Ghost House Revenge (34 page)

He didn’t wait to see if she could swing it at him. His feet were taking him off at
top speed, running for dear life. He ran and ran until he reached the beach, not looking
back when he heard her call his name.

“You’re next, Owen Crewe.”

How did she know his name? As his feet pounded the sand and his lungs took in the
hot, salty air, Owen told himself over and over not to be afraid. He had handled people
like her before. It was his profession.

Yet something made him keep running, even when his shoes became heavy with water.
He didn’t stop until he reached the flat rocks of a Jetty, where he threw himself
down and panted loudly. He looked over his shoulder, expecting to see her behind him.
But the beach was empty.

“You ass,” he said to himself, turning on his back. “Some psychiatrist you are!”

He needed a place to rest and collect his thoughts. Then he would go back to the big
white house, knock on the door, and confront Derek Miller face to face, as he should
have done earlier. Then he might learn who that strange woman was. He climbed over
the rocks to the public beach. Once he crossed them, he removed his sweat-soaked shirt
and wet shoes and walked toward the crowds. God, how far away this all seemed from
the loneliness of those woods.

He found an empty spot and sat down, bringing his knees up to his chin. Radios blasted
all around him, children squealed, people talked loudly. Liza, who loved people, would
love a place like this.

A sudden commotion in the water made him avert his eyes
from the jetty he’d just left. Two young boys in scuba gear were running to the shore,
shouting something. The lifeguard stood up and blew his whistle at them. Curious,
Owen got to his feet and shuffled to the small group that was gathering around the
teen-agers.

“There’s a car under the water!” one shouted, pointing. “We saw a body in it!”

“Sure, there is,” the lifeguard drawled. “You think I’m crazy?”

“It’s true,” the boys insisted in unison. “It’s true!”

“I think you’d better call the police,” Owen said, staring at the innocent-looking
blue water of Belle Bay.

He believed the boys. And, his stomach turning, he knew what the police would find
when they came.

“Home at last,” Melanie sighed to herself as she propped a grocery bag on one hip
and unlocked the back door. Inside the kitchen she put two parcels down on the wooden
table. Then she turned to go back outside, where two more bags were waiting in the
trunk. But she decided she’d better go upstairs first to let them know she was home.
She had been stuck in that traffic jam for twenty minutes.

Her voice, calling her children, rang through the house. But she heard no response.
Melanie went upstairs to Kyle’s room.

It was empty.

“What is this?” she demanded out loud.

She saw the Monopoly board on the floor, resting against the unmade bed, its pieces
scattered everywhere. Kyle wasn’t a messy child, but he was mischievous; he had probably
used the golden opportunity of her absence to leave his bed. Melanie noticed his robe
was missing from the closet and prayed he had taken it out himself.

She went out into the hall.

“Kyle?”

No answer. God, the house was quiet. Why didn’t she hear the children talking or laughing?
She went to Gina’s room and when that proved empty, tried Nancy’s. Then her studio
and Gary’s office. Why didn’t her children answer her calls?

They couldn’t have gone outside, she thought, her panic building.

Derek would know where they were. He’d tell her they were off playing somewhere. As
angry as Melanie would be with Derek, she hoped to God that was the case. But Derek
didn’t answer when she knocked at the door. Thinking he might be taking a nap, Melanie
carefully opened the door. She stepped into his room and cried out.

Like Gina, Melanie was at first too stunned to move when she saw the junkpile Derek’s
room had become. Sheets and blankets were torn from the bed, clothes strewn everywhere,
swirls of crayon marked the headboard of the bed. Melanie almost screamed when she
read the lipstick scrawling on the mirror.

MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE ALICEN

And below:

MOMMY AND DADDY KILL BAD CHILDREN

“Kill bad children,” Melanie repeated, her voice choked.

Alicen’s reflection appeared in the mirror. “They’re all going to die,” she sneered,
in that horrible voice.

And suddenly Melanie recognized it.

“No!” she screamed. She went to Alicen and grabbed her roughly. “What have you done
with my children? Where are they? Where are they?!”

“Mommy’s going to kill them,” Alicen said, in her own voice. They’re
bad
children.”

