Carlene Thompson Read online

  "Very good care of your sister. Okay. I won't even steal any of her loot."

  The doorbell rang downstairs, and Melinda shrieked, "They've already started! Halloween'll be over before I even get outside!"

  "Then let's get a move on," Greg ordered. "Got your sack?"

  Melinda held up her bag. "Check."

  "Remember your lines?"

  "Trick or treat! Thank you!"

  "Awesome. The kid's got talent all over the place, Mom."

  "I always suspected it," Caroline laughed.

  She sat on the bed, watching the two of them race down the hall, Melinda trundling along in her bulky suit. For just a moment she saw Hayley on her last Halloween, dressed in a clown suit identical to Twinkle's, insistently saying "Treats or tickles" to the bafflement of her and Chris.

  "Did you teach her that?" Chris had asked.

  "No. Maybe it was Lucy."

  Hayley stubbornly refused to tell where she learned the phrase, but it had become hers, repeated over and over as Caroline and Chris trooped up and down residential streets with her, carefully watching as she rang doorbells and begged for candy with her dimpled smile.

  And now, so many years later, she was sending another little girl out to beg candy, this time under the protection of her muscular teenaged son. It was impossible for her to imagine so much time had passed. Particularly after recent events.

  Two nights before, Caroline had hidden the clown doll and managed to assume a false calm by the time Melinda returned from Jenny's. The child was excited by the broken window and insisted all her stuffed animals and dolls be moved to the guest room so they wouldn't catch cold or be snatched by the burglar she was sure had invaded the house.

  Caroline lied. "Someone just threw a rock through the window, Lin. I found it on your floor. Nothing has been disturbed. No one was in here."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  "Did the police come?"

  "Yes," Caroline was able to say truthfully.

  "Are they sure no one was in the house?"

  "Yes," Caroline hedged again.

  "Okay, but I'm sleeping with you."

  She was sound asleep in the king-sized bed with George on the floor beside her when David got home at 10:30. Greg was in his room supposedly doing homework but really on the phone. Caroline sat rigid on the living room couch.

  "It's Hayley's," she insisted, holding the doll out to an amazed David. "She had it with her the night she was kidnapped. It was never found, not even with her body."

  "Then it isn't her doll," David said firmly. "It just looks like it."

  "David, I made Twinkle for her. I'm not mistaken. Can't you see how old and dirty this doll is? I'm telling you, it's Twinkle."

  "Caroline, you made a lot of dolls like this twenty years ago. I bought one to give to my niece. I think you said Lucy had one. Hell, dozens of people could have a doll like that."

  "All the other dolls I made had red hair. Only Twinkle had orange."

  "Couldn't red wool turn orange after all that timer'

  "Yes, I suppose," Caroline said reluctantly.

  "So this doll could be any one of the dolls you made years ago."

  "I don't think so. There's something about the facial expression…"

  David had gently taken the doll from her. "Caroline, you haven't seen Twinkle for a long time. You can't remember exactly what its expression was. Don't let imagination get the best of you."

  "But who put that doll on Melinda's bed? And why?"

  Finally David had given her a tranquilizer and sat beside her until she fell asleep on the big bed beside Melinda, then went off to the guest room with the stuffed animals and the dolls. Dear David, who had ended up delivering two babies that day, one of which had died, and who had come home to no evening snack and a half-hysterical wife. And now he was standing down at the door in the cold, handing out candy to droves of kids after working all day while she sat brooding about the past. Giving herself a mental shake, she hurried downstairs.

  "You go fix yourself a drink. I'll handle the trick-or-treaters," she told him as he was tearing into another bag of miniature Mars bars.

  He smiled. "I just got started. I'm good for another hour yet."

  "I said to go relax, and if you don't, I'll throw a tantrum." She took the plastic bag from him. "Now go."

  David sighed. "Whatever happened to meek, subservient women who never said a harsh word to their husbands?"

  "They exist only in Victorian novels." The doorbell rang, and she shoved two candy bars in his hand. "Eat these and watch TV. Pretend you're one of those detectives who drives a sports car and has a beautiful woman falling all over him."

