Perfect Nightmare (6 page)

Chapter Twelve

I
believe I dreamed of this morning every moment that I slept. I’ve slept a lot since Wednesday—after being in her house—being in her room—feeling her presence—filling my nostrils with her sweet aroma—being awake without her seemed too painful to bear.

So I slept. Hours? Days? I really don’t remember.

But I remember dreaming of Sunday morning, and when this morning finally came, I think I knew it even before I awoke.

I felt it—a thrill surging through every vein and every nerve of my body. I savored the feeling, delaying the moment when I finally rose. I donned my favorite robe—a black one with a bloodred lining—and my outside slippers before going down to retrieve the paper from the spot the boy always leaves it. It was quiet—I saw no one else, nor even heard a car.

I liked that.

Not that I was the least bit concerned, let alone actually worried—I believe I looked as casual as anyone could look, bringing in a Sunday newspaper. But once I was back inside, I had the paper torn open before it reached the table.

And there on the front page—the front page!—of the Real Estate section was the open house ad. It was a good-sized ad, too; this agent had spent some money to attract a good group of prospects.

And all of this—the placement, as well as the size of the ad—works in my favor.

Not that it was perfect. The photograph of the house was taken from an awkward angle, so it didn’t look its best, but there was an intriguing description, the kind that would attract a lot of curious people.

The more the better.

I circled the ad with my red felt-tip pen and felt the excitement and anticipation building inside me.

It is a feeling of which I never tire.

Still, I need to rein it in. I need to be patient.

I need to keep control.

I sipped a cup of coffee while I planned my day. The open house begins at 1:00 p.m.; I would arrive about two hours later, just when the most people would be there. Earlier, people will still be digesting their lunch, and later it will be nothing but the last minute stragglers with an agent trying to shoo them all out.

But not right at 3:00 p.m., either. People tend to be aware when it is an even hour, and remember things more clearly. Perhaps thirteen or fourteen minutes before three would be appropriate.

Yes, I believe that will be perfect.

I’ve already charted out what time to bathe, what time to dress, and the route I shall take to get there, of course.

And the place to park. I know the garages of the neighbors. I know the alleys that the service people use, and I also know that those alleys are blissfully deserted on Sundays. I can idle quietly down the alley, park, walk around the block, and enter the house as invisibly as pollen on the breeze.

I did all that on Wednesday, and I think I’ve done it dozens of times since in my dreams.

It is all imprinted in my memory, and nothing will go wrong.

My clothes have been laid out since yesterday morning. I shall wear brown corduroy slacks with a brown and blue plaid shirt. In those colors, I will blend right in with the look of the house—and all the other lookers.

I think of it as camouflage. No one will even notice me.

And with luck, it will rain! Rain means more activity at an open house. Rain means that the agent hosting the open house will spend more time looking at the carpeting to make certain that people are wiping their feet or wearing those stupid little booties than who is coming and going. (Perhaps I should add a brown sweater vest to my costume—it may be spring, but there can still be a chill in the air.) But most important, rain means the house will be gloomier and I will feel more at home.

More at home.

Now why did I say that? After all, I already feel at home in that house.

In that bedroom.

That sweet, virginal bedroom.

I can’t wait. . . .

Chapter Thirteen

“P
lease?” Lindsay pleaded. “I went with you last weekend and it was awful. And I was awful! I was rude to that real estate lady, and I hated everything, and I almost threw up in the lobby of that one building. Why would you even want me to go?” She saw her father glance uncertainly at her mother, and decided to play another card. “Besides, I have cheerleading practice.”

Kara shook her head. “We want to make sure we buy something we can all live with, honey. That’s why we want you with us when we look—you need to help us decide.”

“But it was all so awful last week,” Lindsay repeated.

“I know it was, but today it will be better, and we really want you to spend the day with us in the city.”

“With you and the Raven.”

