Funhouse (3 page)

Doss nodded. “Martha did,” he said, referring to an elderly woman who ran the shooting gallery. “I never knew she could move so fast. The minute that thing took off, Martha raced for the nearest phone.”

Of course, Tess told herself. Because that was what you
did
in an emergency. You ran
toward
the phone, not away from it.

Unless you weren’t interested in getting help.

Unless you were only interested in running away. Because you had good reason to run away.

Telling herself she was letting her imagination do some pretty fancy running, Tess pushed all thought of the shadow out of her tired, aching mind. All she wanted to do now was go home and crawl under the covers and sleep, and forget about this dreadful, horrible night.

As if it could ever be forgotten!

I
FOUND IT IN
the attic. I was looking for ski clothes. Found no ski clothes. Found the book, instead. A journal. A little red book, hidden in the bottom of an old trunk. The name on the front, in cheap gold letters, was
LILA O
’
HARE.

O’Hare? No O’Hares in this family. None in Santa Luisa, for that matter.

I read that journal. Took me all day, but I read it. Every page. Hot day, stuffy attic with its tiny windows and sloping walls and smells of cedar and mothballs. Sat there all day, sweating and reading.

Glad I read it. Even though it changed everything. When I finished reading it, I knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

But I’m not sorry I read it.

The journal was written by this woman named Lila, who was married to a guy named Tully O’Hare who owned The Boardwalk. Reading that seemed weird, because I’d never thought about who owned The Boardwalk before my father and his friends bought it. Now I knew. Someone named Tully O’Hare.

Lila and Tully ran The Boardwalk together. Very happy, the O’Hares were. Pretty boring stuff, but I read it anyway. Nothing better to do.

Then suddenly the entries changed.

I wish someone could help us. We can’t pay the back taxes on The Boardwalk. Tully’s worried sick. He’s afraid we’re going to lose everything.

What would we do without The Boardwalk? It’s our whole life. Tully’s granddaddy built it and it’s all we’ve got. I don’t know what Tully will do if it’s taken away from us.

We were both so excited about the baby coming. We’ve waited and hoped for so long. Now Tully is afraid we won’t be able to take care of our child.

He’s going to the bank to see Buddy about a loan.

Maybe that will save us.

Who was Buddy? Was there a banker in town named Buddy? Not that I knew of.

Turns out, there were a
lot
of things I didn’t know.

W
HEN
T
ESS ANNOUNCED THAT
she was going home, Sam insisted on walking her to the parking lot. Almost empty now, it seemed strangely eerie and quiet. As uncomfortable as she felt around Sam after their fight earlier in the week, she was glad she wasn’t alone.

Lights began flickering off at The Boardwalk. Someone had made the decision to close early. Good idea. Tess shuddered. Who could have a good time there tonight?

Sam moved forward to stand beside her. A breeze off the ocean picked up stray strands of his dark, wavy hair and lifted them gently. “So, Shelley take off yet?” he asked brusquely.

Oh, no. Were they going to have
that
discussion again? Their argument had been about Shelley. When Sam found out that Shelley was leaving for Europe, he’d made some snide remarks about her abilities as a parent. Because Shelley had wanted Tess when no one else seemed to, Tess had defended her stepmother. The argument had escalated, and Sam had left her house in a fury. She didn’t want to get into that again, especially not when she was feeling so shocked and shaken.

“Yes,” she mumbled, turning toward her little blue car, “she’s gone. Left around five o’clock.” Would Shelley have gone if she’d known about The Devil’s Elbow? Probably.

“Then I’ll drive you home,” Sam said in that commanding voice she hated. “You can come back and pick up your car tomorrow.”

It would be nice, when she was feeling so sick inside, to let Sam take over. But that would just reinforce his notion that she needed looking after. Even though sometimes—like that night—she wouldn’t have minded letting him decide things for her, she certainly wouldn’t admit that to
him.
If he wanted someone to take care of, let him buy a puppy!

“I can drive myself home, thank you very much,” she said, her voice as cool as the night air.

“You are so stubborn!” he said heatedly, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust. “You never give an inch!”

