Perfect Nightmare (5 page)

Chapter Nine

I
didn’t expect the house to smell so sweet.

Nor was it the fake smell of rose petals in a bowl, or the kind of canned aroma of baking bread that so many agents fill houses with nowadays—as if anybody really bakes bread anymore! No, the house today was filled with the scent of love and harmony, and the moment I walked through the front door, I could feel the warmth of affection as well.

Some houses fairly reek of suspicion or wariness or anger, and in an instant you can feel the misery of the family who lives there.

Even worse, some houses have no fragrance at all—the poison of indifference hangs in the air.

But not the house I went to today—the house I found on the Internet last week that set me to tingling from the moment I went on the video tour.

This house has balance. Wholeness. Wholesomeness. Here there will be no religious icons on the walls, no evidence of secret perversions hidden beneath the mattresses.

That is the wonderful thing about being utterly nondescript; it is almost the same as being invisible. And being invisible is like being God.

Today I had nearly a whole day of being like God, and the feeling was sublime. As I moved from room to room, seeing everything, touching everything, feeling everything, no one noticed me at all.

Though people were milling around me nearly every moment I was in the house, it was as if I was utterly alone.

Alone with her.

And everything—
everything
—was perfect.

A calendar hung on the kitchen bulletin board next to some snapshots. One photo was of a blond girl in a cheerleading uniform, and the moment I saw the picture, I knew.

I knew her.

I’d always known her.

She was so obviously the one who lives in the girlish bedroom on the second floor whose every detail I memorized from the tour on the Internet.

And according to the wall calendar, this coming Sunday there would be an open house.

Below that, written in a slightly different hand—a girlish hand—was another notation: “Cheerleading practice.”

And then another notation, written small and by yet a third hand: “House-hunting. Dinner at Café des Artistes?”

So it will be Sunday. What could be more perfect?

After seeing her picture and reading the calendar, I moved with newfound purpose through the first floor rooms just slowly enough to seem nothing more than a mildly interested agent, then headed up the stairs to steep myself in the aura of my new love—my perfect child.

The instant I walked into her room, I knew that she was the focal point, the absolute center, not only of this house, but of this family.

The lovely aroma that imbued the whole house was strongest there in her room, and I wanted to sink into the soft comfort of her bed, to run my hands over the sheets that enveloped her body every night, to feel myself sinking not just into her bed, but into her.

Yet I restrained myself.

I had to be patient.

My digital camera—one so tiny it can be concealed in the palm of my hand—captured every aspect of the room, but when I turned to her bed, I couldn’t quite restrain myself.

I let the back of my hand run across her pillow, and as my skin touched the place where her head had lain, I could feel the residue of her psychic aura.

Oh, yes! It was her!

In that moment, I knew that my instincts had been right: this is the one! It isn’t just the way she looks, but everything else as well.

After I touched her pillow, I touched everything else, too: the things on her desk, the photos on her dresser, the stuffed animals on the windowsill.

I opened her drawers and touched the soft silky garments she wears next to her skin.

Surely it was only natural to slip a pair of her panties into my pocket, given how they soothed my tortured soul.

With my fingers clutching the silken garment that was hidden in my pocket, I drifted invisibly down the stairs and out the door.

And in all the time I was in the house, nobody spoke to me.

It was as if nobody even saw me.

Indeed, it was as if I hadn’t been there at all.

Just as it always has been—no one seeing anything.

As I made my way home, I held those panties pressed to my cheek, barely able to contain my euphoria.

Then, with her image clear in my mind, I crushed her panties in my fist.

Oh, yes—this is the one.

This is the girl, and finally I shall have her.

Soon. Very soon.

I can barely wait for Sunday.

Chapter Ten

L
indsay paused on the sidewalk, gazing at the house across the street. From here, it looked no different at all. It was still her house, still the familiar house she had grown up in.

The house that held all her secrets.

Yet even in the bright light of the sunny spring afternoon, something about it had changed. And she knew what it was.

All day long, people she didn’t know and would never know had been wandering through the house.

Strangers.

Going through her room.

Going through her things.

Just the thought of it made her shudder, and now that she was across the street, all the horrible thoughts and feelings that had been plaguing her as the day crept by came flooding over her once again.

Except now they were even worse.

Throughout the day, she had been so preoccupied with the idea of strangers milling through her house and her room and her things that she’d found herself behaving completely different than usual as she walked through the halls at school. Where she’d always reached out to everyone she knew, touching their shoulders or their arms or even just brushing against their fingertips as they passed, today she didn’t want to touch anybody else.

Then, when she’d gone to Dawn’s house after practice and tried to explain how she was feeling, Dawn hadn’t gotten it at all.

“They’re just real estate people,” Dawn said. “It’s what they do. They don’t even care what’s in the house, as long as they can sell it.”

“It’s creepy,” Lindsay declared, thinking of Mark Acton. But then she told Dawn about the Raven and they both started laughing, and for a few minutes she felt better. In fact, by the time she left Dawn's, the whole thing seemed silly.

But now she was home, and all her creepy feelings were back, only there was no place else to go.

