Dark Homecoming (21 page)

A
s they headed down the hallway to the last door on the left, Rita could barely hide her jubilation. How wonderful this was going to be! Liz would discover that David was cheating on her. If her nervous behavior these last few weeks was any indication, Liz wouldn't be able to contain her anger, and she'd confront David right in front of all those horrible Delacortes and Merriwells—oh, what a scene she'd made! The dinner party would be ruined! David would be humiliated! Rita couldn't wait.

“The door will no doubt be locked from the inside,” she whispered to Liz as they grew close. “But I've brought a pin we can use to pop the lock.”

Liz turned to look at her. “Why do you say, ‘no doubt'?”

“Because that's what the instructions always were,” Rita replied.

“What are you talking about?”

“I suggest you ask the woman who is waiting in that room.”

Liz looked as if she could strangle Rita. But the maid just smiled, as if to say,
Don't blame the messenger.

They reached the door. Liz took hold of the knob. As Rita had predicted, it was locked.

“Who's in there?” Liz called, rapping on the door.

There was no answer.

Rita handed her the pin. “We're coming in,” Liz announced, sliding the pin into the hole of the knob and moving it around until she heard the pop of the lock.

The door swung open. The room was dark. Liz switched on a light.

They looked around.

A plain twin bed. One small wooden dresser.

No woman.

Rita pushed in ahead of Liz. “This can't be!” she shouted. “I saw her come in here.”

Liz stood staring into the room, silent.

“I swear to you, ma'am! I saw someone come in here!” She looked under the bed. Nothing there but dust. “And I've been watching! No one came out!”

She flung herself at the closet, yanking the door open. But nothing in there but a couple of empty wire hangers dangling from the rod.

“Well,” Liz said. “I'm not sure what this was all about, Rita, but tomorrow I'd like some answers from you.”

“Mrs. Huntington,” Rita insisted, “I don't have any answers! I saw a woman come in here! I swear to you!”

“The answers I'll be looking for, Rita, concern the insinuations you've been making. You clearly know something about this room and I am going to ask you to tell me what that is.”

Rita stood silently staring at her.

“But not tonight,” Liz went on. “Tonight I need to get back to my husband and my guests. I'd suggest that if you truly think there is an intruder in the house, you let Thad know. He can do a thorough search of the place.”

Rita said nothing as Liz walked away.

She looked around the room again.

How was it possible? She was certain she saw a woman come in here.

And the door was locked—from the inside!

How was that possible?

Shaking her head, her heart pounding in her ears, Rita returned down the stairs into the kitchen. Mrs. Hoffman was waiting for her.

“Mrs. Huntington just came down these stairs and she did not look happy,” the housekeeper said, her eyes practically vibrating in her unmoving face. “What has been going on?”

Variola came into view over Mrs. Hoffman's shoulder. “I saw them go upstairs together.”

Rita's eyes moved back and forth between the two of them.

“Did you upset Mrs. Huntington in some way?” Mrs. Hoffman wanted to know.

“It wasn't I who upset her,” Rita said softly.

Mrs. Hoffman looked over at Variola. “Will you be needing Rita any more tonight?”

“No,” the chef said, returning to the stove. “I'm through with her.”

“As am I,” Mrs. Hoffman echoed. “You may go home, Rita.”

Rita stood her ground. “I'm scheduled to work until midnight. For cleanup.”

“I think we are well staffed for that,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “Please get your things and go home, Rita.”

“Very well,” she said bitterly.

She knew Mrs. Hoffman intended to fire her. After all, she'd been wanting to do so for some time, and now she'd found her opportunity. Rita fully expected that when she came in tomorrow morning, Mrs. Hoffman would hand her a pink slip. But that was okay. She was prepared for it. Besides, Rita intended that her departure from this house would be memorable. She wouldn't leave before she told sweet little Liz everything she knew.

Rita intended to go out with a bang.