That seemed funny to Tess and she almost laughed. She’d been giving inches all of her life. People told her what to do and she did it, because it was easier than arguing. If she was arguing now, with Sam, maybe it was because doing what people told her hadn’t worked out so well. Just when she’d thought she was finally going to have a happy family, like other people, her father had said, “We’re divorcing,” and that was that.

So if she’d been giving Sam a hard time lately, maybe it was because she was getting just a little tired of having other people make her decisions for her.

“I’m going home,” she said flatly, opening the door of her car.

“Fine! Great! You do that!” And he stalked away, broad shoulders jerking in anger with each stride.

Watching him go, she was unpleasantly surprised to discover that she was analyzing his walk, comparing it to the movements of the figure she’d seen running away from The Boardwalk. Afraid that he would turn suddenly and see her watching him, she ducked into her car and settled behind the wheel. If Sam
had
been running under The Devil’s Elbow, he would have said so when she’d mentioned what she’d seen. He would have said casually, “Oh, that was me. That’s the route I take when I jog.” And that would have been the end of it. She would have put the figure out of her mind completely.

But Sam hadn’t said that. So it hadn’t been him.

Then who
was
it? And why had they run away, instead of rushing to The Boardwalk to help?

Maybe the person
had
helped out. It suddenly occurred to Tess, as she headed up the hill toward home, that the figure she’d seen could easily have joined the crowd of volunteers without her knowing it. After all, she hadn’t recognized the person, so how could she say whether or not they had returned to the accident and pitched in?

She’d been jumping to conclusions, as usual. She had no real reason to believe sinister things about that figure. Might as well put it out of her mind right now.

She had always loved the drive home, up the hill. Random house lights scattered throughout the woods on both sides of the road eased the darkness, like candlelight in a dark room. It had always seemed peaceful, even romantic.

But not tonight. Not with those terrible screams echoing in her ears.

At the top of the hill, she took a sharp right turn into the long, tree-lined driveway leading to The Shadows, the exclusive condominium complex she and Shelley called home now. Their unit was all the way at the back, overlooking a lush green valley. Tess loved the daytime view, but at night it seemed isolated and lonely. This would be her first night alone in the house and she wasn’t looking forward to it. Shelley’s timing was the worst! Why did she have to leave for Europe on the very night that the worst disaster in Santa Luisa’s history had taken place?

The patio beside their carport was surrounded on three sides by tall, thick oleander bushes, their narrow green leaves swaying in the night breeze. A small, black, metal gate separated the carport from the patio, which sat directly outside the condo’s kitchen. Tess hurried from the car to the back door, unlocked it and went inside, quickly flipping on the kitchen light switch as she entered the house.

It seemed so empty. No Shelley fixing a drink in the kitchen, no loud jazz music blasting through the rooms, no coat, purse, car keys, scarf, magazines, and newspaper left in a trail behind Shelley as she advanced from one room to another.

Tess swallowed hard. Even when Shelley was in town, she wasn’t home that many evenings. What was so different about tonight?

What was different was that something atrocious had happened and Tess wanted someone there to share her pain.

While flooding the kitchen with light made the room feel a bit more friendly, it also seemed to magnify the wide, gaping blackness of the big picture windows over the double sink and the French doors opposite the breakfast nook. Shelley didn’t believe in curtains or drapes. She said she liked to “bring the outdoors in,” and usually added, “where it belongs,” which Tess found funny.

It didn’t seem the least bit funny tonight. Tess couldn’t have said why, but the bare, black windows left her feeling raw and exposed.

When the phone shrilled, she jumped, banging her elbow on the kitchen counter and dropping her purse. Her lipstick fell out and rolled under the oval wooden table in the breakfast nook.

It was Gina calling. “Just wanted to make sure you got home in one piece. You seemed pretty rattled.”

Tess laughed nervously. “I guess I still am, a little. Aren’t you?”

“I feel just horrible. All those people hurt. Poor Joey! And Sheree! And then there’s Dade …”

They both fell silent. Then Gina said, “Are you all alone or is Sam playing bodyguard? I saw him leave with you.”

