Bank Owned (6 page)

12.

Wild passion. Heavy breaths, as if air was wine and flesh was food. Steaming. Sweating. Mouths greedy for more. Exploring. Squeezing. Caressing.

Brain rolled over. The soaking sheet stuck to his back. Perspiration dripped from every pore. His head throbbed. His stomach boiled. But that wasn’t what troubled him. The visions. Hallucinations, he hoped. Though, in a feverish state somewhere between waking and slumber, he had no way to tell what was real and what was dream.

Whatever the case, whatever the reason, he couldn’t get rid of the thoughts of his wife with another man,
the
other man. Writhing. Hips grinding. Toes curling. Back arched. Eyes closed. Whimpering. Giggling. She moans lightly as he slaps her. Then again, louder, harder. She grits her teeth and sharpens her stare, glaring and daring the scoundrel to hit her again. Stiffer, harder, punish her with his open palm.
Slap…slap…slap!
Again and again and again, all to her willing shrieks.

“NO!” he sat up, aching and stirring and wanting to vomit. Then he did. A stinging surge of bile. He held it in his puffed cheeks like a chipmunk and dashed to the bathroom, spitting into the sink. The acid left his teeth gritty, and he took a giant gulp of water to wash it away. He stared in the mirror, wondering if these terrible nightmares would ever stop. Wondering if Angie was with Matt right now, at work, sitting across from each other, exchanging furtive glances, touching toes below the table. Or maybe he was bending her over his desk, the door left open, just for the danger. Brian heaved into the sink, this time only water came up, and it was still cold.

WHEN ANGIE GOT HOME, the house was so quiet she thought Brian had left. She checked the garage and found his Mustang. Then she thought maybe he’d gone outside, and stood on the back porch, calling his name—nothing. By that time, she’d gotten worried. Usually she heard him in his office, or the TV blaring from the family room, or caught a whiff of something delicious in the oven. Brian loved to cook, and often surprised her with dinner. But the place was quiet as a library at midnight, and that scared her.

She checked his office, the kitchen, the living room. “Brian!” she called out to no response, and her heart beat even faster. Before she knew it, she’d checked the entire house. Her room—clothes and shoes and a stationary bike—not there. The other bedrooms—all vacant. With each place she looked, and with each successive failure to locate him, her anxiety grew worse. She tried the basement, even went so far as to open the secret door and shout for him. Again, she received only silence in return. Reluctant to go down by herself, she went upstairs again, and then decided to check the bedroom, hoping he wasn’t actually in bed at six in the evening.

“Brian?” she peeked her head in. The curtains had been kept closed, the TV was off, and the bed was a wad of sheets and blankets. He was there, though, and didn’t answer. Not that he didn’t want to. He couldn’t. Then she heard him grumble and whine at the same time, and instant alarm bells went off. She knew right away he was sick.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she rushed to the bed and felt his forehead. Hot as a frying pan. “You’re burning up,” she helped him get straightened out, then got a wet washcloth from the bathroom and put it on his head. He felt better, and wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her. His throat burned so bad, though. All he managed to get out was scratchy, incoherent babble. She told him to save his strength, to just lie down and she’d take care of him.

The cat, whom she didn’t even see lying there at the foot of the bed, jumped up and followed her down to the kitchen, and let her know under no uncertain terms that she’d missed supper. So Angie opened two cans: tuna pate for Marmalade, and some Campbell’s chicken broth for Brian.

“Here you go, sweetie,” she scooped a spoonful of cat food into Marmalade’s little bowl, then proceeded to fetch some Nyquil from the cabinet above the fridge, when, from the hallway, she heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Unable to breathe, she turned quickly and saw a child, a toddler actually, barely big enough to walk, dressed in only a filthy cloth diaper. It darted past the doorway, straight for the basement. She dropped the medicine bottle on the floor. That didn’t concern her, though. There was a baby in her house. She didn’t know how or why or whose it was, but she’d become convinced of it now. It wasn’t just a noise from behind a wall. This time she saw it. Marmalade saw it, too, and when it had scurried by, she froze, releasing a mouthful of kibble back into her bowl and staring at the hall. Then she began to growl, low and light, and the hair on her back stood up.

Now more sure than ever, Angie hurried to the basement stairway, and her stomach leapt to her throat when she didn’t find the poor little thing. Her first thought was it had fallen down the steps, and that had her in a mad rush, certain she’d see a tragic sight at the bottom. What she found, though, was an empty landing and an empty room. Except for the hidden door, only it was no longer hidden, but now standing apart from the wall, opened just enough for a small child to get through. As she got closer, she heard a familiar sound—a baby’s laughter.

13.

“Hey, Mamma? When’s dinner? I’m starvin’!”

“Pipe down! It’s comin’!” Betty sat at the kitchen table and rested her weary bones. Her sciatica had been screaming bloody murder all day, and her pain pills weren’t doing the trick anymore. It was that old man doing it, too. Why couldn’t
he
cook for a change? Then she recalled the last time he tried and abandoned that idea. That man, though—he’d given her just about all she could take. She had a good mind to leave the son of a bitch, to get out of that town. She’d do it, too. First, she had to set things straight. Too long had she sat by, scared to do something.

