Nightshade

The laughter came again, and Joan shuddered as a chill rolled over her.

Go back, she told herself. Go back to bed, and go to sleep.

But even as her mind spoke the order, her hand turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to Cynthia’s room.

She felt for the light switch; turned it on.

And saw her sister staring at her.

A scream rose in Joan’s throat, but as quickly as it came, she stifled it. It wasn’t Cynthia she was seeing at all, only the portrait that hung on the wall. Furious at her own reaction to the picture, she moved deeper into the room, her eyes locking on the image of her sister.

Cynthia’s eyes seemed to come alive, holding Joan’s gaze; her smile twisted into a mocking smirk.

“What do you want?” Joan demanded. Though she heard nothing, Cynthia’s eyes continued to grip her.

Grip her as they had when she was a child, and Cynthia was about to tell their mother a lie, warning Joan with nothing more than a look to say nothing.

An image leaped from the depths of Joan’s subconscious…

* * *

SHE WAS FIVE years old, sprawled out on the floor in the living room, poring over one of her books. Cynthia was stretched out on the sofa, leafing through a movie magazine. The phone rang, and as Joan scrambled to her feet, Cynthia reached behind her without looking and picked up the receiver. As she pulled it to her ear, the cord caught on their mother’s favorite vase and it crashed to the floor. When their mother rushed into the room a few seconds later, Joan was still staring at the scattered shards. Then she heard Cynthia telling their mother what had happened.

“She didn’t mean to do it, Mama. She was just trying to answer the phone, and she knocked it off the table.”

As the words — and the certain knowledge of what would happen next — sank into Joan’s mind, she tore her eyes away from the shattered remains of the vase. Her mother was glowering down at her, her hand already raised to punish her clumsiness.

Behind her stood Cynthia.

Her eyes warning Joan to keep silent, Cynthia’s lips twisted into a smile so cold that it froze the younger girl.

In silence, she had borne the punishment that should have gone to Cynthia, and that night, when they were both in their beds, Cynthia asked her how she could have been so clumsy.

“But I didn’t do it,” Joan protested. “You broke Mommy’s vase!”

“Me?” Cynthia said. “But Joanie-baby, you were the one that tried to answer the phone. Don’t you remember? As soon as it rang, you jumped up to answer it and knocked over the vase!”

“No, I didn’t,” Joan objected. “It was you!”

But Cynthia had gone over it again and again, and finally Joan decided her sister must be right — she herself must have been so afraid of what her mother might do that she’d wanted it to be Cynthia’s fault. “But it wasn’t my fault, Joanie-baby,” Cynthia explained. “It was your fault. It was all your fault.”

* * *

AS THE LONG-BURIED memory blazed in her mind another memory stirred in her. The memory of the strange story Matt had told about what had happened the night before last, when his grandmother disappeared from her room.

And she remembered the terrible nightmare Matt had told her about just this afternoon.

“What are you doing?” she whispered in the darkness. “Are you trying to blame Matt this time? Are you trying to blame him for what you’ve done?” Her eyes still fixed on the image of Cynthia, she backed out of the room. “Well, I won’t let you! Do you hear? I won’t let you!” Snapping off the light, Joan pulled the door closed behind her, then twisted the key in the lock, jerked it out of the door, and dropped it in the pocket of her robe. Only then — with the door securely locked behind her — did she rest against the wall for a moment while her racing heart slowed.

And once again, she heard her sister’s laugh.

CHAPTER 14

JOAN HAD TO get out of the house.

It was mid-morning. Matt had left for school three hours ago, and for the last two of those hours Joan had been trying to concentrate on the task she could put off no longer: sorting through the contents of Bill’s desk, deciding which of the stacks of papers needed to be returned to his office, which turned over to Trip Wainwright, and which to either keep or dispose of. But every time she went to the desk in the den, she turned away, unable to bring herself to begin the job. She knew what was holding her back.

It was the finality of it.

Even as she’d stood at her husband’s graveside, looking down at his coffin, some small part of her still rejected the reality of it, the cold truth that she would never see her husband again, never be able to talk to him. Never feel his touch.

That same small part of her still clung to the idea that as long as Bill’s things were just as he’d left them — the clothes, the papers in his desk, even the books and magazines that he hadn’t finished reading — as long as none of those things were touched, he might still come back.

Like her mother with Cynthia, she told herself that morning when her eyes had fallen on the row of Bill’s suits that still hung in the closet in her bedroom. But even knowing that keeping Bill’s things was as futile for her as keeping Cynthia’s was for her mother, Joan still hadn’t been able to bring herself to take his suits and shirts out of the closet. But she promised herself she’d start with the desk.

Yet even that proved to be too much, for every time she approached it — every time she sat down at the desk and started to open one of its drawers — she felt as if she were being watched, as if unseen eyes were peering over her shoulder, following her every move.

The first time, she simply tried to shake it off, but no sooner had she pulled the top left-hand drawer open than she felt it again, and instinctively slammed the drawer shut and whirled around to see who was watching her.

The den, of course, was empty.

The whole house was empty, except for her.

But it didn’t feel empty.

It felt as if someone were there, lurking close by, stealthily following her as she moved from one room to another.

Stalking her.

Finally she left the house, telling herself that she wanted to talk to Dan Pullman, find out if any trace of her mother had been found. But she knew that was only part of it — that just as strong was her need simply to escape from the house.

The house and everything in it — both seen and unseen.

There was only one car parked at the head of the trail to the pool below the falls that morning — Dan Pullman’s black-and-white Taurus — and when Joan emerged onto the shelf of rock edging the pool, she found him removing the bright yellow ribbons that had warned the curious away from the areas where traces of Emily Moore had been found.

“You’re giving up, aren’t you?” she asked, biting her lip to hold back the tears that threatened to engulf her. How could they do it? How could they just walk away from the search?

Pullman couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes. “I just can’t keep my men on it any longer,” he replied as if he’d read her thoughts. “It seems like if we were going to find her, we would have by now.” His eyes moved toward the heavy clouds that seemed to hang just above the treetops. “With this weather…” His voice trailed off, but his meaning was unmistakable. “Well,” he went on a few seconds later, shoving the last of the yellow tape into