Second Child by John Saul
The house itself was silent.
She slipped out of bed, pulled her robe on, and went to the window. Beyond the pool, Cora Peterson’s house was no more than a shadow against the dark mass of the woods at whose edge it sat.
Next she crept into the bathroom, where she listened at Melissa’s door for a moment. But Melissa wasn’t a problem, for Teri knew that she had at least a couple of hours before Phyllis would come in to take the restraints off her half sister.
And all she needed was a few minutes.
Going back into her own room, she dressed as quickly as she could, fumbling only a little bit in the darkness. At last she found her sneakers, exactly where she’d placed them last night, right next to the night table. She slipped her bare feet into them, pulled the laces tight and tied them.
She crept to her door, listening once more before she opened it, but the house was still as silent as a tomb. A tiny smile of satisfaction curving the corners of her mouth, she pulled her door open, slipped through it and shut it silently behind her.
She crossed the broad landing around the head of the staircase, brushed past her stepmother’s door, then turned right into the guest wing.
At the end of the hallway she came to the closed door of the servants’ stairs.
She opened the door, stepped through it into the pitch-black shaft and pulled it shut behind her. Now, blinded by the total darkness, she was operating only by her memory of her earlier climb up these stairs, when she had been carrying Blackie’s corpse up to the attic. The moon had still been up then, and there had been enough light coming in the skylight at the top of the stairwell to see the turns in the stairs. Now, though, she had to feel her way along, carefully counting the steps as she went.
If she stumbled on the way down …
She put the thought out of her mind. So far, almost everything had worked perfectly.
The only bad moment had been when Melissa, instead of running screaming from the attic the moment she saw Blackie, had taken the pearls from his neck first. She hadn’t counted on that happening. She’d assumed that the sight of the dead dog would be enough to send her half sister into hysterics. But Melissa had crossed the attic, almost as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing.
And then she’d taken the pearls.
Teri, hidden behind a trunk a few feet away, had almost panicked when that happened. But even as Melissa had run screaming back to the stairs, she’d figured out what to do. Untying Blackie’s body, she’d stuffed it into one of the trunks, then hurried back down the servants’ stairs to the second floor. By then Melissa was already in her mother’s room, blubbering out her story, and Teri had slipped by unnoticed in the darkness of the hallway.
She’d unlocked her room and gone through the bathroom into Melissa’s room. Melissa’s pearls were exactly where Teri had found them a few days before, and she’d been back in her own room, the pearls hidden away in her own chest, long before Phyllis and Melissa had started up to the attic.
The whole thing had worked perfectly.
She came to the top of the stairs and pushed the door open. Its unoiled hinges squealed in protest, and Teri froze, but then reminded herself that she was at the other side of the house. No one could possibly have heard the faint squeaking noise.
She began threading her way through the attic, groping in the darkness, until finally she came to the trunk in which Blackie’s body lay. She opened it, lifted the dog’s dead weight out onto the floor, then eased the lid back down.
Five minutes later, the corpse heavy in her arms, Teri emerged into the kitchen. She went out the back door, making her way across the lawn to the shelter of the pool house. A faint glimmer of light was showing on the eastern horizon now, and above her the night sky was losing its inky blackness.
Taking a deep breath, her arms already beginning to ache from the weight of Blackie’s corpse, she started across the patio around the pool.
And froze.
From somewhere in the darkness, eyes were watching her.
But it was impossible—the house was dark; everyone was asleep.
She turned, scanning the house once more. The windows were all dark and everything seemed peaceful. But then, as she turned away once more, a flicker of movement—barely visible—caught her eye.
The attic.
Had someone been at the small dormer window in the attic, looking out at her?
She paused for a moment, thinking, her eyes fixed to the window. But as the sky began to brighten further, she decided she’d been mistaken. There was nothing there; no eyes were watching her.
She was safe.
She skirted the pool house, then paused once again, gazing intently at Cora’s house before crossing the lawn toward the old pottingshed behind the garage.
“But what’s it for?” she’d asked Melissa only a few days ago, when they’d come across the crumbling lean-to while her half sister was giving her a tour of the grounds.
“It’s where the gardeners used to grow flowers. They’d plant the seeds in pots in here, so when they went into the garden they were already blooming. But nobody’s used it for years.”
“Why don’t they tear it down?” Teri had asked, gazing at the sagging walls. “It looks like it’s about to collapse.”
Melissa giggled. “It is. But every time Daddy says he’s going to have someone pull it down, Mom tells him she’s going to use it for something. Once it was going to be an art studio, and another time she was going to do ceramics. But she never does. She never even comes near it.”
Which was why Teri had thought of it tonight.
Dropping Blackie’s corpse to the ground she pulled the door open. Inside, just as she remembered when she’d peered into the shed before, were the loose floorboards. It only took her a moment to lift three of them free.
She went back outside, picked Blackie up for the last time, and carried him up the steps.
Less than a minute later it was over. The floorboards were back in place and the crumbling shack was exactly as she’d found it.
Except that now it concealed Blackie’s body in the space beneath its floor.
It’s all right, D’Arcy’s voice whispered. I’m going away now, and it’s all right for you to wake up.
