Crooked House (16 page)

When he was done he put the briefcase on the scale between them.

“You’re checking that?” she asked. “You’re allowed two carry-ons.”

“Got to,” he said
. “I got my pistol in there.”

She didn’t even bat an eyelash
. “What’s your destination?”

“Texas, ma’am
. San Antonio.”

“It’s not loaded, is it?”

“Oh, no ma’am. Got to be careful with a firearm. Sure wouldn’t want any accidents.”

December 22

The morning after the Anson’s Christmas party the Bell family set up their tree in the downstairs library
. Sarah had Robert bring in the boxes of ornaments from the garage and she and Angela got down on the floor and began sorting them. The tree was smaller this year than the one they’d had in Gainesville, and not everything was going to be able to find a home on the branches.

“What about these, Mommy?” Angela said, holding up a box of clear glass bells, each painted with a different scene from “The Night Before Christmas.”

Sarah
thought about them, frowning. They were cheap looking, and they’d never been favorites of hers. They were gifts from one of Robert’s faculty buddies back in Florida, one of the biggest pompous windbags she’d ever met, and over the years they’d lost a few and broken a few and now they only had fourteen of the original two dozen.

She glanced back at Robert to see if had anything to say about the matter and of course he didn’t
. He was still staring at the tree – or rather, through it – lost in his own head.

Sarah
turned back to Angela, gave her a look that said, “Well...” and was delighted to see Angela smile back. It happened less and less as Angela got older, but there were still times, like now, that Sarah and her daughter could connect at a core level with just a word, or even a shared smile. Warmth moved through Sarah and she beamed at her daughter. Even with all this madness going on around them, a simple little moment like this, just a smile, could erase all the frustration and uncertainty and even heartache. At least for a time.

She glanced at Robert, and her fingers went to her throat, where her shell casing necklace usually hung
. She’d taken it off for the party last night and hadn’t put it on this morning, and now she could feel its absence.

“Mommy?”

“Hmm?” Sarah said, and then caught herself. “Oh, yeah. Here, I’ll take them.”

She took the box of glass bells from Angela and extended them to Robert
. He made no sign of noticing.

“Robert, will you put those back for me, please?”

He took the box from her without comment and put it in one of the packing boxes. Sarah watched him for a second, and just like that her good mood was gone. This house, she thought, it’s like some kind of black hole. It just sucks the life out of you. It was certainly doing that to Robert, and it came pretty close to doing it to that poor girl from the night before.

W
hat a wreck that had been.

And she had no idea what she was going to say to Jean Bernall when she heard about the girl’s experience.

Robert would be no help there. She hadn’t said anything to him last night or this morning about what happened when she took the babysitter home, and he hadn’t asked. Of course, there wouldn’t have been much to tell even if h
e
ha
d
asked. Kaylie rode the whole way back to her apartment curled against the passenger door, sobbing to herself. Sarah had tried to engage the girl in conversation, get her to tell her something about what happened, but the closest Sarah got to an explanation was a sniffle and a confused, frightened glimpse from Kaylie’s bloodshot brown eyes. It was enough to silence Sarah the rest of the car ride, and when she finally dropped Kaylie off at her apartment, Sarah had to practically force her pay for the evening into the girl’s hands.

So it was just as well that Robert hadn’t asked.

It wouldn’t have gotten them anywhere. He’d been doing the silent routine since she got home, not intentionally avoiding her, but acting remote and disconnected. When she spoke to him, she was lucky to get a nod or a grunt. He seemed preoccupied, not so much lost in thought as genuinely lost. And the sad thing was the party really had seemed like the very thing they needed, like a reset or something. She’d had a great time, and though Robert spent most of the night talking to that prim-looking little fat man, he seemed to be more engaged than he had since he first described Crook House to her.

But that window was closed now
. He was back to staring off into nothing.

And scratching.

She forced her attention back on Angela. “So, I saw all the microwave popcorn in the kitchen. You guys ate like four bags, huh? Little piggy.”

“Mommy.”

“Did you like Miss Kaylie? Did you at least have fun?”

“Oh sure,” Angela said
. For a moment she looked so mature, so much older than she really was. She looked that way when she was serious. “Miss Kaylie’s nice. She’s pretty. But I don’t think she’s going to be coming back here again.”

“What makes you say that?”
Sarah said, forcing a level tone.

“She went into that room at the top of the stairs
. The bad room I told you about. I think it scared her pretty bad.”

What
Sarah wanted to ask was: Have you been in that room? What do you know about it? But she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that, and instead she asked: “Why do you suppose she did that? Weren’t you guys downstairs all night?”

Angela nodded
. “It doesn’t matter though, Mommy. It calls to you. The room, I mean.”

Sarah
glanced at Robert, then back to her daughter. She was on the verge of breaking out in a cold sweat. She could feel her heart beating against her ribs and her hands going numb.

“Does it...does it call to you, Angela?”

The girl shook her head. “It doesn’t like me.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t like you?”

“I hear voices up there sometimes, mean voices.”

“Do you know whose voice it is?”

“She keeps calling herself Mommy. It’s not you though. It’s somebody else, somebody mean, angry.”

“No, baby, it’s definitely not me.”

