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At home they’d have been up much earlier, and already working.
This felt like a vacation day, a special day for sleeping in and eating out.
As quietly as she could, A
Grandmother and grandchild ran to the bed and hopped onto the covers.
“Wake up, Grandpa!”
Hugh Senior jerked awake as if somebody had stuck a gun in his spine.
“Wha? Wha?”
A
Jody was breathless, so he put her gently down again.
A
“What about Belle?”
“Oh, my lord, I forgot about Belle.” Pangs of mother-guilt shot through A
“With Laurie. Or else she’s at the bank.”
“Museum,” A
“I’m starving!” Jody told them.
“Well, then let’s go get your mother!”
16
WHEN JODY SAW Chase and Bobby emerge yawning from their room, she got excited and begged to go with them and her grandfather. And so A
She saw no lights in the big stone house; their power was still out.
So glad I never had to live here, she thought.
Big old spooky monstrosity full of ghosts and dust. Mostly dust.
At the massive front door, A
“Locked?” she asked the door, in surprise.
Had Laurie been afraid to stay alone while Hugh-Jay was gone?
She rang the bell and then knocked on the door.
When that raised no reply, she did it again.
“Are you still asleep?” she asked her daughter-in-law, looking up to their bedroom. Why did the idea of Laurie sleeping in a
A
The kitchen door was also locked, and the windows were all pulled down, probably to keep the rain from spraying in during the storm last night.
She knocked, and then pounded on the back door.
“Laurie Jo!” She felt frustrated. “Answer the door!”
Maybe she had gone out in search of breakfast, too.
A
Was Hugh-Jay home already? Or had he driven Laurie’s car to Colorado?
This was all very strange, she thought, feeling cranky about it.
And then she realized how she might get into the house.
Hoping that Laurie had forgotten to lock the basement door, A
The basement smelled as if it had flooded, as indeed it had by a couple of inches. The water was gone, but mud coated the concrete floor. A
She saw residue around the clothes washer and dryer.
“Hope they’re not shorted-out,” she said aloud.
When she climbed the wood steps, treading cautiously on her now slippery soles, she hung onto the banister and prayed the basement door upstairs wasn’t locked from the other side.
It wasn’t.
Inside the kitchen, A
“Laurie? Are you here?”
The appearance of the kitchen startled her.
A chair lay on its back. There was a battered straw cowboy hat on the floor as well. A yellow rain slicker lay crumpled on the floor, too. At the kitchen sink, water was dripping from the spigot. When she went over to turn it off, she saw what looked like blood on the sharp metal rim of the sink.
Suddenly, she felt anxious. Things were not as they should be.
This time she yelled it: “Laurie Jo! Laurie!”
She rushed out of the kitchen and into the front hallway, calling, “Laurie! Hugh-Jay! Is anybody here?” Quickly, A
Too frightened to speak now, she raced from room to room on the second floor.
They weren’t in the master bedroom. Or its bathroom. Or Jody’s room. Or the other bathroom on this floor. Or the guest room across from Jody’s room. That left only the small guest room at the far end of the hall. A
“Hugh-Jay! Oh, God! Oh, no! My child!”
His body lay on the bloody carpet.
A
OUTSIDE, a neighbor who came over to check on the Linders after the storm heard muffled screams through the closed, thick-paned windows and was alarmed. The neighbor, Sam Carpenter, finally located the same unlocked door that A