Tess switched on the breakfast nook chandelier, a hanging fixture with lights shaped like candles ensconced in copper holders. Shelley had left the sink full of dishes, as always. Tess hooked the black rubber phone grip over her shoulder and began loading the dishwasher as she talked. “I’m alone. Shelley’s off to sunny Italy. And I didn’t feel like dealing with Sam tonight.” She paused, before adding seriously, “Gina, hasn’t The Boardwalk been in business for about a hundred years?”

“Give or take a year or two. Why?”

“And there’s never been an accident there before tonight, right? Not a really bad one, I mean.” Gina’s father, like most of the parents Tess knew, including her own father, was on the amusement park’s board of directors. And since Mr. Giambone, unlike Tess’s father, actually
talked
to his daughter, Gina might know something about The Boardwalk’s history.

Gina thought for a minute. “Not on The Devil’s Elbow,” she answered. “But something might have happened in the Funhouse. Don’t know what, exactly, but I remember my dad saying something about it once. Whatever it was, it happened before our dads and their friends bought The Boardwalk and remodeled it. I can ask him about it if you want me to. Why? What’s up?”

She’s already forgotten that I told her I saw something, Tess thought, annoyed. Maybe I’m just jealous of her ability to shut out bad things. No wonder she’s never nervous! “Well, don’t you think it’s kind of weird?” She tipped a glass half full of milk into the sink and rinsed it under the faucet. “I mean, after all these years, all of a sudden there’s this terrible accident? Whatever happened in the Funhouse couldn’t have been as bad as this, or we’d all have heard about it. So why did something so awful suddenly happen?”

“Tess. If you were almost a hundred years old, don’t you think you might break down a little, too?”

“Maybe. But I hope things wouldn’t be falling
off
me! Tell the truth, Gina. Do you really think it was an accident?”

She could almost see the frown on Gina’s face as her thick, dark eyebrows drew together the way they did when Gina concentrated. “It’s that shadow you saw under The Devil’s Elbow, isn’t it, Tess? That’s what’s spooking you. So, what are you thinking? That someone put a bomb on the rails? Santa Luisa isn’t exactly terrorist territory!

“Tess, you got this idea from Sam, didn’t you? Did he say something to you after you left here? You know how cynical he is! Why do you listen to him when he’s saying gloomy things?”

“Gina, I didn’t
get
this idea from Sam.
I’m
the one who saw something, remember? With my own eyes.”

Gina wasn’t giving in. “Why don’t you just wait and see what the police come up with? I’ll bet my new purple blouse that it was just a worn-out rail in the tracks. You’ll see.”

Her new purple blouse, Tess remembered, was exactly like the one Sheree Buchanan had been wearing earlier. Tess didn’t want it. “No, thanks. No bet. I’m not in a gambling mood.”

They might have continued arguing, but Tess’s eyes, scanning the white brick floor for her lipstick, spotted something else. A piece of crisp white paper was sticking out from underneath the French doors. Had Shelley dropped something on her way out? It would be just like her.

Telling Gina she’d see her tomorrow, Tess hung up. Then she bent to pick up the piece of paper.

It was folded once, into a small white square. She turned it over. Scrawled across the front, in bright purple Magic Marker, was her name.

She didn’t recognize the writing. It wasn’t Shelley’s, she was sure of that. Besides, she told herself, Shelley wasn’t the type to leave notes for people when she went somewhere. She just went.

Her breathing slightly uneven, Tess leaned against the counter as she unfolded the note.

The words, like her name, were written in that same vivid purple. Her eyes wide, her hands beginning to shake, Tess read:

Dade and Sheree went up the hill,

With Joey right behind them,

Now Dade is dead and Sheree’s ill,

And Joey’s leg can’t find him.

If Dade was one, and Sheree two,

And Joey number three,

Who will be next? Could it be you?

Why don’t we wait and see?

I
DELIVERED MY LITTLE
note to Tess. I hope it shakes her up. A lot. Serve her right.

She doesn’t even know why. No one does. No one knows what I found in the attic. I’ll tell them when I’m good and ready.