Melissa came awake slowly, her eyes fluttering for a moment, finally opening as Phyllis loosened the last of the straps that held her to the bed. She felt a flash of panic as she saw the restraints, but a moment later her mind cleared and she realized the night was over. It was morning, and a stream of bright sunlight was pouring through the window. “What time is it?” she asked.
Phyllis’s brows rose slightly. “Oh, so you’ve finally decided to speak to me?” Melissa gazed blankly up at her. “Oh, please, Melissa. Why do you always do that?”
“D-Do what, Mama?” Melissa asked, her voice wary. Was it possible she’d already done something wrong this morning? But she’d just awakened a second ago!
And then the memory of the scene in the attic last night came flooding back to her. Was her mother still angry about that? But it wasn’t fair.
She had seen Blackie up there, and—
Phyllis’s sharp voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you think I don’t notice?” her mother demanded. “You don’t fool me, young lady. I know you’re always awake when I come in.”
Awake? What was her mother talking about? “But I wasn’t,” she began.
Her mother silenced her with an angry look. “Don’t lie to me, Melissa. I know you hate the restraints, but they’re for your own good. How do you think it makes me feel when I come in in the morning and you just stare at the ceiling, then pretend to be asleep when I start taking them off? If you don’t want to say good morning to me, fine. But don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to be asleep.”
Suddenly Melissa understood.
It wasn’t she who had been awake when her mother came in.
It had been D’Arcy, watching over her, letting her sleep through the night. She shuddered
“I—I’m sorry, Mama,” Melissa murmured. “I just—I guess maybe I wasn’t quite awake yet.”
Phyllis, slightly mollified by her daughter’s apology, nodded. “All right,” she said. “It’s almost eight. Teri and I have already had breakfast, and we’re going to the club.”
Melissa nodded automatically, and a moment later her mother was gone. Melissa went into the bathroom, stripped off her pajamas, and took a shower. As she was pulling on her favorite pair of faded jeans a few minutes later, she heard Tag’s voice drifting in through the open window.
“Blackie! Here boy! Come on, Blackie!”
Melissa’s heart leaped. She must have been wrong last night after all. If Tag was calling Blackie—
But then she remembered the pearls. Instantly, her eyes went to her nightstand, where she’d put them last night.
They were still lying there, exactly as she’d left them.
She pulled a T-shirt on over her head and ran to the window. Tag was moving along the edge of the lawn that bordered on the woods, calling out to the dog every few yards. She watched him for a moment, her throat constricting as she realized what she had to do.
She shoved her feet into a pair of sandals and hurried downstairs. Cora, alone in the kitchen, smiled at her, tilting her head toward a glass of orange juice on the counter. “Your mama and Teri are already gone,” she said. “I saved you some juice, and I’ve got some bacon in the oven. And I could fix some eggs.”
Melissa shook her head at the offer, and Cora looked sharply at her. “Is something wrong, honey? You look—”
“Blackie’s gone, isn’t he?” Melissa asked.
Cora caught her breath. “Well, now, I’m not sure you could say that, but—”
“But he is, isn’t he?” Melissa insisted, reading the truth in Cora’s expression.
“Well, he didn’t come in last night,” she admitted. “But like I told Tag this morning, that’s right normal for a dog. I mean, all it’d take is one female in heat, and you have to expect him …” Her words trailed off as Melissa dashed out the back door, running across the lawn toward Tag, already calling out to him.
“Tag? Tag!”
He was just about to go into the woods when Melissa’s words stopped him. He turned around to see her trotting toward him. A few seconds later she was beside him.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” she asked, her breath coming in quick pants.
Tag’s brow furrowed slightly. “How’d you know?”
Melissa hesitated, remembering once more the look on her mother’s face last night when she’d told her about seeing Blackie’s body hanging from a rafter in the attic. Would Tag look at her that way, too? “I—I saw him last night,” she said. “Anyway, I think I did.”
Tag cocked his head uncertainly. “What do you mean, you think you saw him?”
“Well, I don’t know,” Melissa went on. “Mama said I had a nightmare, or made the whole thing up. But I didn’t.” Slowly, she told him the whole story, starting from when she’d awakened and heard the footsteps in the attic. When she was finished, Tag’s frown deepened.
“And there wasn’t anything there at all when your mom took you back up?”
Melissa shook her head. “Nothing but a dumb old mannequin with a dress on it,” she told him.
“Well, mannequins don’t make footsteps,” Tag replied. “Maybe we should go up there and see what we can find.”
Melissa’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you think we should?”
“Why not?” Tag asked. “I mean, it’s your attic, isn’t it? Did your mom tell you not to go up there?”
Melissa shook her head, and the two of them started back toward the house.
Twenty minutes later their search was over.
The mannequin still stood in the attic, but there was no sign of Blackie.
“But it still could have been a dream,” Tag insisted as they went back downstairs.
“It wasn’t!” Melissa insisted. “I wasn’t dreaming, and I wasn’t sleepwalking. I know what I saw! Besides, what about the pearls? They were around Blackie’s neck!”
