Paradise County (13 page)

She could see nothing, absolutely nothing, not so much as the pillow on which she lay, but she knew that she was awake, that she was not dreaming, that she was not imagining this. It was real. It was happening.

Her terror overwhelmed in an instant by the fierce need to
know,
Alex sat bolt upright and groped for the switch to the bedside lamp. It was one of those lamps with the switch built into the cord. She located the cord with her fingers, followed it a few inches below the level of the bedside table, and found the switch, all in a matter of a few seconds.

Click.
The sound was audible. The breathing seemed to pause in its rhythm, but nothing else changed. The light did not come on.
Click. Click.
She tried it again and again, almost frantically. Still the light did not come on—and the breathing kept moving away. It came lighter and faster now, she thought, and seemed to be retreating at some speed.

She couldn’t let the breather get away without finding out who or what it was. Even confronting a burglar was preferable to not knowing.

Daddy, is that you?
A foolish thought, she knew, but still …

Alex kicked back the covers and rolled out of bed. Bare feet silent on
the smooth wool of the Oriental rug that covered the hardwood floor, guiding herself through the cavelike darkness by moving, hands flung out, from bedpost to bedpost and then groping until she found the wall, she followed the sound.

The breathing was less audible now. The steady in, out, in, out, was growing fainter as it moved away from her, into the narrow hall off which all the bedrooms branched.

Alex paused for a moment by her bedroom door to feel for the switch to the overhead light. The plaster wall felt cool and smooth to her searching fingers. A draft of chilly air caressed her feet and ankles beneath the lace hem of her cream silk nightgown. The drumming of the rain nearly overwhelmed the sound of the breathing; she would not have heard it at all now if she had not known it was there. She found the switch, turned it on—and nothing. No light.

She could no longer hear the breathing, try though she might. Holding her own breath, she strained to hear it again. So strong was her need to identify the sound that she was not even afraid any longer. She had to find out who or what it was. She
had to know.

If it was her father, or not.

She stepped out into the hallway, arms outstretched to find the wall, blind as a rock—and heard the breathing again. It was much softer now. Turning sharply toward the sound, she tripped over something and stumbled forward. Her flailing hands brushed a resilient, cloth-covered surface and grabbed at it in an instinctive effort to save herself from falling. Her hands closed on loose folds of cloth—and then something slammed hard into the back of her head. For an instant she saw stars, and then the world went black.

The next thing she knew, she lay sprawled on her stomach on the wool runner that ran down the middle of the hall. The musty smell of the carpet filled her nose. The wool was faintly coarse beneath her fingertips. The darkness seemed to swim around her. Besides the pain in her head, she was vaguely conscious of stinging knees and palms. She groaned.

“Alex?” Neely called. From the sound of her voice, Neely was in the hallway, too, just a few feet ahead of Alex. If she was coming from her bedroom,
as she should be, that was right. The suites, which consisted of a bedroom, sitting room, and bath, were side by side at the north end of the hall.

“Be careful,” Alex managed thickly, sitting up and pressing a hand to the back of her head. “I think there’s someone in the house.”

The darkness heaved and rolled around her like a stormy sea, but she did not pass out. The back of her head stung and throbbed as she touched it, and a warm stickiness told her that she was bleeding. What had happened? Had she fallen and hit her head? Vaguely she remembered stumbling forward, but what had occurred after that was a blur.

“What?” It was clear that Neely had either not heard or not understood. As her sister spoke, Alex heard a faint clicking sound, and realized that Neely was trying without success to turn on the hall light. “Alex, did you fall? Are you hurt?”

“I fell, but I’m okay. I think the electricity must be out,” Alex managed. Her voice was a little stronger. “Neely, did you hear me? I think there’s someone in the house.”

Alex struggled onto her knees. Her head throbbed and swam. She was not strictly okay, as she had told Neely, but there was no time to go into it now. Neely was beside her then, kneeling, her hands reaching out to touch her through the darkness. “What do you mean, you think someone’s in the house?”