“C'mon, kitten,” Steve said. “It’ll be fun.” He wrapped his toast around two pieces of bacon and bit off half of it, washing it down with coffee.

“You think that’s fun?” Lindsay asked incredulously. “Well, it isn’t. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking at in those places—all they look like to me is a bunch of empty rooms that don’t seem like anyone could ever live in them. Can’t you guys choose?”

Kara shook her head again. “We are not going to buy a place without you seeing it first. We’re a family, remember? And I’m afraid I don’t really see the point of you going to practice, either, since you’re not going to be on the squad here next year.”

“You don’t know that,” Lindsay said, a note of desperation coming into her voice. “I mean—not for sure. Maybe the house won’t sell, and I’ll at least get to graduate with my friends. Or maybe you can move to the city right away, and I’ll move in with Dawn or something.”

Kara looked at Steve, and he could see that she was wavering. “What about that nightmare you had the other night?” he said to his daughter. “I’m not sure what time we’ll be back, and you don’t want to come home to an empty house this afternoon, do you?”

“I’ll go to Dawn’s after practice and hang out until you get home,” Lindsay said, speaking so quickly that her parents both knew it wasn’t an idea she’d come up with on the spur of the moment.

Simultaneously, both Steve and Kara sighed in surrender, neither willing to have the argument expand into a full-fledged fight that would ruin the day for all of them. “I guess that works,” Kara finally said.

“If it’s okay with your mom, it’s okay with me,” Steve agreed, shrugging. “But I still wish—”

“The open house here is from one to four,” Kara interjected, cutting Steve off before he could rekindle the argument. “We should be back by five—six at the latest.”

Not if we find a place and decide to write an offer,
Steve thought, but refrained from saying it, certain that the idea of buying a place today would only upset Lindsay even more. “If we’re going to be later than that, we’ll call. Okay?”

Lindsay nodded, feeling better now that she realized she’d won the argument. But then she saw her mother’s eyes cloud.

“Oh, Lord,” Kara groaned. “I forgot—we’re having dinner with the Bennetts.”

Steve’s brows arched as he turned to Lindsay, seizing the dinner as one last chance to convince her to change her mind. “C'mon, kitten. We’re having dinner at Café des Artistes. You’ll love it—come with us.”

For a moment she seemed to waver. “Who else is going to be there?” she asked.

“Mitch Bennett and his wife.”

Lindsay’s eyes rolled. “Ooh, that sounds like a lot of fun. A whole evening of watching an old man grope his trophy wife. I think I’ll pass.”

“Lindsay!” Kara said, even though she didn’t disagree with her daughter. Mitch Bennett had dumped JoAnne—and there was no other word but “dumped”—for a girl scarcely ten years older than Lindsay. And since Mitch Bennett was also third in seniority in Steve’s firm, no one could say a word about it. All any of them could do was pretend that the new wife was faintly interesting, which she wasn’t.

Steve, thankfully, didn’t argue, either. “Okay, then. You stay at Dawn's,” he said. “Can you spend the night there?”

“I’ll be fine!” Lindsay insisted. She rose from her chair, picked up the milk and her dirty dishes and took them to the dishwasher.

“Then we’re going to take off,” Kara said, glancing at her watch. “We’re meeting Rita Goldman at eleven-thirty. Mark will be here soon to go through the house and get himself set up—I told him we’d all be gone by ten. Do you want to stay here until practice?”

Lindsay’s brow furrowed. “With that real estate guy? No way. How about if you just drop me at Dawn's?”

“How about if you say ‘please’ and offer me a smile with that request?” Kara countered.

Lindsay pasted a hugely exaggerated smile onto her face and drawled an equally exaggerated “Puh-leeeeeze?” and suddenly all three of them were laughing.

Maybe the day was going to work out for all of them after all.

