Black Creek Crossing (53 page)

Even as she entertained the thought, however, she slid the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the front door.

And stepped inside.

Though the room was devoid of furniture, Margie Flint felt none of the emptiness she’d experienced in the other unoccupied houses she’d looked at over the last few months. In the rest of them, she’d shared the feelings of her family—what her daughter had started calling “the empty house creeps.” But this house had none of that, and as she moved through it, Margie could see perfect places for every piece of furniture she and her husband had collected over the years, scrimping to save up the money and restoring the pieces themselves.

And this house—no matter what had happened in it before—was the perfect place not only for their furniture, but for them. She and Alex could do all the restoration work themselves, and by the time they were done, the house would provide the ideal backdrop for everything they had.

Her excitement grew as she mounted the stairs and went through the bathroom and the master bedroom.

Then, at last, she came to the door of the room whose window had caught her attention a few minutes ago. Opening the door, she stepped inside the little bedroom at the front of the house. Like the rest of the house, it was empty of furniture, but it didn’t matter.

In her mind’s eye she already saw how it would look with all of Gina’s things in it. And with some curtains on the windows—

She jumped as something brushed her leg, and she looked down.

A black cat was sitting on the floor, gazing up at her.

“Well, who are you?” Margie asked, bending down to scratch the cat’s ears. As the cat began to purr and rolled over to have its belly rubbed, she saw the single white blaze in the center of its chest. “What a pretty kitty—we’ll have to think of a wonderful name for you.” Margie gave the cat another scratch, then straightened up. “The question is,” she said, smiling down at the cat, who was now weaving back and forth around her legs, rubbing first one side, then the other, “how did you get in here? And how will you like having to share the house?”

The cat mewed softly.

Margie went through the house one more time, but knew she’d already made up her mind. Yet as she started back to the car, she paused to look back at the house once again.

Her eyes came to rest on the window of the small bedroom on the second floor. And for an instant—a moment so brief she wasn’t sure it had happened at all—she thought she saw two faces looking back at her.

A girl and a boy, in their mid-teens.

The images vanished so quickly that Margie assumed she’d imagined them. Squinting in the bright sunlight, she peered once more up at the window.

The cat was looking back at her.

Nothing else—just the cat.

And it was a cat that seemed to like her, and had mewed happily at the suggestion that it was going to have to share the house. So that was all she’d seen—not two barely visible faces, but just a cat that was not only completely visible, but very real, and wanted her there as much as she wanted to be there. Her fleeting doubt dispelled, Margie Flint pulled out her checkbook as soon as she was back in the car. “How much earnest money will you need?” she asked.

Joni Fletcher stared at her in disbelief. “You’re not seriously going to—” she began, but Margie Flint didn’t let her finish.

“I am very serious. The house is perfect, and I have no interest whatever in what might have happened here in the past. Just tell me how much the bank wants to hold it until we can get the deal settled.”

“I—I’m sure a thousand dollars will be fine,” she began. “But—”

But Marge Flint was already writing the check, and finally Joni Fletcher started her car and headed back to the office.

“This is so wonderful,” Margie said as they drove back into the heart of the little town a few minutes later. “It’s almost like I’m coming home again!”

Joni Fletcher glanced at her as she pulled into a spot in front of her office. “Are you from around here?”

Margie Flint shook her head. “Not me—I grew up in Colorado. But my father said his family used to live around here.”

“Really?” Joni asked. “What was their name?”

“Wynton,” Margie said. “That was my maiden name. Margaret Wynton.”

Joni Fletcher felt an icy chill close around her soul. The house at Black Creek Crossing, she knew, would never burn.

It would, in fact, be there forever. . . .

About the Author

Black Creek Crossing
is John Saul’s thirty-first novel. His first, published in 1977, was
Suffer the Children,
an immediate million-copy bestseller. His other bestselling novels of suspense include
Midnight Voices, The Manhattan Hunt Club, Nightshade, The Right Hand of Evil, The Presence, Black Lightning, Guardian,
and
The Homing.
He is also the author of the
New York Times
bestselling serial thriller
The Blackstone Chronicles,
initially published in six installments but now available in one complete volume. Mr. Saul divides his time between Seattle, Washington, and Maui, Hawaii.

BY
J
OHN
S
AUL

Black Creek Crossing

Suffer the Children

Punish the Sinners

Cry for the Strangers

Comes the Blind Fury

When the Wind Blows

The God Project

Nathaniel

Brainchild

Hellfire

The Unwanted

The Unloved

Creature

Second Child

Sleepwalk

Darkness

Shadows

Guardian

The Homing

Black Lightning

T
HE
B
LACKSTONE
C
HRONICLES

PART 1:
An Eye for an Eye: The Doll

PART 2:
Twist of Fate: The Locket

PART 3:
Ashes to Ashes: The Dragon’s Flame

PART 4:
In the Shadow of Evil: The Handkerchief

PART 5:
Day of Reckoning: The Stereoscope

PART 6:
Asylum

The Presence

The Right Hand of Evil

Nightshade

The Manhattan Hunt Club

Midnight Voices

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Ballantine Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright © 2004 by John Saul

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 0-345-47217-9

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