“Oh, no,” Melanie said, shaking her head. “No, they’re good children. Why does she
want to hurt them?”

Alicen shrugged. “I don’t question my mother.”

“Alicen, please,” Melanie begged. “Tell me where she’s taken my children.”

Alicen shook her head and refused to answer. With a disgusted, frightened cry, Melanie
pushed by her. She raced down the hall, crying loudly,
“Derek?”

If he was there, he didn’t answer. Neither did the children when she screamed their
names. Derek must have kidnapped them.

It had to be. She couldn’t possibly have heard that sneering voice a moment ago. It
belonged to a dead woman.

(MOMMY AND DADDY KILL BAD CHILDREN)

“No,” Melanie said. “No, this isn’t happening.”

She reached for the phone—it was dead. Trying to calm herself, she reached for her
car keys and headed into the kitchen. She would drive to the police for help. She
knew she couldn’t handle this herself.

But the back door was closed tight, and locked.

“I
know
I left that open,” Melanie cried. Quickly she opened the cupboard behind her to find
the key. She was
shaking so badly that she could hardly slide it into the lock. It clicked and turned,
but the door wouldn’t budge. It was as if someone had nailed it shut.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Melanie ran to the front doors. She tried one, then
the other. But they were sealed just as tightly, and she wasn’t strong enough to break
through them. She panicked for a moment, then realized the windows in the living room
were big enough to crawl through. She hurried inside and saw to her shock that someone
had snapped off their brass handles.

She grabbed the old slat-back rocker and lifted it high above her head. Using a strength
unknown to her, she swung it forward, flying with it.

“Oh, God,” she said, looking at the results. She had broken only a few panes, not
enough to get out. Her shoulders felt as if she had torn them out, but she ignored
the pain. She had to get to her children.

With a cry, she lifted the rocker again and tried to swing it forward. But she couldn’t.
Someone was holding it fast, behind her back. Melanie closed her eyes, afraid to turn
around.

“Look at me, Melanie VanBuren,” a voice said.

Melanie turned slowly, dropped the chair, and screamed.

“Are you so surprised to see me?” Janice asked. “You knew I was coming back, you murderess.”

“No!” Melanie cried. “I’m not?”

“You are,” Janice hissed. “You murdered me. You hit me across the head with a gun.”

Suddenly Melanie remembered everything. She recalled the night of Gary’s accident,
when Janice had fallen under Jacob Armand’s evil spell. She had tried to hurt Kyle,
and Melanie had defended her son by hitting her with that pistol. But she had only
stunned her. Jacob Armand was her murderer.

“No, it was
you,”
Janice sneered, reading Melanie’s thoughts, “You.”

“Go away.”

“Oh, no,” Janice drawled. “Not until you pay for what you did to me.”

Melanie found her legs and ran for dear life back to the—where? Where could she escape?

There was no chance. Derek was waiting in the dining room for her. As she lunged for
the kitchen door, he tackled her and threw her to the floor.

“Let me go!”

She wrestled with him, feeling the sweat on his body,
hearing him growling at her. Her fingers found his eye sockets and dug in, yet somehow
only scratched his eyelids. Giving a roar, Derek slapped at her hands.

“HELP! HELP, SOMEBODY!”

Down in the cellar, three terrified children cried softly as they heard their mother’s
screams. And in the dining room the smiling ghost of Janice Lors watched the two fighting.
She wanted to see Melanie beaten, made to suffer for what she had done.

“Hurt her, Derek,” she ordered, her voice filled with passion.

Melanie saw Derek’s fist rise in the air. She screamed as it came down. There was
a flash of pain, and then darkness.

Owen felt the muscles in the back of his legs tighten, and he started to breathe more
deeply to calm himself. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let himself believe
the car being dragged out of the water wasn’t his sister’s. He was standing in the
crowd, behind wooden police barricades. One look at the bumper sticker on the rusted,
soaked automobile made him cry out and run forward, knocking down the barrier. It
read:

FLORIDA: EVERY DAY IS SUN DAY

“Liza!” He screamed, running toward the car.

“Hey!” a cop shouted, lunging at him. He caught Owen by the arm.

“Let me go, damn you!” Owen shouted. “That’s my sister!”

