The Spite House(39)
She went to the front, looked through the screen door, and saw Dana’s car parked in her driveway. Millie stepped outside, stopping at the bottom of her porch steps.
“Hey there, Millie,” Dana said after she got out of her car.
“Dana,” Millie said.
“I apologize for coming out without calling first. Although to be fair I don’t think you can be too mad at me for that. Sort of a pot-kettle thing, wouldn’t you say?”
Millie chuckled, though she was not amused. “If you’re trying to convince me that it’s okay for you to come out here to harass me, you should stop.”
“I’m not here to harass you. If anything, I’m here to ask you not to harass Miss Houghton’s guests.”
“Uh-huh,” Millie said. “Does that gentleman know what he’s getting into? I mean all of it. What he’s getting his girls into?”
“I appreciate your concern, Millie, but this isn’t your business.”
“This is my community, and you don’t get to tell me what’s not my business. Your own boss has been preaching how important we all are to each other since way before you got here. Hell, before you were born. Even if I were a stranger, though, I’d still be a person with a heart, and knowing what I know would still make it my business. In fact, looking at it from about as many angles as I can, I don’t see how this couldn’t be my business. People have suffered in that house, and you know it. Grown men and women who ought to be able to take care of themselves and ought not to be afraid of things that aren’t supposed to be real have gone into that house fine and come out forgetting who they were before they went in, or so scarred by it they go into hiding, like they think the house is going to try to find them. I sat by when it was the frauds and thrill-seekers, but this is a family. You’re really letting that man keep his girls in there? You know what happened the last time there were kids in that house.”
Dana said, “You know what, actually I don’t know, because nobody does.”
“That’s your best argument? That pedantic bullshit? There are lives on the line here. This isn’t some damn debate for you to score points on technicalities.”
“You’re right, this isn’t a debate. It’s not a conversation, and it’s not your concern. I’m only here to advise you—”
“Warn me, you mean. Go ahead and say it.”
“Advise you.”
Millie came a step closer. “Say what you mean. You and the old lady are putting me on notice.”
“Fine,” Dana said. “If that’s how you want to take it, then that’s how you want to take it. You want to find out what ‘the old lady’ can do when she’s really pissed off? Try her.”
“I can take whatever she can pitch,” Millie said, grinning. “Better me than that family come to harm.”
“For God’s sake, nothing’s going to happen to them. Jesus, what do you think we’re doing? You think we want something bad to happen to them?”
“Listen to you. Good Lord. I’ve heard people all over the world say things like that. Talking about how they didn’t want to do all the harm they went ahead and did anyway. Like they could magically ‘want’ away the consequences of their actions.”
Dana threw up her hands and walked back to her car. “I’m through with you. I said what I came out here to say. Don’t act like nobody warned you.”
“That’s right. A warning. Feels better to say what you mean, don’t it?”
Dana got in the car and slammed the door. Millie watched her leave. A small part of her tried to argue that she could have been a little more diplomatic.
“Hell with that and hell with her,” she said, then went inside to call Neal again, and to consider what other actions she might take.
CHAPTER 17
Lafonda
“So you don’t know what else she might have told him?” Eunice said to Dana.
Lafonda was close enough to see Dana’s jaw tense like she was trying to fuse her upper and lower rows of teeth. “I know what he told me,” Dana said. “That isn’t good enough?”
“If it were, I wouldn’t have sent you to see her. How long were you even there?”
“Longer than you were. Next time send yourself.”
Lafonda shifted in her chair and wondered why she was even here. This was not part of her role. Granted, her role was regularly subject to expansion. Just recently, for instance, she’d been designated a one-woman day care for a few hours. She hadn’t exactly been fine with it at first, but the kids proved agreeable. Even interesting, the younger one with her inquisitiveness and the older one, Odessa, with her wit. She’d have rather been doing what she’d initially been hired for, health care and personal training, but the other things Eunice asked of her exhibited how much trust the old woman had in her. She cooked, she provided therapy—physical and mental—she listened when Eunice needed to unburden herself or shed a tear, and she encouraged her when Eunice needed to snap out of a funk.
What she did not do before today was sit in on Eunice’s one-on-one meetings with Dana. Those were a different line of business, and even though she had suspected Dana had always wanted to creep into her domain, Lafonda had no designs on taking on Dana’s role. Why then, today, had Dana asked her to join them? She had even said “please” before Lafonda could tell her “no.” It was as close to pleading and bargaining as she thought Dana could get.