The Way You Look Tonight (14 page)

After the videotaped movie ended, Deborah put the children to bed amid loud protests that neither one was sleepy. ‘You'll get sleepy when you lie down,' she said.

‘I won't,' Brian insisted.

Deborah sighed. ‘I don't want to argue with you two. Now it's bedtime and that's that.'

‘But it's almost Christmas,' Kim argued in a last-ditch attempt to make her mother see reason.

‘All the more reason for you two to be well rested. Now, into bed and not another word.'

‘Okay, but leave the door open,' Kim said. ‘I won't go to sleep if the door's shut.'

Knowing the little girl was still frightened after her encounter with the man at school, Deborah agreed, even though she thought the voices from downstairs might keep them awake. She kissed both of them goodnight, and stood down the hall for a few moments, listening to them both grousing. ‘I'm not
sleepy
,' Brian repeated. ‘We shouldn't have to go to bed if we're not sleepy.' ‘And it's almost Christmas,' Kim repeated querulously.

Back downstairs, Deborah tried to keep her equilibrium, tried to keep the conversation flowing, but she couldn't. All she could think about was the maelstrom of lies and omissions that encircled the Emily Robinson case, lies and omissions her husband had sanctioned. Her sense of not really knowing Steve deepened dramatically.

Pete, obviously aware of her distress and feeling great discomfort at having upset her, made awkward excuses and left with Adam shortly afterward. Deborah sat with Joe, Barbara, and Evan, trying to sort out the new information Pete had given her. ‘Why didn't Steve ever tell me?' she asked aloud. ‘Why didn't he tell me why he left Emily alone that day?'

‘Because then he'd have to tell you his girlfriend lied to the police for him,' Barbara said flatly. ‘He clearly didn't want you to know about that.'

‘But like Pete said, he was scared,' Evan added. ‘He might have been young, but he wasn't stupid. He
knew
how bad things could get for him.'

‘Who would have believed he attacked his own sister?' Deborah asked. ‘What possible reason could anyone have for believing something so monstrous?'

‘Maybe there was a reason, maybe there wasn't,' Joe said softly. ‘Maybe he was just doing what Pete said – trying to keep the fact of Emily's marriage out of the whole mess.'

Deborah slowly shook her head. ‘Emily was married to someone. Who could it have been? Why did the family consider him so “unsavory”, as Pete said?'

‘ “Unsavory” is a fairly vague word,' Joe commented. ‘It could mean a hundred things. Probably he came from a family the Robinsons didn't approve of. Or maybe he'd been in trouble. Once again, we just don't know, and since Pete doesn't know the guy's identity, he can't tell us.'

‘I wonder where the husband is now?' Deborah mused. ‘I wonder if he ever goes to see Emily?'

‘I doubt if the Robinsons would permit that,' Barbara said. ‘You'll never find out who he is by discovering who visits Emily in the nursing home.'

‘I still wonder who he is. How did he feel when this happened to Emily and he couldn't come forward?'

Evan raised an eyebrow. ‘Who says he couldn't come forward? The Robinsons couldn't have stopped him.'

‘No, they couldn't have,' Deborah said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe he just wanted to stay clear of the whole mess. Not a very romantic picture.'

Around nine o'clock, Evan declared he had a ton of work to do and had to go home. Barbara walked him to the door and kissed him goodnight. Before he left, he called, ‘If you have
any
trouble, phone me. I can be here in ten minutes.'

‘We will,' Deborah promised. ‘But with Barbara and Joe here, I'm sure we'll be fine.'

Joe grimaced and he muttered out of Evan's earshot, ‘Evan doesn't think anyone will be fine without him around.'

‘Why are you two so hard on each other?' Deborah asked softly.

‘I can't stand him and he hates me.'

‘Never one to mince words, are you?'

Joe shrugged. ‘Why try to hide the obvious?'

Half an hour later, Deborah cocked her head, listening. Kim had started coughing, the loose, rattling cough she developed every winter. Several trips to the doctor had convinced her that at this stage cough syrup was all the child required. Deborah went to the medicine cabinet and found that she had only one dose of cough syrup. That would do for a few hours, but sometimes the child had violent coughing fits in the night which required a second dose. ‘Oh, great,' she muttered. ‘What a terrific evening.' She went downstairs and told Joe and Barbara the problem.

‘I'll go get some more medicine,' Barbara said, rising from the couch. ‘The drug store is open until ten.'