F
ifteen minutes later Steve stood in the kitchen, waiting—as he always did—for the two females in his life to come downstairs and get in the car. It was already ten after ten, and they would have to hurry if they were going to meet Rita Goldman on schedule. He opened his mouth to yell up the stairs, thought better of it, and decided to kill whatever time they took by taking a swipe at the countertop, adjusting the coffeepot and putting the dishcloth into the laundry. As he came back into the kitchen, he realized just how much he was going to miss this house. He and Kara had designed it themselves, and supervised almost every moment of its construction, and now that it had that perfect lived-in look, and the landscaping had matured into the vision they’d only been able to see in their minds for the first fifteen years, they were leaving it.

For just a moment he was almost tempted to skip the meeting with Rita Goldman, take the house off the market, and figure out some other way to solve their problems. But even as the thought came to mind, he knew there was no other way. The die was cast, and it was time to move on. But if only—

The doorbell jerked him out of his reverie.

“Mr. Marshall!” Mark Acton said, coming through the front door as Steve entered the living room. “I didn’t expect you to be home.”

Steve uttered a hollow chuckle. “We’re trying to get out of here,” he said, offering the other man his hand. “You know women.”

Mark Acton’s hand felt limp in Steve's. “Don’t I know it!” he said. “Can’t live with ’em, and can’t live without ’em!” As the tired cliché lay quivering between them like a dying fish, Steve understood exactly why Lindsay hadn’t wanted to be here when the agent arrived. Acton seemed not to notice his reaction. “I just thought I’d get things arranged in the house,” he said, “get my signs up and then come back about twelve-thirty.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said. He turned and called up the stairs. “Ladies? Time to go!”

Seconds later Kara and Lindsay came downstairs, Kara carrying her purse and the portfolio she’d been keeping of Manhattan real estate, Lindsay with her gym bag slung over her shoulder.

Steve watched as Acton greeted them. While Kara shook the agent’s hand warmly and gave him a few last minute instructions, Lindsay avoided him completely, walking around behind Steve so she wouldn’t have to touch Mark Acton’s hand or even say hello to him. And he realized he felt more sympathy for his daughter’s open dislike of the man than for his wife’s apparent warmth.

Not that he didn’t understand what Kara was doing. For years he’d watched her treat people he knew she despised as if they were her closest friends.

And as a lawyer, he was even better at it than she was.

“Well, we’re in your capable hands now,” he said, slapping Acton jovially on the shoulder. “I’ve got a feeling you’re going to sell this place today!”

“I’ve got that feeling, too,” he replied as Steve followed his wife and daughter toward the kitchen and the garage beyond. “I think we’ve got a good chance of doing just that.”

“Excellent,” Steve said.
And if you do,
he added silently to himself,
I’ll never have to see you again.

Then he was out the garage door and put Mark Acton—and his open house—out of his mind, focusing instead on finding his family a new home. But as he drove away and glanced at the house in the rearview mirror, he knew that no matter where they went, it wouldn’t be as wonderful as the house they were leaving.

After all, despite the problems they’d had lately, it was a house that had no bad memories.

Chapter Fourteen

M
ark Acton glanced at the clock on the mantel: 2:45. Only another hour and fifteen minutes and he could close up the house, head over to Fishburn's, and start unwinding over a cold one. But right now he still had a houseful of people, and more were coming—in fact, they’d started arriving early, and continued streaming steadily in since even before the official one o’clock opening.

Which meant the ad had worked.

As had putting signs up early.

And the weather was cooperating, with a low, chilly cloud cover and threats of rain—just bad enough to keep people from going jogging, playing softball, or heading out on the Sound for a day of boating. But not bad enough to keep them at home. Indeed, it was what Mark thought of as “perfect open house weather,” and obviously a lot of people had agreed with him.

The first couple had knocked on the door, then opened it and called out a “Yoo-hoo” before he even had the brochures laid out on the dining room table.

