"This is worse than the seance," Tom Hartman muttered to Veronica Chandler. "Same cast of characters except no Ouija board. It's like being at a funeral."
"That's because I don't think Dee Dee really wants to move out of this house and I'm not at all sure that Rosanne really wants to move into this house. It's their husbands who are calling all the shots and that can create a few problems."
Tom grinned at her. "Spoken like a woman who's been there."
Veronica shrugged. "I learned when I was married that give and take is the name of the game. Just look at Dee Dee and Rosanne's faces. I've seen happier faces at traffic court."
"Maybe something will happen and Steve and Dee Dee will change their minds about leaving Schuyler Square," Tom suggested.
"Maybe." Veronica nudged him. "Look who just got here."
Tom glanced at the front door and saw Peter Van Husen enter the room. Peter looked like a mess, as if he hadn't slept for three nights straight. His blond hair was mussed up, his skin was pale and he needed a shave. Not the debonair police officer Schuyler Square was used to seeing. "He said that he wants to look for something he left here," Tom remarked. "I wonder if he's remembered yet what it is."
"Look." Veronica nodded toward Peter as he walked through the living room and up the stairs without saying a word to anyone. The determined glint in his slate blue eyes opened a path for him through the party-goers like Moses parting the Red Sea. "Where do you think he's going?"
"The attic would be my guess. Where else could something sit for twenty years without being noticed?" Tom studied Veronica's face. "Does it bother you to be here since you lived in this house for awhile?"
"Not a bit. It would bother me a lot more if I still lived in this house. It was always creepy to me, even before I knew about Mary Austin."
Rosanne joined them. "What are we supposed to do now?" she asked. "Follow that man upstairs and see what he's up to or wait for him to come back down here?"
Dee Dee came up to the small group. "I say wait for him. He almost seemed like he was in some kind of a trance. It might be like waking up a sleepwalker--not a good idea. Besides, maybe he'll find what he's looking for and bring it back down for the rest of us to see. Kind of like Show and Tell for grownups."
Tom and Veronica exchanged worried glances. Whatever Peter Van Husen was looking for, did any of the rest of them really want to see it, much less hear about it? "I think I need another drink," Tom said.
"Make it two," Veronica requested.
No comments:
Post a Comment