Chapter 8
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"Hello," Don called back gladly, "did you miss me?" The house continued to whisper and smile. Don's footfalls echoed as he crossed toward the stairs and climbed upward. On the landing, Don carefully picked up one of the dolls strewn across the floor, thinking fleetingly that his cat would enjoy playing with it, and placed it in his jacket pocket. Without any more hesitation, he passed the room full of cardboard movie stars and halted in front of the door that squeaked. . . but it didn't squeak as he opened it. He walked through the bloody scene before him as though it didn't exist, his strange grin broadening as he pushed open the door of the closet.
The door that led to the attic saved Don any suspense: it hung ajar, swinging happily on it's hinges. Excitement tingled in Don's fingers as he moved through the closet. His pulse quickened. "Did you miss me?" he breathed again. For a second, the house laughed, and then it was silent. Don peered into the attic, and saw nothing but blackness. Then, suddenly a bright light flashed in the middle of the room. Squinting, Don recognized the ornate mirror emanating the glaring light. Six words were scrawled across it in a thick red substance: I'm going to see him today. A little girl's shriek burst throughout the room and Don clapped his hands to his ears. "Help me!" the girl screamed.
* * *
Don awoke, for the third morning in a row, in a cold sweat. For someone who hardly ever dreamed, he seemed to be starting a regular habit of it. Don blinked up at the ceiling for a moment before it registered that it wasn't the right ceiling at all. Drawing his eyebrows together, Don sat up and stared around himself. He had been laying in the middle of his kitchen floor. Don lifted his hands to his face and rubbed at his eyes. He distinctly remembered going to bed the night before. He scanned the floor. There had to be some reason-- his gaze fell to a spot two inches from his right hand. His stomach knotted, and a pain that Don associated with vertigo leapt into his fingers. Slowly, Don moved his hand and grasped the object. He lifted it so high that not even his blurred vision could deny it. Here, in Don's bachelor-pad-apartment, was a little girl's doll.
Don stared at the doll until his eyes hurt, trying to make sense of it. But the only explanation appearing to Don was that he had actually gone to the Richard's house and the doll had returned in his pocket, where he had dreamt that he put it. That didn't make sense either, though. Even assuming that he had in fact gone into the house, spoken to it, and listened to an invisible screaming little girl who wrote on a mirror, how had he gotten home from the house? And he distinctly remembered not having used a key on the front door, and he knew he'd locked it when he'd left after his first visit. Don shook his head in a sad attempt to clear it. It just didn't make any sense.
Giving up for the moment, Don decided that he should check in with the office before heading to the hospital, and in less than ten minutes Don was walking pensively through the door labeled Calder and Fox, Wellerton Investigatory Services. A tall blonde dressed in a black suit sat at the desk in front of Don's office. Her desk, unlike Shirley's, was completely orderly. Each paper stacked in a particular pile, and each pile placed in a particular tray.
"Morning Jen," Don said, still half in thought. "How was France?"
Jen smiled, looking down at the new wedding ring that still glinted excitedly on her finger. "It was beautiful," she answered. "You should see, Don. Even their crop fields are amazing."
Don laughed, "That so?"
"Yes, sir," she replied, her smile widening, "do you know why?"
"Why?"
"Because their crops are sunflowers and grapes! It's really gorgeous," she finished with a sigh. "Alright, I'll give in, what's up here?"
Don's thoughts returned from their brief respite, and he too sighed, but in a different way. "You sure picked a week to leave," he said, and a frown folded onto Jen's face.
"That bad?" she asked. "What happened? When I left, all you had was the Tronowskies' new escapade."
"Honeycut forwarded me a case," was all he answered. He couldn't bring himself to wipe the newlywed smile off of her face quite yet. The tale of the Richards was not one that spoke happily of family life.
Jen simply nodded. They were friends, but she knew her place as his secretary. "Well. You got two calls this morning. One was Madam Tronowsky asking about progress," she said with a bit of ironic stress on Madam, "and the other was a woman called Richard wondering if you were planning on coming by today. She sounded a little anxious." Don grimaced, neither call offered good news, but he was beginning to wonder why he ever expected good news at all anymore.
"Do me a favor," he said grimly to Jen as he put on the coat that had only just slipped off his shoulders, "call Ed Honeycut and send him the file on the Tronowskies. Tell him it's a return favor. Then ask if Melody has any time to talk to me today. I need to ask her a few questions about the Richard case." Jen nodded and Don walked briskly to his office, picked up the Richard file, and headed straight back out the door. His car had not even cooled from the drive over.
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