and watched.
The blood on the mahogany floor wiped up easily, of course, but Erika was surprised to see it come off the painted wall and out of the antique Persian runner without leaving any visible residue.
“What’s that spot remover you’re using?” she asked, indicating the unlabeled plastic squeeze bottles with which both Christine and Jolie were armed.
“Mr. Helios invented it,” Jolie said.
“He must have made a fortune from it.”
“It’s never been marketed to the public,” Christine said.
“He developed it for us,” Jolie revealed.
Erika marveled that Victor would have time to concoct new household products, considering everything else on his mind.
“Other spot removers,” Christine explained, “even if they took out all the stain visible to the eye, would leave blood proteins in the carpet fibers that any CSI unit could identify. This expunges everything.”
“My husband’s very clever, isn’t he?” Erika said, not without some pride.
“Extremely so,” said Christine.
“Extremely,” Jolie agreed.
“I very much want to please him,” Erika said.
“That would be a good idea,” Jolie said.
“I think I displeased him this morning.”
Christine and Jolie glanced meaningfully at each other, but neither replied to Erika.
She said, “He beat me while we were having sex.” Having dealt with all the bloodstains, Christine directed Jolie to proceed with her morning tasks in the master suite. When she and Erika were alone in the hallway, she said, “Mrs. Helios, excuse me for being so straightforward, but you must not speak about your private life with Mr. Helios in front of anyone on the household staff.”
Erika frowned. “Shouldn’t I?”
“No. Never.”
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Helios, surely the subject of social deportment was part of your manners-and-etiquette download.”
“Well, I guess it was. I mean, if you think it should have been.”
“It definitely should have been. You shouldn’t discuss your sex life with anyone but Mr. Helios.”
“The thing is, he beat me during sex, even bit me once, and he called me the worst names. I was so ashamed.”
“Mrs. Helios—”
“He’s a good man, a great man, so I must have done something terribly wrong to have made him hurt me, but I don’t know what upset him.”
“You’re doing it again,” Christine said impatiently, “talking about your private life with Mr. Helios.”
“You’re right, I am. But if you could help me understand what I did to displease my husband, that would be good for both me and Victor.”
Christine’s stare was sharp and unwavering. “You
“Yes. And I’m determined to be the last.”
“Then perhaps you’d better not talk about sex even with him.”
“Even with Victor? But how will I find out why he was displeased with me?”
Christine stropped her sharp stare into an even more piercing gaze. “Maybe he wasn’t displeased.”
“Then why did he punch me and pull my hair and pinch my—”
“You’re doing it again.”
Frustrated, Erika said, “But I’ve got to talk with
“Then talk to the mirror, Mrs. Helios. That’s the only safe conversation you can have on the subject.”
“How could that be productive? A mirror is an inanimate object. Unless it’s magical, like in
“When you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, Mrs. Helios, ask yourself what you know about sexual sadism.”
Erika considered the term. “I don’t think it’s in my programmed knowledge.”
“Then the very best thing you can do is educate yourself… and endure. Now, if that’s everything, I have a number of tasks to attend to.”
Chapter 19
The soft rattle of the computer keyboard under Vicky Chou’s nimble fingers, as she composed a letter, was the only sound in the summer afternoon. Each time that she paused in her typing, the subsequent silence seemed nearly as deep as deafness.
The merest breath of sultry air stirred the sheer curtains at the open window but did not produce the faintest whisper. Outside, the day lacked bird songs. If traffic passed in the street, it did so with the muted grace of a ghost ship sailing without wind across a glassy sea.
Vicky Chou worked at home as a medical transcriptionist. Home was Carson O’Connor’s house, where she received free room and board in return for serving as a caregiver to Carson’s brother, Arnie.
Some of her friends thought this was an odd arrangement and that Vicky had negotiated a bad deal. In truth, she felt overcompensated, because Carson had saved Vicky’s sister, Liane, from serving life in prison for a crime she had never committed.
At forty-five, Vicky had been a widow for five years; and as she’d never had children of her own, a fringe benefit of living here was the feeling of being part of a family. Arnie was like a son to her.
Although autistic, the boy rarely presented her with a problem. He was self-absorbed, quiet, and endearing in his way. She prepared his meals, but otherwise he cared for himself.
He seldom left his room, and he never left the house except when Carson wished to take him with her. Even then he usually went only with reluctance.
Vicky didn’t have to worry about him wandering away. When he wandered, it was to internal lands that held more interest for him than did the real world.
Nevertheless, the silence began to seem eerie to her, and an uneasiness crept over her, growing with each pause in her typing.
At last she rose from her desk chair and went to check on Arnie.
Vicky’s second-floor room was a pleasant size, but Arnie’s quarters — across the hall — were twice as large as hers. A wall had been taken down between two bedrooms to provide him with the space that he required and with a small bath of his own.
His bed and nightstand were jammed in a corner. At the foot of his bed stood a TV with DVD player, on a wheeled stand.
The castle occupied a significant part of the room. Four low tables formed an eight-by-twelve-foot platform on which Arnie had erected a Lego-block wonder that was brilliantly conceived and executed in obsessive detail.
From barbican to curtain wall, to casements, to ramparts, to the keep, to the highest turrets, down to the bailey, through the inner ward, to the barracks and the stables and the blacksmith’s shop, the ninety-six-square-foot marvel seemed to be Arnie’s defense against a frightening world.
The boy sat now in the wheeled office chair that he occupied when working on the castle or when just staring dreamily at it. To any eye but Arnie’s, this Lego structure was complete, but he was not satisfied; he worked on it every day, adding to its majesty and improving its defenses.
Although twelve, Arnie looked younger. He was slender and as pale as a Nordic child at the end of a long dark winter.
