Little Girls(40)

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m keeping myself together.”

She’s talking about the highway incident. Because, yes, she seems as peculiar as she had back then, right after that whole thing had happened. A shiver took him at the base of his spine and traveled up toward his shoulder blades.

“I could take you and Susan back to Hartford, you know. You don’t need to stay here if it makes you uncomfortable. It isn’t necessary.”

“Stephanie Canton’s expecting to bring buyers to the house throughout the week.”

“I can stay here and take care of Stephanie Canton and her buyers.”

“I don’t want us to split up like that.” Laurie frowned and then sat up straighter. “I almost forgot. There’s a rug in the basement that needs to be taken to the trash. It’s big, so it will need to be cut up.”

“All right.” He stood, kissed her on the forehead, and carried his wine out into the hallway. Through the walls he could hear the water pipes chugging. He had yet to descend into the basement, and it took him a couple of seconds of wending through the labyrinthine hallways—and the opening of two hall closet doors—before he located the basement door.

It was cool and damp belowground. There were minimal items down here, much like the rest of the house. The rug was unrolled in the center of the floor. A disconcerting copper stain blotted its center.

There was a tool chest beneath a pegboard under the stairs. He knelt before it, unlatched the lid, and peered inside. Various tools lay in a rusted jumble. Carefully, he sifted through the tools until he located a razor housed in a plastic sleeve. The blade was rusty but still looked sharp enough to do its job. Sliding the toolbox back in place, he went about his business, slicing the stained Persian rug up into ribbons.

Once he had finished, he was sweaty and the muscles in his arm hurt. He filled two larger trash bags with pieces of the rug. He swept up the fibers with a dustpan and brush, dumped the fibers into one of the big bags, then tied both bags closed. Grunting, he lugged them upstairs, down the main hall toward the foyer, and out the front door.

It was cool and windy outside, but the rain had held off. Still, the air smelled of ozone as he traipsed along the lawn and down the long and winding driveway toward the street. Vapor street lamps glowed along the curve of Annapolis Road. Somewhere in the distance, a lone dog barked. On his walk back up to the house, he heard the flat heartbeat of thunder. It sounded very close. When he heard it a second time, he realized it wasn’t actually thunder, but something else.

There was movement by the side of the house. Ted squinted through the darkness. A person stood on the front lawn between the fence and the driveway, small of frame but strangely tall. As he approached, the figure hopped up into the air. Upon landing, the sound the person made was the sound Ted had originally mistaken for thunder.

“Who’s there?” he called.

It was a young girl. The reason she looked so tall was because she was standing on the plank of wood that covered the well. As he watched, the girl jumped up again, the board groaning beneath her feet as she came back down on it.

“Jesus, kid, you shouldn’t be doing that.” He rushed over and extended a hand to her. “Come on down. It’s dangerous.”

She didn’t reach for his hand. Beneath her feet, the old plank made a straining, moaning sound.

“Honey,” he said, his hand still extended.

The girl took his hand and hopped down off the well. She looked to be no older than Susan.

“Are you Abigail?” he asked. “The girl who lives next door?”

“Are you Susan’s daddy?”

“I am. Do your parents know you’re out here?”

“Probably not.”

“Honey, what you were doing . . . you know that’s really dangerous, don’t you?”

“It bounces like a trampoline.”

“I’ll bet it does,” he said, “but if it breaks, you’ll be in a world of trouble. Capisci?”

“You talk funny,” said the girl.

“Yeah, well, you should probably get on home. It’s late.”

“I used to throw rocks down there,” said the girl, pointing to the well, “before it was covered up. They covered it up after the old man died.”

“It’s safer that way.”

“Can we take the cover off so I can throw more rocks down there?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll just take the cover off when you leave.”

Her impudence shocked him. “Do you know what trespassing means, little darling?”

“No.”

He laughed. “Get on home, will you?”

The girl turned and ran along the fence-line at the side of the house. Ted called after her again, but she ignored him this time. After the darkness swallowed her up, the only evidence of her was the sound of her quick little feet whipping through the overgrown grass. He heard something that sounded like the wooden gate slam shut on the fence. The girl’s footfalls were now on the other side of the fence, shushing through the underbrush at a quick clip. For a second the footsteps paused. Ted listened. He could hear the little girl breathing on the other side of the fence. He considered scaring her—perhaps popping up over the fence and roaring at her, as he had once done to some rowdy kids sitting behind him and Laurie in a movie theater—but then he thought he’d feel bad if he actually frightened her. Instead, he turned and walked back toward the house. He was halfway up the porch steps when he felt something small strike his right shoulder blade. He whirled around in time to see a stone the size of a quarter bounce down the porch steps and vanish in the darkness.