  "I do have a beautiful woman falling all over me."

  "Why, thank you, honey."

  "Oh, I meant my nurse at the office," David called as he disappeared into the family room.

  "On second thought, you can hand out the candy," Caroline laughed as she opened the door.

  For half an hour she thought the kids were cute and trick-or-treat night a wonderful tradition. During the next half hour she thought the kids were okay and trick-or-treat night a pleasurable event. An hour and forty minutes into her vigil at the door, she thought the kids were a bunch of greedy little brats and trick-or-treat night a mild form of torture for adults. God, what a way to spend an evening, standing in the cold, dumping candy into the gaping sacks of weirdly dressed children who usually didn't even say "Trick or treat," much less "Thank you."

  She was snarling to herself after the last child stuck out his tongue at her, when a fresh gaggle of beggars appeared at the door. She emptied her bag of Reese's Pieces and all but three of the children skittered back to the street. "Just a minute I have to get more candy," she said tiredly, turning to find one last bag of York Peppermint Patties. As she tore it open, a hulking boy wearing a black coat and a Batman mask pushed aside a small child and thrust a grocery bag at her. Stingily she dropped in one piece of candy, staring defiantly into the boy's slitty eyes. He was at least fifteen and as far as she was concerned had no right still to be dressing up. He muttered a curse at her and stalked off.

  "Cretin," Caroline snapped.

  And then a young child, a girl of perhaps six dressed in a clown suit, stepped up to her and sweetly said, "Treats or tickles."

  Caroline dropped the bag, sending bright, foil-wrapped treats rolling across the porch and down the steps. The little girl stared, her eyes black diamonds in a dead-white face.

  "Who are you?" Caroline managed, reaching out for the child. But she moved like quicksilver, whirling and running back to the street, long blond hair creeping out from under her frizzy orange clown's wig.

  "Trick or treat, dammit" A girl dressed as Madonna stepped in front of Caroline. "And I don't want candy that's been on the ground."

  Caroline slammed the door in the girl's face. "David," she whispered. "David!" He was beside her in an instant. "What is it?" She gazed at him with wide, terrified eyes. "Hayley was just at the door."

  Pamela Burke poured a glass of Chardonnay and asked herself for the hundredth time in two days, "Why am I such a bitch?" It was not a question she would ever ask anyone else, but it was a question that had haunted her since she was a child.

  She lay down on the flax rug in front of the fire Larry had built earlier, before his father had called and he'd gone rushing back to the office to check on some mistake he'd made. Which was a frequent occurrence. Larry was not bright. He was handsome and wealthy and stupid. She'd told Lucille Elder that Larry designed the house, but he was as incapable of such a feat as a child. He was practically incapable even of balancing a checkbook. Still, his father insisted he "manage" the business, even though he bumbled through the work week in agonized confusion and spent most evenings with his father untangling the mess he'd created that day. During the first year of her marriage his constant absences at night had annoyed her; now, two yeas later, Pamela enjoyed being alone in her beautiful house with her ugl
y thoughts.

  Seeing Caroline Corday had really upset her. The woman would always be Caroline Corday to her, even though she was well aware of Caroline's divorce and remarriage, as she was of most things that happened in Caroline's life. She kept a guilty eye on the woman, and it was her distress at actually having Caroline stop by for a visit that had turned Pamela bitchy, the way she always got when she was upset. "I have a painting by your husband…I don't like it, but Lucille says it's tasteful," she mimicked herself aloud. Instead of being flustered, Mrs. Corday had looked at her like she was some pathetic little toad. Her daughter used to look at her the same way.