T
he last of the guests were heading out the front door. Dr. Delacorte winked at her as he stumbled out, having imbibed one Beefeater martini too many. Liz looked away, disgusted.

“And so, that's done,” David said, smiling at her as he closed the front door. “You handled yourself marvelously, Liz.”

“That's bull, and you know it, David. I was like a deer caught in the headlights.” She shuddered. “They are not very pleasant people.”

“No, I suppose they're not. But you don't give yourself enough credit, darling. You held your own against them.”

He took her arm and they headed into the parlor. Maids and busboys were busy tidying up the house, carrying empty glasses and plates out to the kitchen. Liz noticed that Rita was not among them.

“David,” she said. “I'd like to talk to you about one of the servants.”

He lifted an eyebrow in her direction. “Which one?”

“Rita.”

Liz noticed a subtle yet definite change of expression cross David's face. He dropped her arm and sat down on the couch. “What about her?” he asked.

“In the middle of the party tonight, she asked me to go upstairs with her.”

“Upstairs where?”

“To the servants' rooms.”

Liz noticed a definite flush cross David's cheeks.

“She said she saw a woman come in through the back door and go up the back stairs.”

David appeared genuinely perplexed at that. “And where did she say this woman went after she went up the stairs?”

“To the last room on the left.”

David stood. He was enraged. “Rita is unstable. I've always thought so . . .”

“She wanted me to go in there so I could find out, in her words, what was going on under my roof.”

David shot her a look. “Did you go in the room?”

“Yes.” She paused for just a second. “But no one was there. The door was locked, from the inside, but no one was there.”

“Of course no one was there,” David said. “I'm telling you, Rita is unstable.”

“She's seemed a little strange at times, but never unstable. I've never had a problem with her.”

“Well, I have.”

Liz stared at him. “How so, David? What kind of problems?”

“I've found her to be insubordinate at times.”

“You talk as if you're a military commander and the servants your soldiers.”

“I just mean—”

“Never mind, David. Just tell me. Do you have any idea what Rita might have been talking about? Whether or not there really was an intruder in the house, what could she have meant when she said I should know about what's going on under my roof?”

“I have no idea. You shouldn't take anything Rita says seriously. I'm telling you. She's an unstable girl.”

Liz sighed. “Well, the idea of intruders does worry me. After all, I still feel certain I saw that woman on the grounds.”

“Then by all means, let's have Thad search the place.”

“He's gone home for the night.”

“Then
I'll
search, if it makes you feel better.”

Liz sighed again. “No, it doesn't matter. I suppose you're right that I'm being silly.” She tried to smile and take his hand. “Let's just go to bed. Tonight really wore me out. Those people are quite the crew. I could use your arms around me.”

But David ignored her outstretched hand as he stood up from the couch. “No, no, no, I'm going to search around the house. Now you have me worried. If something's going on under our roof, I should find out what it is.”

Liz frowned. “I thought you just said we shouldn't take anything Rita says seriously.”

David kissed her quickly on the forehead. “You go on to bed, darling. I'll be up in a while. I'll look around the place just to make sure. I'm too revved up to sleep right away, anyway. Paul Delacorte filled my ear all night with talk about the company's stocks.”

Liz wanted to add,
while his hand was on my knee
, but she refrained.

“All right, David,” she said. “But don't be long, okay?”

“I'll see you shortly, darling.” He kissed her forehead again.

Liz watched as he hurried out into the corridor.

She switched off the lights in the parlor. She could hear the last of the dishes being put away in the kitchen and the pantry. The dining table was completely cleared off and polished. There was no evidence of a dinner party ever having taken place. David's foot soldiers were an efficient army. They'd all be going home now, Liz knew, except Mrs. Hoffman and Variola, who would retire to their rooms in the back of the house before getting up tomorrow and starting all over again. Liz wondered if she would ever feel like this was her home, and not some hotel she'd wandered into by mistake. Tonight had been difficult all the way around. The interaction with the Delacortes and the Merriwells had been bad enough, but that strange episode with Rita had left Liz with all sorts of questions, questions she couldn't even quite formulate in her mind. It all left her with a rumbling feeling of unease and distrust. She thought the only thing that might console her would be David's arms around her as she fell asleep, but now he was out wandering around the house. She hoped he wouldn't be long.