Remembering that her mom should already be home, she crossed the street, walked across the lawn and onto the porch, and unlocked the front door.

The house smelled different.

And it didn’t smell good, like when the cleaning lady came.

No, it smelled like people.

People she didn’t know.

“Mom?” she called. “I’m home.” The clothes washer was going, but her mother didn’t answer. Lindsay dropped her backpack on the kitchen counter and ran up the stairs.

Her room smelled wrong, too, but not like the rest of the house. It smelled different.

There was a musky odor, and there was something about it that made her skin crawl.

Lindsay opened the window wide, and as she did, noticed that her stuffed animals had been moved. Why would anybody touch the stuffed animals she’d lined up on the sill?

“Mom?” she called out again, almost unconsciously.

She looked around. Everything else seemed to be in the right place. A fresh breeze came in through the window and some of the musky odor went away.

But not all of it.

And it was going to be even worse on Sunday, when dozens—maybe even hundreds—of people were going to go through the house. How could her parents stand it?

Lindsay hated the whole idea of it.
Hated
it.

“Hi, honey,” Kara said from the doorway, startling Lindsay out of her reverie. “I was just on the phone with Mark Acton. He said he had twenty-eight people through and thought maybe we’d get an offer or two even before Sunday.”

“Good,” Lindsay said, feeling a surge of relief.

Kara leaned against the doorjamb and cocked her head quizzically. “That’s a change of tune.”

Lindsay shrugged. “I just don’t want any more strangers in my room.” Her eyes met her mother's. “They touched my stuff, Mom, just like I knew they would. They moved things around.”

Kara sighed heavily. “Nobody touched anything, Linds. Besides, how could you tell if somebody moved something?”

“I just can,” Lindsay insisted, and wrinkled her nose at the musky odor that still hung faintly in the air. “And it stinks in here. Can’t you smell it?” When her mother only offered her the kind of indulgent smile that told her she was being humored, not taken seriously, Lindsay felt her face getting red. She wasn’t a child anymore, and her mother shouldn’t treat her like one. But before she could say anything, her mother seemed to sense her mood and quickly changed the subject.

“Dad’s coming home tonight. And we saw some good places today.”

“I guess that’s good,” Lindsay sighed. She flopped on the bed, and the strange musky smell grew stronger.

It was on her pillow!

She jumped off the bed as if it were on fire. “Mom, somebody was touching my pillow. My
pillow
!”

“Honey—” Kara began, but Lindsay didn’t let her finish.

“I’m telling you,” she said, snatching up the pillow. “Smell this!”

Kara took a quick sniff of the pillow, then shrugged. “Sorry, honey—it just smells like pillow to me. Old pillow, maybe, but just pillow.”

When her mother went downstairs to start dinner, Lindsay ripped the pillowcase off and threw the pillow in the corner.

But it didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

This room, she knew, would never feel the same again.

Maybe it might be a good idea to move after all.

Chapter Eleven

W
hy she woke up, Lindsay didn’t know. All she knew was that one moment she’d been sound asleep and the next wide-awake.

Wide-awake and listening.

But for what? The silence of the night was almost palpable.

And then she heard it.

The sound of breathing. She relaxed, certain it was her mom or dad checking up on her. Then she realized the door was closed and the room was dark. Faint light came in around the edges of the closed curtains, and that—along with familiarity—illuminated her room just enough so she knew the room was empty.

And yet she could still hear it: raspy, and uneven.

And now she could smell something, too, and as the scent filled her nostrils, she knew what it was: the same musky odor that had hung in the room when she’d come home this afternoon.

And now someone
was
in her room.

Stay still,
she told herself.
Stay still and maybe he’ll just go away.
She tried to regulate her breathing, but her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could do to keep from gasping for breath.

Though she still couldn’t see him, she felt him move closer, and as the smell grew stronger, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her arm.

He was going to kiss her!

She wanted to scream—wanted to turn on her bedside lamp and flood the room with light, but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t move at all.

The hot breath moved up her arm to her neck, then something touched her hair.

The musky aroma was so heavy she wanted to gag, but even that was beyond her. She felt paralyzed. She tried desperately to move her mouth, to move her hand, but her lips were numb and her arms had become so heavy that her muscles didn’t have the strength to lift them.

She was going to faint! But if she fainted, she wouldn’t know what was happening.

What he was doing to her?

She had to know. Had to!

Now she felt a hand snake up under the covers, and she struggled with her paralyzed body to shrink away from it, to strike out, to hit him, to sink her fingernails into his face and rip the skin from his cheek. But her body wouldn’t obey her commands. She lay frozen as the strange aroma filled her nostrils and the hands roamed over her body.

How had it happened? How had he gotten in? But she already knew—he’d been there all afternoon, hiding, waiting. . . .

A tiny, helpless whimper finally crept from her lips.

One of his hands caressed her cheek and then covered her mouth while the other hand covered her breast, and once again she willed her body to respond. Once again she tried to struggle, tried to scream, and again succeeded in making a tiny sound, but it was no more than a pitiful gurgle in the back of her throat. Yet somehow it was enough to break the paralyzing fear, and then she took a deep breath and found her voice.

