[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.”She was knocking on the mantelpiece, as if trying to find a hollow spot.I had managed to pull my arms far enough to the side that I could crane my head and look over my shoulder to see what she’d tied me up with.It looked like a leftover bit of the black-and-red braided cord Mother had used to trim the couch and the chairs.I started picking at it with my nails, and casting my eyes around for something sharp I could rub it against.I vowed I was not going to die tied up with these little bits of string.“Damned passementerie,” I muttered.“What?” Jessica said.“I said, did your parents leave behind a lot of money?”“Yes,” she said.“We were rich.I had a pony, and I had ballet and piano lessons, and Daddy was building me a pool so I could practice a lot and make the swim team.And then the stupid bank took our house away.”Probably not a good idea to point out that people who really had a lot of money didn’t usually have their houses foreclosed on.Jessica had started knocking on the walls by the fireplace.She must have found something she liked the sound of.She walked out into the hall, putting the gun down on one of the end tables as she went.I felt a little better now that she wasn’t holding the gun.Until she walked back into the room holding a large ax.I redoubled my efforts to unravel the passementerie.“The stupid bank cheated us.” Jessica took a vicious hack at one of Mother’s freshly painted walls.“They took away my pony.” Another hack.“And then they took away our house.One day Mommy picked me up at school and told me we were leaving.And they wouldn’t let my parents come back in to get their money.”“Are you sure they left it in the house?” I said.“And not somewhere else? Because you’ve done a really good job of searching the house over the last six months.”“I know it’s in the house,” she said.“My mother must have said it a million times.‘You can’t have a pony.You can’t have dance lessons.We don’t have any money.All our money’s in the house.’”I winced, and not because she’d just reduced fifteen or twenty square feet of Mother’s “Red Obsession”–painted wall to wreckage.“All our money’s in the house.” I could remember saying those very words in those first few years after Michael and I had bought our house.The size of the mortgage payments had made us nervous in those early days, even before you factored in all the money we’d paid to the Shiffley Construction Company to make the house habitable.We’d had to economize a bit.All our money was in the house.But not literally.We hadn’t had Randall Shiffley’s workmen build little hiding places in between the walls and under the floorboards to stash our meager post-down-payment savings in.Maybe Jessica’s parents had.But even if they had, what were the odds they’d left behind tons of cash when they moved away? However abrupt their departure might have seemed to eleven- or twelve-year-old Jessica, her parents would have had time to clean our their hiding places.And did she really think the left-behind treasure would still be there after the house had been empty for six years, despoiled by vandals and squatters, and completely rebuilt by Randall and his workmen?Yes, apparently she did.She was working on another wall now, alternately hacking out chunks and stopping to sift through the rubble she’d created.And she was getting more and more jittery and agitated.Was she on something? Or suffering from some kind of mental illness? Either way, I needed to get untied and away from her, because she seemed to be spiraling down into some kind of frenzy.She’d started muttering to herself.I caught a few words.“… be a lot easier if these damned creeps hadn’t come in and messed up everything…”She seemed to have forgotten I was there.Which was a good thing.But what if she glanced over, saw me, and remembered that I was one of the creeps who’d messed up everything?Just then I spotted movement in the archway separating the living room from the breakfast room.Someone was standing there in the shadows.I glanced over at Jessica, and then back at the figure.I shook my head, and then jerked it toward Jessica.The figure took a step forward.It was Martha.I couldn’t remember when I’d been so glad to see a friendly face.Chapter 24I could see Martha peering out of the archway at Jessica.I tried to shake my head, ever-so-slightly, to suggest that stepping into the room was a really bad idea.After watching Jessica for a moment or so, she glanced down at me, nodded, and withdrew back into the kitchen.Make sure you’re far enough away so she doesn’t hear you when you call 9-1-1, I wanted to tell her.And get some kind of a weapon! But she’s dangerous, so stay back and don’t try anything—unless, of course, you see her about to shoot me or dismember me, in which case you should do something quick!Martha was a cool customer, I reminded myself.She could handle this.At least I hoped she could.“Where is it?” Jessica again.“It’s got to be here.It’s got to!”She seemed to be losing it.More of it than she’d already lost.She began flailing out wildly with the ax, shrieking inarticulately.She shattered the mirror above the fireplace.Knocked the legs out from under a delicate secretary desk.Chopped a couple of nasty holes in the carpet.Bounced around between the sofas and armchairs, shredding up the brocade cushions.I flinched when she came near me, but she sailed past and began trying to dismember the Christmas tree [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]