Chapter 23 #2
I jolted straight as a woman dashed out of the hallway, her hands clapping together with childish glee when she caught sight of me.
She was beautiful, and I recognized her from the pictures in the house as Emily Winslow, Max’s mom’s sister, the small-time actress and model who’d been living with Max’s family for the past few years in between shows or gigs or whatever actresses and models did.
She was dressed in a silky pink robe that almost reached her knees, and her hair was in a high, blonde springy ponytail.
Water dripped from the tip of that ponytail onto the hardwood—dark drops that seemed too thick, almost black in the dim hallway light.
As I stared, she fumbled with the robe’s sash, securing it more tightly.
“Well, don’t just let her gape at me, Max.
Is this your friend from the other day? The one who upset Judith so?
” When Max couldn’t seem to find the words, she finished lashing her robe to her voluptuous body and strode toward me, her hand out.
Somewhere in this town there apparently was someone who did manicures.
“I’m Emily Winslow, you might have heard of me? I was in The Family Five—the daughter. Everyone knows me from that one.”
“Oh my God, of course,” I agreed. I shook her hand quickly then pulled it back to cradle it against my body, as if I was awestruck. It seemed to be the correct response. She flushed with delight and turned again to Max.
“I fully approve.”
“What are you doing here, Emily?” he asked tightly.
“I preferred it when you called me Auntie.”
“I preferred it when you acted like one.”
“So serious.” She pouted, then turned back to me. “Are you going to liven him up?”
“Emily.”
“I was taking a bath, Max. What did it look like I was doing?”
“You had to have heard me coming through the house.”
She winked at me, a little ‘just between us girls’ move that sent another jolt of uneasiness through me. “Maybe I wanted to surprise you.”
“Something wrong with the bathtubs up at the main house? Jesus, Emily, Joe just died.”
“Well, he didn’t die here, give him credit for that.” She looked around the room as if suddenly seeing it. “And at least now we can get rid of all his stuff. He was always so sensitive about his stuff. Like his stuff was going to bring Carol Ann back. So tragic, isn’t it?”
My gaze jumped to Max’s as she turned on her heel and flitted through the room, and it was everything I could do not to look for hidden cameras.
Because she was putting on a show, right?
She was every boozy housewife in every Hollywood movie since The Great Gatsby, only she was standing in a dead man’s living room.
Virulent whore.
The thought was thick with revulsion, disgust—and it blossomed up out of me so strongly I tasted copper and ash. My demon’s flavor, not mine. But the hatred felt like mine, the judgment, the contempt. For a moment I couldn’t tell where I ended and it began.
Emily’s head swung around toward me, her mouth curving into a smile. “Why are you here, little girl?” she asked.
“Jesus, Emily.” Max practically groaned as my brows climbed my forehead. “Have you been drinking?”
“And what if I have?” Emily’s transition from siren to wronged victim was instantaneous. Her eyes widened piteously, her mouth wobbled. “Joe is dead, Max, as you so helpfully pointed out. The only one of all of you who understood me, and he’s dead.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I lifted my hands as she swayed toward me, but Max was way ahead of me on this. “What do you mean, he understood you? Joe didn’t talk to anyone long enough to understand them. He barely set foot outside of this house.”
“You think so?” Emily had shifted back to sultry vixen and was drawing her hand along a pile of jumbled carvings.
“You think you knew him in the, what, three times a year you bothered to come out and check on him? The boyfriend of your dear, somewhat departed sister, Max, tsk tsk. You’d think you would have shown him more compassion than that. ”
“We let him live here out of compassion.”
“You let him live here out of guilt.” Emily didn’t hiss the word, but she imbued it with the same silky intensity that she packed into her gaze.
“You didn’t know what role he played in little Carol Ann’s sickness, but you were sure he had to have done something. Maybe he fucked her a little too hard?”
I jolted at the vulgarity, but Max took a long step toward Emily, who cringed away from him with a squeak.
“Don’t hurt me!” In the blink of an eye, she switched again, this time from seductress to little girl. “You always want to hurt me!”
Max’s face was a mask of bewildered frustration, and he lifted both his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you, Emily. But don’t talk about Carol Ann that way. She got sick. Joe had nothing to do with it. End of story.”
“You do want to hurt me. You always wanted to hurt me.” Emily had wrapped her arms around her waist now, almost rocking.
Max’s shock transformed into helpless confusion, and I bit my lip.
He was completely out of his element. I knew what this creature was, but I wasn’t in much better shape to respond to it than Max.
I couldn’t take on this demon, I thought.
Demons, if there were more than one, which I thought there would be.
Two demons living in collusion in this house if not in conjunction, suffering each other’s presence.
It was a rarity. Demons were solitary creatures.
One of them had slithered into Emily, but was it always there?
Or was it in the house, taking up residence in visitors as it suited them?
“Why are you so mean to me?” Emily’s wail pulled me out of my own thoughts, and I gaped as she flung herself into Max’s arms. Max who was her nephew, even though she was only in her mid-thirties and he was in his late twenties—her nephew.
Her total abandonment of social standards was classic textbook possession, yet so blatant and insidious, it took my breath away.
“Emily, c’mon. Pull yourself together. We need to understand why you’re here. Why here, specifically? Why now?” With a move obviously born of long practice, Max set her away from his body as she attempted to compose herself. “The cops didn’t see you here, did they?”
“Them.” Emily pouted again, back to working the cute little girl angle. “They didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say. And the coroner is old. Probably doesn’t even know her job, all the advances they’ve made with forensics. I saw this show where—”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said Joe was the nicest man I’d ever met. That he wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Emily burst into tears, throwing me off my game yet again. “I don’t know why he took that gun out there, Max. Why would he do that? He had everything to live for!”
I forced myself not to look around at the evidence of what Joe had to live for, but Max was paying closer attention. “Tell me you weren’t out here this past week, talking to him.”
Her eyes got huge. “It’s not a crime to talk to someone. Joe and I were friends.”
“Okay, then what did you two talk about? Did you tell the cops you were out here?”
“They didn’t ask.” She sniffed. “And I certainly didn’t suggest that he kill himself, if that’s what you’re saying. Joe and I were friends.”
“You described Joe as a ‘shut-in hoarder’ up until three months ago. So I don’t think your friendship was all that deep.”
“You don’t understand,” she whined. But even as Max rolled his eyes and turned toward the kitchen—presumably to continue looking through the place—I realized that he did understand.
There was something about the way he moved, the way he watched everyone, that told me he understood a lot more than he was letting on.
Which was all well and good…but understood what, exactly?
What hadn’t he told me?
I didn’t ask him. Not because I didn’t want to know, but because it didn’t matter. I was here now, and I wasn’t going to leave until it was over. I couldn’t run away from this place, not again.
Maybe never again?
The softest whisper of a laugh curled through me, silent and distant.
Maybe.