‘No you don't,' Joe countered. ‘This isn't the time for a woman to be wandering around by herself at night.'

Barbara looked sarcastic. ‘Joe, believe it or not, women don't just
wander
around. We're capable of reaching a destination and then returning home without getting lost.'

‘Oh, hell, Barbara, will you stop pouncing on every word I say?' Joe fired back in irritation. ‘That's not what I meant. I just don't think it's wise for either you or Deborah to be out. Besides, it's cold. Tell me what kind of cough syrup you need, Deborah, and I'll get it.'

When he'd left, Deborah turned to Barbara. ‘Why do you become such a flaming feminist around him?'

Barbara sighed. ‘I don't know. I just always expect him to call me “little lady” or something. I don't think he likes strong women.'

‘I think you're wrong. But there comes a time when you have to stop flexing your independence and exercise a little caution. Artie Lieber could be out there, you know. I, for one, would rather have Joe tangle with him than you.'

Barbara laughed. ‘You're right. As Evan has pointed out, I don't cut an imposing figure when it comes to self-defense. Okay, I'm officially off the soap box during the duration of this crisis.'

‘Wonderful. I appreciate it.'

Deborah went upstairs to check on Kim again. ‘Can I come downstairs?' she asked.

‘No, I want you to stay in bed and keep warm.'

‘I'm
not
sleepy,' she fussed.

‘Then lie quietly and rest.'

Kim coughed again and gave her the stubborn, sulky look she so often wore when she wasn't feeling well, as if she thought Deborah was responsible for her discomfort. Deborah moved toward the door. ‘Don't shut it!' Kim commanded.

‘I
won't
. I told you that earlier. Now settle down.'

‘Everything okay up there?' Barbara asked when Deborah returned to the living room.

‘Kim is mad at the world. I hope Joe comes soon with the cough syrup.'

‘It seems to me he should have been back by now.'

‘Maybe the store was crowded.'

‘At this time of night?'

‘It's almost Christmas,' Deborah said, thinking she sounded like Kim. ‘Lots of people stop in at night for decorations and gifts. The drug store is like a little department store.'

A wail of terror ripped down the stairs. Deborah and Barbara stiffened, their eyes flying wide in frightened astonishment. Then Deborah bolted through the living room and up the stairs, barely feeling the steps beneath her feet.

She reached the children's room and stood for a moment in the doorway, looking at Kimberly. The little girl lay face down on the floor, howling. Brian sat on the top bunk, staring at his sister in baffled horror. Scarlett pawed at Kimberly, the hair along her back standing up in the dog's instinctive response to encroaching danger.

Deborah rushed forward, pushing Scarlett aside, and gathered up her quaking child. ‘Kimmy, what
is
it?'

The little girl babbled through her tears. Light glared overhead and Deborah sensed Barbara behind her. ‘Honey, I can't understand a word you're saying,' Deborah said. ‘You're safe. Barbara and I are here. You're all right, Kim. Now tell Mommy what's wrong.'

Kim pulled back and looked at Deborah as if she didn't know her. Her green eyes had a blind, dazed look, exactly like her Aunt Emily's. Cold fear touched Deborah's heart. ‘Kim, it's
Mommy
,' she said firmly. ‘Look at me. It's Mommy and you're safe.'

Gradually Kimberly's rigidity melted, and her gaze became more familiar. ‘Mommy?'

‘Yes, Kim, of course it's Mommy. Don't be afraid.'

Kimberly suddenly flung her arms around her mother and buried her face in Deborah's neck. Deborah held her close, rocking back and forth. She glanced up at Brian, who still sat tightly on his bed, clutching his blanket. ‘What happened?'

‘I don't know,' Brian said defensively. ‘I was almost asleep. I didn't do anything to her.'

‘I know you didn't, Brian.' Deborah uncoiled Kimberly's arms from around her neck and held the child a few inches away from her. ‘Kim, I want you to tell me what frightened you.'

Kim sniffled, then said in a tiny, trembling voice, ‘I got up to look out the window and I saw…'

‘You saw what?'

‘A
thing
,' Kim breathed. ‘A thing with big shiny eyes. Silver eyes. And it was lookin' at
me
. It was gonna come and
get
me, Mommy!'

