The Night Visitors(11)

The books are dustless behind the glass, their tooled leather spines as cool and clean as dried bones. I find what I’m looking for on the far right of the shelf, a tall slim book bound in blue the color of a summer night’s sky with silver lettering the color of starlight. An Astral Mythology: A Child’s Guide to the Night Sky. It’s an 1890 first edition of a translation of the third century B.C. writer Eratosthenes. According to my antiquarian friend in Hobart it’s worth several thousand dollars. I could have the roof fixed with the proceeds. Or replace the windows. Or buy a new boiler for Sanctuary.

It will be perfect for the boy.

I get up to go, reaching for the lamp, and notice a pattern in the dust—a random splatter of dots that might be the footprints of mice or a new constellation in the night sky. It’s all how you look at it, my father would say. Some people look up at the night sky and see random scatter, others read stories in the chaos. That’s what I do when I adjudicate a case. I make sense out of chaos.

I turn the light off before I can start reading stories in the dust and walk quickly out of the office, locking the door behind me. I go back into the kitchen and lay the book on the table, then take the muffins out of the oven and put them to cool on a metal rack beside the book. I can hear the thump of the washing machine finishing its cycle, so I go into the mudroom, pull out the sweatshirt and towel, put them in the dryer, and then fish out the knife. It shines clean and cold in the first rays of dawn coming in through the window. I slide it under a pile of blankets stacked on the dryer.

Dulcie stirs and stands by the door. I let her out and step outside for a moment. The storm has passed and the sky is lightening in the east, an orange glow that reflects off the newly fallen snow. There’s nothing better than a clear morning after a snowstorm, and I am filled with an unaccustomed sense of hope, of things beginning. I’ll tell the boy I found his knife and ask him if I can keep it. For safekeeping, I’ll say. I’ll tell him that whatever he and his mother did to get away is their business. The only thing that matters is that they’ve gotten away.

I go back inside. Feed Dulcie. Put on the kettle. Turn on the radio. While the water is boiling I hear the muffled voice of the news announcer. One of the reasons I love this NPR station is that the newscasters speak in such subdued murmurs I can usually tune them out, but this morning a word snags my attention. Ridgewood. The town on Alice’s bus ticket.

As I listen, sunlight swells over the window ledge above the kitchen sink, staining the pitted porcelain and scarred wooden counter a lurid blood orange. A body’s been found in Ridgewood, New Jersey. A man in his thirties, stabbed to death in his home.





Chapter Five


Alice


I WAKE UP to the touch of a hand stroking my cheek. It’s such a gentle touch, so tender, that I don’t want it to ever stop. I keep my eyes closed, let myself slip back to sleep. I can feel a breath on my face, lips brushing my ear, then a whisper—

He’s coming.

I open my eyes. I’m alone in the yellow room, sunlight warm on my face. That must be what I felt. Davis never touched me like that and Oren isn’t here.

Oren isn’t here.

I bolt upright, fully awake now, and tear into the little closet where he’d gone to sleep. No Oren. His backpack is gone too.

He’s coming.

I hear the echo of that dream whisper. Had it been a warning? I step out into the hallway and hear the whisper again, only now it’s coming from downstairs. I stand at the top of the stairs and listen, my heart skittering around in my chest like a hunted rabbit, and make out the singsongy murmur of the woman and then Oren. I can’t hear what he’s saying but I can tell by the happy lilt in his voice—when did I hear that last?—that he’s all right. No one has come in the night to take him. And if Davis had—I put my hand on my chest to calm my heart—he wouldn’t have left me sleeping. Besides, Davis isn’t coming.

I walk back down the hall to find the bathroom. It’s at the end of the hall and it’s as big as my bedroom at home. It’s got one of those old-fashioned tubs with creepy claw feet. No shower. I splash water on my face, pee, and then go exploring. That aw-shucks harmless-spinster crap is as good a cover as any for something dark and twisted inside. I knew a caseworker once—looked sweet as candy, cubicle full of cat pictures, dressed like your grammy—who was fired because she liked to pinch little boys’ behinds when no one was looking.

She’s left her bedroom door wide open, like she didn’t have a stranger sleeping down the hall. Like she didn’t lock her front door. Is she an idiot or one of those idealistic nuts? I listen for a second to the murmur of voices downstairs. I can tell by the excited rush of Oren’s voice that he’s embarked on one of his long stories. He’s probably telling her the plot of all the Star Wars movies. Good boy, I think, as if Oren knows I need the distraction. And maybe he does, like he knew what town we were going to last night.

He’s just smart, I tell myself, entering Mattie’s sad spinster bedroom. Only one side of the bed is rumpled, a smelly old dog bed on the floor, a flannel nightgown tossed in a laundry basket. The night table is stacked with dog-eared paperbacks, mysteries mostly, the kind with teacups and cats on the covers where dotty old ladies solve crimes. I bet she sees herself as one of those Miss Marple types, coming to the rescue of stupid trashy girls like me.