Today was the day she would stop this insanity, here and now. She stared at her cellular phone, the one her grandkids got her for Christmas. Those girls sent their poor old gramma ten texts a day, and, with her stiff knuckles, she was finding it harder and harder to peck out the replies. Today, though, she ignored the messages from Cindy and SueAnn. Her only concern was that young woman. Angela Mason was her name. Got it off her credit card.

With a forlorn sigh, she checked for any incoming calls. Angela had to call. She just had to. Then Betty clenched her jaw and blamed herself for not being bolder. Maybe she should have put the note
on
the bag. She couldn’t risk Earl seeing it, though. No telling what he would do. That bank had him scared. That house had him scared. The whole thing terrified every soul for a fifty mile radius, and nobody dared speak of it, except for maybe the occasional hushed conversation at Heine’s Café.

D’jah hear about the family up at the Castle?

It happened again?

Yeah. It happened again.

Whispers. Hushed exchanges. Anxious looks. A terror had its sinuous tentacles spreading throughout that county, a terror so pervasive, no one risked sticking their necks out to try and save whoever owned the Castle. Betty meant to change that. But Earl, he’d try and stop her. She knew he would. He’d do something drastic, too. She just knew it. She saw the way he looked at her. It was like she could read his mind. He’d been giving her those looks for twenty years, now. Those, ‘if I could get away with it, I’d slit her throat,’ kind of looks. Something like this, if he was to catch wind of her plans, she just knew he’d use it as an excuse to bump her off once and for all.

So she had to be careful, tiptoeing into the foyer and spying on him around the corner. Then she dug the phone out of her sweater pocket and studied the screen again. No calls. Why didn’t she call? Betty trembled.
Please, God, let her see that note on the back of her receipt. Please, let her call.

14.

With the once-hidden door at the top of the stairs wide open, Angie had just enough light down in the subbasement to see it was empty. No child anywhere, as far as she could tell. She checked the only place a little one could possibly hide—beneath the staircase. Nothing. She began to feel the overwhelming sensation of emptiness in the pit of her stomach, deep down, so powerful and consuming, it threatened to turn her inside out.

Then the sound of scuffling feet overrode her stilted respiration. Tiny, unmistakable footsteps, one after the other. She scanned the dark recesses, and found indentations on the walls, uneven, like the inside of a cave. Her heart skipped when she looked directly at a tiny face, eyes glistening with sudden joy. Then the small child turned and slipped out of sight, enveloped by shadow, melding into blackness.

Angie followed to the spot where the child had disappeared and found yet another doorway, concealed well in a rocky cranny. She barely perceived steps, leading down, into impossible darkness. She wished right then and there she had a flashlight, and decided to make a quick trip back up to the kitchen for one. A faint sound changed her mind, even though she couldn’t see, even though she felt an immediate sense of danger. She shook away those thoughts. How could she be thinking of herself when, obviously, a child is somewhere down there? A child who needs her help. Call it a maternal instinct. Or maybe simple stupidity. She didn’t care. She made it a mission to save that little baby. So sweet. So innocent.

Her trepidation washed away even more when, as she stepped carefully onto each creaking, wobbly step, she made out a light. Faint at first. The lower she descended, the brighter it became, until, when she got to the floor, she saw a narrow hallway, ravaged by age, stretching in front of her. Old, dim bulbs provided enough illumination for her to make out several doorways, set in opposite pairs, to the end of the corridor. Yellow plasterboard, stained with moldy streaks of moisture. Exposed timbers, uneven and disintegrating. She wouldn’t have gone another step if not for the jabbering and chattering. Baby talk, echoing and funneling up the stairwell. It fueled her worry, and her curiosity. Could it be? More than one baby?

She rushed to the first set of doors and peered to her left and had to lean against the frame. Her knees became jelly at what she saw. A tiny crib, rocking gently. What she heard, though, broke her heart. Crying. Despondent and alone. But the baby wasn’t alone. When Angie turned to the other door, she spotted another crib, and caught a faint whimper. Another child. More wails from down the hall had her running to the next pair of open doors, where she saw what she’d expected to see. More cribs, one in each room. She went to the next ones, and the next, finding in each the same sad scene. Lonely, crying babies.

She went into one of the rooms, wanting to take them all, one by one if she had to. When she got close to the basket-shaped bed, the baby became all she could see. Nothing else mattered. Who had placed these precious little things here—she didn’t want to think about that. All she wanted was to save these innocent babies. And that’s what she would do. So she scooped up the infant, making sure to take the bedding, in one big armful. She rocked and bounced gently, telling the little one it would be okay. She was safe now.

But the sudden silence worried her. And the cold. She reached inside the blanket and was shocked by how icy and stiff the baby felt. She unraveled the cloth, and became more panicked the longer it took. Then, finally, she got a good look at the child, and her blood froze. Unkempt, frizzy hair. Dirt-stained cheeks. An eye that wouldn’t close. Plastic and string. A doll. Not real. Not a baby. The ache in her womb made her drop everything and double over.

She sat on her knees and her own tears began. She stared at the uneven floorboards, and was stunned when, from the hall, she heard the staccato laughter of a child on the run. Sure enough, when she looked up, the same toddler she’d seen earlier ran past the doorway, its little legs motoring like it had an important date to keep. Angie crawled, then got to her feet and dashed to the hall, where she spotted the child, fleetingly, as it skittered to the end of the corridor and behind yet another door which, initially, had been concealed from her sight.