The Third Floor Part 21

"Just, you know, guy and his kids. Look, I'm sorry for bringing it up. I shouldn't even be thinking about it, and certainly not talking about it with the person who has to live here. Not that there's anything at all wrong with living here."

"Oh, there is," Liz said. "Believe me, there's nothing you could say about what's happened here that would make me feel any worse about being here."

He handed her the receipt which she stuffed into the checkbook, then the checkbook into her purse.

"Well," he said, "okay. I just read that, um, the guy who used to live here and his kids, four or five of them, I'm not sure, were found dead one day upstairs."

Liz glanced toward the back door, making sure Joey wasn't around to hear.

"And he killed them?"

"I don't know. That's what they said, but I wasn't here and like I said, there's probably a lot of stuff that led up to it, so, you know, who kno--."

The phone cut him off. Liz wanted to finish the conversation, but the ring bore into her, and she finally grabbed the phone to shut it up.

"h.e.l.lo?" She didn't expect a response, just another ghost call, but Jack said, "What'cha doing?"

Art took his cue, mouthed, "I'm gotta get going," and backed out. She hadn't wanted him to go yet, but Jack's tone said he had something to talk about.

"Nothing," she answered. "Just paying the window guy. It's fixed."

"Good," he said. "It's a good thing they got to it when they did."

"How come?"

He told her about the hour cut and that he didn't know if that was going to affect his paycheck or not. Joey came in and got a gla.s.s of water.

"I hope not," Liz said. "Just realized today Joey's about to grow out of his clothes. He's gonna need a whole new wardrobe for school, unless you want him to be the kid showing off his socks 'cause his pants are too short."

Joey put the gla.s.s back and went outside again.

Since when can he reach the faucet by himself without leaning over the sink to do it? Liz wondered.

"I'm going to talk to Bill Sten later, I hope, and find out. h.e.l.l, if it's a small pay cut versus a lay-off, I'll take the pay cut for a bit. A smaller paycheck's better than no paycheck."

"We could always go back to Houston."

"No, thanks," he said. "We've already got too much time and money in that house to leave now."

Too bad, Liz thought.

"Well, tell me what you find out when you get home."

"I will."

They hung up and Liz stood back to look at the new window. Then she looked around for Art. She'd seen him leave, but she wasn't finished talking to him.

"d.a.m.n," she said. But at least she had some outside confirmation. Someone had killed himself, and his children. Art said he didn't want to say it was a murder/suicide, but Art didn't have to; the girl had told her enough.

(Why did my daddy kill me?) She stood for a minute, dazed and lost in these thoughts, then she suddenly snapped out of it, shook it all away, and went outside to find Joey.

She'd expected to find him running and jumping, kicking his ball around the yard, or just being Joey. Instead, she saw him sitting toward the back of the yard, by the alley, with his back against the wall that separated their yard from the parking lot of a condemned church on the next block. He was looking up at the house.

"What'cha doing, Joe?"

"Nothing." He brushed away a fly that landed on his cheek, and went back to doing nothing.

"We got a new window," she said. "No more plastic-rattle while you're watching cartoons."

"I know."

She sat next to him.

"You about ready for lunch?"

This was where he usually asked, "Will it be naptime after I eat?" Instead, he kept staring at the house and said, "I'm not hungry."

She looked at him, then at the house, trying to figure out what he was looking at. She expected to see the man looking out from the third floor window, or maybe the little girl. But she was pleased to find only dark gla.s.s staring back.

Then she saw it.

It wasn't anything staring at them from the windows, but the house itself. The sky overhead was bright with summer sun and everything around them shone with it, but the house was dark, as if the sun were afraid to illuminate it.

It wasn't as if she saw a face in the house, nothing so cliche. It was just a house, but looking at it, Liz could see it challenging them.

She looked around the yard, thinking, We own this. This is ours. We can do with it as we please. She looked back at the house, and thought, And that includes the house. It belongs to us, not the other way around.

"What's the matter, Joe? You looking at something?"

"Huh-uh."

She sat next to him and put her arm around him.

"You know," she said, "if there's something wrong, you can talk to your dad or me about it. We're always here to listen to you."

"I know."

"And if something's scaring you, we'll listen to that, too."

