Читать книгу The Suicide Club - Gayle Wilson - Страница 10

The turnout for the PTA meeting and the Open House following it had been one of the largest Lindsey could remember. The main attraction was the new field house, of course, which brought in people who hadn’t darkened the door of the school as long as their kids had been in attendance.

As usual, most of her tenth grade parents showed up and almost half of the upper class parents as well. Since many were accompanied by their children, she’d found herself thinking about the kinds of homes the kids Nolan was accusing of arson came from. Homes very much like the one where she’d grown up—loving, religious, with intact families. Because of that, she was still having a hard time reconciling the crime with the so-called criminals.

She inserted the key into the lock on her front door and turned it. As the door swung open, the interior of the house appeared totally dark. She would have sworn she’d left the kitchen light burning, but in her hurry to get back to the school, she must have forgotten.

The porch light illuminated almost half of the foyer. She stepped inside, setting her purse beside her tote bag on the hall table. She reached for the switch, but her hand hesitated halfway there. The familiar scent of home had been replaced by something strange. Chemical. Unpleasant.

She breathed through her nostrils, attempting to identify the smell. Something she should recognize, but, perhaps due to its unexpectedness in this environment, didn’t.

Finally she flicked the switch upward, her eyes narrowing against the resulting influx of light. The hall appeared exactly as she’d left it more than four hours before.

Her gaze swept the adjacent living room, but nothing there seemed different, either. Reassured, she secured the lock and the dead bolt on the front door before she slipped the end of the safety chain into its slot.

When she turned back, she raised her chin, slowly drawing air in through her nose again. The odor seemed less distinct than when she’d opened the door. Either the smell was fading or she was becoming accustomed to it. Still, she hovered in the hall, strangely reluctant to go farther into her own house. That scent, along with the absence of light—

Only with the juxtaposition of the two did she realize what must have happened. She knew from school that when a fluorescent bulb failed, its dying was accompanied by a distinctively unpleasant smell.

Relieved to have arrived at an explanation for both, she crossed the foyer and headed toward the kitchen. Although she didn’t have a replacement bulb on hand, she could at least verify that the old one had gone bad.

When she reached the entrance, she could see moonlight shining through the glass half of the back door. She normally pulled the café curtains across it at night, but that was something else she must have forgotten.

Without bothering to test the fluorescent, which had been her intent in coming here, she walked across the pale tile, her heels echoing with every step, and drew the fabric over the glass. Then, through force of habit, she checked the lock and the dead bolt. Both were secure.

She turned, the burned-out bulb almost forgotten now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The familiarity of the room was reassuring. A little exasperated with her initial unease, she started back across the tile.

Although she’d brought papers home this afternoon, she decided she was too tired to mark them. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep. She’d already taken a shower before she’d dressed for the meeting. She wasn’t going to take another. At least not tonight.

She turned off the light in the front foyer and then, in the darkened house, moved down the hallway to the bathroom doorway. She reached inside the small room, flicking the switch up. She resisted the urge to put away the few items of makeup she’d left out on the counter as she’d gotten ready. Wasted effort since she’d use them again in the morning.

She continued down the hall to her room. Without turning on the overhead, she slipped off her heels and carried them to the closet. The carpet seemed to massage her tired feet.

She’d hung the hangers for her suit and the silk shell she was wearing over the top of the door. She took them down, dropped her shoes inside, and then stripped down to her underwear, carefully re-hanging each item as she took it off.

Finally, she took out a nightgown and carried it with her to the bathroom. As she entered the room, she again caught a whiff of something that didn’t belong.

Whatever it was, it was so faint she forgot about it as she walked over to the counter. She leaned forward, peering into the mirror. Although her skin had always been one of her best features, especially for someone with her coloring, it looked sallow. Tiny lines had begun to form at the corners of her eyes, and the delicate area beneath them was dark.

Too many nighttime hours spent thinking about what Jace Nolan had told her. And a few spent thinking about Jace Nolan himself. Which was sad. And a little desperate.

No wonder Shannon and her students were interested in pairing her up with him. The words “last chance” flickered through her mind before she ruthlessly denied them a place.

She straightened, reaching behind her back to unfasten her bra and lay it on the counter. She took off her panty hose, standing on one foot and then the other, and put them into one basin of the double lavatory. She set the stopper before she turned on the water and added a squirt of shampoo.