Still holding him fast, the cop turned and said, “Captain Davis? This guy says that
girl’s his sister.”

Bryan Davis hurried to them and took Owen by both his shoulders. Owen’s face was red
with fury, his eyes flashing.

“Calm down, fellow,” Bryan said gently. “Calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

“M-my sister has been missing for a week,” Owen stammered. “I-I went up to the—”

His words were cut off when he heard the car door crash open, giving way to a crowbar.
Jerking away from the policeman who held him, he walked in a daze to the car. Two
other cops were pulling a corpse from the wreck, laying it carefully on the sand.

But, no, that couldn’t be Owen’s sister. That bloated, green,
hideous thing wasn’t beautiful Liza. Not when the face looked so round, the skin so
tight it seemed ready to burst. And Liza had always smelled like roses. . . .

And she was nude. Someone had murdered her. And someone would pay.

Owen turned away from the horrid sight and started to cry. Bryan patted his arm gently,
as pictures of the body were taken for evidence and notes were scribbled in reporters’
pads.

When Owen calmed down a bit, Bryan at last said, “You were saying you went up somewhere?”

Owen nodded. “To that big house on the hill. My—my sister’s lover lives there.”

Bryan felt his heart jump. The VanBuren house?

“Come on,” he said. ‘We’re going up there.”

“I want him to get the chair for this,” Owen seethed.

“Yeah,” Bryan said, not certain if Liza’s boyfriend was the killer. But he didn’t
want to think of that right now. He gave orders to his men and had two cars follow
him up the hill. Once at the house, he ordered them to stay put until called. If Derek
Miller had murdered Liza Crewe, he might become violent upon seeing the police. So
only Bryan and Owen walked up the stairs to the double doors. Bryan pounded loudly
and rang the bell at the same time. No one answered.

“Open this door!” Owen shouted.

“Shh,” Bryan said. “If he’s here, he might be hiding. And there are other people in
this house—innocent people. We don’t want to scare them.”

“What other people?” Owen demanded. “I don’t care about other people.”

He turned and continued to pound on the door. Inside the house, Melanie’s ears perked
to hear it She turned, as if she could see the source of the noise through the walls
of the kitchen. She tried in vain to cry out, but her mouth was gagged, and ropes
held her fast to a chair—the same chair where Janice had sat seven months ago, when
Melanie had killed her.

It had all come back to her, everything she had blocked from her mind since the night
of Gary’s accident. Jacob Armand hadn’t killed Janice,
she
had. Janice had tried to hurt Kyle, and Melanie had stopped her. She had only meant
to stun her friend but instead had killed her with that gun. Melanie understood now
why she felt so guilty about Janice’s death all these months. But it wasn’t her fault.
It was self-defense.

Now Janice and Derek were standing in front of her, their arms around each other.
Derek’s face was expressionless, but Janice’s wore a smile, tasting the sweetness
of revenge. She was making Melanie wait—death for a murderess couldn’t be swift and
painless. Melanie’s tears made her all the more angry.

“Go ahead and cry,” she sneered. “I haven’t even begun with you.”

The pounding on the front door stopped.
Oh, please
, Melanie thought.
Please come to the back door
.

Downstairs, the children had also heard the pounding. Had somebody come to rescue
them? Was that why the knocking was so loud?

Little Kyle became so excited that he suddenly began to cough. Phlegm filled his throat,
gagging him. He couldn’t spit because of the gag.

He made strangling noises, falling forward. His coughing became so violent that Gina
rolled toward him and tried to lift her hands from behind her and slap his back. But
she couldn’t Someone had to find them before he choked.

Crying with fear and praying this would work, Gina lifted her bound feet and kicked
the wall. They made a loud, satisfying thud. Again and again she kicked at the walls,
and soon Nancy was joining her.

“What’s that?” Derek asked, looking around.

“Those brats!” Janice cried.

She disappeared. Seconds later, Owen and Bryan were at the back door. Alerted by the
pounding, Bryan had ordered his men to surround the house. Derek saw them through
the window and ran from the room. There was a loud crash, and suddenly the door was
hanging by one hinge.

“Oh, Lord,” Owen said.