She started up the stairs.

“H
ave all the servants gone home?” David asked, striding into the kitchen.

 

Variola looked up from the last of her tasks for the night, wrapping the remnants of her dessert pudding and placing them in the refrigerator. Across the room, Mrs. Hoffman, standing stiffly like a sentinel, also looked over at their employer.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hoffman answered. “The last of them just left.”

“All right,” David said. “I need to speak with you both.”

“Has your wife gone upstairs?” Variola asked, approaching.

David nodded. “She can't hear us.”

“She is a smart lady,” Variola said. “Smarter than one thinks, upon first meeting her.”

“Liz is indeed very smart,” David agreed. “That's why I must know what's going on here.”

“Going on?” Mrs. Hoffman asked, in that plastic, robotic way of hers. “What do you mean, sir?”

“I mean,” David said, his sharp, intense eyes moving between the two women, “I want to be assured that what happened before will not happen again. If the two of you are still playing your silly games . . .”

“Sir,” Mrs. Hoffman said, “I can assure you that we are fully in control of this house.”

“That's not the assurance I was looking for, Mrs. Hoffman. Your little games are over, are they not?”

“Our little games, as you call them, saved this house, and
you
.” Mrs. Hoffman's voice was quiet and severe.

David looked over at Variola. He seemed to think he couldn't reason with Mrs. Hoffman, so he turned elsewhere. “Are they over, Variola? Tell me the truth.”

The chef smiled. “If you want them to be over, sir, then they are.” She sensed Mrs. Hoffman stiffening beside her.

“Not only do I want them over,” David replied, “but I will
make sure
they are over.”

“You need not worry, sir,” Variola told him.

He grimaced. “What does Rita know?”

“Rita?” Mrs. Hoffman practically spit her name. “The little twit. She knows nothing. You need not worry about her.”

“Are you certain about that?”

“Yes,” Variola assured him. “She knows nothing more than rumors and gossip, like everyone else.”

“Well,” David said, “she brought my wife to a room upstairs tonight, claiming to have seen some unfamiliar woman come in through the back door and enter that room.”

Variola felt the anger rise from her gut, and looked sharply over at Mrs. Hoffman. “I don't like the idea of strange people coming and going through my kitchen. Do you know anything about a woman coming in here tonight?”

“Of course I don't,” she said, but Variola didn't believe her. She had threatened to continue doing things her way, and that was apparently the case. Variola steamed.

“I won't have what went on here before starting up again,” David said.

Variola watched as Mrs. Hoffman's back arched and her chin lifted in defiance. She took several steps toward David.

“You think you have any authority here,” the housekeeper said, her voice burning with anger and resentment. “You think you can tell me what to do.”

Variola saw the life drain from David's eyes. She had seen this once before, in the aftermath of the accident, when his wife's body lay here, on the kitchen counter, dripping with seaweed, cold and blue. Mrs. Hoffman had spoken to him in the same way then as she spoke to him now, and Variola realized that all of her lessons of the fine arts of the islands had created a monster. She pulled back now, slightly afraid, and fear was not an emotion Variola was familiar with, or comfortable with.

Mrs. Hoffman stood in front of David with those hard, cold eyes of hers. “Rita is a lunatic,” she said. “And we all know why that is.”

He looked away. “My fault.”

“Yes, your fault,” Mrs. Hoffman agreed.

“I'll take care of her,” he said, in a small voice.

“The only reason Rita thinks she can get away with whatever she wants to do is because you have given her delusions of her own power.”