That alone had been enough to tell him this was going to be a good open house. Even if he didn’t sell the place today, there would be plenty of opportunities to prospect for new customers. He’d given out a couple of dozen business cards, and almost as many flyers. The worst that could happen would be that he’d pick up a new client or two, and if he couldn’t sell one of them this house, he had half a dozen more houses to show them some other time.

“Hi!” The woman’s cheery greeting jerked Mark out of his thoughts, and he put on his best smile and started toward her. But even before he was close enough to offer her his hand, she held up her own as if to fend him off. “We’re just nosy neighbors.”

“Hey, that’s fine!” Mark assured them, giving no visible sign that his interest had dropped from high to next to none. “C'mon in and look around.” Then he fished a business card out of his pocket. “You live in a great neighborhood,” he said. “But if you ever decide you’re ready to make a change, give me a call. I’ll bet you have no idea what you could get for your own house.”

“I think we’re starting to,” the male half of the couple said as they headed off to look at the kitchen.

As soon as they were gone, another couple came through the front door, but they were very young—maybe newlyweds—and Mark could see at a glance that there was no way they could afford anything like what he was selling today. Still, you never knew what the future held, so he was pleasant enough to them, and by the time he’d given them a quick rundown on the house and turned them loose to poke around on their own, more people were arriving.

The next couple said they were working with an agent across town, and that was a good sign—whoever it was hadn’t come up with what they wanted, but they were seriously interested in finding something to buy. Mark gave them a personal tour, pointing out every feature of the house and implying that there was enough interest in the place that they’d better run back to their guy within the hour with earnest money ready in their hands.

Just as he was about to lead them up to the second floor, a single man came through the front door. Mark called out a greeting to him, but knew this wasn’t a house for a single man, and that a married man would never buy a house without his wife seeing it. If this guy was previewing it for her, then he probably knew what he was doing, so Mark saw no point in wasting time on the latest arrival unless he came back with his wife. Then, as he was turning away, another man came in, and for a moment Mark reconsidered his appraisal—perhaps the two men were a couple, which was a whole nother kettle of fish. This could be the perfect house in a perfect neighborhood for two well-heeled, professional men. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were growing up, and soon it would be pretty much an adult community, just right for two men who were getting too old for the city.

Mark continued talking to the couple on the stairs while keeping an eye on the two men, but as they moved off in different directions, it was clear they weren’t together. His interest in both of them dropped to zero—even lower than was his interest in the neighbors. Refocusing on the couple he was escorting, he deftly moved them toward the bedrooms.

Then, at four o’clock, everything was suddenly over. The house emptied out quickly. The day had been a success, and he sat down on the couch to enjoy a few minutes of quiet, then opened the guest book and began making notes about as many of the people as he could remember. Already, he’d divided them into those who were prospects for this house, or another house, or just looky-loos to be forgotten, at least until he saw them again at his next open house. Then he began to mentally associate each person in the book with the faces he’d been seeing all day. For the most part it was easy—he’d always had a good memory for names and faces—and today it had mainly been couples, as usual, and only one single man.

No, that wasn’t right. He remembered
two
single men.

So one of them obviously hadn’t signed in.

The one who had—Rick Mancuso—had introduced himself when they’d run into each other in the master bedroom, and Mark had no trouble recalling what he looked like.

But what about the other man?

The one who hadn’t signed the book?

Apparently he’d merely come and gone, not staying more than a minute or two. Which was okay—it happened all the time.

But the funny thing was, he couldn’t remember anything about him.

Nothing.

Weird, given how good his memory for people had always been. Still, it had been a great day. Though no one had written an offer on the spot, Mark was sure that Ike North would bring something in tomorrow or the next day, and he had a couple of follow-up calls to make, one of which he was fairly certain would result in an offer. The Marshalls were going to be very happy that they’d given him the listing.

After a quick walk-through of the house to make certain everything was as it ought to be, he locked it up and headed for Fishburn's.

And didn’t give the man he couldn’t remember another thought.