Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(12)

She tried the track lighting in the dining room. Nothing. Maybe the power was out… no. The lights had been on at the Fillmores'.

"Mom?" she called out.

No response. She felt her way slowly, toward the utility closet where the lightbulbs were kept. She grabbed three, and stumbled back. She screwed a bulb into the living room lamp and flipped it on.

The sight jolted her rattled nerves. The rolling table that held the television was dragged away from the wall. The cables that connected it to the power strip were torn away. The cable box lay on the ground. Her first thought was of burglars, but nothing seemed to be missing.

Her dread intensified. "Mom? Is something wrong with the TV?"

Still no response. She threaded a bulb into the hanging lamp over the dining room table. The room looked normal. She climbed onto a chair to replace the bulb in the kitchen ceiling lamp.

The light revealed a cluttered mess. She peeked in the empty refrigerator, sniffed the milk. It had turned to cheese. She would load the dishwasher and set it running before she left. Maybe do some grocery shopping, but that would leave her no money to travel with.

She headed for the stairs, and gazed, tight-lipped, at the new pile of untouched mail below the mail slot.

There was still a bulb in the wall sconce on the stairs, thank goodness. She started to climb, passing photos of herself and Cindy, her grandparents, and her parents' wedding portraits. The four of them, skiing together in Banff on that vacation they had taken five years ago.

She knocked on the door to the master bedroom. "Mom?" Her voice sounded like a frightened child's.

"Honey? Is that you?" Her mother's voice was froggy and thick.

Her relief was so intense, tears sprang into her eyes. She opened the door. Her mother was sitting on the bed, blinking in the light from the stairs. The room smelled stale.

"Mom? I'm turning the light on," she warned.

Barbara Riggs gazed up at her daughter, her eyes dazed and reddened. Her usually meticulous bed was wildly disarranged, half of the mattress showing. A terrycloth bathrobe was draped over the television. "Mom? Are you OK?"

The shadows under her mother's eyes looked like bruises. "Sure. Just resting, sweetie." She turned her gaze away, as if looking her daughter in the eye were an activity too effortful to sustain.

"Why is the bathrobe over the TV?" Erin asked.

Her mother's neck sank into her hunched shoulders like a turtle retracting into its shell. "It was looking at me," she muttered.

Those five words scared Erin more than anything else had that day, which was saying a hell of a lot. "Mom? What do you mean?"

Barbara shook her head and pushed herself up off the bed with visible effort. "Nothing, honey. Let's go have a cup of tea."

"Your milk's gone bad," Erin said. "You hate it without milk."

"So I'll just have to cope, won't I?"

Erin flinched at her mother's sharp tone. Barbara's eyes softened. "I'm sorry, sweetie. It's not you. You're an angel. It's just… everything. You know?"

"I know," Erin said quietly. "It's OK. Let me make up this bed."

She tucked and straightened the bed, but when she grabbed the bathrobe to pull it off the TV, her mother lunged to stop her. "No!"

Erin let go of it, but the robe was already sliding onto the floor with a plop. "What is it?" she asked. "What is it with the TV?"

Her mother wrapped her arms around her middle. "It's just that I've, ah… I've been seeing things."

Erin waited for more, but Mom just shook her head, her eyes bleak and staring. "What things?" Erin prompted.

"When I turn on the TV," her mother said.

"Most people do," Erin observed. "That's what it's for."

"Do not be snotty with me, young lady," Barbara snapped.

Erin took a deep breath and tried again. "What do you see, Mom?"

Barbara sank back down on the bed. "I see your dad, and that woman," she said dully. "In those videos. Every channel. Both TVs."

Erin sat down heavily on the bed. "Oh," she whispered. "I see."

"No. You don't. You can't." Barbara's voice trembled. She wiped her puffy eyes, and groped for the bedside box of Kleenex. "The first time, I thought it was a dream. But then it started happening more often. Now it's all the time. Every time I touch the thing. Today it turned itself on. I swear, I didn't even touch it today, and it turned itself on."

Erin had to try several times before she could choreograph her voice into being low and soothing. "That's not possible, Mom."

"I know it's not," her mother snapped. "Believe me, I know. And I know that it… that it isn't a good sign. That I'm seeing things."

Their eyes met, and Erin glimpsed the depths of her mother's terror. The yawning fear of losing her grip on reality itself.

She reached for the controls on the TV.

"No!" her mother cried out. "Honey, please. Don't—"

"Let me show you, Mom," she insisted. "It'll be perfectly normal."

An old Star Trek episode filled the room. She changed channels, to a rerun of M.A.S.H. And again, to the evening news. She changed that channel quickly, in case news of Novak's escape should be announced. That was all Mom needed to hear tonight. She left it on a perky commercial for floor wax. "See? Nothing wrong with the TV."