She wanted to reach out and take Angela in her arms, but just then Robert got up and walked out of the room.

“Robert?”

“Getting some orange juice,” he muttered without turning around.

She watched him go
. Angela was pulling little golden balls from a box and hanging them on the tree, humming a song to herself as she worked. The ornaments were pretty, the way they caught the morning light and sparkled. What a contrast to all the weirdness she’d dealt with this last week. Between the voices and the weird smells, Robert’s incessant scratching and Angela’s getting lost inside the house, and her own weird vision up in that room, that awful room, Sarah felt more than ever that she didn’t belong her. For too long now the strangeness of it had just simply shut her up, kept her quiet, but not anymore.

“Angela,” she said, “I’m going to go make us a snack
. What do you say to some cheese cubes and carrot sticks?”

Angela shrugged
. “Okay.”

Sarah
went into the kitchen and found Robert drinking orange juice from the carton.

“Hey Robert, you mind if I ask you something?”

He mopped his lips with the back of his hand and turned to face her, the fridge still open. “Sure,” he said, though his tone seemed strange, like he was mocking her with his own private joke. “What’s on your mind?”

This is stupid, she thought
. He’s going to tell you it’s stupid.

“I want to get some video cameras and put them around the house
. You know, like in those movies.”

He put the orange juice back in the fridge.

“I’m not following you.”

“Like in those movies, you know?”

“No, what in the hell are you talking about?”

There was such sarca
sm, such loathing, in his tone. It shocked her. She recoiled from him and her hand once again went to where the shell casing had once dangled from her neck.

“God damn it,
Sarah, stop making me guess. What the hell are you getting on about?”

“I want,” she said, and caught herself
. She took a breath and looked him in the eye. He wasn’t going to bully her on this. Not a chance. “I want to put some video cameras around the house. In Angela’s old room, maybe in your study, and in that room at the top of the stairs.”

He’d been looking at his feet up to that point, but when she mentioned the room at the top of the stairs, his gaze locked onto hers.

She didn’t look away.

“I think it’s important.”

“Why?”

“Why
? Robert, seriously? Something’s happening in this house. Something’s in – ”

“Yeah, I know something’s happening in this house
. You know what it is? I’ll tell you what it is. I can’t get a – ”

“Robert, don’t shout at me.”

“And don’t fucking interrupt me. Jesus, I fucking hate that. You’d think a man could fucking talk in his own house when he felt like it.”

“Robert, please
. This isn’t you. This isn’t us.”

He rolled his eyes in disgust
. “Whatever.”

“Robert, I think...I think we need to do this
. Something is happening in this house. You feel it, don’t you? You feel that we’re not...alone here. This house is...”

“Is what
? Spit it out. You think we live in a haunted house? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Well, Robert, I...don’t you?
” She waited, and when he didn’t speak, she said, “Robert, I know you’ve felt things here. This house, that room up there...”

“I
t’s nothing.”

She shook her head and hugged herself
. “I don’t believe that. And I know you don’t either.”

He looked away.

“Robert, I’m gonna get those video cameras.”

He laughed
. “With what? We’re broke, remember?”

“We have four hundred in the account.”

“Which I owe to Verizon for our cell phones.” Under his breath he added: “It’s more than that, actually.”

“You can pay them next month
. You get paid on the first.”

“Yeah, and
that money’s already spent on other bills.”

“I’m not gonna argue with you about money, Robert
. I want to do this because of what Angela told me just now, about that room up there.”

He turned back to the fridge and started rummaging around for something to eat.

“Would you stop that please?”

He pulled out the milk and the eggs and a bag of parsley and went back to rooting around in the fridge.

“Robert, please. Would you stop that and look at me?”

“What don’t you get?” he said
. “We’re broke. How hard is that to understand?”

“Please
. I’m asking you to look at me.”

He slammed the refrigerator door closed and wheeled on her, his arms folded across his chest
. “Well?”

“Angela told me she’s hearing voices upstairs
. She says whatever it is up there doesn’t like her.”

“That’s it?”

“Robert, that’s...that’s not normal. You know that.”

“Hearing voices is not normal, I agree.”

“I mean, it’s supernatural. It’s not normal.”

“That doesn’t follow from what you said, but whatever.”

“How come you’re being like this?”

“Like what?
” He waved that away. “No, never mind. You want to do the whol
e
Ghostbuster
s
thing. Okay, fine. You have any idea what you’re doing? Seriously, do you know the first fucking thing about ghosts? And I’m not talking about what you saw on some stupid ass TV show. Do you know the first fucking thing about ghosts, yes or no?”

“Robert, your daughter
– ”

“Is not the one I’m fucking talking to at the moment
. I’m talking to the woman who’s about to send me into fucking bankruptcy court because she wants to do her own reality show about ghosts.” He wheeled around, pretending to be scared, mocking her viciously now. “What was that? Did you see that? Something brushed against my shoulder.” He laughed, a cruel sound. “That’s it, Sarah. Go stand in that room up there and do that a few times for the camera. That’s all those guys on the ghost hunting shows do. Better yet, go put on some flimsy little outfit and film yourself with your tits hanging out. It worked for Jennifer Love Hewitt, it should work for you too.”