Part 6 (1/2)

”But I haven't even had lunch yet.”

”Yes, you did,” Liz said. ”Now come on, it's naptime. Go pee first.”

”Are you going to take a nap?”

”I don't know. I just might take one after my bath.”

Joey dragged his feet into the bathroom, then across the hall to his bedroom, making whining noises in his throat. He climbed onto his bed and turned toward the wall, still making noises.

”That's enough, Joe,” Liz said.

She filled the tub, then sank into warm water, dunking herself under, closing off the world. She came up, breathed, and wiped water from her face. She rested her head against the back of the tub and let the water surround her.

She was trying to relax and not think about the house or the noises or anything else.

But the voice she'd heard upstairs wouldn't leave her head.

(Forgive me--pant, pant--Forgive me--pant, pant--Forgive me) She'd heard it so clearly, she knew she hadn't imagined it. Had she? Was this the onset of schizophrenia? She couldn't believe that. So who the f.u.c.k was in her house? How did they get in? That was something else to consider. They kept the front door locked. She'd been in the living room all day. The living room was next to the kitchen, so she knew no one had come in the back door. How did they get up there?

She remembered Joey's reaction their first day in the house.

”Who lives up there?” he had asked.

No one. But something was very wrong. Liz's mind began to work the equation, adding in the footsteps last night--they'd walked right past her, she heard them going up the stairs. And that look the cops had exchanged. What was that about?

And there were other things. The phone calls Jack got. And he said he'd heard something thump upstairs.

She lay in the tub, her eyes open, but glazed, as she drifted off into her memory. The room dissolved around her. The yellow walls darkened to stale peach and the ceiling crawled with a billion specks of blurred motion. Liz didn't see any of it.

What she did see was herself on the third floor their first day in the house. Like Jack, Liz had explained the happenings in the house rationally, if not convincingly. Hadn't she heard a scream up there that day? And when she'd fallen asleep while Jack went to the store. Someone had sat on the edge of the bed.

Later, while she was unpacking the bedroom stuff, the front door had opened and closed. Twice.

What else?

The hands that touched her last night, calling her name, asking if they could get into bed with her and Jack. And on the second floor, someone had called her name at least half a dozen times.

All of these things she'd told herself were dreams, because that's what Jack would have done. But she was a horrible liar, especially to herself.

Liz bolted up and climbed out of the tub, wrapping herself in her towel and putting her hand to her face, cradling her chin while she rested the elbow on the other arm. She paced the bathroom, trying to sort out all these memories. How could she not have admitted it before?

Because one of the things she'd fallen in love with Jack for was his mind. He could explain anything and it always made sense, even if the memory of your senses told you otherwise. She loved his rationale and had been trying to emulate that.

But her eyes were open now. The question was how to convince Jack?

He'll rationalize everything you tell him.

She knew that was the truth. Jack's world consisted of facts and right angles and a place for everything.

She stood over the sink, staring into the mirror, trying to figure out what to say to make Jack see what had been happening. Telling him what she'd seen and heard wouldn't do it. But he'd heard things, too. That wouldn't matter, though. Unless it punched him in the b.a.l.l.s, Jack wouldn't accept it. And even then he'd give some other explanation for it.

I just pulled a groin muscle, he'd say.

Liz chuckled, knowing that's probably exactly what he'd say.

She suddenly had an idea. Whether it would do the job or not, she wasn't sure. But it would be a first step, and she wouldn't have to tell Jack a thing.

She smiled at her reflection, proud of herself, but the reflection made her wince back, heart thumping, a lump in her throat.

As soon as possible, she told herself. Do it today if you can.

She turned away and stopped, staring into the tub. She hadn't drained the water when she got out. And though it wasn't making a sound, the water inside was . . . moving, as if with the weight of a body. Someone was in the tub, but Liz couldn't see them. She imagined them seeing her and she s.h.i.+vered again. She looked around at the walls and thought, What the h.e.l.l did we wake up when we came here?

The water stopped moving. She stared at it. A s.h.i.+mmer ran through it, then it stilled again.

Liz stormed out of the bathroom, not bothering to shut off the light, and went into the bedroom. She put on different clothes--the ones she'd been wearing were still in the bathroom, and she wasn't going in after them. It wasn't the water that had made her abandon them. It was that reflection of hers. When she'd smiled at it, she was almost positive it had sneered back. Like it knew something she didn't.

Jack came home a few minutes late that evening, complaining about reed relays and they were supposed to receive eight hundred, but could only find two hundred and that would barely be enough for the day.

Liz had no idea what a reed relay was, nor what it did, but she listened, as she always had when Jack came home. She knew his complaining was a way to get it off his chest. That done, he could come back to reality and live.

”So how was your day?” he asked. ”You work on the house?”

”Not much,” she said.

”We had policemen here, Dad,” Joey chimed in from the floor. Then he made a cras.h.i.+ng noise as his Spider-Man action figure pounded Green Goblin in the face.

Jack looked at Liz. ”The police were here? What for?”

Liz waved it away. ”I was upstairs,” she explained, ”and I thought I heard talking. I mean, I literally heard the voices, loud and clear. I ran downstairs and called the police.”

”And?”

”Well, there was no one here, obviously.”

”Then how did you hear voices if no one was in the house?”

”I don't know,” she said. ”Maybe the television was up louder than I thought and that's what I was hearing.”

”Hmm,” he said. ”Maybe it came up through the vents.”

”Could be,” she said. ”It doesn't really matter. After they came back out and said there was no one in the house, I felt like such a moron.”

He chuckled, then said, ”You're not a moron.”

She kissed him, then went into the kitchen to finish supper.

Jack kissed his son, then disappeared into the bedroom. He was kicking off his shoes and lying down for a few minutes, messing with his guitar. Liz knew his routine as well as he did. She checked the spaghetti. It would be done in a few minutes.

She stirred the pasta and watched the water swirl. She thought of the bathtub and made another mental note to finish calling around tomorrow.