Disappearing Acts (11 page)

“Well...”

“What? Tell me!”

“It's probably nothing.”

“Tell me. Let me decide. I'm an expert on nothings.”

“Remember that wrestler called the Lion King? Remember he actually roared? Remember you said his hair frizzled just like mine?”

“Yes.”

“Well, when I saw the Lion King, I got a premonition.”

“Lion ... lion.” Meat gasped. “The Nemean Lion! I know I'm right about that.”

“Yes, I thought of that, too.” She smiled. “But there are no lions around here so I'm not going to waste my time worrying about it.”

“Me either,” Meat lied. “Anyway,” he added, more for himself than for Herculeah, “if Hercules can overcome his lion, so can Herculeah.”

“Thanks, that was nice. Goodnight, Meat.”

“Goodnight, Herculeah.”

And as she hung up the phone she said thoughtfully, “The Nemean Lion.”

Turn the page for a preview of the newest
HERCULEAH JONES MYSTERY,

Herculeah stopped reading and let the book fall to her lap. “Are you positive this is the book you want me to read?” she asked.

The old man on the bed blinked his eyes once. That meant “yes.”

“Well, I'm getting spooked,” Herculeah said. “Particularly because this house, your house, has a tower attached to it. It's exactly like this one, isn't it?”

One blink. Yes.

“Have you ever been up there?”

Yes.

“What's up there? Oh, I forgot. You can't answer that kind of question. Only yes or no. Is there a room up there?”

Yes.

“Does the tower have circular stairs?”

Yes.

“That was stupid of me. I guess all towers do. Either that or they have a ladder.”

Herculeah glanced out the window. She could see the tower now. It rose, black and forbidding, part of the house and yet somehow separate. Halfway up the tower there were windows. They were slits so deep in the stone that no daylight could come through.

Herculeah paused in thought. Her hands tightened on the book in her lap. The silence continued.

Herculeah had come here to read to Mr. Hunt. Her mother, a private detective, had asked her to do this. Mr. Hunt was, or had been, one of her mother's clients.

“Why was he a client?” Herculeah had asked, instantly curious. “What did he want you to do?”

“That doesn't concern you.”

Herculeah had leaned forward, more interested than ever. “What did he want you to find? That's what all old people want you to do—find someone or something from their past.”

Her mother's wry smile made Herculeah think she had hit the mark.

“So what could it have been?” she went on thoughtfully. “What could have happened? Murder? Was it a murder?” Her gray eyes lit up. “It was murder, wasn't it?”

“Whatever it was happened a long time ago.”

“So it was murder.”

Her mother lifted one hand to silence her. “If you're going to play detective—”

“Mom, I don't
play
detective. I have solved six murders.” She began to count them on her fingers. “Mr. Crewell, Madame Rosa...”

Her mom sighed, and Herculeah discontinued her list. “Oh, all right, what do you want me to do?”

“Just read to him for an hour or so. The man is lonely. He can't move at all since his stroke. He can only blink his eyes—one blink for yes, two for no.”

“How awful! Sure, I'll do it. Actually, I enjoy reading to people. What kind of book would an old man like? Something about old horses, old airplanes, or”—she grinned—“old women? I'll take a bunch of books so he'll have a choice. First thing tomorrow I'll go to the library and load up with books.”

“Oh, there's a huge library at the house. You won't need to take anything.”

“A huge library? This old man has a huge library in his house?”

Her mom hesitated a moment before she answered. “Have you ever heard of Shivers Hunt?”

“Mom! Not
the
Shivers Hunt!”

“There couldn't be but one.”

“Mom, you mean I'd actually get to go inside Haunt House?”

“What?”

“Haunt House. That's what all the kids call it. And, Mom, nobody has ever been inside it. I cannot believe that I'm going to Haunt House.”

“Well, you aren't going unless you stop calling it that.”

“Right! Hunt House!”

“I won't let you go unless you promise you won't do anything to upset Mr. Hunt.”

“I won‘t, I won't! I promise! But I can't help being excited. I, Herculeah Jones, am going inside”—she swallowed the word—“Hunt House.”

But when Herculeah got there, she hadn't been taken to the library to choose a book as she had expected. The nurse took her straight up the stairs to Mr. Hunt's bedroom. The book had already been chosen for her. It was waiting on the table by the old man's bed.

Herculeah picked up the book. She read the title aloud.
“The Terror in Black Tower.
This is what I'm supposed to read?” she asked the nurse.

“Yes, Herculeah. When I told Mr. Hunt that you were coming to read to him, I asked if there was any particular book he'd like. He blinked yes. I must have carried a hundred books up from the library before he finally saw this one and gave a very definite yes.”

Herculeah picked up the book. On the cover, embossed in the black leather, was the silhouette of a tower. It was outlined in gold, but it looked as if someone had rubbed their fingers over the gold, as if to erase the whole tower from sight. It gave the book a sinister look. She rubbed her own fingers over the gold, then stopped abruptly.

“Well, let's get on with it.” She opened the book. “Ready, Mr. Hunt?”

Yes.

