crouching with her mouth open, gauging the location of the footfalls. As she listened, her mind raced in wild synchronicity with her pulse.
Door that swings both ways.
Was it a riddle of some kind? Or was it all some elaborate prank played by the Minter kids or the Bennington boy or some faceless brat from one of the anonymous, perfect homes?
Or had someone seen something on the night of the fire and was afraid to tell?
She ran in the direction of the noise. The black trunks of trees seemed to rise up on all sides, as if they had been placed in a perfect disarray to confuse her. Low limbs slapped at her legs, ripping her slacks. The forest was like a live creature, drawing her into its wild heart. Renee clawed brittle twigs away from her face as her hair tangled in the arching branches. She tore free and lurched past a massive oak then found herself in a clearing.
In the starlight, she could make out a worn path. It led to a creek. The path disappeared into a thicket of briars, locust, and crabapple on the other side, a dense and bristling wall through which no human could pass.
Renee bent to the creek and splashed water on her cut face. She heard no footsteps, no false recorded voices, only the soft laughing of the water. She held up the mirror and saw herself, a wicked witch with bruised eyes, a viper's nest of hair, blood trickling from the bridge of her nose.
She looked down at the water's edge. Lying on a cold gray boulder was a tiny plastic object of faded yellow.
She stooped and picked it up, and it made a clacking sound.
A rattle.
It had belonged to Christine.
Beyond it, in the hollow between two water-worn stones, lay a bundle of fabric. Renee retrieved it, looked into the frozen smile of Rock Star Barbie. The doll should have burned along with the house. It was clean, its hair untangled, the glittering clothes laundry fresh.
She turned the doll over and felt for the button that would trigger the audio clip. She found it.
' Housewarming present.'
Renee sat by the creek for long minutes, listening to the wind in the trees, the bright music of the currents, the sharp chirrup of insects. As the last daylight faded and the sounds of the night merged into a single symphony, she stood, brushed the dirt from her clothes, and tucked the rattle and doll into her pocket.
Someone knew.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jacob awoke with his mouth dry, heart pounding in his ears, wrists aching. He thought he smelled smoke and realized he'd been dreaming of the house burning down. His back was stiff. He rolled over and looked across the room. Joshua's bed was empty.
The windowsill was gray with approaching dawn. He sat up and rolled his shoulders and neck, loosening the sore muscles. The smoke he'd smelled was from a cigarette. Joshua stood by the door, smiling, scratching in the stained armpit of his T-shirt.
'Morning, brother. How did you sleep?'
'Worse than ever.'
'You got no peace of mind. Them shrinks didn't do you a bit of good.'
'How long do I have to stay here?'
Joshua flicked his cigarette, sending ashes onto the rug. 'You act like I'm holding you here against your will.' He laughed, the barking of a thirsty dog. 'I ain't my brother's keeper. Pretty funny, huh?'
'Can I go, then?'
'It's a long walk back to town.'
'I'll call a cab.'
'Sorry. I can't let you use the phone. You might say something we'll both regret.'
'Okay, then. I'll walk.'
'So you don't want to wait for your dear, sweet honeybunches of a wife.'
'Leave her out of this.'
'That ain't the deal.'
Jacob looked at the closet. The door was closed. He wondered what was hidden behind it. 'You have the house. And what I already paid you. Isn't that enough?'
'What the hell good is this old place since I can't sell it? Nothing but a snake den of memories that sneak out and bite you. You owe me plenty more, Jake. You've owed me for a long time. Now it's time to pay up.'
'Whatever you want. Just leave us alone.'
''Us'? I thought you'd decided your wife was a cheating bitch who deserved to die.'
Jacob rubbed his eyes with the tops of his fists. 'No. I didn't say that. You said it, didn't you?'
'Jake, how many times do I got to tell you? I'm only doing what's best for you. I'm only doing what you would do, if you had the cojones.'
Jacob leaned forward, straining, and looked under the bed. Nothing. 'You never took care of me.'
'Better than the old man ever did, that's for sure.'
'Because he loved you the best.'
'Love? The old man? Them words don't go together.'
'He did all of this for us, Josh. He wanted both of us to carry on for him.'
'Except I never wanted it. Not the fucking legacy, not the place in the community, not the life given in tireless service to others. I just wanted the money. But Dad fucked me over by leaving me the house instead. Laughed all the way to the goddamned grave, with you sitting there holding his bedpan and a fresh copy of the will.'
Jacob's head throbbed and his tongue rasped against the roof of his mouth, the result of too much whiskey. He looked around the room. The only time he had ever desired ownership of this house was when the lawyer cracked open the will and announced that it belonged to Joshua. Maybe he should have bought it then. Surely the lawyer could have found a way around the covenant that prevented its sale.
The room seemed smaller and less forbidding than it had in their youth. Two baseball gloves hung on a row of pegs above the dresser. One was right-handed, one left-handed. Jacob had learned about transverse twins, and how the embryo split and the two halves developed as mirror opposites, facing each other, confronting each other. Jacob clenched his right hand. Joshua, as a lefty, had always been the better baseball player, especially as a pitcher.
That was one of the few ways their grade school teachers could ever tell them apart: by the hand with which they wrote. Occasionally Joshua would force Jacob to cover for him while he was off skipping school or smoking marijuana under the football stadium bleachers. Jacob had practiced writing with his left hand until the print was legible. He didn't want to disappoint Joshua, and of course Joshua wielded the ultimate weapon against him.
Jacob had often imagined the two of them facing each other in the womb, fighting for Mom's physical resources and sapping her strength. Then, at the moment of release, struggling toward the bright opening above in a desperate, winner-take-all race. As if they each knew the prizes that awaited and the stakes of life and death.
'Renee doesn't know about you,' Jacob said.
'She knows enough.' Joshua went to the window.
Outside, the sun had risen but was veiled in ragged clouds. A spring breeze whistled through the shutters and a loose slat knocked against the exterior wall. Tap tap tap.
Mother had made that same sound walking down the hall after her stroke, tapping with her cane. Jacob could picture her hunched inside a peach flannel nightgown and wearing frayed slippers, ankles streaked with thick blue veins. Her body trembled as she slid a foot forward, balanced herself, swung the cane and planted its tip against the floor, adjusted her weight on the handle, and slid the second foot beside the first. Repeated over and over, slowly, until she reached the stairs. Then the tap of the cane would be broken by the clatter of her spidery hand against the railing.
'We had some good times in the old barn, didn't we?' Joshua said, without turning.
