999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [334]
“You hear that?”
“No, what?”
“Sounds like organ music. Listen.”
Trawley followed her gaze, her head bent.
“Yes, I do,” she said shortly. “Far away.”
“Yeah, I guess there’s a skating rink somewhere.”
“Perhaps.”
Freeboard nodded and the women resumed their walk.
“So there’s Manhattan,” said Trawley, looking off to the south. “I’ve never spent any time there to speak of,” she mentioned. “Perhaps I should do that before I go home. What do you think? Is it a fascinating city?”
“Fuck it.”
“You don’t recommend it, then?” Trawley asked earnestly.
Freeboard turned her head to unreadably appraise her. The psychic’s expression was somberly questioning, but her eyes seemed faintly amused. “You’re okay,” Freeboard judged her at last.
“I’m okay?”
“Yeah, that’s right. You’re okay. You’re real.”
Both hands in the pockets of her jeans, thumbs hitched, Freeboard turned and frowned down at the ground ahead. “Listen, what’s the bottom line?” she asked. “I mean, spookwise.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Hey, look at this,” Freeboard said abruptly. She had stopped, staring down at a sand-covered object that looked as if it might have washed up on the shore. She stooped and picked it up.
It was a bottle of champagne.
Freeboard brushed away sand and read the faded, blurred label. “Veuve Cliquot,” she pensively murmured.
Trawley eyed the bottle. She looked troubled.
“Unopened,” she observed.
“Yeah, it is.”
Freeboard looked up and Trawley followed her gaze to where the shoreline just ahead sharply curved to the right, disappearing from view. The two women stood immobile, blankly staring. A light spring breeze played at Trawley’s dress for a moment, furling and flapping it about. Freeboard lowered her hand and the champagne bottle slipped from her fingers down to the silent and watching earth. Then as one the women turned and walked stiffly toward the mansion.
Neither of them uttered a word.
On the library sofa Dare lay somnolent as the women entered the house. Hearing their voices, soft and feathery, drifting in low from the entry hall, he opened a drowsy, bloodshot eye. “I think I’D have another Dedown,” he heard Trawley saying; “I’m quite tired for some reason.”
“Yeah, me too,” answered Freeboard. Then footsteps ascending the stairs, doors softly opening and closing. Dare’s eye slid shut and he took a deep breath. And then he opened both eyes and raised his head and listened. A sound. Yes, again! A distant whine and then a yip! And then another! Dare’s face was aglow with rapture.
“Boys!”
He had brought them after all!
He would have to go and find them.
“Dr. Case?” he called loudly.
He got up and walked over toward the Great Room.
“Doctor?”
It occurred to him he didn’t know which bedroom Case had taken. He hurried to the kitchen, walked in and looked around, calling, “Morna?” But no one was there.
He breathed deeply. He would have to go alone.
Chapter Seven
Uneasy and confused, fatigued, her body heavy, Freeboard lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. Something was wrong, she knew. What was it? She tightened her hands into fists at her sides, shut her eyes and attempted to shake it off. The middle finger of her hand lifted up. “Haunt this!” Abruptly she sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She listened. A piano being played. She smiled. Rachmaninoff’s Concerto #2, the second movement, softly reflective and colored with longing. It was the only piece of classical music she could recognize, although she never had learned its name. She had heard it in a movie.
Mesmerized, Freeboard got up from the bed, walked out into the hall and leaned over the balustrade. She saw Case at the piano below. Drawn, she walked slowly down the stairs and through the Great Room, not noticing her sense of anxiety had vanished. When she’d reached the piano, Case looked up. He smiled, then looked