House of Skin by Jonathan Janz Page B

whose father didn’t trust him with the remote control.
    The shrill warble of some unseen bird sent cold fingers down his back. Impatient to have the story ended, Paul said, “So the trauma of it all caused Samantha Hargrove to take her own life.”
    Barlow shook his head. “I don’t think so. The Reverend was bawling over his dead wife and daughter, but Billy was staring up at the window. He told Doc Trask it was the worst part of the night, the worst thing he’d ever seen.”
    “Let me guess,” Paul said. “It was Myles, grinning demonically at him through the jagged edges of the window.”
    “No. Myles was gone by then. What Billy saw was someone else.” Barlow’s voice grew thin. “A woman. A blonde woman in a white gown.”
    Paul imagined it, imagined her in the window. He thought about asking who it was, but before he could the sheriff added:  
    “But you were right about one thing.”  
    “What’s that?”
    “The woman was grinning.”
    They fell silent, the only sounds in the forest their footfalls. Ahead of them, the trail broadened and Paul beheld a white farmhouse in the middle of a large, overgrown yard.
    “Who lives here?”  
    “A girl,” Barlow answered.
    “Care to be more specific?”
    “No.”  
    “Are you going to question her or something?” Paul asked.
    Barlow ignored him.
    Paul breathed in the honeysuckle reefing the backyard, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Finally, he said, “So why are we here?”
    Barlow nodded toward the house. “This is where Reverend Hargrove used to live.”
    Paul peered up at a second story window. “That the window Samantha jumped out of?”
    “Was pushed out of, you mean,” Barlow said.
    Paul waited and the sheriff shrugged. “Could be,” he answered.
    Paul stared at the dark windows. “And this is where Myles killed Mrs. Hargrove?”
    “Over there.” Barlow pointed back the way they’d come. “Beside the trail.”
    But Paul was staring at an upstairs window where a woman was watching him.
    “I see her,” he said.
    The sheriff looked, then stared at him. “There’s no one there,” Barlow said.
    Paul frowned. He could have sworn he saw a face, ghostly pale, watching him.
    As they moved away, he asked, “Who was it Billy saw in the window?”
    Barlow fell silent. He was silent for so long Paul thought he was going to ignore the question. When they were well away from the farmhouse, he said, “Someone I don’t care to discuss.”
     
     
    She watched them from the second floor window, thankful she had waited to go down to the cellar. It wouldn’t do for Ted to scream and rouse the sheriff’s suspicion.
    Their voices receded into the forest.
    She went through her checklist again. Everything she needed was packed in two suitcases. It was depressing, actually. She’d been alive for nearly three decades, and all she cared about could be crammed into two suitcases.
    Julia waited, counted slowly to fifty, before turning and leaving her bedroom. On the way to the cellar, she grabbed the fresh needle. The way she saw it, she couldn’t set him free without sedating him first. She couldn’t kill him. He was a lousy human being, but he didn’t deserve to die.
    The important thing was to give him enough morphine to knock him out for a good long while, but not to give him so much that he’d overdose. If she let him awake too quickly she’d be caught, and with his connections she’d get the maximum sentence, whatever that was. He had her on kidnapping, battery, incarceration against his will and whatever other charges he could think of. Mental anguish, maybe. Cruelty. Assault with a British playwright.
    It was decided then. She’d give him a double dose and hope he wouldn’t die.
    Ted must have heard her open the basement door because he was already yelling about what he would give her if she’d let him go. Cars, jewelry, a new house. He promised it all.
    Trembling a little, she flipped on the light.
    She could see him blinking, his head