neck began to hurt from pressing her head against the wall, she went back to her bed and once more pushed the knob on top of the little alarm clock.
12:45.
Laurie, perched on the edge of her bed and now wide awake, stared at the face of the clock for a long time. Had it really been forty-five minutes since she’d heard the first noise?
How long since the noise had stopped?
Finally she went back to the door of her room, and listened again.
Silence.
Holding her breath, she twisted the key in the lock once more. The snap of the bolt as it clicked open startled her so badly she jumped back from the door. Then, working up her courage, she reached out and slowly turned the knob.
Pulled the door open, just a crack.
Pressed her eye to the crack.
Peered out into the hall.
A dim night-light glowed.
Silence.
Her heart thumping in her chest, she pulled the door open and slipped out into the hall. She wanted to run to her mother’s room, burst through the door, and leap into bed.
But which was her mother’s door?
And besides, her mother wasn’t alone.
Tony would be with her.
Maybe she should just go back to her own bed.
But what if she heard the sounds again? For what seemed like an eternity, Laurie stood in the hallway just outside the door to her room. The hallway and the upper landing of the staircase seemed even larger in the dim glow of the night-light than they had earlier, when she’d come upstairs to bed. But down the hall, only a few yards away, was the door to the room next to hers.
The room from which she’d heard the sounds.
Had she really heard anything?
Maybe not — maybe she’d fallen asleep, and the sounds had existed only in a dream.
But if they hadn’t — if there were people in that room — Suddenly she felt like she was being torn apart. Part of her wanted to run and find her mother, but another part of her wanted to retreat back into her room, lock the door, and pull the covers up over her head.
But a third part of her — a part that seemed to be gaining strength every second — wanted to go to the door of the room next door, pull it open, and look inside.
And as Laurie’s fingers closed on it, it seemed almost warm, as if the fiery light within had somehow heated it. She hesitated, part of her mind still screaming at her to run back to her room, lock the door, and hide under the covers. But that other part — the part that had to know — won out.
She turned the knob, and pushed open the door.
She waited, too terrified even to breathe.
But nothing happened — the room beyond the door was as quiet as it was dark.
Finally Laurie reached inside, felt for the button that was the light switch, and pressed it.
The chandelier, identical to the one in her own room, flashed on, and the darkness washed away.
The room was empty.
Empty, and quiet.
Dead quiet.
Laurie stood at the door for several long seconds, her eyes searching every corner of the room. It was almost as large as hers, but furnished not only with a bed and dresser, but a chaise longue, a wing-backed chair, a desk and a table.
All the furniture was hidden by white dust covers.
It felt as if nobody had been in it for years.
No people — no whispers or giggles or laughter — no scuffling of feet.
Just an empty room.
So it had been just a dream — just a trick her mind had played on her.
Closing the door, Laurie went back to her own room, closed and relocked her door, and went back to bed.
And lay awake for at least another hour, haunted not only by the strange sounds that had come out of the darkness, but by the stories she thought she had long ago left behind her.
CHAPTER 14
Echoes of the voices from the night still lingered as Laurie slowly emerged from the restless sleep that had left her almost as tired as if she hadn’t slept at all. But the morning sun flooding in from the east quickly silenced the fading voices, and when she got out of bed and went to the window to look out over the park, the fears of the night before vanished altogether. Pulling on a robe, she headed downstairs, smelling the scent of frying bacon as soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She followed the aroma to the kitchen, expecting to find her mother standing at the stove.
Instead, she found Tony Fleming.
Stopping short at the kitchen door, Laurie suddenly felt uncertain. What was she supposed to do?
Why did she suddenly feel as if she were someplace she didn’t belong?
On Mustique, it hadn’t been that way at all. Practically every morning Tony had been up earlier than any of the rest of them, and it usually had been Laurie who was the next one up. Usually she found him sitting in the living room, drinking coffee and looking out over the sea. She’d pour herself a glass of orange juice from the pitcher the cook always left sitting on the buffet outside the kitchen, and then she and Tony would figure out what they were all going to do that day.
But this morning, everything was suddenly different. They weren’t on Mustique anymore, and this wasn’t a house they’d rented for two weeks. This was Tony’s house, and Tony’s kitchen, and suddenly Laurie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. Should she just go on into the kitchen? She glanced around, looking for a pitcher of orange juice, but saw nothing.
Should she just go look in the refrigerator, like she would have done at home?
Or maybe go back upstairs until her mother came down?
But before she could make any kind of decision, Tony turned around, smiled at her, and tilted his head toward the refrigerator. “No staff,” he said. “Just us. There’s orange juice in the fridge. Not fresh squeezed, now that we have to take care of ourselves.”
Laurie moved to the refrigerator, pulled it open, and found a carton of orange juice that hadn’t yet been opened.
“Want me to tell you where the glasses are, or do you just want to poke around until you find them?”
Laurie glanced around the kitchen, which was bigger than their living room had been up on 76th Street. There was a table with four chairs by one of the windows, and from the sink you could see the park. There were two big ovens, and a range with six burners, and a counter long enough that half a dozen people could have worked atit at once. The kitchen in their old apartment had been barely big enough for the four of them to fit into, and its only window had looked out into a narrow shaft the super called a light well even though it barely let enough light in to tell if it was day or night. Laurie surveyed the long row of cupboards that hung above the entire length of the