  Pamela had always insisted on going to public schools—they made her feel superior because her family had more money than anyone else's but she remembered very few of her classmates, even from high school. And why should she, since they were such a boring bunch of braces, pimples, and tacky clothes? But she remembered with searing clarity the day they had led Hayley Corday into her kindergarten class. She'd hated Hayley. She hated her long blond hair and big blue eyes—the same hair and eyes the princesses in fairy tales always had. She also hated the way Hayley could draw, making cats and dogs and mommies look like they really looked, not like the unrecognizable blobs that emerged from her own hand. And everyone else loved Hayley, even though her clothes were all homemade and she lived in a little log cabin like the one on the maple syrup bottle. The other children were delighted when Hayley's pretty mother and handsome father came to the spring kindergarten picnic, playing ball and hide-and-seek, and then Mr. Corday had given that painting to the teacher. Well, she'd fixed the picture by "tripping" and ramming a knife through it. Mr. Corday had rushed over, more concerned about her than his picture, but Hayley had just stared at her, her blue eyes full of knowledge, and Pamela had hated her even more.

  The fire was dying and Pamela rose, going back to the bar to refill her glass. Then she wandered over to the soaring windows, looking at lights in the distance and the utter darkness hovering over the house like a bat. This was All Hallows' Eve, the night when souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes. She shivered, then laughed at herself. Even if she were a superstitious person, which she was not, this was a brand-new house. No one else had ever lived in it, so there was no one to return even in spiritual form. Yet there was something about the house tonight that bothered her, an air of waiting and plotting, as if the house, or something in it, were watching her.

  "I'm just spooked because I'm thinking about her," Pamela said angrily. "It's just because I'm thinking about that night, that awful night." She stared blindly at her reflection in the window.

  It had been the Fourth of July. Annually her parents held a big barbecue on the grounds of their home for the employees of Fitzgerald Electronics, the event being one of her father's few democratic gestures. Both the Fitzgeralds had drunk steadily all afternoon, so when night came and it was time for everyone to go to the small park on the riverbank a mile away for the fireworks display, Pamela was sent along with her nanny, Miss Fisher, whom Pamela secretly called Fishface.

  About three hundred people had gathered for the event. The night was warm and heavy with the smell of honeysuckle and musty river water slapping against the concrete-reinforced bank. Men sitting out in a boat on the river set off the fireworks. As they burst and twinkled in various shapes across the sky, everybody gasped and laughed and clapped. Everyone except Pamela, who wouldn't wear her glasses and couldn't see anything but bright blurs against the darkness. She was bored stiff and furious with her parents for not attending. They always promised, but they never kept their promises. Neither of them. She viciously dragged the toe of her new pink tennis shoe over the grass, staining it. Not that anyone would mind. They'd just tell her to take better care of her things, then buy her a new pair.

  She glanced over at Fishface, a flat-nosed young woman with bulging, red-rimmed eyes who had managed to strike up a conversation with a straggly-looking guy in dirty, patched jeans. Pamela had no use for people who weren't pretty. She made a face at them, but they didn't notice. Stupids. They also didn't notice when she eased away into the crowd and headed for the park entrance. She'd get lost, that's what she'd do. Then Fishface would get in trouble and everyone would regret not paying more attention to her. She pictured her mother wringing her hands, her father pacing around shouting that his darling little girl must be found.

  She was lost in her fantasy when she reached the sidewalk outside the park gates. As she stepped off the curb, a brown car sped past her. With a tremendous squealing of brakes it slid to a stop inches from the white sawhorses closing off the road construction just beyond. Pamela watched while the driver tried to turn the car around, but the one-way street was narrow with cars parked along either side for the fireworks display, and the driver wasn't very good, because as the car seesawed back and forth trying to make the turn, it crashed into one of the sawhorses. Someone appeared down the street, making purposefully for the car, and squinting mightily, Pamela could see the uniform. A policeman! Before he could get near the car, however, the person jumped out and ran to him. Pamela always thought of the driver as "the Person" because from what she later calculated to be a distance of about 150 feet, she couldn't tell if the medium-built driver, oddly dressed in a hooded raincoat, was a woman or a man. Whatever, the Person stopped the policeman and began making gestures, obviously trying to explain things. Pamela inched closer to the car. It was just like her daddy's, which she knew was a Cadillac and expensive. Had someone from the party stolen Daddy's car? She crept closer, feeling very important and top secret. If Daddy's car had been stolen and she found it, she would be a hero. She reached the car and stood on tiptoe, peering into the backseat.

