The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (64 page)

T
ESS WAKES UP DISORIENTED
and in complete darkness. She’s naked. Hot under a thick comforter, the sweat making the cotton stick to her like loosely wrapped bandages.

Then she remembers.

“Claire?”

She reaches over to the left side of the bed. Feels a warm pillow, but other than that, only empty space.

Tess rolls out of bed, gropes around on the floor for her things, and dresses quickly in the dark. Her body feels liquid, mercurial. Tangled in her shirt is her digital watch. She pushes the light. It’s 12:13
A.M
. Shit! She can’t believe she fell asleep. How could she? What will she say to Henry and Emma?

Guilt floods over her. What has she done?

It was all so easy—the kiss, the way she let Claire lead her up the stairs to the bedroom. It felt so…inevitable. Unstoppable.

But maybe she should have stopped. Thought things through a little more.

She’s not the sort to just jump into bed with someone she
hardly knows. The truth is, other than Henry, the only other person she’s slept with was her high school boyfriend.

And now here she is, slinking around in some other woman’s house, feeling more like a character in an art house movie than herself.

Stumbling her way through the dark, Tess heads out of the bedroom and down the carpeted hall on tiptoe, reaching the doors to the bathroom and office, which are both closed. She pauses a second, listening.

“Claire?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

There’s no response. Tess puts her hand on the bathroom doorknob, starts to turn it, then is overcome by the need to get home. She needs to get away, think things through on her own before facing Claire again.

She gently releases the doorknob, and pads down the stairs. The living room and kitchen are dark.

Fumbling in her purse, Tess pulls out her keys and hurries out the front door, down the steps and to her car, where she backs down the driveway with her headlights off, feeling like a criminal who’s just barely gotten away.

T
ESS IS PASSING THE
woods that line the road on the north side of their property when she sees it: red lights circling, flashing.

A rush of adrenaline quickens her heart even as she holds her breath, all her senses on overdrive.

The tires of the Volvo squeal as she guns it down the road to the driveway, where she loses control on the turn, nearly ramming one of the fire trucks.

Whatever has happened, I am to blame,
she thinks. When you have an affair, you leave your family wide open to danger.

She makes a quick deal with God right then and there: If everyone is all right, she will break things off with Claire. She will
be a better mother. She won’t leave her child unguarded. She’s not going to run off again like some hormone-crazed, love-struck teenager.

Who does she think she is? How could she forget her responsibilities, her own daughter, like that?

“Emma,” she says without even knowing she’s saying it. Her daughter’s name is like a breath. That much a part of her.

Please, God, let her be all right.

Right away, she sees her prayers are answered. Emma’s standing in her moose pajamas next to Henry in the yard, holding his hand. They’re watching the volunteer firefighters douse what’s left of her painting studio with their hoses.

“What happened?” Tess asks, running up to them over the grass. She hugs Emma fiercely.

Henry looks at her with sadness. He doesn’t seem angry or suspicious. He doesn’t ask where she’s been until after midnight.

“They think it started with a candle,” he says.

“But I wasn’t even in there today. I never lit any candle.”

“Maybe it was your daughter,” one of the firefighters suggests. He’s joined them in their little semicircle.

“She never goes near the studio,” says Tess. “She knows better. Don’t you, Em?”

Emma nods.

Tess hugs her again, pulling Emma tight against her own body, holding her there.

“You’d be surprised how long a candle can burn,” the man says. “You could have lit it yesterday.”

“I’m always careful,” Tess says.

I will be careful. From now on. My daughter is safe and I will keep my promise and be a better mother. No wild affairs or great search for all the passion missing in my life. I will not see Claire again.

“I’m kind of suffocating here, Mom,” Emma says, her voice muffled. Tess lets her go.

“Sorry.” She gives Emma an apologetic smile, watches the fireman leave them, go back over to one of the trucks.

“Pretty flowers, Mom,” Emma says, and it’s only then that Tess realizes she’s clutching the bouquet of irises, now crumpled, ruined.

“I bought them earlier today,” she says, as if Emma has asked for an explanation. “I thought it would be nice to put them on the table. Paint them maybe.”

She thinks of the matching bouquet she took Claire, how it was dropped on the floor in the front hall, forgotten once their kissing began.

Tess blushes, self-consciously raises her hand to cover her right shoulder where she knows Claire left tooth marks in her skin. She won’t be able to wear a bathing suit for a while.

