House of Skin (41 page)

“I’m waiting,” he said. But was it for the truth? He almost hoped she’d lie and save his heart agony. “Or do you want me to begin?”

She shrugged.

“I’ve been doing a little research today. Let me tell you about it.”

He did. About Soames pimping for William Zero and the Templar Society, about him being Cherry Hill’s father. His abuse of her, forcing her into pornographic films. The murder of her family. He stopped there. He assumed Lisa knew the rest.

“Incredible,” she said. “It explains a lot. When I hired Soames, I never imagined how involved he really was in this.”

“Yeah, the puzzle is fitting together. I think you know the rest. Enlighten me.”

“I don’t have a choice now.”

“No, you don’t.”

She hugged herself. “There’s no easy way to begin this.”

“Just do it.” His heart was sinking in a pit of despair.

She looked away. “The truth. About me. About all of this. Are you sure it’s what you want?”

“Tell me,” he managed, wanting to tell her to forget it right then and there, not wanting his sand castles to be washed out into the cold sea of reality.

She looked sad beyond words. And he knew then, if he hadn’t before, that it was going to be bad, worse than he could imagine. Her beauty was marred by the dark circles under her eyes and the worry lines around her mouth. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he couldn’t. Not just yet. Maybe not again.

“Just tell me,” he said, his voice distressed.

“It starts when I was a teenager and my parents got divorced. My mother moved us to Sausalito …”

* * *

None of it was any better or worse than he’d suspected. During the telling, his mind ran the gamut of emotions from sympathy to dread to disgust. He squirmed and wriggled at times, like a worm in the sun; at other times, he sat completely still, drained of emotion. He wasn’t sure what was the worse part of it all, William Zero taking advantage of her vulnerability or Eddy raping her or the bit about Zero returning from the Territories. When she was done and silent, he felt compassionate … mainly because he thought her mind had become unhinged.

“Lisa,” he said, “you could’ve told me about this before. I would’ve understood.”

“Would you?” she asked. “I’ve never told anyone what’s inside my head. It’s ugly and twisted.”

“Don’t say that. None of it is your fault.” And it wasn’t, he’d decided. Zero had messed up her head and she wasn’t to blame for that, for any of the confusion that had dogged her since.

“You’re wrong,” she said briskly. “It is my fault. Eddy came here knowing he could take me if he wanted and that I was too screwed up to stop him.”

“You’re alive, that’s what counts. If you had fought, he would’ve killed you. I think we both know that.”

“Don’t lower yourself into feeling pity for something like me,” she said evenly. “I’m not worth it. I got exactly what I deserved. I’ve been deluded and dangerous for years. I formed him into his father in my mind. A man I despise but love at the same time. He saw this in his own way. Saw how easy it would be to toy with me.”

“He’s a monster,” Fenn said, going to her.

She pushed away. “You know the truth of it all now. You know what sort of person you pretend to love. Why don’t you just admit I disgust you? That you hate everything that I am?”

“I love you.”

“Don’t say that!” she screamed. “Don’t you ever say that! Can’t you see what kind of thing I am? What kind of freak I am?”

He wanted to hold her, but she’d have none of it. He wanted nothing more than to help her, ease her mind. “You’re no freak. You have problems, even I can see that, but we can work them out.”

“Don’t be too sure. What I’m going to tell you now is going to change your mind. I’m going to tell you about Cherry’s part in all this.”

He looked pale, but he listened. He listened to her tell him about Cherry’s escape from prison. The study she made of her. The Hypothalamine. What it had done to her. About Eddy being dead. And lastly, about Cassandra, their Jane Doe. When she was finished, he said nothing. The bit about William Zero returning from the Territories was hard enough to swallow, but this … this was madness.

“This is a little hard to take, Lisa. Cherry shapeshifting into Eddy? The walking dead?”

“I know it all sounds ridiculous. But it’s the truth. Do you think I’m deranged enough to make up a tale like that?”

“No, of course not, but …” But this was too much. He wanted very much to give her the benefit of the doubt, but it wasn’t easy.

“You’ll have to trust me, Mr. F—
Jim.
I’m afraid it’s all you can do, unless you want to throw me in jail.”

