, but the dog kept stretching, as if trying to touch the cat's head.
Jared stared at the hide for a long time, then reached out and tore it loose from the wall. He was about to throw it into one of the garbage cans when he changed his mind. What if Kim came out in the morning and found it? Better put it somewhere else. He cast about in his mind and remembered the packing boxes he'd stowed inside the carriage house. Leaving Scout whimpering next to the wall where the hide had been nailed, Jared disappeared into the building. A moment later he was back. "Okay, Scout," he said, his voice low but hard. "Who did it? Show me who did it, Scout. Find him!"
In response, the dog began sniffing around the area. Then, catching a scent, he headed for the scrubby woods that edged the eastern boundary of the property. Pulling in most of the clothesline, Jared followed Scout to the edge of the woods, where he stopped.
Maybe he should go back and try to find a flashlight, he thought. But who even knew which one of the cartons to look in? Besides, the moon was still high, and the night was clear.
And Scout could see anything, even in the dark.
"Okay, boy," he said softly, making up his mind. "Let's go."
Following close behind the dog, giving him no more than six feet of rope, Jared made his way along the path through the woods. The dog kept his nose to the ground, moving quickly, taking them farther and farther from the house. Then, just as Jared was about to pull Scout off the scent and start back toward him, the retriever froze, one foot off the ground, tail extended.
Jared crept forward and dropped to his knees next to the big dog. He peered through the darkness, and at first saw nothing. Then, barely visible in the gloom, he made out the silhouette of a cabin. "There?" he asked. "Is that where he came from?"
Scout trembled, whining eagerly. Then he tensed.
Feeling the dog's muscles harden, Jared, too, held perfectly still, listening.
Off to the left he heard something.
Not much. Just the softest rustling, as if something were moving in the bushes.
Something, or someone?
Jared's heart began pounding, and for a second he was certain that whatever—or whoever—was out there must surely hear it.
The rustling came again, and then something else.
The snap of a twig?
He heard it again.
Closer this time.
Much closer.
His fingers tightening on Scout's collar, he pulled the dog back. "Come on, Scout," he whispered. "We'd better—"
Before he could finish his sentence, or move away, the night was rent by a howling sound that exploded out of the cabin. A second later the howling dropped into the steady baying of hounds. The cabin door opened. An oil lamp was held high, casting a yellowish glow a few feet from the ramshackle structure. "Who's out there?" a rough voice yelled. "I'm warnin' you! You get away right now, or I'm turnin' these dogs loose!"
Under the cover of the hounds' baying, Jared scurried back down the path, pulling Scout with him.
Twenty minutes later, he crept back into the house an
d up to his room. Stripping off his clothes, he slipped back into bed. Though he'd been out only an hour, he felt as if he'd been up all night. But it didn't matter how he felt—he'd found out what he needed to know.
He'd found out, and he'd do something about it.
CHAPTER 14
I'm leaving him. This time, I'm actually going to leave him.
It had been the last thought in Janet's mind last night, and it was still there as the alarm dragged her out of sleep that morning. She started to get out of bed, then stopped.
Something had changed.
She listened.
Nothing in the house sounded different. A mockingbird was singing in the yard outside, not quite drowning out a rooster crowing in the distance, and when she went to the window, she saw only a sunny morning, the soft blue of the sky broken by a few fluffy clouds. Her gaze dropped to the landscape around the house, and as she focused on the kudzu that had wrapped itself around every growing thing in the yard, a wave of claustrophobia broke over her. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, and her arms—no, her whole body—were wrapped in layers of cloth from which she couldn't free herself. Dear God, what was happening to her? She was suffocating; she could hardly move—
No! She wasn't suffocating. It was only the kudzu. And once the house and the yard were free of it—She cut off the thought, refusing even to finish it.
Out, she reminded herself. I'm getting out. She turned away from the window and surveyed the room. Most of her clothes were still packed in the boxes they'd brought from Shreveport. Most of the kids' things were still packed as well. Would all those cartons fit into the Toyota? And she'd have to repack some suitcases....
The Toyota! Where was it?
She whirled back to the window and gazed down at the empty space where Ted had parked the car when he'd finally come home yesterday.
Had he put it in the carriage house?
Of course not—he'd left it outside, and spent the rest of the evening drinking. By the time she'd finally told him she was leaving, he'd been barely able to stand up, let alone—
Abruptly, she understood.
If he took the car, she couldn't take it herself. Her moment of panic when she'd seen that the car was gone dissolved into anger. How drunk must he have been to think that taking the car would keep her here?
Far too drunk to drive.
A stab of fear jabbed through her anger, and she sagged back down onto the bed, her roiling emotions draining the energy out of her. Automatically, she reached for the phone by the bed. How many times had she done this? How many times had she called the police, called the hospitals, even called the morgue, looking for her husband?
She couldn't even count them.
It wasn't until she'd started dialing the old-fashioned Princess phone on the nightstand that she remembered it wasn't hooked up. The telephone man was supposed to come today.
This morning, or this afternoon?
She couldn't remember.
And suddenly she didn't care.
Get through it, she told herself. Just get dressed, fix some breakfast, get the kids off to school, and get through it. He'll come back. He always does. And when he does...
When he did, she would be ready. She'd have a suitcase packed, and one for the kids, and as soon as he showed up, she'd take the car, and that would be that. She'd put Molly and Scout in the backseat, pick up the kids at St. Ignatius, and they'd be gone.