He seemed to wake up a bit from his daze. He looked at her, then back at the house.

"But what if talking about it doesn't help?" he asked.

"Then the best thing to do after that," Liz said, "if talking doesn't help, is to face it. The best way to get over something that's scaring you is just to face it. Most of the time, you realize that whatever it is is really nothing that can hurt you."

"How?"

"Well, for example, when I was a little girl, I was afraid of heights. So one day I climbed the highest tree I could find, all the way up close to the top. And I stood up there and looked all over the place as far as I could see, and then I just climbed back down."

He leaned his head toward her, resting against her chest.

"So you're not afraid of heights anymore?"

"Oh, no," she said, "I still am. But at least now I know that, as long as I keep hold and stay calm, I'll be fine. Anyway, it's not the heights that scare me so much as the falling."

Joey chuckled and Liz hugged him.

"So, you about ready for lunch?"

"Is it gonna be naptime after?"

"Probably."

"Can I have chips and cookies with my lunch?"

"You can have one. Which would you like?"

"Chips."

"Okay. Come on."

He seemed fine now as they walked back to the house, but then Liz had the feeling the house was watching her and she wished she could sit at the back of yard, outside, away from the house. Instead, she went inside with Joey, like being swallowed up.

Chapter Fourteen.

Bill Sten told Jack the hour cut wouldn't affect his own paycheck, but it probably wouldn't have much affect on his hours either. There was still paperwork to be done, shop orders to be entered, orders to be placed. So Jack would be spending his Fridays at work, like usual, but he'd be doing it alone most likely. And no, Bill told him, the problems with Aurora would have to be worked out and their orders filled within those thirty-six hours.

Charley Clark spent the weekend looking for a part-time job, something that wouldn't take up too much time and that he could slip out of quietly when Fett Tech went back to a regular schedule.

Instead of going to Charley's, Jack spent the weekend on the second floor, helping Liz finish. After what seemed like a marathon session of painting, hanging, and moving, they stood back on Sunday evening and looked at their finished second floor.

All they needed was to move the furniture up here.

Liz, however, wasn't sure she was ready for that.

Twice during the weekend something brushed the back of her neck while she was painting. The first time she'd almost dropped the roller. The second time, she was sure it was Jack; he'd been behind her the second before. But when she turned around, she saw Jack was gone and she felt very alone in the house.

More times than she could count, she caught shadows out of the corner of her eye.

They're just curious, she told herself. Like animals that want to see what you're doing.

Except these animals could scare the s.h.i.t out of her in the middle of the night by putting their dead hands on her skin while she was sleeping.

"Do you want to start bringing stuff up when I get off tomorrow?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I think it can wait. At least for the week. I'm so exhausted from yesterday and today that I don't even want to see this floor again for a while."

Or pretty much ever, she thought.

"I know how you feel. h.e.l.l, you've done more work up here than I have. I'm surprised you even had the steam to finish it up."

She raised her eyebrows, shrugged.

"You want me to go get something to eat?" Jack asked.

"Like what?"

"What do you want?"

"A bath and a bed and fifteen hours of sleep."

"You can have those after we eat."

Jack ordered a pizza, then went to pick it up instead of waiting the forty-five minutes to an hour for delivery. While he was gone, Liz ran the bath water.

Joey asked, "Am I taking a bath, now?"

"Not this time," Liz said. "You can watch anything you want, because I'm taking a bath until your dad gets home with supper."

"Can I watch Naruto?"

"If it's on, but I don't think it is. Avatar is, I think. You can watch that."

Joey turned to run into the living room, but Liz called out, "Wait! Joey, come here for a second."

He came into the bathroom and Liz leaned over to look at him.

"What?" he asked.

She stared at him for a second, then said, "Never mind. Go watch cartoons."

He left, and she closed the door, then undressed and sank herself into the water, exhaling and moaning.

Avatar wasn't on, but a Justice League rerun was. Joey watched until the first commercial, then he heard something upstairs.

He listened, hoping it was his dad with supper because he was hungry and he didn't want that noise to be something else in the house.

While a toy commercial played on the television, Joey moved toward the door, listening into the hall, hoping to hear his dad coming down the stairs.

But dad comes in the back door.

And the noise came again, right above him.