Fenn lit a cigarette. Of course, that’s what it came down to. Either trust her and give her the chance to prove what she was saying or throw her in jail for aiding and abetting. The police were no closer to stopping Eddy Zero than they were a week ago. Trusting Lisa was the only possible choice if he called himself a cop.

“I’m not sure if I believe any of this or not,” he grumbled, “but I’m going to give you a chance to prove it all. I guess I owe you that much.”

“That’s all I ask for.” She brought him a stack of letters. “Read these. They’ll confirm a few things.”

“Cherry’s?”

She nodded.

When he was finished, he said, “I’ll help you. I’ll do everything I can.”

“Will you?”

“Yes. And I’ll do it for you, not for the sake of the law.”

“Everything is coming full circle now, Jim. It started with William Zero and that’s where it will end. Eddy’s going to call and I’m going to lead him to his father and if I die in the process, then it serves me right, doesn’t it? I belong that way.” She started to cry and he held her now.

Poor deluded thing, he thought. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.”

She pulled away. “All right? My God, you’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

He couldn’t deny it. “Lisa, Eddy is very real. But the Territories … they don’t exist. It’s all nonsense. You have to see that. And the rest of this … it just can’t be.”

The phone rang.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and answered it.

“Do you still want to come along?” Eddy asked.

The emotion left her. “Yes, you know I do.”

“Tonight’s the night, my dear. Listen very carefully.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know the house my father did his work in?”

“I know it.”

“Go there tonight if you want to come along. Midnight.”

It was too good to be true. Eddy was working right into her hands. “I’ll be there.”

The line went dead.

“Looks like you’ll get your chance to see if I’m crazy or not,” she said to Fenn.

“Eddy?” He looked pale.

“Yeah. Tonight we cross over.”

Before he could comment on this, the phone rang again.

Lisa answered it. Fenn was on the extension.

“Did you pay a visit to Cherry?” Cassandra inquired.

“I did.”

“Good. Then you know her secret.”

Lisa said, “Yes. Eddy just called. He said tonight at midnight.”

“Good. The sooner the better. I’m getting a little stiff.” She laughed quietly. “Go there and make sure your Mr. Fenn is with you. We may need someone with official connections to explain it all away when it’s done.”

“Will you be there?”

“Yes. I’ll be there. The witching hour. How fitting.”

The line went dead.

* * *

It was raining when Fenn and Lisa reached the old house. Neither said much on the journey over. Lisa had no idea what Fenn was thinking, but she could pretty much imagine what he thought of her and this whole mess. Right now, however, none of that mattered. Within a few hours, she hoped, Zero, Cherry, Eddy and possibly herself would be no more. She wasn’t afraid of this. The memories of Eddy and Dr. Blood-and-Bones had to be exorcised and if this meant her death, then it wasn’t too great a price to pay to be free of what had haunted her for years now.

She started all this and only she could end it.

She knew Fenn wasn’t taking anything about William Zero or the Territories too seriously. They were delusions, he’d decided with his cop’s pragmatism, dementias shared by Eddy and Spider and now by her. He didn’t give a damn what Gulliver had professed to see, there were no Sisters or alternate worlds of experience. Regardless, he took Eddy very seriously. In his thinking, Eddy was luring her there to rape and possibly kill her, under the guise of making an impossible journey. But what Eddy didn’t know was that Fenn was coming along to break up his little party. And as far as Cherry and Cassandra went … well, they’d just see, wouldn’t they?

Lisa only hoped he was right, that they did indeed take Eddy by surprise. But she had her doubts. She’d have felt better if a dozen cops were waiting in the wings for back-up, but Fenn didn’t want it that way. He could take care of Eddy, he insisted. And she wondered if a usually careful man like him was motivated into this thinking by sheer confidence or the macho need to punish Eddy Zero for molesting her. She’d have felt worlds better if he believed her implicitly and went into this nightmare scenario armed with the knowledge that a garden variety psychotic was the least of their worries.

They parked up the street and he said, “Just give me a minute to get around back and then you start slowly walking to the house. Take your time. I want to be in position when he shows himself.”

She nodded. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call Gaines and have him bring more men?”

