The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks - lanyon Josh - Страница 31

“Nah. You’re just more imaginative and open-minded than I am.”

Perry sipped his cocoa. It was piping hot. No marshmallows, but he thought he detected a hint of cinnamon and there was definitely a slug of something alcoholic. Whisky? Brandy? He said, “You have to admit it was kind of freaky the way Center changed his voice. He really did sound like a woman.”

Nick shrugged. “It’s one of the tricks of his trade, being able to throw his voice, change it.”

“You don’t think --”

“No, I don’t,” Nick answered.

Perry nodded. “I knew it would be a total waste of time.” He took another sip of cocoa.

“I don’t know,” Nick said thoughtfully. “I’m wondering what Stein was doing while we were all gathered in the drawing room with John Edward.”

“What do you think he was doing?”

Nick shook his head.

“I don’t know what any of us were doing there, really,” Perry said. “Except Janie. She’s got something going on with Center, that’s obvious.”

“Yeah, she seems pretty taken with the guy,” Nick agreed. “And Center… I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think he believes his own bullshit.”

“Miss Dembecki sure believes it,” Perry said. “She wasn’t faking. She was scared to death. That was a dead faint.”

Miss Dembecki had been rag doll, limp and white. There was no faking that.

“Yep, and that’s interesting too,” Nick said. “Especially with what you were telling me about her poking around in the gazebo. How long has she lived here?”

“Years, I think. She and Mr. Teagle and Mrs. Mac have been here the longest.”

Perry drained the rest of his cocoa, and Nick said, “You take the bed tonight, junior. You need to get some real rest.”

“You know, I’m not actually twelve years old, Nick,” Perry said.

“Hey, if you were twelve years old, I’d make you sleep on the couch,” Nick said. “So enjoy the bed tonight.”

Perry studied him with unusual gravity, then he collected his things and went to wash up. When he climbed into Nick’s bed, the sheets and pillowcase smelled like Nick. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the rain sweep him into a comfortable blankness.

* * * * *

Nick waited till he heard the soft, even sound of Perry’s breathing. Easing shut the bedroom door, he got his pistol and slipped out into the hallway.

There was no sign of anyone. The draperies puffed and flattened in the drafts, the dead plants stirring in the breeze.

Nick went quietly down the staircase; the house could have been empty.

On the second floor, he listened. Then he moved quietly. Pausing outside Center’s door, he heard only dead silence. Even odds that Center was downstairs in Jane Bridger’s apartment.

There was no light and no sound from Stein’s apartment.

The door to Watson’s room was marked with crime scene tape, but there was nothing to prevent Nick from using Perry’s keys to let himself inside.

Soundlessly, he closed the door behind him. His flashlight played over the empty apartment, spotlighting a half-empty bottle of wine on the coffee table next to an open sketchpad -- piercing eyes stared out of the planes and angles of a face that looked suspiciously like his own roughed out in pencil.

He moved to the bedroom. The white beam of the flashlight caught the sexy cartoons of women in exotic dress like a spotlight. The bedclothes were tumbled, the clock on the floor beside the bed. The closet door stood wide, and there was a crooked taped outline where Tiny’s body had sprawled as it tumbled from the closet.

Stepping over the taped outline, Nick ran his hands lightly over the back of the closet.

It seemed solid enough. He didn’t dare try tapping, despite the temptation to let Center think his buddies in the spirit world were dropping in to say hi. He put his shoulder against it and shoved.

The wall didn’t give exactly, but Nick sensed a certain hollowness behind the panel.

Kneeling, he felt along the bottom, and there seemed to be a sharp ridge at the joining of wall and floor. He turned the flashlight on the seam of the wall, following the line and then feeling behind the back shelf at the top of the closet. And there it was. A small spring latch. He pressed it, and the door swung in a few inches, revealing a black mouth of the entrance to what was most definitely a passageway between the rooms.

Nick ran the flashlight over open beams and rough-hewn floors disappearing into darkness.

He felt around, found one of Watson’s shoes and stepped into the passageway, stooping long enough to wedge it to keep the doorway from closing all the way shut.

He turned the flashlight ahead, and the back passage seemed to stretch endlessly.

The doorway swung shut with a little click. Nick glanced back. The shoe kept the door from closing all the way. A square of light fell across the wall, illuminating a grimy lantern. Nick turned down the hall, and the square of light grew smaller and smaller behind him.

* * * * *

It was still not light when Perry woke. O’dark hundred, Nick would have said. The clock said five thirty.

For a few moments he lay there, blinking sleepily, trying to place himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He remembered that he was in Nick’s bed -- without Nick, unfortunately.

And something had wakened him.

There it was again. Perry sat up. He wasn’t dreaming. He wasn’t imagining that faint scratching sound. Mice in the woodwork? It was only too likely. The only cat in the house was Jane’s, and according to Jane, he’d never shown interest in anything that couldn’t be opened with a can opener.

There…not exactly a gnawing sound…but…something was moving behind the wall. Something larger than a mouse. Larger than a cat. Something big…

Perry bolted from the bed and made for the living room.

In the murky light he could make out the blankets and pillow neatly folded on the end of the couch. There was no sign of Nick.

Bewildered and still half asleep, Perry tried to make sense of this. He recalled Nick going off to investigate on his own the night Perry had found the dead man in the bathtub. He began to search for his keys. They were gone.

Perry swore. What the hell was the deal with Nick anyway? Would it kill him to ask for help -- or at least discuss his plans? For a practical guy, Reno wasn’t showing the best sense taking off without making sure he had some kind of backup.

That was probably because he didn’t think Perry was much use as backup, and maybe Perry wasn’t a Navy SEAL, but he knew enough to get help if Nick needed it.

And if Nick had been gone the entire night, there was a damn good chance he did need help.

He went back in the bedroom and dragged on his jeans, stepped into his sneakers, and exited Nick’s apartment, leaving the door unlocked just in case he didn’t have luck finding Nick.

When he was dressed, he went across the landing to his own tower room just in case Nick was over there, but the door to his apartment was locked -- which was doubly annoying. He couldn’t get into his own rooms if he wanted to.

Perry went quietly downstairs to the second level. The smell of baking wafted from David Center’s rooms, filling the musty hall with warm blueberry fragrance.

Hearing something from the main hall, he looked over the balcony in time to see Miss Dembecki letting herself out the front door, furtive and noiseless. He considered going after her, but the need to find Nick and make sure he was okay was stronger.

He continued quietly down the hallway and studied the imposing crisscross of yellow crime scene tape across Watson’s door. Somehow he just knew Nick would not find that forbidding web as intimidating he did.

He tried the handle.

The door swung open.

Perry parted the bands of yellow tape and stepped inside. It was hard to see in the gloom -- the blinds drawn against the early morning -- and it smelled of the unfamiliar chemicals the crime-scene technicians had used.