Crooked House by Joe McKinney, Wayne Miller Page B

in her guts.
    They both slowed as they reached the end of the hallway, and Sarah was about to tell Robert to break down the door when it clicked open and sighed inward a few inches.
    They both stopped.
    “Angela?” Sarah said.
    Then the smell hit her . Raw sewage. So intense as to be almost palpable. Sarah coughed, gagged, her face twisted into a grimace.
    “Oh God,” she said, turning to Robert.
    “Smoke,” he said.
    “What? ” The raw sweet stink of it so powerful she could barely keep her eyes open to look at him.
    “I smell smoke,” he said.
    She started to speak, but a voice from inside Angela’s room cut her off.
    You little bastards make so much noise you shake the house.
    It was a woman’s voice, vicious and cruel . It almost sounded like she was hissing the words out.
    Sarah ran for the door but Robert was already moving, throwing the door wide. He advanced a few steps into the room and then came to an abrupt halt. Sarah stepped around him, her gaze scanning the room. Angela sat at the foot of her bed, wearing one of Robert’s T-shirts as a nightgown, her dark hair looking limp and straw-like in the low light. The rest of the room was empty.
    “Angela?” she said.
    “Who else was in here?” Robert said.
    Angela turned and faced them, and right away Sarah noticed the girl’s face was wet with tears. Her eyes were red and puffy, her little chest hitching. “Oh baby,” Sarah said. She went to her daughter and took her face in her hands. “Oh, baby,” she again. “What’s wrong?”
    “Who else was in here?” Robert said again.
    “Huh?” Angela said.
    “Who else was in here?” he demanded, and this time there was a harshness in his voice that made even Sarah flinch.
    “Nobody, Daddy . Just me.”
    He huffed dismissively and went around the room, opening doors to her closets, her bathroom . He even looked under her bed.
    “You said somebody was in here with her,” he said to Sarah.
    Angela looked at him, and then at Sarah, a question hanging in her red and swollen eyes.
    “Baby, I thought I heard somebody in here with you . A woman’s voice.”
    Angela shook her head . “Mommy, nobody’s been in here.” Sarah could tell from the confusion on the girl’s face, her look of complete bewilderment, that she was telling the truth.
    “You been smoking in here?” Robert said . “Out in the hall I smelled smoke.”
    “Daddy, gross . I don’t smoke. Honest, I don’t...I’ve never...”
    “ Shhh,” Sarah said. “It’s okay.” She pulled her daughter close and kissed her cheek, tasting the salty tears there. She was still sobbing a little. Sarah could hear it in her breathing. “Oh baby,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m here with you.”
    Robert stepped around her with an angry sounding grunt . He was muttering something, but Sarah only caught the last of it: “...understand what the hell is going on around here.”
     
    *
     
    Robert went back to his study and tried to find the copy of Raymond Carver’s stories he’d seen that first day that Thom showed him the house. It was up here somewhere, he knew it, though now he couldn’t seem to locate it. Whatever that was down at Angela’s end of the hall was already growing dim in his mind, slipping into the background. He needed to focus on his class. He had three syllabi still to write, and though he’d been up here hours on end since moving in, he hadn’t gotten anything done.
    It was just so frustrating . And Sarah, didn’t she get it? He’d finally gotten her to admit that she’d in fact spent not six hundred dollars, but closer to seven and that had really pissed him off. That was money they didn’t have. She knew that, and she was spending it anyway. How in the hell was he supposed to cover all that, much less get ahead? It felt like he was talking to the wall sometimes. Nobody listened.
    Or, rather, they did . They just didn’t care.
    No, that wasn’t right . He knew Sarah cared. They were in this together. But when