Part 36 (1/2)

I'll be unnerved by this woman forever, she thought.

The puzzle was really something. He had it about halfway done. She was rusty on her art history but it was either Bosch or Brengel. Angels wielding swords and spears against a fleeing horde of surreal-looking monsters-toad-things, fish-things, things being hatched out of eggs. She picked up the box and read the cover and looked at the completed painting. Breugel. The Fall of the Rebel Angels. Brussels, 1562. Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts.

Pretty wild stuff.

She kissed him on top of the head.

”Hi, Mom,” he said.

”Hey, you're doing pretty good there.”

”Yeah, but it's taking forever.”

”So? No rush, right?”

”I got one more hour and then Gramma wants the table back.”

”We'll transfer it to something, don't worry. Where'd you let this, anyway?”

”Dad ... Gramma ... um, it was Daddy's.”

It was as though he'd said too much. He blushed. He went back to fiddling with the puzzle.

”It was Daddy's when he was a boy?”

He nodded.

”What'd they do, pull it out of the attic for you?” He nodded again.

Silence. Silence once again.

Dammit. What the h.e.l.l was going on?

Ruth walked in with the towel.

”Here,” she said. She glanced at the puzzle and smiled thinly and then she left the room.

Lydia toweled dry her hair. The towel had an unpleasant musty odor. She wondered when it had last been washed.

Whether all Ruth's towels smelled like that or if this one had been specially selected for her.

”Have you heard from your father?”

He shook his head again, staring down at the puzzle, turning a piece of it between his fingers, looking for a place to fit it in.

”Everything okay?”

He nodded.

”You sure?”

He nodded again.

”Hey. I miss you. You know? The house is pretty big and awful quiet without you.”

She saw him draw a quick breath. The piece of the puzzle stopped turning in his hand. The tip of his thumb went white where he was holding it.

For G.o.d's sake, she thought. What are you doing? Torturing him?

”We'll get you back there real soon, I promise.”

She ran her hands over his shoulders and kissed the top of his head again.

”Want some help with that?”

She pulled out a chair and sat down.

They stared at the puzzle and at the pieces of the puzzle. An hour later it was still not finished and they had said barely ten more words to each other.

When she went outside it was almost dark and the rain had stopped. It lay in s.h.i.+ning black puddles on the pitted drive. She stepped around them and got into the car and started it.

As she pulled away she gazed again at the second floor window. The curtain was still. The room was dark.

But something about it felt wrong and it took her only a moment to realize that it could not have been Ruth at the window earlier because Ruth was at the door and it could not have been Robert either.

So if Harry was still at the store-as he usually was until just before dinnertime-who was at the window?

She drove by the store to check and pulled into the parking lot in front of it. She could see Harry's young a.s.sistant inside sitting alone at the register but not Harry. His pickup wasn't there. But then it hadn't been over at the house either.

She didn't like what she was thinking.

What she was thinking could make her crazy.

But it was possible. It would not be smart and arguably not even sane but it was possible.

It all depended on exactly how arrogant these people actually were. On how much they thought they could get away with.

She was going to watch this carefully. Watch it like a G.o.dd.a.m.n hawk.

Starting tonight.

Thirty-five.

Only Child