The Whispering Room

Twelve

Late that same afternoon, Lynette was in the kitchen rolling out pie dough when she experienced a strange feeling that something was wrong in the house.

She couldn’t put her finger on the trouble. It was nothing concrete. No rhyme or reason for it. She hadn’t heard a noise or seen movement out of the corner of her eye. Nothing like that at all.

It was more the sixth-sense type of sensation she got about the weather, although those premonitions were also rooted in science.

This feeling was just plain weird.

She tried to ignore it, but the impression grew so strong, she dreaded looking over her shoulder for fear of what she would see in the doorway.

She turned anyway, and of course, nothing was behind her.

J.D. was in his high chair at the table, banging a wooden block against the plastic tray. He seemed oblivious to whatever had raised his grandmother’s hackles.

Drying her hands on her apron, Lynette walked calmly to the back door and checked the lock. Then grabbing the rolling pin, she marched through the house to the front door and checked that lock, too. Naturally both doors were secured. She’d always been cautious about that sort of thing, but especially since Katrina.

Moving over to the window, she looked out on the street. After a brief rainstorm earlier, the sun was back out, but Lynette wondered if another front might be brewing over the gulf. Maybe that was why she felt so uneasy.

She spotted Peggy Ann Grainger across the street sitting on Janet Tilson’s front porch steps. The two women were having drinks, and she saw Peggy Ann gesture toward Lynette’s house with her glass. At first, Lynette thought Peggy Ann was waving at her, but then she realized that the woman wasn’t even looking her way.

They were probably talking about her, Lynette thought peevishly. For all she knew, her marital problems were already fodder for the neighborhood gossips, Janet being one of the biggest motormouths on the block. Her son, Ronnie, worked at the auto parts warehouse that Lynette’s husband owned, and God only knew what Don might have let slip.

At the thought of her husband, a wave of rage washed over Lynette. How dare he treat her like this? After she’d given him the best years of her life. She knew that sentiment was a cliche, but in her case it was true! She had done everything for that man. Good God, the sacrifices she’d made, and for what? To suddenly be cast aside like an old coat when she was no longer needed or wanted?

Even when Don was home—which was rare enough these days—it was as if…he didn’t even see her. And that was the worst insult of all. To look at her and not see her. He sat across from her at the dinner table and made small talk just as they had for years. Sometimes they even watched television together afterward. But something had changed. He’d changed.

Lynette didn’t even know him anymore and that seemed to her like the worst betrayal of all. He’d changed while she’d stayed the same. He’d moved on while she remained embedded in their old way of life. How unfair was that? Here he’d gone and turned everything upside-down, and she hadn’t even had a say in it. Yet she was just supposed to accept whatever he dished out without a squabble.

Across the street, the two women were still chatting up a storm, and as Lynette backed away from the window so they wouldn’t see her, she saw an old black Cadillac parked at the curb a few houses down. A Cadillac exactly like the one the stranger had driven away in earlier.

From this distance, Lynette couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, but she still got uneasy just looking at it. She didn’t like the idea of that weirdo lurking around the neighborhood. Why had he come back? If he’d truly been looking for his friend, he should have been long gone by now.

But that was the same car. Lynette was sure of it.

And with that certainty, the premonition of danger swooped down on her again. She gave a little gasp of panic as she turned and rushed back to the kitchen.

The baby was still playing in his high chair, but when Lynette came bursting through the door, the noise startled him and he began to cry. She went over and picked him up, cradling him against her bosom.

“It’s all right, Boo. Nana’s here.”

She held him close until he quieted and then she reached for the phone. “Let’s give your granddad a call, what do you say? See if we can get him to come home early today.”

Maybe she was overreacting, but seeing that car parked at the curb, along with her earlier premonition, had left her shaken. She didn’t have grounds for calling the police, though, and besides, she didn’t want to worry Evangeline. Don could just get his ass on home for a change and take a look around the neighborhood himself.

She was facing the glass slider to the patio, and as she punched in the number, she saw what she thought was a tree branch on the brick pavers. When she realized what it really was, she stifled a scream so as not to scare the baby again.

Lynette saw snakes all the time when she gardened. The garters didn’t particularly bother her, but the snake on her patio now was at least six feet long and as thick as a man’s arm. She was pretty sure it was a water moccasin and big enough that she wasn’t about to go out there and try to kill the thing by herself.

“Jennings Auto Parts,” said a feminine voice on the other end of the phone.

Lynette had been so fascinated by the snake, she’d forgotten she had the phone to her ear.

The woman who answered was Don’s new secretary. New being a relative term. She’d been there for several months, but compared to Adele, her predecessor, who had worked for Don for nearly thirty years, Deanne Hendrix was still a novice.

Though you couldn’t tell that by her attitude.

The woman grated on Lynette’s nerves something fierce.

“This is Lynette. I need to talk to Don.”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jennings, but he’s out in the warehouse right now. May I take a message?”

“Last time I checked, there was a phone in the warehouse. Can’t you transfer my call out there?”

“It would be easier if I just took a message. That way he can call you back whenever he has a free minute.”

“Now, look,” Lynette said testily, “I need to talk to my husband and I need to talk to him right now. You get him on the line. I don’t care if you have to carry the phone out to the warehouse yourself.”

“Hold, please,” the woman said coolly.

Snotty-ass bitch.

It was times like this that Lynette really missed Adele. The older woman had her faults, but she’d also had the good sense and the gracious manners not to try and make the boss’s wife jump through hoops every time she called the office.

Lynette kept her eye on the snake while she waited for Don to pick up. As far as she could tell, it hadn’t moved so much as an inch. Maybe it wasn’t even alive, but who in the world would put a dead snake on her patio?

“Lynette? What’s going on? Deanne said you sounded upset about something.”

“I am upset and I need you to come home.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Come home and I’ll tell you.”

He gave a frustrated sigh. “I can’t just leave work. We’ve still got a lot of orders to get out.”

“Even if your grandbaby’s in danger?”

That stopped him cold. “What are you talking about? What’s happened to J.D.?”

“Nothing yet. But there’s something strange going on around here, and I need you to come home and help out.” Quickly, she told him about her unsettling encounter earlier with the scarred man, the car she’d spotted down the street a little while ago and the snake that was still stretched across the back patio.

“Lynette, for God’s sakes, you’ve seen snakes before. They were all over the place after Katrina. If you’re that worried about it, just don’t take the baby outside.”

“And what about that strange man?” she demanded. “What if he tries to break in?”