Only then did she push her panties down over her hips and thighs, allowing them to fall to the floor. She scooped them up, placing them on top of the discarded bra.

After she’d slipped on her nightgown, she used baby oil and tissues to remove her makeup and then brushed her teeth. As she was turning to go back to the bedroom, the small pile of underwear caught her eye.

She grabbed the panties and bra in one hand, carrying them over to the wicker clothes hamper. More decorative than utilitarian, it held less than a week’s worth of laundry.

Intending to lift the lid with her left hand and toss the clothes she was holding in, she bent over the basket. Again that hint of something unpleasant assailed her nostrils.

Although it was definitely stronger over here, the smell was still faint. Not chemical, she thought, as her fingers grasped the edge of the top. This was something earthy. Slightly rank. Like mushrooms. Or decay.

She had already begun to raise the lid of the hamper when she became aware of the sound inside. A sizzle, like bacon frying or like someone rustling papers—

Rattles. By the time her brain had put it together, it was too late to stop the muscle contraction in her arm, which had continued to lift the lid.

The split second of realization had been enough, however, to cause her to jerk her upper body backward, allowing the top to fall as the body of a snake exploded out of the hamper.

Stumbling backwards, she felt rather than saw it strike. Too quick to be seen by the naked eye, the power of its momentum seemed to literally disturb the air between them.

Despite the lid she’d dropped on top of it, the rattler’s ugly, triangular-shaped head had easily cleared the top of the basket. Before she could think of a way to prevent it, the rest of the squat, powerful body trailed over the rim.

She knew enough about snakes to know this one didn’t have to be coiled to try for her again. And that the range of its strike could be as much as half its length. Despite the panic clawing at her chest, she continued to put distance between the rattlesnake and her bare feet and legs.

By now it had flowed down onto the tile. As Lindsey backpedaled, it began to re-coil. Head now erect, the snake’s cold, black eyes seemed to fasten on its prey. At the same time, the tail lifted and began to tremble, its ominous warning echoing off all the hard surfaces of the bathroom.

Unable to tear her eyes away from the deadly, seductive movement, Lindsey located the edge of the bathroom door with a hand that shook. She stepped out into the hall, pulling the door with her so that it slammed shut before the snake could make another attempt to reach its warm-blooded target.

The episode had occupied only seconds. One of those “life flashing before your eyes” moments, when you knew with absolute certainty you were going to die.

Despite the seeming safety of the wooden barrier between her and the snake, Lindsey’s breath sawed in and out through her open mouth. Somehow she had managed to escape. And, as incredible as it seemed, without being bitten.

Before she had time to fully relish what a miracle that was, her eyes focused on the crack of light beneath the door. A gap big enough for the rattler to slither under?

She had no idea how wide that would need to be. But she couldn’t take a chance.

The only thing worse than knowing there was a venomous snake inside her house was knowing that and not knowing where it was. If she followed her instincts to put more distance and more doors between them, and the rattler got out of the bathroom, they might never find it.

And she would never again spend another night here.

Realizing she still held the wadded underwear in her hand, she bent and began gingerly to stuff them into the crack under the door. It quickly became apparent that was not enough fabric to fill its length. Even if it had been, those wisps of nylon didn’t seem substantial enough to create a strong enough obstruction if the snake tried to push through.

There was nothing else close enough that she could reach it without taking her eyes off the ribbon of light at the bottom of the door. She fought a renewed sense of panic as she tried to figure out what she could use to keep the rattler trapped in the bathroom.

The comforter on her bed would be both large enough and heavy enough to block the opening. To get it, she’d have to leave the hallway. Could the snake get out in the few seconds it would take to retrieve the spread and bring it back here?

That was a risk she would have to take. Otherwise, she might still be out here in the dark hall when she discovered that there was room enough for him to work his way through that crack. That possibility was enough to end her paralysis.

She bolted for the bedroom, throwing the light switch at the end of the hall as well as the one in her room. She grabbed the comforter and sprinted back, her eyes searching the gleaming hardwood floor in front of her as she ran, looking for a darker streak than those revealed by the grain of the wood. One that moved.

When she reached the bathroom door, she threw the spread down in front of it. Then, on her hands and knees, she crammed the thick, quilted material into the crack.

