Pearlmutter smiled. “We didn’t have a guesthouse when I was a kid. My friends and I had to play in the basement.”
“Is your son in Ira’s class?” Lea asked, pulling open the back door.
Pearlmutter nodded. “Yes. And I think they know each other from tennis camp.”
Mark shook his head. “Ira only lasted a few days at tennis camp. It was too rigorous for him. He got blisters.”
“They worked them pretty hard,” Pearlmutter agreed. “But Rex learned a lot. Really improved his technique.” He laughed. “He’s only twelve and he can pretty much keep up with me now.”
They stepped outside. Low hedges clung to the back of the house. Rows of just-opened tiger lilies, bobbing in a light breeze, led the way along the path to the guesthouse.
Music blared from the guesthouse. Lea’s bare feet sank in the dew-wet grass. The ground felt marshy even though it hadn’t rained. She felt something brush over her feet. It scampered into the flowers, making them shake. A chipmunk? A mouse?
She raised her eyes to the guesthouse. The lights were all on. Two tall pine trees stood as sentinels on either side of the red wooden door. The light from the windows made their long shadows loom over the yard.
“Pretty loud in there,” Mark murmured.
“They like their music loud,” Pearlmutter offered. “We used to-right?”
“I guess you’re right,” Mark said.
“Rex is usually an early bird,” his father said. “He uses up so much energy during the day, he’s exhausted by eight-thirty or nine. Staying up past midnight is a special treat for him.”
Lea stopped at the door. She had a heavy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She thought of Elena and Ruth- Ann. And who was the other girl? Debra Robbins?
Why would these snobby, sarcastic fourteen-year-old girls want to hang out with a bunch of immature twelve-year-old boys? Did that make any sense?
No.
And the blue arrows on their faces. Would fourteen-year-old girls really want to join a club for elementary school kids?
These thoughts made her hesitate with her hand on the brass doorknob. “Should we knock first?”
“Let’s go in, see what they’re up to,” Mark said, motioning with his head.
Pearlmutter snickered. “Catch ’em in the act.”
Lea pushed open the door. Music roared out. Bright yellow light spilled over them. The bedroom was in the front of the house. Behind it, a narrow hall had a bathroom and a long, thin dressing room on one side, a closet on the other.
“Oh, wow,” Lea murmured, her eyes moving around the room. The bunk bed and the twin bed beside it had been stripped. Bare mattresses. No pillows. Nothing on the blue-green carpet. No clothes strewn about or tortilla chip bags or soda cans.
“Hello?” Mark called, squinting into the bright light. He moved quickly to the back of the room and swung open the hall door. “Hello?”
Lea’s eyes went wide. She turned to Pearlmutter, whose knotted face revealed only confusion, and murmured in a voice that seemed to be coming from someone else, “There’s no one here.”
55
Saturday morning, Samuel followed Daniel onto a pale blue local Hamptons bus that took them on the old Montauk Highway to Hampton Bays. It was a warm, sunny morning, one of those beautiful May mornings with no humidity and the sweet fragrance of spring flowers in the air.
Samuel gazed out the window as they passed a green college campus. The sign said: Stonybrook Southampton. Trees were just sprouting leaves and the lilac bushes were spreading their violet flowers.
Deep thoughts for a Saturday morning as the bus bumped along the narrow two-lane road, twisting past an inlet of the ocean now, sparkling waters under the clearest of blue skies.
Samuel wished his brother could enjoy being among the living as much as he did. If only Daniel had the same appreciation for the spring air and the delightful aromas, the brightness of the morning, and that special vibrant green on the trees you see only in springtime.
But Daniel had a different agenda. And, of course, it had to be Samuel’s agenda as well. For he was the Burner, the Fire Man, the Punisher. And as sure as the lilacs opened every spring, Daniel had people to punish.
If Daniel could use his hypnotic powers without help, Samuel would be content to watch. And yes, enjoy. But wherever the power came from-Hell, most likely-it joined the two of them together the way no twins had ever been joined.
The bus bounced along the highway, past a model of an Indian teepee and a cigarette trading post. Some kind of Indian reservation, probably.
Samuel read somewhere that all this land had belonged to an Indian tribe. Now their territory seemed to be squashed down to a cigarette store on the old highway.
The road turned. They were rumbling through a suburban neighborhood of nice houses. The sun and the sky appeared brighter here.
Samuel and Daniel sat two seats from the back. No one else on the bus except for an elderly woman in the front seat, sound asleep with her head bobbing against the window.
Samuel thought about the big move. It had gone smoothly. And was very timely, since Mum and Pa had arrived home earlier than expected. Now they had room to spread out. And room to welcome the dozens of new kids flocking to them in order to move Up with Sag Harbor Middle School.
Monday will be the first hard day, Samuel knew.
We should rest up and enjoy our new home for the weekend. We should make sure that all the new minds are set. That the new followers are clear about the goal.
But no. Daniel had his other plans.
Pa had seen too much. Pa knew too much. Pa could ruin everything.
And so, it was important to keep Pa busy. Very busy.
And that’s why it was so urgent and important to kill Autumn Holliday.
56
The twins found Autumn’s house easily, on a street just off Dune Road near Hot Dog Beach. Set back on a small square of grass, it was a squat, two-story redbrick with white trim and white columns on either side of the front door.
The house was old and not very well kept up. One side had darkened, the bricks rutted and cracked. The paint was peeling from the two columns.
“Let’s be quick, boyo,” Daniel said. “We don’t want to neglect the newbies, do we?”
They climbed onto the narrow stoop, up to the screen door. Samuel pushed the doorbell and they heard it buzz inside.
Footsteps. Then Autumn pulled open the door and stared through the screen at them.
“Huh? You two? Really?” Blue eyes wide with surprise.
“Hi,” Daniel said shyly, smiling so his dimples would flash.
“Did you boys come all this way to see me? How did you find me? How did you get here?”
She pushed open the screen door before they could answer. Samuel followed Daniel into the small front