  At first all she saw in the glow of a streetlamp was a blanket. Then she gasped as a little girl's face struggled free of the cloth. Her mouth was taped, but Pamela still recognized Hayley Corday, who had been missing for a week. Fishface had read her all the newspaper articles about Hayley's kidnapping and threatened that the same thing would happen to her if she wasn't good. Wow, finding Hayley was even better than finding Daddy's car!

  Pamela started to call out to the policeman. Then she paused, thinking. If Hayley disappeared for good, Pamela would be the undisputed queen of first grade. There would be no Hayley with long blond hair, no Hayley who could draw perfect dogs and cats, no Hayley with nice parents who came to school and gave the teacher beautiful presents. Hayley's big, terrified eyes begged her to do something to call out, to open the door, to help. But Pamela only gazed back stonily. Then she glanced up to see the policeman walking away and the Person heading toward the car, toward her. Her eyes met Hayley's one last time before she skittered back to the park and rejoined Fishface, who hadn't even missed her.

  When she learned her father's car had not been stolen, she was disappointed. But three weeks later when Fishface ghoulishly told her Hayley Corday's burned body, missing its head, had been found about ten miles away, she became hysterical for four hours until finally a doctor was called to sedate her. With a child's reasoning, she hadn't considered the consequences of Hayley's being taken away. She had only thought of how much better her life would be if Hayley weren't around anymore. After Hayley's death, though, Pamela became obsessed with both what she had done and fear that the Person would come back for her. She had seen the Person's face. She woke up screaming every night and suffered blackout periods during which she would be found banging her beautiful little head on a wall or a table or the side of the house. For the next eight years she underwent psychiatric treatment, but the doctors were never able to pry her secret out of her. Fear and guilt kept her silent, although she was always afraid that during the nightmares when she talked in her sleep, Fishface had figured it all out. The woman looked at her knowingly sometimes, and for nearly twenty years Pamela had prayed she was only imagining that Fishface knew and would tell.

  Something creaked far back in the house, and Pamela jumped, spilling her wine. Just the hous
e settling, of course. She wished she'd made plans to see Rick, the tennis pro at the club she'd been having an affair with since July. If nothing else, she wished Larry would come back. He wasn't entertaining, but he was big and strong, and she felt edgy tonight. She had thought the wine would help, but instead it only seemed to intensify the uneasy feeling that she was being watched. Maybe a tranquilizer…

  As she started back the long hall to the bedroom, Pamela felt cold air swirling around her ankles. Had she left a window open? Impossible. She hadn't opened a window for weeks, not since the air turned autumn crisp. Stepping into her big bedroom, though, she saw the curtains floating inward. She strode across the room and drew them back to reveal the window pushed high. Damn Larry! she thought. He was always doing this. He was such a fresh-air fanatic it didn't matter to him if he gave her pneumonia. She slammed down the window, almost breaking the glass in her fury.

  She was tired and nervous and extremely irritable. She ran a hand over her smooth forehead and went into her sea-green bathroom, searching the medicine cabinet for Valium. What would I do without these little blue pills? she wondered, taking one and then another to insure sleep. They were lifesavers. She popped out her contacts and put them in the sterilizing vial, then creamed off her makeup, ran astringent over her face, and followed with eye cream, cell revitalizer, and oil-free moisturizer. Satisfied with her nightly defense against wrinkles, she wandered back to the bedroom.

  The room was still cold, and she decided to change into her long fuzzy robe, the one that made her feel cozy, like a little girl. She stripped off slacks and sweater, flinging them on the floor, then stepped into her walk-in closet.

  She was flipping through clothes, searching for her robe, when she heard a rustling, like the sound of a breeze whispering through dry leaves. She jerked around calling, "Who's there?" in a high, ragged voice, but of course no one answered.

  "Who were you expecting? The boogeyman?" she asked herself aloud, trying to laugh off her fear.