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Authors: Christopher Ransom

Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Suspense

The Haunting of James Hastings (11 page)

BOOK: The Haunting of James Hastings

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I knocked. No one answered. I knocked again.

‘Hey, Annette? Hello?’

The only sound was the drone of water on porcelain. I knocked harder, pushing the door open a little wider. The shower curtain was flapping open and three of the brass rings dangled freely from the hoop above the claw-foot tub.

‘Oh, shit.’

The fine ropes of her wet hair were hanging over the tub, dripping pink water onto the floor.

It’s nicer this way.

I shoved the door, pushing the wall of steam. Annette was splayed on her back, knees tented, head tilted to one side like she had cut her wrists or someone had come in and dropped a brick on her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. The shower head was sprinkling her torso with now-cold water. A puffy, open wound above her left ear was trickling blood down her neck and shoulder until it became a pink ribbon swirling around the drain. I bent into the spray and felt for a pulse along her neck.

‘Annette! Wake up, wake up!’

I thought I felt air coming from her mouth but it was difficult to tell with the spray. I shut the water off. I raked the curtain aside and tried to straighten her, using her armpits for handles. One of her legs flopped over, twitching.

‘Can you hear me?’ This was a sliver of the rescue I had never been able to perform and I almost screamed my wife’s name. ‘Annette, wake up!’

Her eyes fluttered. Her head swiveled tiredly. She put her hands out, trying to grab me or ward off something. ‘Ohhh, bit, abbit,’ she mumbled, and coughed. The coughing made her tighten with pain.

I grabbed a towel from the same basket and wrapped her front. I lifted her to a sitting position in the tub. ‘Can you hear me?’

She blinked water from her lashes. ‘. . . don’t let rabbits. ’

‘What?’

When she tried to stand her left hand slipped along the tub’s rim and she fell on her ass with a thud.

‘It’s okay, slow down,’ I said. ‘Here.’

We got her legs under her. She was still bleeding from the lump above her ear, staining my shirt, but it wasn’t too bad. I hugged her as I walked wide-legged and deposited her on the toilet. I handed her a second towel, which she let fall on her lap. Her eyes opened all the way for the first time and she looked through me as I pressed a cloth to her wound.

‘Are you with me?’

She looked around the bathroom, up to the small twin paintings in thick black frames beside the lone window of frosted glass brick. Each painting featured a black and white adult rabbit, crouched on the ground like it was sneaking under a fence, but there was no fence. The rabbits weren’t munching carrots or grinning in some falsely anthropomorphic manner, just hunkered down on their bellies, caught in profile before a fuzzy green backdrop of grass and white flowers. They had green eyes and were aimed in opposite directions, as if about escape their frames and dart over and under one another. They were just some generic paintings Stacey found in one of her catalogs, neither cute and cuddly nor valuable, but she had loved them in her weird way. I had never given the banal renderings much thought, but Annette was staring at them like a little girl in a pediatrician’s office, grinning through gritted teeth. Her eyes widened and she twitched violently and looked away, squeezing her eyes shut.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ she whined. ‘Don’t let the red rabbit get me.’

Red
rabbit? There were no red rabbits here. Only two black and white ones.

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You have a small cut on your head.’

‘Just let me . . .’ She was steadying herself with one hand on the wall.

I backed away, waiting to see if she would fall off the toilet. ‘Where are your clothes?’ Annette had left her place with a small leather backpack of clothes and her make-up, but it was not in the bathroom now. ‘Where’s your bag?’

‘In my room.’

That didn’t sound right. She must have tossed them in one of the spare bedrooms. She was confused. She thought she was home.

‘Don’t try to walk yet.’

I went to the master bedroom and removed a pair of Stacey’s blue Dodger sweatpants and sweatshirt, pink-rimmed ankle socks. When I came back she was on her feet, attempting to dry herself. I set the clothes on the toilet lid.

‘You’re going to need a couple stitches.’

‘No. I just . . . gimme a minute.’

‘I think we should call someone.’

Annette finished stepping into the pants and pulled the sweatshirt over her head. She held the towel rack for support. She kept closing her eyes but every few seconds they would slowly roll open again, as if she were on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

‘Do you remember your name?’

‘Annette.’

‘Annette what?’

‘Copeland.’

‘Do you know where you are?’

She nodded but was frowning.

‘You could have a concussion,’ I said.

‘I have to go home,’ she said, meeting my eyes. ‘Now.’

Her hands were still trembling. She tried to go it alone but was listing to the right, so I walked her down the hall, to the stairs and down, out onto the porch. I felt terrible and had no idea what to say. When we reached the lawn she freed herself from my grip and began to walk faster.

‘We should see someone,’ I called after her. ‘It’s not safe—’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, hurrying away. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘You have to wake up every hour—’

She was almost to Mr Ennis’s walk. I gave up my pursuit.

‘Okay, I’ll stop by tomorrow.’

She mumbled something but I was too far away to hear it.