David ran a hand through his hair. His anger from earlier had been replaced by anguish. His eyes were locked on to Mrs. Hoffman's. He was a little boy, frightened of the schoolmarm. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Hoffman. Believe me, I am. I take full responsibility. I was weak . . .”

“Yes, weak! That's what you were. Weak and cruel. And you hurt her. Hurt her terribly.”

Variola realized she wasn't talking about Rita.

“How she loved you,” Mrs. Hoffman said, drawing closer to David, her voice dropping into a hushed, angry whisper. “Do you remember when her body lay here, dripping and cold? That was your fault, too!”

David was crying.

“How devoted she was to you. It was only because of her pain and her sense of betrayal that we started what you so condescendingly call our ‘little games.' ”

Variola was astounded at how quickly he had been overcome by Hoffman. He hadn't even put up a fight. She felt pity for the man, tinged with contempt.

“She would still be here, with us,” Hoffman was saying, “the mistress of this house—”

“But Liz is the mistress of the house,” David said quietly, unconvincingly.

“That's not so! There will always be only one mistress here, and you know it!”

David shuddered. He had come into this room so full of authority. Now he was small and shriveled.

“You remember her as she was, don't you, David?” Mrs. Hoffman was saying, drawing even closer to him, speaking almost directly in his ear. “How beautiful she was . . .”

“So . . . beautiful . . .” David murmured.

“We were so happy together.”

“So . . . happy . . .”

“And how you loved her.”

“How I loved her,” David repeated.

“Until Rita came along.”

All at once, David's eyes clouded over with bitterness.

“And now,” Mrs. Hoffman hissed, “another woman sleeps in her place.”

David's face twisted in anger.

Mrs. Hoffman pulled back, her voice becoming subordinate again. “Forgive me, sir, if I have been out of line in speaking so plainly,” she said. “But I think you know everything I say is true.”

“True,” he repeated, almost incoherently.

Mrs. Hoffman smiled.

“I . . . I need to go outside . . .” David was mumbling, trembling hands running through his hair. “I need to walk . . . think . . .”

“Of course you do, sir,” Mrs. Hoffman said. “The night air will do you a tremendous amount of good.”

He said nothing more, just stumbled out the back door.

Variola looked over at Mrs. Hoffman. “That was audacious,” she said.

The housekeeper sniffed in derision. “I can't stand it when he starts trying to act like he's in charge around here.”

“But he's right,” Variola told her. “This can't go on.”

“It goes on until we are done. Until we are successful.”

“We have tried. It is not possible. When will you accept that?”

“How
dare
you give up?”

Variola frowned. “I have enough blood on my hands.”

“You took an oath.”

“To someone who is no longer here.”

Mrs. Hoffman bristled. “How
dare
you give up on her?” she repeated, more forcefully.

Variola folded her arms over her chest. “He is right. The games, as he calls them, must end. Too much blood has been shed.” She narrowed her eyes at Hoffman. “Who was the woman who came into the house tonight? How did she get here? What has happened to her?”

Mrs. Hoffman ignored her questions. “If and when our games are to end,
I
will give that command.
You
will not tell me.”

“I took no oath to you.”

“I speak with her authority.”

“Ah, but you haven't been listening to me, have you, Hoffman? The rules are changing. She doesn't have authority anymore.” Variola smiled. “I do.”

“Don't you
dare
to presume supremacy here.”

“It is
you
who should not dare.” Variola lifted her chin as high as Mrs. Hoffman's. “Remember who I am. Why you brought me into your games. Do you really want to go head-to-head with me? Are you really that confident of your abilities, Hoffman?”

The other woman backed off, but just a little bit. “I'm confident of hers, and she won't stand for insubordination.”

That only made Variola burst out laughing. The sound of chimes echoed through the room. When she caught her breath, Variola started to reply, to say something in response to Mrs. Hoffman's threat, but then she decided against it. Her laughter was all the response that was necessary. So she laughed again, and kept laughing as she climbed the stairs to her room. Mrs. Hoffman stood staring after her, her fists clenched at her sides.