Alex debated telling her the other option. Either someone was in the house or their father’s ghost was trying to make contact. But of course that last was nonsense. It had to be. On calmer reflection, she realized that whatever—
who
ever—had been in her bedroom, it could not have been a ghost.

After all, even if ghosts existed, which in the daylight and in her right mind she was pretty confident they did not, they wouldn’t be breathing, now would they? Because if they were breathing, then they wouldn’t be ghosts. It was simple logic. If she had been thinking clearly in the first moments after she had awoken, she would have realized it then.

Which brought Alex to the inescapable conclusion: a living, breathing human being had been in her bedroom,
and might very well still be in the house.

“Neely,” she said urgently, gripping her sister’s flannel-clad arm. “Someone was just in my bedroom. I woke up and chased them out into the hall. I think they might still be in the house.”

“What?” Neely gasped.

“Shhh!” Of course, they’d made so much noise up to this point that being quiet now was sort of like shutting the barn door after the horse was out, but the urge to whisper was strong. Her cell phone was in her purse downstairs; she had forgotten to plug it in for a recharge, so even if she could get to it, it probably wouldn’t work. But there was a telephone by her bed, Alex remembered as she tried despite her aching head to review their options. The thing for them to do was go back to her bedroom, lock the door, and call the police. Did they even have 911 service here? Maybe she could just dial the operator… .

“Are you kidding?” Neely’s voice was a hiss.

“No.” Alex struggled to get to her feet, and Neely grasped her arm to help. The darkness swam again as she made it upright, but there was no help for it. She and Neely had to move. If someone
was
in the house, they were too vulnerable out there in the hall. “We’ve got to call the police. There’s a phone in my bedroom.”

“Oh shit!” Neely’s whisper sounded scared.

“Don’t swear,” Alex whispered back automatically. With Neely grasping Alex’s arm to provide support, they groped their way back to Alex’s bedroom as fast, and as quietly, as they could. Alex’s head pounded like a three-year-old with a hammer and she had a feeling she would have been seeing double if she could have seen anything at all.

“Lock the door,” Alex said as they made it into her bedroom. While Neely did as she was told, Alex felt her way to the bed. With the door locked she felt marginally safer, but only marginally. The total darkness was unnerving by itself. Add to that the sounds of the storm outside, and the near certainty that someone—some
one—
was in the house, and she would have been a basket case if it had not been for Neely. But she had to be brave for Neely, who was only a kid, after all.

The telephone was on the table beside the lamp. By pressing one leg against the mattress, Alex was able to find the table easily enough. Her
hand skimmed the surface of the table—lamp, book, clock,
phone.
Fumbling with the receiver, she picked it up. There was no dial tone.

“Alex, do you smell smoke?” Neely’s voice was small and scared. It sounded as if she was making her way around the bed toward Alex.

Pressing buttons by touch—it was so dark she couldn’t even see them, much less read the numbers—Alex tried in vain to get the phone to work. At Neely’s words, she stopped and sniffed. Even so small an act as wrinkling her nose made the pain in her head go from bad to worse. She closed her eyes, then almost immediately opened them again. Closing her eyes hurt, too.

There was a smell, faint but unmistakable. Sort of like—rubber burning.

“I smell
something.”
Alex gave up and put down the receiver, then lifted her hand to her head. She was definitely bleeding, and there was a growing lump that was large and tender to the touch. Probing it, she winced. “The phone’s dead.”

“What do we do now?” Neely sounded very young suddenly, and very frightened.

“I think we should get out of the house.” Something
was
burning, she decided as she felt along the bedside table for the box of tissues she had seen there. The acrid smell was unmistakable. Could the house be on fire? The possibility could not be ignored. Burglar or no burglar, she didn’t think it was a smart idea for them just to sit there in her locked bedroom and wait to find out.

“I’m scared.” Neely’s voice was wobbly.

