Part 18 (1/2)
”I'm telling you, I haven't been up there all day. You can ask Joey if you don't believe me.”
”I never said I didn't believe you, I'm just--”
”Obviously you don't,” she said, ”if you're standing here arguing with me over whether I was upstairs when I've just told you how many times I haven't been.”
Jack set his food on the table, closed his eyes, and took a breath.
”I'm not saying you're lying,” he said. ”I'm just saying when I got out of the car, I saw a light on up there and then it went out. That's all.”
”Well I don't know where it came from,” Liz said, ”'cause it wasn't me.”
”Fine. Then there's some other explanation for it. We'll figure it out later.”
He sat on the couch, unwrapped his sandwich and set it on the armrest. Joey came back from the bathroom, climbed into his chair at the kitchen table and Liz sat across from him. She wanted to tell Jack she could explain it easily. There were ghosts in the house, mainly on the third floor. But she could also easily predict his response. He'd dismiss that quicker than if she'd said a million fireflies had invaded the third floor.
After dinner, Joey took his bath while Liz folded laundry. Jack went upstairs. Liz wanted to tell him not to bother, but she knew he wouldn't listen. Jack unable to explain something was Jack on a mission.
He stopped on the second floor and admired everything Liz had done to it. As far as he could tell, this floor was finished. He knew she had more decorating to do, a number of other little things to get to liven up the s.p.a.ce, but overall, he was ready to move their things up here.
Then he went upstairs. He turned on the bathroom light, then propped open the door and headed into the front two rooms where he'd seen the light. The bathroom gave light to one room, but the other was s.h.i.+elded from it in the corner of the house. He walked into the corner room, searching the floor for a flashlight, a desk lamp, a candle, anything. But Liz was right; the room was empty.
Maybe it was the streetlight, he thought. It could have been the streetlight s.h.i.+ning on the window and when I moved toward the house, the angle from which I was viewing it changed and I didn't catch the light anymore. I guess that might be it.
Going back toward the center room, he noticed a large crack running down the door to the corner room. He stopped and inspected it, trying to move it into the light, but the door swung the other way and no matter which way he looked or moved, or how he tried to position the door, he couldn't see as clearly as he wanted. But he could see enough to know the wood was split.
”Man, I don't remember that,” he mumbled.
He closed the door and headed back downstairs, still not completely convinced it was the streetlight he'd caught reflecting off the gla.s.s.
Chapter Twelve.
The next day, Joey's naptime dream found him on the third floor again. And again he was in the corner room with the other children. The house rumbled around him as the man searched its corners and nooks while Joey hid upstairs, knowing he'd be found in seconds, but unable to make himself leave the room. He looked around at the other children and realized he knew them. Not from his old school in Houston, nor from the park, he didn't know how he knew them, but he did. And it wasn't just in the way you know strange people in dreams, he knew he'd seen them before. But where? The girl, he knew where he'd seen her--she was the one from his dreams about the park--but the others. He'd seen them in his dreams before, but he knew them from somewhere else, too.
There were two doors in the corner room and when the man barged through one, kicking it open and splitting it in two pieces, Joey finally found his legs again and darted out the other one. The girl grabbed his shoulder and Joey tried to jerk away from her, but her grip was too strong. He looked back and saw her thrusting something at him.
”Take it, Adam,” she said.
He s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her hands and took off, through the center room, and down the stairs. He glanced down and found she'd given him a rag doll.
Then the man's fingers closed around Joey's s.h.i.+rt and he was yanked off his feet. He dropped the doll and looked up to see the man sneering down at him. His eyes were yellow and bulging. Then Joey woke up.
He lay there, trying not to cry from the nightmare, and wondering why he still had to take naps every day.
The first thing Jack did when he came home that night was head upstairs. He came in the front door and walked quietly up. It wasn't that he didn't believe Liz, but he'd spent the day trying to convince himself he'd probably seen the streetlight and he couldn't do it. Because he didn't believe it really was the streetlight, but that didn't give him any other explanations for the light he'd seen. He didn't know what he thought he might find by sneaking upstairs. Liz wouldn't leave anything up there that might prove him right. Still, he had to check one last time.
He hadn't known what to expect, but he sure as h.e.l.l didn't expect to find the door to the corner room lying broken on the floor. The half that was still attached hung crooked by one hinge. The other half lay on the floor, halfway across the room.
He stood there staring at it, numb from anger.
”Who the f.u.c.k did this?” he whispered. He looked around the room. Granted, they didn't use this floor, and they didn't know if they ever would, so a broken door was no big loss, really. But it was the principle. ”You just don't go around breaking doors,” he said to the house. ”What the f.u.c.k was she thinking?” Why would she even do something like that? And how? Liz was no wuss, but you don't just break a door in half.
It was cracked last night, he reminded himself. Had Liz done that? Had she been trying to break the door for some reason? No, he couldn't convince himself there was any reason in the world to want that. But there was evidence, lying in the middle of the room.
No, he argued back, that wasn't evidence of any kind of motive, that only showed it had been done. But why? He had no choice but to confront her.
He headed back downstairs, lost his traction when he slipped on something lying on the stairs, and hit his tailbone on the edge of a step.
”f.u.c.k!” he grunted.
He got up, rubbed his tailbone, and looked around to find what he'd slipped on.
It was a doll. He didn't remember Joey having any dolls like this. This was a girl's doll.
He grabbed it and headed downstairs, rubbing his tailbone until he rounded the bottom landing.
Liz was in the kitchen rolling pieces of chicken into croissants. Jack tossed the doll onto the counter.
”You left this upstairs.”
Liz glanced at it, then went back to the food. ”That's not mine.”
”I know that. I a.s.sume it's Joey's.”
”I don't think so. I've never seen it before.”
”Neither have I, but I don't recall having any other kids.”
Liz shrugged. Then she asked, ”Did you say I left it upstairs?”
Jack took a c.o.ke from the refrigerator. ”Uh-huh.”
”Where upstairs?”
”Third floor stairs.”
Liz put the chicken aside and looked at the doll. She didn't pick it up; she didn't want to touch it. ”I've never seen it before.”
”Then Joey left it up there.”
”Ask him.”
Jack got a cookie, bit off half, and said, ”I'm going to.”
It's not his, Liz thought. He won't know where it came from any more than I do. I wish I could tell you what's going on, Jack. I'm not entirely sure myself anyway.
”But the doll's not what's bothering me the most,” he said.