Джеймс Паттерсон - The Inn

Cline watched her, waited for her to come into his orbit. She was strangely beautiful in a haphazard kind of way, like she had been assembled from pristine but mismatched parts. Her lips were a little too red for her white skin, her arms slightly too long for her body, the eyes a little up-turned at the corners. Dark mutant girl transforming, only now realizing that she was different from those around her, powerful. The things he could do to her with a little time. Show her how to dress, how to walk. Take the stupid piercings out, fix the crooked nose, dazzle her with big money, big cars, big guns. She had no idea, this little coastal urchin from nowhere, just how far she could go. She could have men with their balls in a twist at the sight of her. Empires at her feet. Cline leaned on the rail and watched her and swam in his fantasies.

CHAPTER THIRTY

ANGELICA STOPPED ME as I tried to make my way into the house, putting a hand out like a traffic guard.

“We have a problem.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, sighing.

“Come with me,” she said. We walked through the house to the porch, where Effie, her back to me, was sitting cross-legged on the edge. Angelica and I came around in front of Effie, and I saw she was eating a large chocolate chip cookie. On her left knee, a plump brown rat sat on its haunches, a small shard of cookie in its hands. It was turning the cookie crumb around and around, nibbling the edges as it went.

“ This is happening.” Angelica pointed sharply at the rat on Effie’s knee. The little animal didn’t flinch, and neither did Effie.

“Effie is eating a cookie with a friend,” I noted.

“That thing is not a friend !” Angelica threw her hands in the air. “It’s a parasite-riddled, flea-bitten rodent!”

Effie and I looked at the rat. It sniffed the air between nibbles of the cookie shard, its tiny pink nose twitching.

“To be fair,” I told Effie, “this is a pet-free household.”

Effie froze at my words, shocked. She put down her cookie and gestured to the rat, then she pointed to herself and shrugged dramatically. After that she spread her hands to indicate the porch, the house, the forest.

“He’s not your pet, you’re saying,” I surmised. “He goes where he wants.”

Effie picked up her cookie again.

“This is ridiculous,” Angelica said. “The house has always had rats. I understand. We live in the woods. It’s bound to be a problem. But Effie, it’s your job as the groundskeeper to keep them outside the house.”

Effie stared at Angelica, munching her cookie, totally unrattled by her tirade. The rat finished its treat and started cleaning its ears.

“If it bites one of us, it could give us rabies!” Angelica cried.

“Perhaps we could have the rat seen by a veterinarian?” I suggested. “Given a little flea bath, maybe?”

“You can’t be serious. This is beyond belief!” Angelica cried. “Rats are not pets! They’re vermin!”

“Is it likely to bite anyone?” I asked Effie. “I mean, it’s something to consider. Why is it so tame?”

Effie shrugged again. She made a chopping motion at her neck, which was quite startling, given the huge scar running across her throat. She used her thumb and forefinger to indicate a small amount, an inch, and then tapped her forehead.

“Die … almost … when you almost die, you … go crazy?”

Effie nodded. Pointed to her chest, tapped her forehead, tapped the rat’s head.

“You’re crazy. The rat’s crazy,” I translated.

Effie nodded, winked at me. Angelica gave a growl of frustration and stormed away. I sat beside Effie and looked at the rat. I reached slowly toward it with my index finger, and the creature took my finger in its small pink hands, gave my fingernail a gentle, experimental nibble, then turned back to cleaning its ears, apparently having decided that I was inedible. I gave the little rat a stroke on the head. Effie was watching me, smiling.

“I guess we can make one exception to the no-pets rule,” I said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

SUSAN FOUND ME in the kitchen picking dried sauce off one of Siobhan’s old recipe cards. She must have sensed my desperation, because she came and put a hand on my shoulder, then took the card from my hand.

“You look stressed,” she said.

“Siobhan used to make this lasagna,” I said. “It was Marn’s favorite. I’m going to make it tonight, try to cheer the kid up a bit.”

“I thought I saw Marni leaving just before.” Susan pointed to the back door.

“Oh. She might have gone for a walk. She’ll definitely be here for dinner. We’re going to have a talk. Decide some things about her future.” I took the card and frowned at it. “I’m trying to get my head out of the sand and take some responsibility for that kid. She needs guidance.” I found my phone and sent Marni a quick text asking where she was.

“Well, this recipe’s not much to go on.” Susan laughed. “It just lists ingredients. There are no amounts.”

“Siobhan was a bit of a creative chef.” I sighed.

“Let me help.” Susan took a big chef’s knife from the block on the counter. “I may be old-school Bureau but that doesn’t mean I’m not creative.”

She took an onion from the basket on the counter and started peeling it. I hesitated by her side, paralyzed with guilt.

“You know,” she said, “you can ask for help around here. I know you’ve got Effie doing the chores, but I’ve been feeling like there’s stuff I could be doing. Things I’m good at.” She was turning the onion into tiny, impossibly perfect squares with the speed and precision of a machine.

“Well, it’s not your responsibility.” I looked away. “I mean, you’re just a resident.”

“Just a resident.” She rolled her eyes. “If you think we’re all just residents here, you’ve lost your mind.”

I poured us a couple of glasses of wine and turned the radio on. The sun had set, leaving a stripe of purple light on the ocean. I caught my reflection in the window above the sink and I realized that even with the horror of what Clay had told me that evening and despite the way my skin burned over Cline’s words and my heart sank with thoughts of Siobhan and how Marni needed her, I was smiling. Smiling with an unfamiliar but welcome sense of hope.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Susan said suddenly. She put the knife down, reached into her pocket, and brought out a brass doorknob. I took it and sighed.

“You too? Why are they all giving up at once?”

“I don’t know.” She laughed. “Maybe the ghost on the stairs is doing it.”

“You’ve heard the ghost on the stairs as well, huh?”

“Yeah.” She went back to her work. “You probably can’t hear it down in your scary basement. Seriously, Bill, you ought to move up to the loft. That room is so pretty. I can’t understand why you keep it locked up.”

“I can’t understand why you won’t tell me what’s going on with you and Effie,” I said. “What the hell happened to her? Who tried to kill her? Is she here under your protection?”

“Whoa!” Susan put down the knife, held her hands up. “That was a swift right-angle in the conversation.”

She was right. I’d leaped at her, pushing about things I knew she didn’t want to talk about in response to her hitting on something I didn’t want to talk about. The loft had been Siobhan’s dream place. Sometimes I’d catch her looking out the cracked window at the sea, her shadow stretched on the floor. Our bedroom. Our safe place.

“I was just thinking about Effie.” I cleared my throat. “She’s got a little pet now.”

“The rat. I saw.” Susan nodded. “Look, Effie and I met through the Bureau, yes. Something terrible happened to her, yes. We’re both here, and we’d like to keep that discreet, yes. But that’s as far as I’ll go on that, Bill.”