“Me too.” Alex found the box of tissues, pulled a handful free, and pressed the wad to the back of her head. The injury ached and throbbed as she applied as much gentle pressure as she could bear. She didn’t want to tell Neely that her head was bleeding. There was nothing Neely could do about it, and there was no point in scaring her sister more than she was already.

“Do you think the house is on fire?” Neely asked next.

“Maybe.”

If they could just get to one of the cars … But the key to the
Mercedes was on a hook in the kitchen, and the car itself, like the others, was in the detached garage some distance behind the house. She had parked it there herself, hours earlier.

She didn’t want to chance winding her way through the pitch-dark house to the kitchen. Nor did she want to make a run for the isolated garage.

“The man who was here today—Joe Welch, the farm manager—lives just down the hill. If we go down the main staircase and out the front door, it’ll only take us a few minutes to reach his house.”

“But it’s raining buckets out there—and what if someone’s in the house just waiting for us to come out?” Neely objected, her hushed voice shaking. “In
Scream …”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Alex interrupted. Neely loved horror movies. Alex couldn’t watch them. On the few occasions when Neely had managed to drag her older sister to one, Alex sat with her eyes closed almost the entire time. If something horrible did happen when Alex chanced to be looking, she invariably shrieked like a banshee and hid her face in her hands, much to Neely’s embarrassed disgust. “It’ll only take us a couple of minutes to get out the front door. All we have to do is go down the main staircase and we’re out.”

“But in
Scream …”

“This is real life, not a horror movie,” Alex said firmly. She didn’t even want to think about the possibility that whoever had been in her bedroom might be waiting for them out there in the dark.

The smell of burning was growing stronger. It was stupid to take chances. They had to get out of the house. Alex thought fast. If they were going to run across a cold, swampy field, shoes would be good. Her bedroom slippers had rubber soles, and were elastic enough to fit Neely, who wore a size larger than she did. Feeling with her foot, Alex located them beside the bed where she had kicked them off earlier. She scooped up the slippers and thrust them at Neely.

“Put these on.”

Having unpacked the few things she had brought with her earlier, Alex knew exactly where her one pair of flat shoes, bronze Gucci loafers,
were: positioned neatly on the shoe rack just inside the door of the big walk-in closet.

“Where are you going?” Neely sounded on the verge of panic as Alex moved away from her.

“To get my shoes.” They both spoke in hushed voices. Feeling her way along the dresser, Alex made it to the closet. Finding the smooth brass knob by touch, she turned it, opened the door, reached inside, and retrieved her shoes from the wire rack on the inside of the door. Sliding her feet into the soft leather flats, she groped her way back to the bed.

“Alex …”

“I’m right here.”

Alex snatched the top layer, a hand-pieced antique quilt, from the bed and thrust it toward Neely, the movement clumsy because she couldn’t see.

“Wrap this around yourself, and let’s go,” Alex said, as Neely fumblingly took it from her.

Grabbing the wool blanket that lay under the quilt, Alex draped it over her own shoulders and felt for her sister again. Hands locked together, they headed toward the bedroom door.

Just as Alex’s outstretched hand made contact with the raised wooden panels she was seeking, Neely suddenly pulled back. “Oh, God, Alex, in
Friday the Thirteenth …”

“If you say one more word about another stupid horror movie I’ll murder you myself,” Alex hissed fiercely over her shoulder, giving Neely’s hand a sharp yank. “Now come on. Don’t talk until we get outside.
And whatever happens, stay with me.”

“No shit.” Neely’s tone was fervent. Her hand in Alex’s was cold. Alex didn’t even bother to protest her language. Her own heart pounded in tandem with the throbbing pain in her head. Her stomach churned. Her mouth was dry. Anyone—any
thing
could be waiting for them in the dark beyond the bedroom door.

Unlocking the deadbolt as quietly as she could, unable to prevent a click that sounded as loud as a gunshot to her ears, Alex turned the knob.

Eleven