Ghost House Revenge (32 page)

As he drove along the beachside, he saw mothers with their children. Their fresh faces
and smiles made him think all the more of his hateful deed. He was grateful when he
was at last able to turn onto Houston Street. Its steel and asphalt simplicity were
soothing to him.

When he readied the intersection of the main street into town, he stopped and caught
his breath. He could keep going straight, of course. Houston Street led to an exit
ramp for the parkway, and the parkway would take him far, far away. He could forget
Alicen, Liza, the VanBurens—

Suddenly he felt a touch on his shoulder. It was Janice.

“Can’t you leave me alone for a moment?”

“Not when you try to get away from me,” Janice said. Anger flashed in her blue eyes.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“I know everything in your mind,” she said.

Derek began to drive again. “You made me hurt my daughter.”

“You hated her anyway.”

“I never hated her!”

Janice ignored the outburst. Keeping his eyes on the road, Derek turned the car into
town. He tried to pretend she wasn’t there, so hideously close to him.

“Where are you going?” He didn’t answer. “Where are you going?” Janice asked again.
“You’re going to that bitch Liza’s house, aren’t you? Well, you won’t find her! You’ll
never see her again. She’s dead, Derek Miller.”

“Leave me alone!” Derek shouted.

He heard her laughter and wanted to strike her with all his might But when he turned,
she was gone. He sped to Liza’s house, all the time praying Janice was only taunting
him. He wanted to stop and catch his breath but somehow found himself running up the
stairs and pounding on Liza’s door.

“Hold your horses!” someone yelled from inside—a man’s voice. The door jerked open,
and Derek found himself looking at a blond-haired man. The two studied each other
for a moment before Owen spoke.

“What do you want?” he asked. “You could’ve broken the door down!”

“I—I’m looking for L-Liza Crewe,” Derek said, panting
heavily. The run up the stairs had exhausted him—he wasn’t in the shape he used to
be.

“You’re Derek, right?”

“Yea,” Derek said. “Who’re you?”

Liza’s found someone new
.

“Owen Crewe,” was the reply. “I’m Liza’s brother.”

Derek simply nodded. He had almost hoped it was a new lover that kept Liza away from
him. That would at least prove she was still alive.

“Come in,” Owen said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Derek sat on a couch he had shared with Liza several weeks earlier, while Owen sat
in a leather and chrome chair across the room. He studied his face for so long that
Derek felt himself becoming nervous. There again, that was Janice’s doing. He’d never
been paranoid in his life.

“You seemed in a rush to get in here,” Owen said at last. “What’s the matter?”

What was the matter? How could Derek answer that? There was no voice in his head to
tell him what to say now. So he thought carefully before answering.

“I was driving through town,” he said finally, “and I was thinking about Liza. I’ve
been trying to get in contact with her for a week. I thought she was mad at me, but
she would have come around with an explanation by now, wouldn’t she?”

Owen nodded.

“Anyway,” Derek continued, “I decided to come up here and confro—make her listen to
me once and for all. If I did something to offend her, I’d like to know what it was.
But I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I keep wondering, then, why the hell she disappeared.”

“That makes two of us,” Owen said. “I came up from Florida for a convention last week.
I have to say I found it a little unnerving to come here and find my sister missing.
Liza’s not one to go wandering off somewhere without letting anyone know.”

“No, she isn’t,” Derek said.

“Why don’t we go over that last time you were together?” Owen suggested. Seeing a
defensive look in Derek’s eyes, he added, “I think it would help, don’t you? There
may be a clue.”

“I’ve been over it a thousand times,” Derek said. “She came to visit me at my home.
We went for a walk on the beach, and I asked her to marry me—we’ve been dating
awhile. She said yes and seemed ecstatic. So, after a while, we said goodbye and made
plans to see each other again.”

That was a lie, since Derek had made no such plans. Or maybe he just didn’t remember
them, he thought defensively.

“There was no argument, then,” Owen said.

“None whatsoever,” Derek answered.

He stood up and walked to the window at the back of the room. Staring out at the town,
all green and bright with summer, he felt something rise from his stomach. He held
his breath for a moment, then said quietly, “I think something happened to her.”

