"Yes! Welcome home . . . What's your sister's name?"
"Jo."
"Welcome home, Jo."
They ate their meal of pork chops and potato salad. Gillian's stomach had shrunk, and she couldn't eat much, but Mason didn't seem to notice. Nor did he seem to notice that she didn't drink any of the wine, only water from the same pitcher he used.
Tomorrow. She would be good. She would be good. She would be so good.
When they were done eating, he led her to the bedroom and dressed her in a low-cut, tight red dress.
I'm like his Barbie doll
.
In the living room, he sat her down on the ottoman. He knelt behind her and began touching her hair, brushing it until she closed her eyes and exhaustion washed over her. She felt him putting makeup on her face, her cheeks, her lips. When he was done, he lit candles, turned off the lamp, and pulled out a book, settling on the floor at her feet.
"Shall I read to you?" he asked. "Would you like that?"
"Yes. Very much."
He chose the last paragraph in the overture of Swann's Way. It was perhaps Proust's most beautifully written passage about memory and the madeleine.
The paragraph was long and mesmerizing, wrapping the reader in bittersweet poignancy. Mason made it halfway through before he began to sob. The book dropped to his lap, and he buried his face in his hands.
"Here—" Gillian picked up the heavy volume. It automatically fell open to the page he'd been reading. In a soft voice she finished the paragraph for him, reading about the Japanese paper, the flower gardens, the whole of Combray springing up from a single cup of tea. When she was finished, she quietly closed the book and sat in silence. Out of seven volumes, he'd picked her favorite passage.
His sobs subsided, and he pressed his lips to her bare knee, hesitated, and then kissed her flesh again. "You're so beautiful. I want to take pictures of you," he whispered, looking up at her from his position on the floor. The flatness had left his eyes, as if his tears had momentarily cleansed them. "Would you mind?"
She didn't think she'd been drugged, but she felt strange and floaty and exceedingly calm.
He posed her, taking photo after photo. Some demure, some provocative.
"I have a lot of pictures," he said when he was finished. "Would you like to see them?"
"Yes."
He pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.
"I don't want to go back there," she said when she saw where they were heading. She tried to twist away, but he was too strong.
"Only for a little while."
Her feet were bare, and the steps were rough. The dirt floor, when they reached the basement, was damp and cold as they wound through the catacomb-like structure.
"Entrez," he said with a flourish, pushing her into a room she'd never seen before.
In front of her was a wall of photos. Several were of Holly lying on the ground, half-nude—all variations of the cut-up negative they'd found in the trash.
Gillian moved to the next wall. April Ellison. Wearing a red dress, posed provocatively. A breast showing here, a thigh there. Various parts of her body were also enlarged. In several photos, she had no eyes. Just bloody raw pits where the eyes had been.
She turned to an unfinished wall. Photos of her. Oh, God. It was disturbing to see herself lying in bed, unconscious and in various stages of undress. There were several of her breast with its rose tattoo.
"Here are my favorites."
He led her in the next display.
In front of her was a collage, eight-by-tens of body parts that went from ceiling to floor. At first they seemed random, but when he pulled her back, she was able to see that the enlargements made up an entire picture—of a girl lying in a bathtub. She was naked, and she was posed, her eyes open, flat, and dead. Very, very dead.
Gillian had always imagined that Charlotte Henning's death had been an accident, and that when Mason found her dead he'd quickly taken her body and dumped it in the river. Instead, he'd played with it. He'd made her pose for him even in death. And then he created this eight-feet-tall monument to the murder, a shrine to himself.
The sight of the photos made her insides curdle, made her feel sick to her stomach.
He was watching her. He'd jammed his hand into his pocket and was rattling the dice as he waited nervously in anticipation.
She quickly tried to pull on a blank mask, but it was too late. Nothing she now did or said could erase the horror and revulsion he'd seen in her face.
"Bitch!"
He grabbed her and dragged her through the passageway to the room where she'd spent the day. Adrenaline shot through her and she fought him, trying to wrench free, but her lessons in self-defense evaporated before his rage.
She gripped the doorjamb, her bare feet planted on the floor. She couldn't go back in there. He shoved. She stumbled forward.
He followed. He wrapped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze. Her breath was cut off. In survival mode, forgetting every technique she'd learned, she grabbed his wrists and tried to free herself. Suddenly he let her go, and she dropped to her knees, coughing.
"Close your eyes and hold out your hand," he commanded.
Wheezing, tears running down her cheeks, she did as he said.
He placed two small objects in her palm and closed her fingers over them. "A little gift for you, since you liked my photos so well."
She heard the door slam. The lock slid home.
On her knees, she opened her hand.
Lying in her palm were two shriveled blue eyeballs.
Chapter 31
Mason had been looking forward to this day for so long that he couldn't believe it was actually here. So engrossed was he in the anticipation of meeting his sister that he forgot to watch his speed. He glanced down—the speedometer had crept above sixty. He let up on the accelerator.
He'd allowed Gillian out of the basement long enough to bake a cake. She'd done a decent job, he had to admit. At least she was good for something.
She'd broken his heart, that's what she'd done. Reacting that way to his photographs. His photos were a part of him, they were a part of who he was, and up until that point everything had been going so well.
She'd hurt him. Hurt him deeply.
Girls were worthless. That was the bottom line. He would have to tell Jo that he was never going to find the right girl for him because the right girl didn't exist. They were good only for baking cakes and having babies, and he didn't want any kids and he could order a cake from the bakery.
