Lies That Bind Us(64)

Marcus appeared on the stairs behind me, an old-fashioned hurricane lamp held above his head, its amber glow lighting the hall. He was wearing only boxer shorts and glasses but looked wide awake.

“What’s going on?” he said.

“Gretchen!” said Brad sharply. Gretchen’s wail had dwindled into a feverish sob, but she was still saying nothing. “What happened?”

In answer, like some Gothic specter crouched in the angle of wall and floor, she stabbed a finger in the direction of her bedroom, pointing wordlessly. Marcus strode in, radiating irritation, as Kristen dropped to her and put an arm around her shoulders. The sound of Marcus’s commanding footsteps falling suddenly silent was unnerving, like a thunderclap. For a second there was a loaded stillness, and then, his voice low, he said, “Who did this?”

“Did what?” said Brad, pointing the flashlight and moving into the doorway to see. There was another momentary pause, and then he whispered, “Jesus.”

“What?” said Kristen, vague anxiety turning quickly to panic. “Brad, what is it?”

Brad said nothing, but I heard him moving around, and then he was back in the doorway, the flashlight splashing the hallway, and in his hands were pieces of colored fabric, mostly very pale—cream and ivory and satiny silver—and other bits of navy and pink and black, some trimmed with lace, some no more than thongs . . .

It was underwear. Gretchen’s, presumably. I frowned, baffled, and then I saw. Brad held a sample out in one hand and fixed them in the beam of the flashlight in his other hand so that everything else seemed to dissolve into blackness and there were only Gretchen’s ravaged panties, every pair cut to ribbons.

“We have to search the house,” said Marcus.

We were all downstairs now. Brad had roused Melissa and Simon from the master suite on the other side of the house, and they had joined us, bleary eyed, caught between bafflement, irritation, and alarm. The last of those quickly won out. Simon put the generator back on, and the rest of us buzzed around Gretchen like bees jarred from their hive and unable to settle.

“The doors are all locked,” said Simon. “I checked.”

“So he’s still inside,” said Marcus, as if that proved his point.

Simon looked away. He glanced at Melissa and something passed between them. I caught her puzzled frown and the minute shake of her head.

“What?” Marcus demanded. He was as close to losing it as I had ever seen him.

“No one could get in,” Simon muttered, shaking his head and still not meeting his eyes, as if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Meaning what?” said Marcus.

“Nothing,” said Simon, his voice low, his gaze wandering to Gretchen.

“You think she did it herself?” said Marcus, incredulous.

“That, or one of us did it,” said Brad, as close to nonchalant as he could get. Kristen had gathered Gretchen onto the couch, and Brad had flopped heavily into an armchair, his watchful face unreadable. The rest of us were still standing awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say.

“Is that what you think?” asked Marcus, fixing Simon with a defiant stare. “That it was one of us?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, Marcus,” Simon shot back, his voice rising. “I don’t know. You have a problem with that?”

“You two want to save the pissing contest for another time?” said Melissa.

“All I’m saying is that we should look around,” said Marcus, “rather than, you know, assuming one of us is a colossal asshole.”

“Or a liar,” said Brad.

I stared at him. His gaze was on Gretchen, but it was impossible not to feel like he was talking about me.

“Gretchen, hon,” said Kristen, and it struck me that Marcus was right. Her British accent vanished when she wasn’t thinking about it. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

Gretchen groaned and turned her face into Kristen’s shoulder like a weary toddler.

“Come on,” Kristen coaxed. “It will help to get it all out, and then we can get it all sorted.”

Gretchen gazed at her, her watery eyes huge, then moistened her lips.

“I took a shower before bed,” she said. “You all crashed, but I was still awake, so I took a shower. Then I thought I would choose my clothes for tomorrow, you know? Lay them out. Something cute, and . . . anyway, I opened my suitcase. And there it was.”

She dissolved into tears.

So I hadn’t been asleep, or not for long, when it happened. I frowned, trying to get my head round it. I felt dazed, half-asleep, and almost as taken aback by the idea of someone laying out her clothes for the morning as I was by what had been done to those clothes.

“So it happened while she was in the shower?” said Marcus. “Gretchen, when did you last look in your case? When was the last time you saw that everything was . . . OK?”

Gretchen shrugged and shook her head wearily.

“This morning, I guess,” she said. “When I got up.”

“So it could have happened anytime today,” Marcus concluded.

“Why would anyone do this?” she said. “What did I do to them?”

As she said it, her gaze strobed across the room, found me, and lingered. I stared at her. For a second I tried to ignore it, but as she continued to stare, the silence became awkward, accusatory.