One

Mrs Dillman turned the bar of soap over and over in her hands, working up a lather, then began scrubbing her face. She followed with splashes of cold water, and finally blotted with a faded towel. She'd read in one of those women's magazines that you shouldn't use soap on your face – too drying. Nonsense. She'd used soap for ninety years and it hadn't hurt her. She leaned closer to the mirror, peering at the pale, crêpey skin that had once been so soft Alfred had said it was like rose petals. Well, maybe soap hadn't done her complexion any good, but it was too late to fix it now.

She walked into her bedroom and began fumbling with the buttons on her sweater. She hung it on a hook on the back of the door and slipped off the cotton dress that had been much too thin for a cold day. Next came a cotton slip whose lace edging was beginning to fray.

Clad only in bra and pants, she sank to her knees beside her bed and clasped her hands. ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,' she began, then frowned. ‘Oh, how silly. That's a children's prayer. What I meant to say, God, was thank you for another day. Bless my children, even if they don't come to see me. Also bless Alfred and let him know I love him.' She paused. ‘But he
cannot
come home. Make sure he knows that. I will not allow him to come crawling back, and I'm sure You don't blame me.' She fell silent, frowning more ferociously than before. ‘Oh, yes, now I remember. Bless that poor woman next door and those little children. I know he's run out on them. I never saw him all day, but I did see the police. Such a shame. They don't deserve this. Men! Honestly! I don't know why You can't make them behave better.' She shook her head in sorrow. ‘Oh well, thank you and good night.'

She groaned as she stood up. Then she looked down at her underwear. ‘Mercy! I was praying nearly naked. Where is my nightgown? Where is my
mind?
' She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Dear God, a postscript.
Please
improve my memory. This forgetfulness is humiliating.'

She headed for the chest of drawers. As she passed by the window, whose curtains she'd forgotten to draw, her still relatively sharp eyes caught a flash. Her head whipped to the right and she saw him, limned by the light, staring at her. Her heart slammed against her fragile ribs. The man from next door, the missing man, was watching as she moved around her bedroom only half dressed. As she stood transfixed, color flooding her sunken cheeks, he tossed back his head and laughed.

Two

‘A dream,' Barbara said as they sat together on the couch, Kim's head cradled on Deborah's lap.

‘Was not,' Kim said. ‘I wasn't even asleep.'

‘She's not prone to nightmares,' Deborah agreed.

‘But after today…' Barbara let the words hang in the air, obviously referring to the incident at school.

‘I
wasn't
sleepin',' Kim argued.

Barbara persisted. ‘Maybe it was an animal whose eyes caught the light.'

‘Nope,' Kim said stubbornly. ‘No animal. A
thing
.'

Deborah shook her head at Barbara, indicating that the questioning should stop. She didn't believe Kim had been dreaming. It
was
possible that a cat had climbed a tree and that its eyes reflected eerily in the light, but she wasn't sure about that, either, although Kim maintained the eyes were ‘up in the air'.

Kim began to cough again. ‘Where on earth is Joe with the medicine?' Barbara asked.

‘I don't know,' Deborah answered tiredly. ‘I wonder if I should take her to the emergency room.'

‘I'm not goin' outside,' Kim announced.

Deborah sighed. A trip to the emergency room probably would be foolish. The cough was a familiar ailment, and dragging Kim out in the cold might only make it worse, so the three of them remained silently on the couch, looking through the sheer curtains at the lights glowing merrily on the shrubbery along the front walk.

‘Good heavens, here comes Mrs Dillman,' Barbara said suddenly. A moment later furious pounding sounded at the front door. Barbara rose. ‘I'll get it.'

Seconds later, the woman stood in the living room. Deborah gaped at her, startled by her condition. Her long white hair fell in a thin veil over her shoulders and her eyes were wild. She wore cracked pink leather bedroom slippers beneath a winter coat flapping open over a flowered nightgown.

‘Mrs Dillman, come and sit down,' Deborah said. ‘Is something wrong?'

‘I will
not
sit down,' Mrs Dillman announced, her faded blue eyes bulging. ‘I'm here about your husband.'

‘What about Steve?' Deborah asked, puzzled.

‘Your husband was watching me as I got ready for bed. I was in my
undergarments
! Oh, dear lord, I never in all my life…' She patted her chest, breathing raggedly.

‘Mrs Dillman, I wish you'd sit down and let us get you something warm to drink,' Deborah said, noticing the woman's bare white legs covered with gooseflesh. ‘My husband isn't here.'

