First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [133]
"Then come with us," Jack said. "Spend the night."
"I'd like to," Sharon said. "Really I would." She shook her head. "But I'm not ready, Jack. Can you understand that?"
"Sure," he said, though he didn't, not really. If it wasn't for the Secret Service detail, he would have consented to stay here tonight. What was it about Gus's house she despised so? He couldn't work it out. He'd asked her so many times without getting a satisfactory answer, he had no desire to go over that old turf again. Besides, like her, he was sick to death of fighting.
"I guess it's time for you to go, then." Sharon embraced Alli, and they kissed. She stood in the lighted doorway, watching them as they went down the walk to Jack's car, and she shivered, as if with a premonition, or a feeling of deja vu, as if she'd experienced this helpless moment of sadness and loss before.
FORTY - THREE
THERE WAS, no question, a certain gloom about Jack's house, a fustiness manifested by huge odd-shaped rooms, old gas lamps gutted and wired for electricity, massive furniture, not a stick of it built after 1950. Perhaps it was all this Sharon objected to, why she had opted for predictable square rooms, low ceilings, modern furniture—a house gaily lighted but without charm.
But there was also history here—chaotic, warty, fascinating. It was, as Alli had recognized, the residence of an Outsider, past and present. Could that be why Emma liked it here and Sharon didn't? Jack asked himself as he climbed up the stairs with Alli. Sharon wasn't an Outsider—that kind of life, often in conflict with rules, regulations, even, sometimes, the law, both baffled and frightened her. She was comfortable only within the well-defined bounds of society. That was why she'd been so hell-bent on Emma going to Langley Fields, which was so Establishment. And it was why Emma had gotten into continuous difficulty there. A round peg in a square hole. Outsiders never fit in; you could never change them. But until the day Emma died Sharon hadn't given up hope.
Jack showed Alli into the guest room, which was next to his. In all these years, he'd never been able to sleep in Gus's bedroom. Years ago, he'd hauled the bed Gus had been murdered in out back and burned it. More recently, he'd turned the bedroom into a media room with an enormous flat-screen TV on which he watched James Brown concerts as well as baseball and films he bought on DVD. He felt certain Gus would've liked that.
"The bathroom's fully stocked," he said. "But if there's anything else you need, it'll be in this closet here."
After they said good night, he watched her go into her room, close the door behind her. He thought about what might be going on in her head, all the things she had told him, all the things she hadn't. In his room, he called Carson, told him all was well and that he was slowly making progress.
Jack turned off the light, lay on the bed with his clothes on. He felt bone-weary, sad unto death. The experience of learning about Emma's secret life was a two-edged sword. Gratitude and remorse flooded him in equal measure. Tonight he felt an outsider even from himself.
He must have fallen asleep because suddenly he opened his eyes and knew time had passed. It was the middle of the night. Traffic sounds were as scarce as clouds in the horse latitudes. He felt that he lay on the bosom of the ocean, rocked gently by wave after wave. He was aware of an abyss beneath him, vast, lightless. Light filtering in through the window seemed like the cool pinpoints of ten million stars. He was as far from civilization as he had ever been. Unmoored, he had said. And Alli had said, I'm unmoored, too.
It was then that he heard a sound, like the wind sighing through branches, like moonlight singing in the trees. Rain pattered on the roof, and a voice whispered, "There's someone in the house."
Sitting up, Jack saw a slim figure silhouetted in the open doorway.
"Alli, what is it? What did you hear?"
"There's someone in the house," she whispered.
He rose, took his Glock and went toward her. She turned, retreated