“Hey, take it easy,” Tag protested. “I wasn’t accusing you of lying. I just meant—Well, you do walk in your sleep sometimes. Maybe—Well, maybe you took the necklace up there yourself.”
Melissa’s eyes darkened. “I didn’t! I wasn’t sleepwalking, and I know what happened.”
Tag backed away a step or two. “All right,” he said, his voice rising in the face of Melissa’s anger. “Then you tell me what happened! What did you do? Kill him yourself?”
Melissa’s mouth dropped open. “I—I—”
But she could say nothing more, for suddenly she realized that what Tag had just said was exactly the same thought that had been lurking in the back of her own mind.
It had been her necklace around Blackie’s throat.
If she hadn’t put it there, then who had? Nobody else even knew where she kept it.
Was it possible that she had been sleepwalking?
Could she have done it and not remembered?
The footsteps.
What about the footsteps?
What if she hadn’t heard them at all? What if they had only been part of the dream she’d had?
Suddenly she felt as if her head were stuffed with cotton. Nothing made sense anymore—she couldn’t figure out what was real and what had only happened in her own mind.
She felt as though she were going crazy. Her eyes welled with tears and a sob rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. “Y-You really think I could have killed him?” she finally asked, her voice trembling in spite of her efforts to control it.
Tag groaned. “Aw, come on. Why would I think that? I just said it because you were acting like you were mad at me. Of course you didn’t kill him. Why would you have?”
“But if I didn’t, where is he?” Melissa countered, her voice bleak as the tears in her eyes finally began running down her cheeks. “Where is he, Tag?” she repeated. “What if I killed him and don’t even remember it?”
Without waiting for an answer, she fled into her room, slamming her door behind her.
Teri lay stretched out on a chaise longue, her eyes closed against the brilliance of the morning sun. She felt good—she’d played a set of tennis with Phyllis, which she’d managed to let Phyllis win, then beaten Ellen Stevens in straight sets. After that, she and Ellen had gone for a swim, and ever since then she’d been lying by the pool, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the babble of voices around her.
A shadow fell on her face, and she opened her eyes to see a dark silhouette looming above her. She squinted, trying to make out who it might be, and was just about to sit up when a splash of icy water hit her legs. Gasping at the shock, she jumped off the chaise, then spun around to see Brett Van Arsdale standing at the edge of the pool, grinning at her. “You looked like you might be burning, so I decided to baste you,” he said.
“Oh, really?” Teri replied. “Well, how’s this for a basting?” With a quick shove she pushed him into the pool, then dived in after him, hitting the water just as he broke the surface. Grabbing his shoulders, she shoved him under again and pushed away, twisting out of his grip as he reached for her. He caught up with her halfway across the pool, and she barely managed to snatch a breath of air before he pulled her below the surface. She struggled for a moment, freed herself, then shot away, finally slithering out of the pool a fraction of a second before he caught up with her. By the time he’d scrambled out of the water, she was already drying herself off with the towel one of the pool boys had brought her the minute she’d appeared on the terrace. Finished with it, she tossed it to Brett, then stretched out on the chaise again. A moment later Brett dropped down on the one next to her.
“You going to the dance next weekend?” he
Teri cocked her head. “What dance?” she asked.
“The costume party,” Brett replied. “It’s next Saturday, and if you’re not going with anybody …” His voice trailed off, and Teri grinned mischievously at him.
“You mean you want me to go with you?” she asked.
Brett flushed, nodding. “If you want to.”
Teri was about to accept his invitation, then hesitated. What about Melissa? Would she be allowed to go if no one asked her half sister? She glanced over to the table where her stepmother was sitting talking to Brett’s mother. After this morning, she suspected that Phyllis wouldn’t care whether Melissa went to the dance or not.
But what about her father? In her mind she heard his words once again. “Take care of Melissa for me, okay?”
And then, once more, an idea began to take shape in her mind.
“It sounds like fun,” she said, smiling at Brett. But then she let her brows form into a frown. “But—Well, what about Melissa?”
The grin that had spread across Brett’s face wavered. “Melissa?” he repeated. “What about her?”
Teri’s eyes shifted demurely to her lap. “Well, it would be kind of mean of me to go without her, wouldn’t it? I mean, I just got here, and hardly know anyone. How would she feel if I went with you, and no one asked her?”
Brett’s tongue ran nervously across his lower lip. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Find a date for her, too?”
Teri looked up at him, her expression a perfect mask of surprise. “Could you?” she asked. “Could you really?”
Brett swallowed. Now what had he gotten himself into? Who did he know who would be willing to go anywhere with Melissa Holloway? “I—I don’t know,” he hedged.
Teri’s smile faded away. “Well, then I don’t see how I can go, either. I just don’t think it would be right for me to leave her sitting at home by herself.” Then, as if she’d just thought of it, she brightened. “What about Jeff Barnstable?”
Brett stared at her. “Jeff? What made you think of him?”
Teri hesitated, then lowered her voice. “If I tell you a secret, will you promise not to tell anyone else?” Brett nodded. “Melissa has a crush on him,” Teri went on. “If you can get him to ask her, then I’ll go with you.”