Even when she’d blocked the last bit of light escaping from the bathroom, she wasn’t convinced she’d created a sturdy enough barrier to keep the snake confined. Once more she made the trip to her bedroom.

As her bare feet made contact with the carpet, she had a flashback to the first time she’d entered this room tonight. Her feet had been bare then, too, except for her hose. And she hadn’t turned on the overhead light.

What if the snake had been in here, rather than in the hamper? What if she’d stepped on it in the darkness? Even as she looked for something to reinforce her makeshift barricade, she shivered at the thought.

And then she froze at the next one. Her rational mind had, in the last few minutes, given way to the far more primitive part of her brain, the one that viewed the creature in her bathroom with the same primordial fear her ancestors had.

Admittedly, this was snake country. One Alabama city held a rattlesnake roundup each year, capturing hundreds from among the scrub. It was certainly not unheard of for snakes to get inside a house. But inside a closed hamper?

There could be only one explanation for that. One she didn’t want to think about.

Someone had put the rattlesnake inside that basket, where, angered by the confinement, it had waited until she’d come into the bathroom. Highly sensitive to the body heat of prey, it had been coiling to strike even while she’d hesitated, her hand on the lid of the hamper, trying to identify what she smelled.

And she’d been right about that, too. It had been something far more alien than a burned-out fluorescent bulb.

In spite of not wanting to take the next step in this chain of logic, its conclusion was already inside her head, impossible to deny. If someone had put a snake in her laundry hamper, then it was possible the one she had trapped in the bathroom wasn’t the only rattler inside her house.

As her terrified gaze swept the cream-colored carpet surrounding her, she knew that if there were others they’d be hidden, as the first had been.

In the drawer she’d taken her nightgown from? In the closet where she’d hung up her clothes and put her shoes? Or somewhere she would never think to look until it was too late?

She had to get out of here until somebody could conduct a thorough search of the entire place. Somebody…

Who the hell did you get to search your house for snakes? Whoever it would be, she owed it to them to complete the containment of the one whose location she did know.

Hurrying as much as her growing paranoia would allow, she began to take books off her bookshelf, expecting another triangular-shaped head to dart out of the space left by each one she removed. Then, arms full of the heaviest volumes the shelf had contained, she returned to the bathroom door and laid them end-to-end on top of the comforter.

With the placement of the last book, she stepped back to check once more for any light seeping underneath the door. It would have been easier to do that with the hall fixture turned off, as it had been before, but she couldn’t bring herself to throw the switch.

When she was satisfied with the barrier she’d constructed, the need to get out of the house was irresistible. Her cell was in her purse, which she’d left on the front hall table. She’d go out that way, picking it up as she went through the foyer.

She turned on lights in front of her as she ran, eyes again searching her path. She grabbed her bag off the table, slinging the strap over her shoulder to free her hands so she could deal with the locks.

Only when the door was open, and the heavy heat of the September night rushed into the coolness of the house’s interior, did she think about the danger of stepping out into the darkness barefoot. It wasn’t that she hadn’t done that before—to get the weekend paper or to cut off the sprinkler. But all that had been before she’d had a firsthand experience with something whose deadliness she’d recognized—and taken for granted—all her life.

She put on the porch lights as well as the spotlights on the corners of the house. And then she stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

The porch tiles were cool and smooth under the soles of her bare feet, the brick steps below them incredibly rough in contrast. Once she reached the sidewalk, she turned to look back at the front of her home.

For a moment she wondered if she would ever again feel the same way about it as she had before tonight. That it was a sanctuary. Somewhere safe. Security from the threats of the outside world.

She shook her head at the disconnect those words evoked, given what she’d just gone through. In spite of her escape, she knew this wasn’t over.

Her first impulse was to call her dad. He would come, of course, bringing one of the guns he kept locked in the tall, glass-fronted case in the hall. Armed with that, he would open the door and step into her bathroom—

She shook her head again, acknowledging that as much as she wanted him here, she wasn’t going to allow him to do that. Not at his age.

This wasn’t his job. She wasn’t sure whose job it was. But right now, she didn’t much care.

At least she knew where to begin finding that out. She reached inside her purse and dug out her phone. She flipped the case open and, for the first time in her life, dialed 9-1-1.