I went inside and removed a blanket from the trunk. I stretched out on the couch, trying to find a label for the evening. What a magnificently fucked-up turn of events. Exhaustion set in until the only thing keeping me from sleep was the vision of her fallen in the tub, a freckled bowl of cream.

For a minute there, I thought she was dead. I closed my eyes and saw Stacey’s rabbits, black and white-spotted in their frames, their walleyes staring at me lifelessly. What had Annette seen? What had Stacey seen? Why did she love the paintings? Why was Annette frightened of them?

I didn’t know. I felt as though I should remember something about the rabbits, but my head ached and I was tired. For a minute there she looked up at me like a . . .

Is there a dead woman in my house?

This was my last coherent thought for the night.

I woke up hot and panting in the sunrays beaming down through the west side windows. I had slept well into the afternoon. When I sat up and planted my feet on the living-room floor, I glanced to my left and my heart stopped for a few seconds, then began to make up for lost time. A pair of Stacey’s heels was sitting on the floor, caked with dirt and dried mud. A sense of wrongness bordering on cruelty stole into me and I crawled backward hastily until I was sitting on top of the couch’s backrest, gulping for air.

Those aren’t supposed to be here.

I was able to give Annette a set of Stacey’s sweats last night because I had never finished boxing up her clothes. Last August I made it about halfway through that important grieving ritual before I broke down and cried so hard I thought one of my organs was going to snap like a rubber band. So, yes, there were some casual clothes, a stack of t-shirts in a drawer, sweaters on the top shelf of the walk-in, and a few jackets still hanging in the closet off the foyer.

But not her shoes. Her shoes being somehow more personal and painful to see every day, I had packed up every single pair, from flip-flops to motorcycle boots, including this gold patent pair of heels she had bought for the Grammys we had almost but never been invited to, and locked them all in the storage bay I had rented over on La Brea, some three miles away.

But now they were back, streaked with mud, as if she had gotten all dolled up and then walked through a cow pasture during a thunderstorm. One was standing up, the other fallen on its side.

‘I’m finished, James,’ a woman said.

I yelled in surprise, jerked my head up and quickly deflated. My maid was standing in the kitchen doorway, holding a tray with her rags and cleaning supplies in it. ‘Jesus
Christ
, Olivia.’

‘I thought you were awake.’

‘I was awake but I didn’t hear you. My heart can’t take this.’

She was a fit woman nearing forty, with thick, strong arms and narrow hips. As always, her hair was pulled back in a bun, her face rosy and shiny from her labors. In front of her ears were little wisps of black hair that reminded me of baby cowlicks. She offered no apology, or an explanation about the shoes. I realized she just wanted her check so she could go home and watch her shows.

I went hunting for my checkbook in the sunroom just around the corner. On my way I pointed to the dirty shoes and said, ‘What do you know about that?’

She didn’t answer. When I finished signing the check and came back in, Olivia was staring at me, lips pursed in disapproval. I offered her the check but she just let it hang there between us. I looked around, realizing the house had not actually been cleaned.

‘I cannot accept this,’ she said. ‘I did no clean today.’

‘What’s wrong?’
And if you no clean today, why are you sweating?

She shifted on her feet. I looked at the shoes, then back at Olivia.

‘I do no think I can clean this house no more, James.’

‘Oh? Why not?’

She looked away. ‘I . . . I have other obligations.’

‘Okay, look. Sunday was the one-year anniversary. I’ve been drinking too much. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I really value your help, Olivia.’

Olivia stared at me. ‘Please. It’s better not make a fuss. I am very tired.’

‘I understand. I’m not upset. But you can tell me why, can’t you? We’re friends.’

I realized how dumb this sounded. We were not friends. She was my maid. I liked her, she worked hard. I had never made a pass at her and had no idea what she thought of me. I was her boss, probably not much else. And yet this was like one of those minor dating relationships where you don’t really love the person but now, when she’s breaking up with you, your pride makes it seem like you cannot live without her.

Olivia almost spoke, then clamped her mouth shut.

‘Try me,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is.’

She became agitated and then her eyes lighted on me. ‘Something is wrong, James. It’s, it’s no
natural
. Can’t you see that?’

I looked at the shoes. ‘I don’t know how those got here.’

‘I found them in the bathtub!’ she cried, her eyes scaring me more than the shoes now. ‘I clean for two years and you leave me this?’

I wiped my face in frustration. ‘No, no, Olivia, listen to me. I did not put the shoes—’

‘You dig them up in the yard! Like a dog! I am out back sweeping the patio and everywhere I see the holes. Her shoes. More shoes! What kind of man are you?’

‘What?’

‘You need to see a doctor, James. You’re sick.’ Her cleaning tray was shaking and a brush with metal bristles fell to the floor. She ignored it, her eyes wandering around the ceiling, the corners of the room.

‘Olivia. What is it? Is it something in the house?’

Her nostrils flared. ‘It is tainted. You need to let her go.’

‘What does that mean? What happened?’

BOOK: The Haunting of James Hastings

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