‘I know he's not here! He's outside, peeping and spying.'

Kim sat up. ‘Daddy's here?'

‘Hush, honey,' Deborah said, wishing the child wasn't in the room but still trying to make sense of what the woman was saying. ‘Mrs Dillman, I don't understand. When did this happen?'

‘I told you, I was getting ready for bed, saying my prayers. It was no more than ten minutes ago.'

‘I thought your bedroom was on the second floor,' Deborah said.

‘It
is
. That devil! And the glowing eyes couldn't fool me.'

‘Glowing eyes?' Deborah repeated.

‘That's what it looked like at first. Nearly scared the life out of me.'

‘Mrs Dillman, I know you've been complaining about a peeping Tom, but why did you suddenly decide this man was Steve? It's dark.'

‘He had a light behind him, of course,' Mrs Dillman said witheringly, as if Deborah were being particularly dense. ‘You know about the light.'

‘What light?'

‘Oh, for pity's sake, you're protecting him, aren't you? Well, I won't put up with it. You tell him that! I have a shotgun and I will use it!'

Deborah took a deep breath. ‘Mrs Dillman, my husband has been missing since Sunday—'

‘That's because he's going around spying on unsuspecting females. Filthy, perverted man! I think you should seek a divorce immediately. I will tell a judge all about him and you should have no trouble regaining your freedom.'

Deborah briefly closed her eyes. She did not need this woman's hysterics on top of everything else this evening. ‘Mrs Dillman, maybe you saw a reflection in your window,' she said tiredly. ‘I assure you my husband wasn't watching you undress.'

‘You're just like I was about my Alfred,' Mrs Dillman said woefully. ‘I always wanted to believe the best about him. But when he ran off to Europe with that opera singer, I had to face the truth.'

Poor Alfred Dillman, Deborah thought. First he'd been accused of going out for bread and ending up in Las Vegas, and now he was in Europe with an opera singer. In reality, Deborah suspected, the most exciting thing the kindly old minister had ever done was play a rigorous round of golf.

‘Mrs Dillman, can you tell me anything else about this man?' she asked, almost certain the woman was suffering from delusions, but still feeling she should follow up on any sighting of Steve on the slim chance it might be valid. ‘Was he standing on your lawn?'

‘He wasn't on the ground,' Mrs Dillman said in exasperation. ‘He couldn't look directly into my bedroom from the ground.'

‘He wasn't on the ground? Where was he?'

‘Oh, you're impossible. Just impossible!' the old lady burst out, then whirled around and headed for home.

‘Mrs Dillman, wait,' Deborah called. ‘I'll walk you home.'

‘I can find my own way, thank you very much!'

As the woman hurried down the walk, Deborah looked at Barbara, who had returned to the living room. ‘Apparently Steve has learned to hover in the air like a vampire,' Deborah said drily, although her hands shook slightly.

‘He's also developed a desire to watch ninety-year-old women undress,' Barbara said.

‘She saw the
thing
,' Kim said ominously, her small body shaking. ‘I told you it wasn't on the ground.'

Deborah bit her lower lip, feeling the back of her neck tingle. What was the likelihood of a five-year-old girl and a ninety-two-year-old woman living in separate houses both seeing something in the night? Something with glowing eyes far above the ground?

Twenty minutes later, Joe arrived. ‘I had a damned flat tire,' he muttered before Deborah or Barbara could ask any questions. ‘It's thirty-two degrees out there and I had a flat tire. Then they were out of the cough syrup you wanted at your drug store so I had to go downtown.'

‘I'm sorry you had so much trouble,' Deborah said meekly. Joe seemed flustered and angry. ‘I just wish you'd called to let us know about the flat. We were worried.'

‘Sorry. It never occurred to me. I've lived alone too long, I guess.' He handed Deborah the bottle. ‘If you tell me I got the wrong kind I'm going to cuss a blue streak.'

‘Save your breath. It's the right kind. And just in time,' Deborah said as Kim burst into another coughing fit. ‘I'll give her a second dose right now.'

As she led Kim to the kitchen, she heard Barbara ask with studied carelessness, ‘Did you change the tire yourself, Joe?'

‘Yeah. No one even stopped to help. Why?'

‘Oh, nothing. It's just that you look so clean. I thought tire-changing was a messy business.'

What's gotten into her? Deborah wondered. And from the tone of Joe's snappish reply, she knew he wondered the same thing.