“It’s okay,” she tells Henry. “It’s not as if anyone was hurt. And there weren’t many paintings in there. Just a lot of supplies. A few new sketches. It can all be replaced.”

She feels a stab of pain at the thought of the new sketches being gone. Then, she remembers the Polaroids she’d taken from Henry’s studio. Shit.

“Danner says it will be worse next time,” Emma tells them. Her arms are crossed tightly against her chest.

“What?” asks Tess.

“She says something bad is going to happen.”

“Bad in what way?” Tess asks.

Emma bites her lip, shrugs.

“Emma, before I called the fire department, I heard you talking in your room,” Henry says. “Who were you talking to?”

“Danner.”

“Is Danner ever a…real lady? That other people could see?” he asks.

Emma smiles. “She’s real now,” Emma says. “Come see.”

H
ENRY FREEZES IN THE
doorway of Emma’s room. Emma and Tess have stepped inside, Emma’s voice babbling, bright with excitement.

“It’s my sculpture,” she tells them.

Tess makes a strange gurgling sound.

Henry tries to speak, but feels like he’s been gut-punched, there’s no air left. He reaches toward Emma as if to save her, but as usual, he can save no one. He can’t even gather up the courage to step through the doorway.

There, reclining on Emma’s bed, is Suz.

Suz in rag doll form.

Her face is made from an old pillowcase, her mouth stitched up with thin red yarn. On top of her head is a blond wig: Winnie’s wig, Henry’s sure. The one she left in the bathroom to dry and could never find.

But the most disturbing thing by far is the doll’s eyes. Emma has taken close-up photos of the eye of the moose painting in the hall, blown them up, cut them out, and stitched them onto the plain white face. They’re so like Suz’s
eyes: flickering amber and golden brown. Henry can almost see them move.

Emma has clothed the doll in an old sundress of Tess’s—pale gray wrinkly rayon. Underneath are leggings. And—can he be seeing this right?—his own beat-up boots tied onto its stuffed sock feet. The boots Danner was named for.

He shivers.

None of them speaks.

Emma’s rocking back and forth, from her heels to the balls of her feet, excitedly waiting for their response.

Finally, Tess, in a voice so meek it sounds completely unfamiliar, almost foreign to Henry, asks, “Is it…supposed to be anyone in particular?”

Henry holds his breath as he waits for the answer.

Emma smiles so wide her teeth glow. “It’s Danner.”

“I’
M NOT SURE THEY
liked you,” Emma whispers, curling up against Danner, nuzzling her bunched pillowcase neck. Danner smells fresh and clean, like cedar from the little sachets her mom keeps in the linen closet. But underneath that sweet woodsy smell, there’s something damp. The slight scent of decay.

“Does it matter?” Danner asks, her voice louder, clearer than ever before.

“I wanted them to. That was kind of the whole point.”

But the truth is, now that she’s made the sculpture—turned Danner into this solid, real-life thing—Emma feels as if her project has taken on a much deeper meaning than just trying to impress her parents. She’s discovered what true art can be, and that it’s so much more important than everything else.

Emma studies her handiwork in the low red glow of the clock radio. She strokes Danner’s hair, the blond wig Emma found in the bathroom the day Winnie pulled her from the pool. Emma remembers the guilt she felt at taking the wig—how Danner was the one who insisted Emma stuff it under her shirt, carry it up to her room and hide it under the bed.

“What for?” Emma had asked, the damp wig pressed against the skin of her stomach.

“You’ll see,” Danner had promised.

Now Emma understands. Danner, whether she’s a part of Emma or not, has a way of knowing what’s going to happen next.

“You’re real now,” Emma says, holding the doll tight.

“I was always real,” Danner says.

“Yeah, but now everyone can see you.”

Emma thinks she sees Danner’s stitched mouth twitch into a grin.

She leans in and gives Danner a kiss on the cheek, which feels cool, moist, not like a pillowcase at all.

“W
HERE THE HELL DID
she get that wig?” Tess asks.

They’re alone in the kitchen, having tried their best to convince Emma that they were genuinely pleased with her sculpture and that it was time to go to bed. They tucked her in and turned out the lights, the Danner doll nestled under the covers beside her. The Danner doll, who, Tess has to admit, looks an awful lot like Suz.

Coincidence?

There’s no such thing as coincidence, babycakes.