“No,” Fenn growled. “This is my party.”

She didn’t like this at all. “You’re making a mistake,” she told him.

“We’ll see. Besides, Cassandra doesn’t want a mob of cops, now does she?”

“We’re playing with fire.”

He ignored her. “Don’t take any chances. Once he shows himself, get him talking. Do just as we said: Tell him you have a confession to make and spill it about his old man. That’ll keep him busy. I’ll do the rest.”

“You just won’t believe any of what I told you?” Lisa asked one last time.

“Be careful,” he said as if he hadn’t heard her and slipped off into the storm.

Despite the rain, she did as Fenn asked and walked slowly up to the house. He was going to ruin everything, she knew. He would come busting in with his gun blazing and Dr. Blood-and-Bones would be robbed of what she’d promised him: his son. And what would be the penalty for this? For surely there would be one. Would he be content in dragging her off to his marriage bed or would he want more, like maybe Fenn as well? Another soul to amuse him as the wheels of hellish eternity ground on? She knew only to expect the unexpected and clawed to a dangling thread of hope that told her Zero and Eddy would go their way and Fenn and she theirs.

And that just might happen, she told herself, if you’re really lucky and if Cherry wears Eddy’s face and not her own.

As she worried over this, she wondered what Cassandra was up to and what her part would be in all this.

Christ, what a mess. What an ugly, awful, horrible mess.

By the time she reached the top of the frost-heaved steps and stood before the threshold, she was soaking wet and taking an almost childish delight in being so. She savored it, for delight was something she feared she’d never know again. Once upon a time, she’d been frightened of storms. Now they gave her a sense of security, of reality.

She went in, intersecting her nightmares.

Gray, uneven light spilled in through broken windows and worm-eaten shutters. There was plaster dust heaped along the baseboards and a stink far worse than mere wood rot or animal droppings. It was like being in some monolithic sarcophagus, it occurred to her, trapped in a crypt as night approached. A miasmic stench of death and blackness crept from the dehydrated walls.

“Eddy?” she sang out. The darkness was silent like a vacuum. Her voice echoed and went stillborn with the dust.

She stepped in further. “Eddy, it’s Dr. Lochmere … Lisa …” The sound of her voice in this awful catacomb was the most frightening thing she could imagine. “Eddy? Are you here?”

“Yes.”

Her heart galloped in her chest. The reply came from off to her right. She followed it into a filthy, deserted parlor. Wallpaper was peeling from the walls in arid strips, cobwebs were tangled in the chandelier overhead. “Where are you?” she asked in a wispy voice. Meager illumination flitted in through dusty, stained windows. The smell of death was worse in here and she pictured dry, pitted bones wrapped in a wormy shroud.

“Where?” she tried again.

He stepped from a low alcove. “Here.” A light was switched on. A single bulb in the chandelier provided dim light.

“I’ve come as I said I would,” she told him, wondering when the power had been turned back on and deciding it didn’t matter. She had light to die by. It was enough.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He took her left hand in his. His fingers were cold, the skin parched. His touch induced neither lust nor hatred now, only indifference. He ran his thumb in circles over her palm. “You won’t regret this,” he told her.

“No …”

A suggestion of chill brushed against her, an icy ambience. But it wasn’t coming from Eddy, but the alcove.

“No tricks,” he said. “And no head games like today.”

“No.”

“There’ll be no going back.”

“I know,” she lied.

“You don’t look well. Are you ill?”

“No, I’m fine. Just out of sorts, I guess. The last few days have been strange ones.”

“But pleasurable?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“The Sisters will be here soon, then we’ll get started.” He looked upward. “They’ll arrive up there.”

There was a subtle creak of a board and Fenn stepped into the parlor with his gun out.

“Eddy Zero at last,” he said.

Eddy didn’t look too surprised. “I should’ve known. Lieutenant Fenn, I presume?”

“In the flesh,” Fenn said, his finger tickling the trigger. “Step away from him, Lisa.”

She looked from Fenn to Eddy.

Eddy shrugged. “Do as he says. It won’t matter now.”

“You’re done, Eddy,” Fenn said, almost casually, as if the game was at an end. “I should kill you, but life behind bars for you will suit me.”