Girls were deceitful. So full of lies. They were packages that looked enticing, alluring from the outside, but when you opened them up they were full of maggots.
Except for Jo. Jo fell into a completely different category. She was a saint. She was perfect. She was beautiful inside and out.
When at last she stood before him, he was so glad to see her that he lifted her into the air and hugged her. She laughed, not in the mean way Gillian had laughed, but in delight and joy. She loved him. She'd always loved him, and oh, how he could bask in the warmth of that love.
On the way home he talked her ear off, telling her everything that had been going on while she'd been gone, telling her about his roses and how he'd taken good care of the house. He yakked and yakked and yakked.
Should he mention Gillian? he wondered when the conversation reached a lull. Should he even let Jo meet someone he wasn't going to keep? Someone who might disappear the way Seymour disappeared?
But it would be good to demonstrate to Jo that at least he'd made an effort to find a mate. That he'd kept his promise to her and that he'd been serious about it even though it hadn't worked out.
Was it anybody's fault that neither of them had known he was simply destined to be a bachelor? What was wrong with that, anyway? What is wrong with that?
Maybe Jo would extend her visit. Maybe once she was back, once she saw the house, she would want to stay longer. To hell with the people in town who'd snubbed her. She didn't need anybody else. Neither of them needed anybody else. Not as long as they had each other.
When they got home, Jo went to her bedroom, saying she wanted to lie down a while.
That was okay. It gave Mason time to get things ready for her party. While she was resting, he set the table.
Three places.
He decided to allow Gillian to participate. At times she could conduct herself with propriety, and surely with his sister gracing the house Gillian would be on her best behavior.
He got out the china and silverware. He put party favors at each setting. In the refrigerator was soft-serve ice cream from Dairy Queen—Jo's favorite after homemade. When he was little, she used to make homemade ice cream. He would turn the crank until he thought his arm would fall off. Jo always said the hand-cranked kind was the only kind to make if you were going to the trouble. Mason liked being able to do something, and the machine wasn't noisy like the electric ones. Those could send a person running out of the house.
He lit candles for atmosphere and put on a record— Mahler's arrangement of Schubert's Quartet in D Minor, "Death and the Maiden." Then he went to see if Jo was awake. . . .
Music woke her.
It drifted into the basement and oozed through the stone walls. Gillian sat up in the blackness. She had no idea if it was day or night, no idea how much time had passed since she'd visited Mason's photo gallery. He'd allowed her upstairs once since then. That had been to bake a cake for his sister's welcome-home party.
The light above her head came on. A moment later Mason unlocked the door and threw it open. He was dressed in a black suit with sleeves that were too short. His hair was wet and combed back off a white fore-head. "Party time!" he announced with puppylike enthusiasm. "How do you look?" He pulled her under the light and examined her.
She hadn't eaten since the pork-chop dinner, and she'd been using the corner of the room as a toilet, but his mind was too caught up in other thoughts for him to find fault with her. "Come on," he said in a bubbly voice, swinging her arm.
"What time is it?" she asked, stumbling along behind him.
"Late. We have to hurry."
"I'd like to know the time."
He checked his watch. "Six-thirty."
"In the evening?"
"In the morning."
The exertion caused sweat to break out over her body, and the stone walls swam. "Mason—just a minute." She leaned her face against the clammy wall and closed her eyes, afraid she was going to pass out.
"Come on." He tugged at her arm. "My sister's waiting."
His sister. Gillian had momentarily forgotten about his sister. His sister. Her time in hell was almost over.
The knowledge of potential freedom gave her strength. She pulled in some deep breaths, then continued after him, hardly noticing when she smacked her toe into a step, tearing the nail at the root.
Upstairs, candles burned everywhere. The music was something classical. Through the doorway she could see the kitchen table, see the candles and cake and roses, the wineglasses shimmering. Sitting with her back to her was a small blond-haired woman wearing a dark dress.
Thank God. She was here. Finally here! Until that point, Gillian hadn't been sure she was real, afraid Mason was just making her up. Gillian felt close to tears as relief and gratitude rushed through her.
Rather than waiting for Mason to make introductions, she took the initiative. "Hi. I'm Gillian Cantrell," she said, moving forward into the room, swinging around to face the woman in the chair, her hand extended.
The floor shifted.
Behind her, the basement door slammed shut. A vacuum sucked the air from the room.
Sitting in front of her, hands folded demurely on her lap, eyes closed, face bearing undertaker's makeup, was a dead woman.
Denial, confusion, and disbelief fluttered in Gillian's brain.
A corpse.
No!
Her mind struggled with the presentation NO! Not real. Not happening. A dream. A nightmare.
"This is my sister, Jo Von Bryant," Mason said, proudly striding in behind her, pulling out a chair so Gillian could take a seat at the table, across from Jo.
"Sit down," Mason commanded, a familiar irritation creeping into his voice.
With jerky movements, Gillian sat, her hands in her lap, her eyes focusing on the cake in the center of the table, WELCOME HOME, JO.
Jo, the dead woman. Jo, the corpse.
Even though Gillian wasn't looking at her, she may as well have been. She could see her anyway. Such was the persistence of memory. She could see the way the shiny, transparent skin of her face stretched across the bridge of a narrow nose. Her mouth had been a round black pit, as if she'd died while crying out in pain.
Had Mason killed her?
Make this go away. Make this all go away.