Pulling on her robe, she lifted Molly—who was rubbing her eyes sleepily—out of her crib, unlocked the bedroom door, and carried her youngest daughter down to the kitchen. Kim had already started a pot of coffee and was getting cereal and milk out of the refrigerator.
But there was no sign of Jared, who was usually up even earlier than Kim.
"Where's your brother?" she asked.
Kim's eyes clouded and she shrugged her shoulders. "Still asleep, I guess," she said. The listlessness in her voice spoke far more clearly than the words she had uttered.
They'd heard it all, Janet thought. They both heard the whole thing. "I guess you know I've decided to leave your father," she said carefully.
Kim turned to look at her. "You mean we're going back to Shreveport?"
Janet hesitated, then nodded. Now that Kim had spoken the words out loud, she realized that this time she really did mean it. She bit her lip, trying to hold back tears, but couldn't hold them back any longer. "I just can't take it anymore," she said, crying softly now. "I can't, and you and Jared can't, either. I don't know what we're going to do, but I don't know what else to do. I—" Janet sank into one of the kitchen chairs as Molly began crying, too.
Kim lifted her little sister out of her mother's arms. "It'll be okay, Mom," she said as Molly calmed down. "We'll figure it out. Jared and I can get jobs after school—"
She stopped abruptly, and Janet realized someone else had just come into the room. No, she said silently to herself. Don't let it be Ted. Not now. Not right now. Just give me a little time. But when she turned, she saw that it wasn't Ted, it was Jared.
Her son stood in the doorway, his worn denim jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder. His head was cocked and his eyes were fixed on Kim.
"What do you mean, we'll get jobs after school?" Jared asked.
Janet opened her mouth, but it was Kim who spoke. "Mom says we're going back to Shreveport. After last night—"
"Yeah, right," Jared cut in, rolling his eyes scornfully. "Mom's not going anywhere. None of us are." With a derisive toss of his head, he turned away. "See you at school."
He was gone before either Kim or Janet could speak. The front door slammed. As Molly began crying again, Janet once more struggled to control her own tears. "Oh, God," she said, her voice breaking as the turmoil of emotions she'd been through since she'd awakened overwhelmed her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. How could I have put you both through all of this?" She buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
"It'll be all right, Mom," she heard her daughter say, Kim's hand on her shoulder. "As soon as we get out of here, everything will be all right."
Fifteen minutes later, after cleaning up the kitchen, Kim left the house for St. Ignatius.
It wasn't until she was halfway there that it hit her.
Not once had she walked to school alone, she realized. Always before, until this morning, Jared had been with her.
But not today.
Today she was walking by herself.
But it was more than that: today she couldn't even find Jared in that strange corner of her mind where, for as long as she could remember, she'd always felt his presence, always felt a connection to her twin.
Today, that connection was gone.
Today, she was truly by herself.
CHAPTER 15
The problem with being mayor of St. Albans—or anyplace else, for that matter—was that you had to be nice to everyone, whether you liked them or not. And with the man who now sat across from Phil Engstrom, who had held the office of mayor for ten years, and fully intended to hold it for at least twenty more, the problem became a double-edged sword. Mayor Engstrom's visitor that morning was Father MacNeill, who was not only a constituent—though the priest regularly assured him that the Church was always above politics—but was Phil Engstrom's confessor, as well. The cleric invariably provided the extra emphasis to the word always in his disclaimer of any church interest in local politics, as if somehow that would convince Engstrom of the statement's veracity. The fact that Phil had never particularly liked MacNeill only added to the problem, but at least this morning nothing so important as his soul was at stake. Of course, his dislike of the priest had long ago made him less than candid in the confessional. That, he thought, combined with his recent yearnings to skip mass entirely in favor of putting in eighteen holes at the new course up in Valhalla, had undoubtedly already condemned him to an eternity in purgatory, or worse. Now, as the priest finally came to the point after ten minutes of small talk to which Engstrom had made all the proper responses, he put
on his best look of concerned interest.
"It just doesn't seem that the old Conway house is the right place for a hotel," the priest said. "It's always been a residential area, and if we allow one commercial enterprise to take root there, how can we protect the integrity of the neighborhood?"
Engstrom leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers over a belly that had lately been suffering from a little too much of his wife's perfectly fried chicken. "I'm not exactly sure I'm followin' your interest in all this," he said, sweetening his voice with a little extra drawl and putting on a look of vague confusion. "Sort of seems like fixin' the old Conway place up would be good for the community. Pretty old house like that—seems a shame to just let it go to the kudzu, now doesn't it? And now's I think about it, it's not really in any specific neighborhood, is it? Not too many houses out there on Pontchartrain, and it's at the end of the street, kinda set off by itself, so it doesn't hardly seem like much of a variance would have to be made." Something flashed over the priest's face that Phil Engstrom couldn't quite put his finger on. "'Course, if there's somethin' I don't know about, I'm sure here to listen." He gave the priest a smile.
"Just like you're always there to hear me out when I been less than the man I'd like to be, right?"
Father MacNeill returned the smile, but Engstrom felt no warmth from it. "It is a lovely old house," the priest agreed, but something in his voice warned the mayor what was coming next. "But I'm not sure the Conways are the kind of people we want to encourage."
Aha! Engstrom thought. Now we get to the grits. "An' why might that be?" he asked. "Ya'll know somethin' about 'em that the rest of us don't?"