Owen stood up now. ‘I’ve been trying to keep that thought from my mind,” he said.
“What makes you say so?”

“I don’t know,” Derek lied. ‘There are just too many unanswered questions.”

“We could look for her together,” Owen said.

Derek’s reply was too swift. “No!”

He slowed himself down. “I mean,” he said, “it would probably be best to let the police
handle this.”

He wouldn’t admit he was terrified of what he’d find if he looked too hard. Owen was
staring at him again, the suspicious bastard. Did he think Derek was responsible for
Liza’s disappearance?

He made an excuse to leave. “Listen, my daughter is home sick,” he said, hating the
truth in those words. “I should be with her. What if I come back tomorrow?”

“Please,” Owen said, feeling uneasy about Derek’s swift goodbye.

Without saying anything more, Derek left the house. He was too busy with his own thoughts
to look up in his rear-view mirror a few minutes later to see that Owen was following
him.

Smiling, Melanie stepped away from Kyle’s bed. His fever had gone down considerably
and was now only a degree above normal. He’d be his old, energetic self in just a
few
days. She wished she could say the same about Alicen. Applying lotion to the cuts
on her face had brought out the mother instinct in Melanie. Seeing that little girl,
all battered and so frail, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She was sick and
in need of help and understanding. She wasn’t responsible for her actions.

But, then, who was?

The voice she had used in her threats stuck in Melanie’s mind. She wanted to believe
that it was Liza’s voice, but something made her think otherwise. She had an uneasy
feeling that she had heard that voice before, and not when talking on the phone with
Derek’s girlfriend. Still, it made sense. Alicen might have mimicked the voice to
make her father angry. Melanie knew that Derek had been unable to get in touch with
his girlfriend. And, for God’s sake, who else would the voice belong to?

Gary would have fits if he heard you now
, she told herself.
Stop it! It was Liza’s voice you heard
.

She went downstairs to the kitchen. The children would be home soon, and she wanted
to fix them a nice dinner. She would do it more to prove to herself than to them that
nothing supernatural was going on. A good, ordinary meal on the table would show Gina
and Nancy that, in spite of the bad things that had happened in the last few days,
everything was going to be all right. Or so Melanie hoped.

But to her frustration, she opened the refrigerator to find it practically empty.
In all the confusion of the past week, she had forgotten to stock up on groceries.
And the weekend was coming.

Melanie hated to leave Kyle alone with Derek, remembering his angered outburst that
morning. But what was she supposed to tell the girls when they came home? That she
was too frightened to go out of the house? But she wanted them to see that life would
go on as usual, and that meant having dinner with their mother. So Melanie reasoned
that Derek had been angered only momentarily at Alicen, and wouldn’t harm Kyle. Besides,
if she left soon, she would be home before the girls. And Kyle would probably sleep
all afternoon.

Just then, she heard the front door open. She left the kitchen and went out in the
hallway to meet Derek. He looked tired, his eyes rimmed with red. Melanie went to
him.

“I suppose you called a doctor for Alicen,” he said.

“I thought I should let you do that,” Melanie said.

“Thank you,” Derek said, grateful no one else would have to know of his terrible crime.

“Now I have a favor to ask of you,” Melanie said. “Would you stay with Kyle for just
a little while so I can go to the store? The refrigerator is empty, and I don’t want
my kids starving on top of everything else.”

“I guess it would be all right.” Derek sighed.

“Don’t worry,” Melanie said. “I’ll be back before the girls are home.”

She left the house.

It was so silent. Derek hated that. He wanted the house to creak and moan, just to
let him know it was like any other old house. But it wasn’t, was it? Any moment, that
heavy silence could fall down on him. She’d be back, for certain, knowing how vulnerable
he was right now.

But the house remained silent. Derek opened the door to his room and looked around,
expecting to see her. No sign of her. He stretched himself on the bed, putting his
hands behind his neck and staring at the ceiling.

He waited.

Hearing the sound of an engine, Owen Crewe ducked behind a tree. He watched the car
drive by him on the gravel road, seeing a blond woman behind the wheel. When she passed,
he came out of his hiding place and continued up the road. Not wanting Derek to see
him, he had parked his car at the public beach and had walked the mile to these woodlands.
He could see the huge white house at the top of the hill. How could anyone afford
a place like that, he wondered? He thought of Liza’s reaction upon seeing the place,
with those towers and that porch.

