Monica nudged him with her elbow and whispered, “Let’s go, Owie.”
He followed her to the door. They stepped aside to make room for a couple of people trying to come in, then headed for the stairway.
Sharon, some distance away, was greeting new visitors. She had her back to Owen and Monica. Her blond hair hung down in a thick braid.
“That was certainly tacky,” Monica said.
“What was?”
“What do you think? Ethel. Good God. I didn’t know this was going to be a peepshow. No wonder you were so eager to come here.”
They started to climb the stairs.
“Nothing you couldn’t see on any beach,” Owen pointed out.
“In France, maybe.”
“Anyway, she’s just a dummy.”
“It’s pretty funny, they give all that lip service about keeping the dirty stuff out of the tour, then they show us something like that.”
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“You wouldn’t.”
At the top of the stairs, a sign on the wall read Station Three. “Here we go again,” Monica muttered, starting her player.
Owen thumbed down the Play button on his machine, and heard Janice’s voice.
“After finishing its brutal attack on Ethel, the beast ran out of the parlor and scurried up the stairs, leaving a trail of blood to mark his way. Ethel’s blood. Look down, and you’ll see stains on the floor. They’ve been copied from crime scene photos, and match the stains found on the hardwood floor the night of murder. Follow them to Lilly’s bedroom and listen to what Maggie had to say.”
Monica, head down, followed the red stains. Owen walked behind her. His tape hissed, wordless for the few seconds that it took to reach the doorway of a bedroom.
“‘We’re just above the parlor here,’” Maggie explained. “This is Lilly Thorn’s bedroom. That’s her on the bed.’”
He entered the room behind Monica.
Only a few tourists were here. They were scattered along the length of the cordon, so Owen had a fine view of the bed.
Sitting upright on it was the figure of a young woman dressed in a pink nightgown. Eyes wide, mouth agape, hand to her mouth, she looked to Owen like a star of the silent screen demonstrating terror.
“‘All that commotion from downstairs woke Lilly up,‘” Maggie continued. “‘She must’ve known something mighty awful was going on. Must’ve known she and her boys were in danger. But instead of running to save the kids, she climbed out of bed and shut her door. See that dressing table there? She dragged it over in front of the door so the intruder couldn’t barge in. Then she climbed out her window. It would’ve been a long fall to the ground, but there’s a bay window just below this one, and she dropped down on top of it. From there, it was an easy jump. She landed on her lawn and run away into the night.’
“Lilly made good her escape,” Janice said, her smooth voice replacing Maggie’s gruffness. “She escaped with her life, but not with her sanity. The wax figure that you see on the bed, done by Dubois, was based on a photograph that had been taken of Lilly at the time of her marriage to Lyle Thom, the outlaw, several years earlier. This nightgown is an exact replica of the one she...”
“And the original can be found at the Beast House Museum,” Monica said in a sing-song, mocking voice that interferred with whatever Janice was saying on Owen’s tape.
She pushed her Stop button.
Owen frowned at her.
He looked around. Though some people were entering the room, nobody stood nearby. Monica’s mimickry had probably disturbed nobody but Owen.
“Cut it out,” he whispered.
She flashed her teeth at him.
Owen stopped his machine. He studied it, found the Rewind button, and pressed it.
“You’re
“Yeah, I am.”
“That was the end.”
“I
She rolled her eyes and muttered, “You’re kidding.”
Owen thumbed Play. Maggie said, “‘from downstairs woke Lilly up. She must’ve known something mighty awful was going on.’”
He’d rewound way too far.
As Maggie went on, he thought about hitting the fast-forward.
Don’t, he told himself. Just listen to it all again. So what if it takes a while? Monica can just wait. She should’ve kept her mouth shut.
He met her eyes.
She frowned.
“I rewound too far,” he explained.
“Good going.”
“This may take a minute.”
“Wonderful.”
“Shhhh. I’m trying to listen.”
“Cute move.”
“You don’t have to wait for me.”
“You can really be a pain sometimes, do you know that?”
“You’re going to make me miss stuff again. Then I’ll have to rewind.”
She clamped her lips shut and glared at him.
Owen wished she
His tape reached the part that he’d missed.
As Monica had already told him, the original nightgown worn by Lilly on the night of the attack was on display at the Beast House museum.
“You may now go down the hallway, and resume listening when you come to Station Four.”
He stopped the tape.
“All done?” Monica asked.
“Yep.”
“You’re sure you didn’t miss a single precious word?”
“I think that’ll do it.”
This time, he led the way. Though he walked slowly toward the door, he didn’t look back to make sure that Monica was staying with him. It made him feel rude, but he didn’t care.
If it offended her, good. For years, he’d been looking forward to Beast House. Now he was finally here, but Monica wouldn’t let him enjoy it.
He waited just inside the doorway while a family with three kids made their way into Lilly’s bedroom. Everyone in the family wore earphones. Even their girl, who appeared to be about eight years old.
It didn’t seem right, bringing a kid that age into a place like this.
People are so damn queer, he thought.