She sat straight up screaming.

The hands vanished.

Then her parents were there, and the light was on, and her mom was smoothing the hair from her sweating forehead.

What had happened? He was there—she
knew
he was there! She’d heard him and smelled him and felt him touching her! But now her parents were with her and she was afraid she might throw up.

“Honey,” Kara said, perching on the edge of the bed and gently drawing a strand of hair away from her face. “It’s all right—it was just a bad dream.”

A bad dream? She rubbed her face. Smelled her hands.

The aroma was gone; all she smelled was the almond lotion she’d used before going to bed.

Her gaze shifted from her mother to her father, who stood at the foot of her bed, wearing his pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, his eyes clouded with concern.

“Daddy?” she squeaked out.

Her father came around, sat on the bed next to her mother and rubbed her hand as gently as her mother had eased the hair from her forehead. “It was just a nightmare, kitten.”

Her eyes darted around the room as if they were unwilling to accept her father’s words, but everything looked normal.

So it
had
been a dream—a nightmare. But she hadn’t had one since she was little. And it had been so real.

She took a deep breath, embarrassed now that she had yelled in her sleep and awakened her parents. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Kara smiled and kept smoothing her hair. “Nothing to be sorry about, darling—everybody has bad dreams.”

Lindsay managed a smile. “I feel so stupid. I—”

“Would you like some warm milk?” her mom asked. “That always cured the bad dreams when you were little.”

Lindsay shook her head. “I better just go back to sleep. I’ve got a science test in the morning.”

“We’ll leave the hall light on,” her father said.

Lindsay nodded, and snuggled under her covers, which smelled just fine now. No strange aroma—just the scent of her own lotion.

Her parents kissed her, then turned out the light and left the room. The hall light went on, and her father came back to close her bedroom door. But he left it open a couple of inches, without her even asking. “Wrap yourself in the wings of your guardian angel, kitten,” he said. “She’ll hide you from the nightmares.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” He hadn’t said that to her in years—not since she was in third grade, at least. But tonight the words gave her the comfort she needed.

Her father’s shadow vanished from the crack in the doorway, and a few seconds later she heard the master bedroom door close.

She tried to relax, reminding herself that nobody was in her room. Yet she was sure she wouldn’t go back to sleep, even with her parents in the next room, because despite their reassurances, she knew that even though her room was empty now, it hadn’t been earlier in the day.

Someone
had
been in her room—someone evil—and he’d left something behind; something more than just the vestiges of his strange aroma.

And she knew that no matter what she did, she would never be able to rid her room of his presence.

Suddenly, in the darkness of the night, she wished the house would be sold tomorrow and they could move away. Far, far away, where the man who had been in her room could never find her.

She lay quietly, staring at the silhouette of the stuffed elephant on her windowsill—the stuffed elephant the man had moved.

Getting out of bed, she picked the elephant off the sill and put it in the hall outside her door. She felt better with it gone, just as she’d felt better after she tore the pillowcase off earlier. She got back into bed and again told herself that she was safe.

But she still couldn’t sleep.

“I
knew it,” Kara said as she and Steve got back in bed. “I woke up about ten seconds before she screamed, and I
knew
something was wrong.” Steve put his arm around her and drew her close, so her head lay on his chest, and she fell gratefully into the luxurious feel of his warmth. “Remember when she fell off that horse at camp and broke her collarbone?”

She felt Steve’s chest move as he nodded.

“I knew then, too. Remember? We were at the Billingslys for dinner, and suddenly I knew I had to get home, even though we’d barely been gone an hour. And by the time we got home, there was a call on the machine. Remember?”

“I remember,” Steve said in a tone that told her she’d told the story a few times too often.

But it wasn’t just the story that Kara remembered. It was hearing the terrible words:
Lindsay . . . accident . . . hospital . . .
on the message machine. “A mother knows these things,” she said. “This move is even harder for her than I thought it would be.” She put her arm around Steve and clung to him. “I feel so guilty.”

“Hey, it was only a nightmare,” he said, pulling her closer. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“It wasn’t ‘only’ a nightmare,” Kara said. “She’s upset. She’s upset enough that she was absolutely terrified.”

“And this afternoon she’d convinced herself that someone moved things around in her room, too,” Steve said. “And went through her drawers and rubbed his face on her pillow, and even took her underwear.”

“You think any of it could have happened?” Kara asked, her voice sounding to her as young and as vulnerable as Lindsay's.

“Not a chance,” Steve replied. “There was no one in the house but a bunch of real estate people. I think she talked herself into that nightmare. You watch—she’ll be fine.”

“I guess,” Kara sighed. “At least she will be once we’re out of here and into the city and you can be home every night to take care of your wife and daughter.” She snuggled against Steve, and a short while later his regular breathing turned into a light snore.

But there was no sleep for Kara; though Lindsay only had a nightmare, she wasn’t prone to dramatics or hysterics. If her daughter said someone had been in her underwear drawer, she believed that someone had.