Brian Freeman - The Bone House

Hilary finished her wine and squeezed her husband's shoulder, but he remained where he was, a statue. She left the room, and a moment later, light illuminated the small square of the bathroom window down the hall. There were no curtains. In the privacy of the island, there was no one to spy. Except now. He could see her torso framed against the white tile and watched with detached interest as she undressed. She undid the buttons of her blouse and slid it down her arms and hung it on a hanger on the back of the door. Her fingers, which were topped with bright red nails, picked apart the strands of her blond hair, loosening it and letting it fall over her shoulders. She took off and folded her glasses. The effect of the innocent gesture was strangely wanton. With both hands behind her back, she undid the hooks of her bra and lifted it from her chest. Her breasts were pale, full globes. She unzipped her slacks, stepped out of them, and peeled down her panties, bending over so that her breasts hung forward and swayed. She was naked now, but he could see her milky skin only as far as her hips. As he watched, she stepped into a running shower and disappeared.

Mark Bradley was alone.

He made his way toward the rear of the house. His footsteps were soft on the spongy earth. He felt occasional snow flurries melting on his face. He ducked under the eave and crept sideways. The living-room window, which was open two inches, was immediately on his right. He edged his face around the frame to look inside. Mark Bradley was near the fireplace, studying a painting hung on the wall. The canvas was wild with blood-red strokes and strange giant angels. Bradley's back was to him, so he crossed the path of the window with two silent steps. He was near the rear corner of the house now, where a door led inside the screened porch. All he needed to do was lure Bradley outside.

He told himself he was doing the right thing. They couldn't afford to be exposed.

The warped door opened outward from the porch, offering him cover. When Bradley pushed the door open, he could take a step and swing the forked tongue of the crowbar squarely into the back of Bradley's skull. One blow. That was all it would take. He'd done much harder things in his life.

He reached in his pocket and dug out a Fourth of July firecracker that was no bigger than a birthday candle. He lit the fuse of the firecracker with a cigarette lighter and flicked it end over end with his thumb. It flew and landed ten feet in front of the porch door, but the fuse fizzled and burned out without triggering a bang. He pawed inside his pocket for another noisemaker. He only had one left, and it was old and just as likely to blow up in his hand. He touched the fuse to the flame and again flicked it away, watching it arc with a tiny glow. It landed, and he could see the wick burning.

Crack.

It went off with a flash of white light, but the pop was oddly muffled. I He wasn't sure if it was loud enough. There was a long, tense moment of silence, but then the old house shifted with the movement of cautious footsteps on the porch. Mark Bradley was coming closer, investigating the noise.

He cocked the crowbar in his arm.

In front of him, the porch door opened.

'Mark?'

Hilary saw her husband in the doorway of the porch. He stopped as she called to him and turned back into the house.

'Is everything OK?' she asked.

'I heard something outside.'

He lingered in the door frame. She saw him flexing his hands, as if his protective instincts had been aroused. His tension fed her own anxiety, but when he saw nothing, he let the door bang shut behind him and hooked it closed.

'Anything?' she asked.

'I guess not.'

Hilary breathed easier. There were always occasional moments of fear, living in a remote area. It had been an adjustment, going from the suburbs to the island. In Chicago, there were always people around, and as claustrophobic as it had sometimes seemed to her, she realized there was a certain security about it, too. Here, with only a few hundred people spread across thirty-five square miles, there was no one nearby if something went wrong.

She also didn't know if she could trust anyone who did come to their aid now. She'd begun to see everyone as a potential threat.

Mark sensed her unease and embraced her. His presence was strong and comforting, and a little sensuous, too. He kissed her forehead and slid a fingernail down the damp skin of her chest between the silk folds of her robe. He had graceful hands. That wasn't why she'd fallen in love with him, but it was a bonus.

'You look good,' he said.

She heard the erotic rumble in his voice. 'That's for later. Right now, let's go to dinner.'

'I'm not hungry,' he said.

'Yes, you are. Go take a shower while I get dressed.'

He patted her ass and stripped off his T-shirt as he headed for the bathroom. 'Your hair's still wet,' he called. 'You could join me.'

'Go,' she repeated.

Hilary padded behind him in bare feet to their bedroom, which was a twelve-by-twelve square, painted in burgundy, with cracks in the old walls. The hardwood floor was cold, and the first thing she did was sit on their queen bed and put on socks. She stuck her legs into bikini panties as she stood up, then shrugged off her robe. She caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door: topless, panties, black athletic socks.

'Sexy,' she muttered aloud, shaking her head.

By the time she had finished dressing, Mark was out of the shower his hair dripping on the floor. He was naked, just as she'd been earlier. She eyed the bedroom window, where the blinds were up, as they always were. They'd become casual about their seclusion, to the point of not even thinking about other people when they were in their home. For a woman who used to close the bathroom door when she was alone in a hotel room, she'd become unselfconscious in a few short years. She dressed, undressed, showered, peed, and had sex, all in the belief that there was no one to see her.

Oddly, right now, staring at the window, she didn't feel alone. The sensation dogged her like an unsettling dream. Gooseflesh rose on her skin.

'Let's go,' she murmured when Mark was dressed.

They took coats and headed out into the frosty night. She noticed that Mark didn't switch off the house lights and locked the front door behind them. As they drove, steam fogged on the glass, and she found herself shivering in the cold interior. She cupped her hands in front of the vents, waiting for warm air. Mark was silent beside her. She knew the arrival of Cab Bolton had left him shaken.

'You want to talk about it?' she asked.

Mark didn't reply immediately. He flicked on the high beams to light up the twisting stretch of road.

'I think I should tell Bolton I was out on the beach,' he said finally.

Hilary shook her head. 'No way.'

'If the DNA matches where Glory scratched me, Bolton will find out anyway, and he'll think I have something to hide.'

'You remember what Gale told us? There's no case if they can't prove you were on the beach. Period. You can't give up your best legal advantage, Mark. We have to be practical about this. For all we know, they won't be able to recover any DNA because Glory's body was in the water.'

Mark's eyes strayed to the rear-view mirror. 'Glory was talking about fire on the beach,' he told her.

'What do you mean?'

'She was humming that Billy Joel song when I first saw her. "We Didn't Start the Fire." She mentioned the Robert Frost poem, "Fire and Ice", and talked about the world ending in fire. She asked me — she said, why didn't I want to play with fire? It kept coming up.'

'So maybe it's true,' Hilary said. 'Maybe something happened in Florida that was connected to the fire.'