But he was more interested in the woodlands that surrounded it. They were so thick
that anything could have happened to Liza in them—and no one would have seen. They
led to the beach, no doubt, the last place Derek said he had been with Liza. Owen
had a feeling that Derek had been lying when he said he knew nothing of Liza’s disappearance.

At last he found a path that cut through the woods. Looking around to be sure no one
was watching, he turned onto it.

“I don’t see mom’s car,” Gina said as she and Nancy climbed up the hill, leaving the
school bus behind them.

“Maybe she went out to a gallery or something?” Nancy suggested.

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t have left Kyle alone,” Gina said. “Not with crazy Alicen.”

She broke into a run, her long legs covering the ground in strides. Nancy protested,
unable to keep up with her, and finally let her sister go on alone. She climbed the
porch steps and entered through the door Gina had left open.

“Gina!” she cried.

“I’m up in Kyle’s room,” Gina called back.

Nancy found her sister sitting on Kyle’s bed. The little boy was fully awake, propped
against his pillow. Nancy, too, jumped on the bed. The three children began to talk.

“Do you think all this stuff is scarier than last year?”

“I don’t know, Kyle,” Gina said. “Everybody got hurt, like last year. But this time
we know why. It wasn’t a ghost.”

“I don’t wanna talk about ghosts,” Nancy pouted.

“Okay,” Gina said. “But if you ask me, Alicen’s scarier. How could she do all this?”

“I hate her,” Kyle stated.

“Where is she, anyway?” Gina asked.

“How should I know?” Kyle said. “As long as she stays there.”

“And where’s mommy?” Nancy asked. “We didn’t see her car. Did she go away?”

“No, she had to go to the grocery,” Kyle sail. “I started yelling for her, and Derek
came in and told me.” He brought a hand to his throat. “Boy, that hurt when I yelled.”

“Mom left you alone with crazy Alicen?” Gina said.

“Derek said there was no food in the house,” Kyle reported. “Gina, can’t we stop this?
Talking about Alicen gives me the creeps.”

“Sure,” Gina obliged. She looked around the room for something to do, and underneath
Kyle’s dresser, she spotted a Monopoly game. She pulled it out and set it up on Kyle’s
lap.

“Mommy’ll be home soon, I bet,” she said as she shook the dice.

They tried to concentrate on the game, pushing aside their fears. But Melanie didn’t
come home soon, and after a while it became too much to wait for her. Nancy started
to whine, and Kyle became listless. Trying to cheer them, and herself, Gina put the
tiny metal dog inside the little car and pretended it was driving around the board.
The trick worked, and soon all the children were laughing. It was nervous laughter,
uncontrollable and silly. To the unseen woman who saw it, it was also hateful Janice
went to the bed and knocked the board from it.

“Kyle, you kicked it!” Gina said.

“I guess so,” Kyle answered, still laughing. ‘Isn’t it funny?”

Funny!
Janice echoed.
When I’m through today, you won’t be laughing
.

She willed herself to Derek’s room. Gathering herself into her most solid form, she
climbed onto the bed. Derek’s eyes opened wide when she planted an icy kiss on his
lips.

“It’s time,” she said.

“Time?”

“You know what I mean,” Janice replied. “They’re alone, aren’t they?”

She kissed him again, running her cold fingers through his thick hair. Then she sat
back on his hips. The bed did not sag beneath her, but Derek felt pressure. He frowned.

“They’re just kids,” he said. “What the hell could they have done to you?”

“Don’t ask questions,” Janice said, rising. “Stand up and come with me.”

Derek sat up, pressing his fists into the mattress. But he didn’t move. Somehow, the
visit with Owen Crewe had strengthened him. He wouldn’t listen to anyone who hurt
his beloved Liza.

“No,” he said.

Janice turned, her eyes surprised.

“What did you say?”

“I said no,” Derek repeated. His strong voice belied the weakness in his stomach.
But he wouldn’t stop now. “If you want to hurt them, I know I can’t stop you. But
I won’t help you.”