House of Skin (37 page)

Barlow watched her go, then returned his stony gaze to Paul.

“Your time’s almost up. I find anything to tie you to Brand, Applegate, your ex-girlfriend, you’re done.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” he said.

The door slammed shut. A moment later, the cruiser rumbled and drove away.

Paul went to the bar and got his drink. Then, he went upstairs to search for Julia. She wasn’t in the library. Nor was she in the master suite. Then he saw the shut door of the master bath, the tiny sliver of light shining beneath the door.

Sipping his drink, he waited for her. To pass the time he counted the seconds as they ticked off the grandfather clock in the hallway. He was glad he’d wound it. It enhanced the ambience of the old house.

When the clock struck three in the morning he realized he’d been asleep. He heard the latch click on the bathroom door.

Julia stepped into the room.

Paul sat straight up in bed, his drink spilling.

“How do you like it?” Julia said.

Paul tried to answer but could not. The light blue dress—the same dress Annabel wore in the painting—was too tight for Julia, but he knew the sight of her cleavage bulging over the top of it should have turned him on. It would have, too, if not for the smell that still attended the dress. And though he knew the fragrance couldn’t be familiar, it was just the same: Annabel’s perfume.

The dress slithering over her skin, Julia stepped toward him with a voracious look in her green eyes. “Now rip it off me,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-One

July, 1996

Myles slid out the drawer and bent to see inside. Newspaper clippings and faded photographs. The moonlight was too dim to see them by, but he dare not risk turning on the light. Annabel was beyond hurting him in her weakened state, but he’d still rather her not know of his snooping.

He watched her motionless form on the bed. Her body was bent and sunken with the disease, her limbs little more than flesh-covered sticks. How she’d lived so long he’d never know. She hadn’t been out of bed without a wheelchair in over a year.

Yet she still frightened him.

Myles gathered what he’d found and stole out of the room.

Inside the office he shut the door and listened. Satisfied he’d not been discovered, he flipped on the desk lamp and studied what he’d taken.

The pictures were all of Annabel. Seldom was anyone else featured. He or David popped up here and there, as did other men she’d bedded, but most of them were Annabel by herself. She stared at the camera, through time, straight at him.

Something rustled.

He whirled, standing, and stared at the closed door. Was Annabel on the other side watching him through the keyhole?
 

His heart pounding, Myles reached out, twisted the knob.

Darkness.

Peering left and right down the shadow-filled corridor he could see nothing save empty space. He shut the door and cursed himself for being so skittish. Seventy years old and acting like a frightened child.

A stack of papers, clipped together and brown with age, drew his attention. He riffled through them and saw they were the obituaries of the dead children, the children his brother had murdered. Murdered for Annabel.

Under the child obits were others—Maria Ustane, Jane Trask, Barbara Merrow, others he’d forgotten. He set the clippings aside and studied the pictures. They went back to Annabel’s teenage years, apparently. In them she gazed at the camera, that strange knowing look in her eyes.

The rustling came again.

As he turned it got louder, and instead of reminding him of autumn leaves scraping together in a pile, this time he thought of thick little claws clicking on plaster, black rodents teeming inside the walls, pink tails trailing heavily behind them.

What the hell?

One didn’t go from a pest-free house to complete infestation over the course of a few minutes. But that was exactly how it sounded, the walls around him alive with black wiry hair and sharp fangs.

Repulsed, Myles started to leave. He was out the door before he remembered he’d forgotten the desk light. As he reached out to extinguish the lamp, the chorus of rats grew louder, their noxious symphony swelling.

Then, something caught his eye.

Another, thinner stack of clippings sat untouched on the desk. More obituaries. These names, though, were unfamiliar to him. What was more, the dates on them were over a century old. Why on earth had she collected these, and why throw them in with things relating to her?
 

Then he saw it.

A picture of Annabel in the newspaper. Atop a large yacht, she stood next to a man, her slender body leaning out over the water, his large hands supporting her. The caption read
Robert and Annabel Wilson at the Wintergem Yacht Club
. In the upper corner of the clipping, the date:

May Fifteenth, 1889.

Myles turned.

Annabel stood in the doorway.

He cried out, attempted to hide the clipping.

She smiled.

Myles struggled to control his breathing, to play off being caught, but her smile burned into him.

He forced himself to return her gaze. “What are you doing out of bed?”

She watched him.

He fought the urge to bolt past her into the hall, down the stairs and out the door.

He said, “You should be in bed.”

“I’m in bed all day. I want to spend the night with my husband.”

Myles stared at the scarlet moons under her eyes where the flesh was paper thin, felt his skin prickle.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll take you back to your bed.”

He led her into the hall, forcing himself to touch her back. The ribs there stuck out like kite frames, her vertebrae so pronounced they raised her yellowed nightdress like children’s blocks beneath a blanket.

He got her into bed and was about to leave when she said, “Stay with me, Myles.”

He opened his mouth to protest.