“It’s Winnie’s. She left it here to dry after she jumped into the pool that day.”

“Winnie’s? You mean she was wearing the wig when she jumped into the pool?”

Henry nods. “When she first came back…she thought it would be easier, safer, if she wore a disguise.”

Tess can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“So, what, are you telling me she was dressed like Suz?”

Henry nods again.

“Jesus! Is she crazy?”

Is Winnie the ghost she’s been so afraid of? The one who painted the trees and left the knife? Who’s been watching, spying, from the woods? It made perfect sense in a sickening sort of way.

And hadn’t Emma just told them that Winnie knew about her sculpture project? She’d been giving Emma advice over the phone.

“I heard them on the monitor, Tess.”

“Them?”

“Emma was talking to someone. It was Suz,” he said. “It sounded just like her.”

Tess shakes her head. “It was ten years ago, Henry. How can you be sure it was her voice?”

“I remember. I’d know it anywhere.”

Of course. Of course you would.

Tess turns away.

“And what did it say? This voice that sounded like Suz?” she asks.

“It said:
They’ll burn.
”

A chill overtakes Tess. “Henry, do you think—”

“Yes!” he interrupts. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along. I think Suz has found a way back. I think that maybe…maybe Danner is Suz.”

Tess lets out a breath of disappointed air. “That’s not what I was going to ask, Henry. What I want to know is if it’s possible that Emma had something to do with the fire.”

Tess hates to suggest it, hates herself for thinking it, but they’ve got to look at the evidence. The fire didn’t start itself.

“Emma? Of course not! She was asleep in her bed.”

“But she wasn’t asleep. She was awake, talking about burning something.”

Henry shakes his head. “No! I told you—that wasn’t her. It wasn’t her voice, Tess. There was someone else in the room.” His voice is desperate. Frantic.

“Were you drinking tonight, Henry?” she asks, pretending she can’t smell the wine on him.

“No. Of course not.” He’s looking over her shoulder as he says it.

They’re quiet for a minute.

“It’s been a helluva day,” Henry finally says. “I’m going to turn in.” Tess watches him leave the kitchen, walk across the driveway to the barn. The motion lights in the yard don’t come on, which is odd. She’ll have to ask him about it in the morning.

In the chaos of the fire, no one thought to ask her where she’d been until after midnight; how it was possible that a trip to the store for bread and tea had taken nearly six hours. She picks up the phone to call Claire, then remembers her promise and stops herself. No more.

She turns to straighten the kitchen instead. Busywork. She’ll be a good mother. Keep a neat and tidy house. Bake bread. Collect strawberries and rhubarb from the garden and make jam. A pie maybe. Emma loves pie.

In the morning, when she’s thinking clearly, she’ll try to put the pieces together: Emma and the Danner doll; Winnie; the voices in Emma’s room; the fire. She remembers the voice of the fireman:
Maybe it was your daughter.
Could it have been? Or is it possible that Henry is right: that there was someone else in the room with Emma? But who? Winnie? Had Winnie started the fire?

The one thing Tess is sure of is that she needs to keep more of an eye on Emma. Tess knows her separation from Henry has been hard on their daughter, but maybe it’s affected her more deeply than they realize. Maybe it’s time to think about sending Emma to see someone; to admit that her quirky little compulsions and imaginary friend may be signs of trouble.

Tomorrow. She’ll think about it all tomorrow. For now, she’ll straighten the kitchen, then head up to bed.

Henry’s left his jacket draped over the back of one of the chairs
at the table. She picks it up to move it to the coat rack beside the front door. It smells strongly of smoke. And it’s humming. She reaches into the right pocket. The first thing she finds is a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. When had Henry started smoking again?

Next, she discovers the source of the hum: the old baby monitor is in his pocket, turned on. She smiles at the idea of Henry the responsible father, worrying over his nine-year-old daughter while she slept. The smile fades as she recalls Henry’s insistence that he heard Emma talking to Suz on the monitor.

Then, she reaches in again, feels a key. A key on a piece of red ribbon.

It’s the key to the locked door of Tess’s painting studio. The painting studio that just burned to the ground.

Be calm. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Was it possible he got the key so the firefighters could get into the studio?

No. Henry said that by the time he called them, the building was fully engulfed. The roof had collapsed just before the first truck arrived.

“No such thing as coincidence,” she says, running her fingers along the jagged teeth of the key, then placing the key in her own pocket.