Part 28 (1/2)

People-more than a dozen people-were staring at him, their glittering eyes boring into him.

Sarah screamed.

But the people didn't move.

”Mannequins!” Bettina whispered.

Now her light, and Sarah's, too, played over the life-sized figures clad in ancient, rotting clothes from another time. They were arranged in a vague semicircle, all of them facing the door, standing like so many lifeless sentinels guarding- Guarding what?

There were no other doors in the room, no other entrances or exits but the way they'd come.

”We can't go any farther,” Bettina breathed. She played her light on the overhead beams. ”This is it. Those are the beams Sarah drew-I'm sure of it. But ...” Her voice trailed off as she searched for any sign of the grisly scene Sarah had sketched, but where Sarah had drawn bones and skulls, all Bettina saw around them were mannequins clad in rags.

Nick, though, moved toward one of the mannequins, the voices loud in his head now, and growing louder by the second.

He reached out, his hand trembling, and touched the jaw of the nearest of the strange figures.

And everything changed.

The mannequins collapsed, their ragged clothes vanis.h.i.+ng, but instead of seeing the peculiar figures that looked like they could have served as tailor's models, something else was left.

Bones.

Everywhere they looked there were bones and skulls. The skeletons somehow stayed intact as they crashed down, and now they were spread across the floor, sprawled out as if they'd died while lying down, though others were propped up oddly against the wall, as though their bodies had been placed in a sitting position but collapsed as the decades pa.s.sed and every speck of soft tissue disappeared, picked clean by nature's scavengers.

c.o.c.kroaches were skittering among the bones, darting away from the invading beams of the flashlights.

”It's just like Sarah drew it,” Bettina whispered. ”How many? How many are there, Nick?”

”Seventeen,” a voice in Nick's head whispered. a voice in Nick's head whispered. ”There were seventeen of us.” ”There were seventeen of us.”

”They say there were seventeen of them,” Nick repeated as he played his flashlight over the skulls.

”That's how many stories are in the ma.n.u.script,” Bettina whispered. ”Dear G.o.d, what happened in this house?”

”Sarah,” one of the voices whispered in Nick's head. one of the voices whispered in Nick's head.

”Sarah can show you everything,” said another. said another.

A third voice joined the chorus, and then a fourth.

”She can show you everything that happened to everyone.”

”We'll help her ... let us help her. ...”

Nick turned to Sarah, but instead of looking back at him, her eyes were fixed on the macabre scene they'd found in the small chamber. ”They want to help you,” he whispered. ”They say they can help you show us what happened.” For a moment he wasn't sure if Sarah had even heard him, let alone understood his words. But finally she nodded.

Then, as Nick and Bettina silently watched, Sarah stooped down, the pain in her hip suddenly gone. Her fingers closed on one of the bones.

Then she picked up another, and another.

When there were too many for her to hold, she pa.s.sed them back to Nick and Bettina, then went on with the grisly ch.o.r.e, following the unspoken instructions that came into her head from an unseen source.

And yet she understood and knew what she must do.

When at last she was done, all of them knew how many bones she'd gathered.

Seventeen.

Seventeen fragments from the seventeen people who had been brought down here so many decades ago.

Sarah looked first at Nick, then at Bettina. ”I'm going to paint,” she said, starting back through the maze of rooms in Shutters' bas.e.m.e.nt. ”I'm going paint it all.”

Chapter Twenty-five.

Shep Dunnigan peeled off his overcoat, hung it on the tree by the front door, and rubbed his hands together to warm them. ”Finally winter!” he called out. ”It's freezing out there.”

No answer came from the kitchen, even though he could hear Lily in there chopping something. And if she was working but not talking, something was wrong.

c.r.a.p. Just when he was figuring on pouring a good stiff drink, putting his feet up on the coffee table, and relaxing. Double c.r.a.p! Double c.r.a.p!

He left his briefcase on the side table and walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, Lily wouldn't meet his eyes. No smile, let alone a kiss. Instead she just kept chopping celery into finer and finer pieces. The way she was going, there wasn't going to be anything left of it when she finally put it into whatever she was cooking.

Which meant one thing. Nick Nick.

”Okay,” Shep sighed. ”What is it this time? What's he done now?”

Lily sighed. ”He didn't come home after school today.” She turned toward him, her eyes cold, her lips set in a thin line that told him she blamed him for whatever trouble their son had gotten himself into. ”What did you say to him last night?” Lily demanded. ”Why wouldn't he even come home today?”

Shep tried to deflect the question. ”Have you called his cell phone?”

But Lily was not to be put off. ”What did you say say to him, Shep?” to him, Shep?”

His jaw muscles starting to clench, Shep picked up the kitchen phone and dialed his son's cell number.

The call rolled instantly to Nick's voice mail. ”This is Nick. Leave a message.”

Shep's voice was hard when he spoke, his words like chips of ice. ”You should be home, Nick. You know that. So wherever you are, you call us so we won't worry, and then get yourself home. Got it?” He clicked off and turned back to face his wife's accusing eyes.

”You said something,” Lily repeated. ”I know you did, and you know you did. What was it?”

Shep's eyes narrowed defensively. ”I told him not to be hanging around with that crippled girl anymore.”

Lily shook her head and rolled her eyes. ”Oh, great,” she said, her voice fairly dripping with sarcasm. ”That was real smart, wasn't it? What do you think happens with teenagers when they're forbidden to do something?”

”If they've got any smarts at all, they do what their fathers tell them.”