“Stay with me, Myles,” she repeated.

He got into bed beside her, held his breath against the fetid odors of mildew and dirty diapers. The nurse did a terrible job keeping Annabel clean, but she was cheap and he was finished spending money on his dying wife. He wondered how long it had been since the last sheet change.

“You took my portrait down.”

He sat up on an elbow and stared down at her. Her eyes were shiny and black in the scarce light.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Where is it?”

He studied the taut skin covering her cheekbones, an olive tent held in place by bony stakes.

“Tell me something, Annabel.”

“Mm.”

He tried to keep his voice from shaking. “One thing about that portrait always bothered me.”

When no reply came, he went on, “You put that painting in the library when you and David married.”

An almost imperceptible nod. He realized she was nearly asleep.

“Where did you say it came from?” he asked.

She said something, but he couldn’t make it out.

“I always wondered that,” he went on. “You said your parents commissioned the painting, that you owned the dress. But if your family was as poor as you said they were, how could they afford it? A dress like that, old-fashioned and silky, all those ruffles. It must have cost them an arm and a leg.”

Annabel lay still.

Myles said, “And the artist, the guy who drew you. How much did he charge your parents?”

“My parents didn’t pay for it.”

“But you said they did. You told David that. You told me too.”

“Did I.” It wasn’t a question. In a voice so faint he scarcely heard her, she said, “It’s been so long I don’t remember anymore.”

“I remember,” Myles said, lying back. “I remember you showing up at our house in those old-fashioned clothes. The other women made fun of you. At first.”

He waited.

“Where did you get those clothes, Annabel? Why didn’t we ever meet your parents? Not even at the weddings. It was almost as though they didn’t exist.”

He waited for an answer, but her breathing was deep and restful.

He lay there watching her a long time.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Their lovemaking was awkward, frustrated. As they lay there afterward, he said, “I don’t want us to act like anyone else. I want us to be us.”

“Who says we aren’t?”
 

“I don’t know.” He scratched the underside of his jaw. “But don’t you feel strange now, like we’re doing things for the wrong reasons?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

He took a breath. “Julia, why did you wear that dress?”

“Because I felt like it.”

“Okay, but why did you feel like it.”

She looked at him, eyes narrowed. “What are you asking me?”

He opened his mouth and shut it. A few moments passed before he said, “I don’t think we’re in control anymore.”

She looked away. “That’s ridiculous.”
 

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you’re acting normally.”

“What is normal?”

“I don’t know what normal is, but I can sure as hell tell you what normal isn’t. It isn’t losing control in a bar…”

“Paul—” she said, but he was going on.

“…or beating the shit out of people and enjoying it. It isn’t telling off the sheriff—”

“So who is in control?” she demanded. “If we aren’t, who is?”

He shook his head, unable to meet her eyes.

He said, “Tell me you haven’t had dreams about her lately.”

She opened her mouth. Then, she looked away.

“Tell me you haven’t been thinking of her.”

She would not meet his gaze.

“Tell me she’s not getting ahold of us.”

“You want to know why I wore her dress?”

“If you wanna tell me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hell yes, I’m sure.”

“Do you really think I don’t know where you go in the middle of the night?”

Paul opened his mouth.

But Julia went on, “Do you really think I don’t know about your fascination with her?”

His stomach was a knot, and though he wished to say something, he knew that nothing would make the situation better.

Julia said, “So I thought I’d save you your late night trips down the hallway by acting more like her myself.”

Paul didn’t respond, instead stared down at his hands. The silence drew out. Dawn was beginning to show through the windowpanes, and the milky light slanting onto her pretty face helped undo some of the effect her dress had had on him. Her body fuller, more voluptuous than Annabel’s, she was definitely her own, not a copy of the dead woman. Julia sat in the window seat.

“What did you and Sam talk about?” she asked.

“The disappearances.”
 

“The lawyer and the deputy,” she said.

“And my ex-girlfriend.”

He saw her face cloud. Something in his mind clicked.

“Julia,” he said.

Without looking at him, she answered, “Yes?”

“What do you know about Emily’s disappearance?”

“Nothing.”
 

“Then why are you frowning?” he asked.

She took a deep breath, then shuddered as she let it out. “Because I saw you two together.”

Paul shook his head. “But there’s something else.”

“Paul—”

“Something else you’re not telling me.”
 

She regarded him, and for a while, neither spoke.

Then, she said, “What do you want to know?”

He swallowed. “Everything.”

Her gaze intense, she said, “Have you told me everything?”

“I’m sure I haven’t,” he admitted.

“Tell me then.”

“I didn’t write the novels.”

“You didn’t tell me there was a second one.”

“You’re in it.”

She stared.

“You were only a child when I stopped…transcribing it, I guess.”

“What did I do in the novel?”

“Nothing. You were only a child.”

“You’re serious about this.”

“I read,” he swallowed the lump in his throat. “I read about what Annabel did to your mother.”