Inside, the pages were thick and yellow with age. They smelled of mildew and dark passages and old secrets. Herculeah loved it.

Perhaps, she thought, Mr. Hunt had read the book as a boy, and back then it had seemed scary, probably full of family madness and secret passages and—who knows?—maybe some terror actually had been up in the black tower.

But those things didn't exist in modern times.

They didn't.

She paused.

Or did they?

Herculeah glanced at Mr. Hunt. He was waiting for her to continue. She looked down at the page.

“Where was I? Oh, yes, she's going up the tower steps.” Herculeah smiled. “Actually, this will probably sound foolish to you, Mr. Hunt, but I can understand the girl doing this. I mean, she knows she's not supposed to. She knows there's something up there, something dangerous. But she can't stop herself. That's the way I am. I would do the exact same thing. The only difference would be that at this point my hair would be frizzling. I have radar hair. It gets bigger when I'm in danger. Like this.”

She laughed and fluffed out her hair. Mr. Hunt watched. His bright bird eyes never left her face.

At that moment, her hair actually seemed to be frizzling on its own, as if it were anticipating the day she would climb the tower, the day she—heart racing with fear—not the character in the book, would take those circular stairs.

She patted her hair into place and said, “Oh, here's where we were.” She began to read.

“I'm coming,” she whispered.

The door to the bedroom opened behind Herculeah, and, startled, she spun around.

“Your hour's up, Herculeah,” the nurse said.

“Already? I just started. I've hardly read two pages. I got started talking about myself—I do that all the time. Plus I was getting to the good part. The girl in the book was hearing breathing. I've got to find out what's doing that breathing.”

“Sorry. It'll keep. Tomorrow the print will still be right there waiting for you.”

“I know.” Herculeah sighed. “Actually I read a lot of books, and I've learned that authors save important things—things like what's waiting up in the tower, doing that heavy breathing—until the very end. If I know authors, this one will start a flashback just when she gets to the trapdoor. Then, on the last page—finally, finally—we'll find out what was in the tower.”

“You must do a lot of reading.”

“Yes.”

“But we don't want to tire Mr. Hunt.”

“No. Did I tire you, Mr. Hunt?”

Two blinks. No.

“But did I scare you?”

No.

She laughed. “Well, I scared myself.”

Herculeah folded a ribbon into the book to hold her place. She closed the book and set it on the table.

“I'll be back tomorrow to pick up. Remember where we left off? It's getting ready to storm. The girl heard thunder. It'll be a dark and stormy night when anything can happen.” She gave her words a dramatic reading.

He blinked a forceful yes.

“Dramatic things always happen during storms—though it's dramatic enough with something waiting for her at the top of the tower.”

Another forceful yes.

“Do you know what's up there?”

Yes.

“Because you've read the book before?”

“Time,” the nurse reminded her.

“I have to go.” Herculeah smiled at the old man, his face pale against the pillows, his bright bird eyes trying to tell her something, something important.

The nurse said, “Your friend is waiting for you outside.”

“Meat?”

“I think that's his name. I tried to get him to come inside, but he wouldn't.”

“That's Meat.”

Herculeah almost explained that Meat was afraid of this house, that he half believed the ghost stories that surrounded it, believed the stories that the portraits had holes in the eyes so that someone in a secret passage behind the wall could watch your every move.

“Meat ... Herculeah ...” the nurse said. “What wonderful names!”

“Meat got his because there's a lot of him. I got mine because my mom was watching a Hercules movie when she was waiting for me to be born. Mom was kidding around about naming me Hercules if I was a boy. The nurse said, ‘What about if it's a girl?' Mom said, ‘She'll be Herculeah.' I guess I was lucky. The doctor got in the act and said, ‘How about Samson?' He even sang it, ‘Oh, Samson-ya!'” She laughed. “Anyway, everyone who knows me says it suits.”

“I only met you this afternoon,” the nurse said, “but I think it suits you, too.”

As they moved into the hall, Herculeah said, “You know, I can't stop wondering why he chose this book.” She smiled. “Although I'm always looking for the reasons people do things.”

“I wondered about that, too.”

“Really?”

“Because I've had other patients like Mr. Hunt, patients who have been deprived of everything but their minds. And it seems that another sense has been heightened. They seem to know what's ahead, the way an animal can sense a storm.”

“Premonitions.”

“Yes. If Mr. Hunt had some way of knowing there would be trouble in that tower, he would have picked this book. Well, I've got to get back to my patient.”

“Right. I'll see you both tomorrow.”

“Oh, I won't be here,” the nurse said, smiling. “New grandchild. A Miss Wegman is taking over for me. Do you need me to show you the way out?”

“No, I remember the way.”

“Because this house has a lot of halls that don't go anywhere and oddly shaped rooms. It's easy to get lost in here.”

“I won't.”

She started down the stairs. She was lost in thought until she glanced at the painting on the wall. It was a family portrait: old man Hunt—Lionus Hunt, who had built the house—his wife, and the four children. Mr. Shivers Hunt was the oldest of the children. Then there was a younger sister and twin girls.

Herculeah paused, half hoping to see someone peering at her through holes in the old man's eyes.