The Sullivan Sisters - Kathryn Ormsbee Page 0,59
front rooms.
She waited for Eileen to say, “Where do you think you’re going?”
She didn’t even glance up.
“Whatever,” Murphy muttered. “Find your mystery letter.”
The foyer was big and high-ceilinged, same as the parlor. The front door was red. Blood red, Murphy thought. Out of nowhere, the voice of Cathy at the diner reminded her, Bashed in like a cantaloupe.
Murphy’s mouth felt maggoty again. She fled into a sitting room.
Even though there was no fireplace here, the room felt cozier than the parlor. Maybe it was the pink floral wallpaper, or the fact that there were three couches, all comfy looking.
“Why didn’t we sleep on these last night?” she wondered aloud.
They clearly hadn’t been thinking. In fact, everything they’d done since arriving at the house had been haphazard. Like the sisters had been knocked off a trajectory in Emmet and were careening into deep, dark space.
Murphy ran her tongue along her teeth. Maggots. In the chocolate. She’d been eating baby flies.
“Ugh.” She sank onto the nearest couch, resting her head in one hand.
For a long moment she remained that way.
Then something caught her eye, glimmering from beneath the opposite couch. Murphy got up, approaching the shiny object for closer inspection. It wasn’t beneath the couch, exactly, but attached to its velvet upholstery, under the centermost cushion. Murphy crouched, tugging at the pull. That’s what it was: a metal pull. Nothing happened when she yanked forward, so instead she yanked up. The couch groaned, and Murphy froze, startled. Then she understood. Releasing the pull, she threw off the couch cushions, revealing a hinged plank of wood. This couch was, in fact, a chest.
Murphy’s hands trembled with excitement as she took hold of the pull again and lifted. Inside she found …
Blankets. Quilts. Sheet sets. They were folded neatly, stacked upon each other. She’d found a linen chest.
Murphy felt a prick of disappointment. Then a memory hit her. A memory, and then an idea.
“Holy crap,” she breathed. “Merry Christmas.”
She raised up the first of the quilts, crocheted in deep magenta and gold. She held it to her face, breathing in the scent of Decembers past.
This house and its murders and maggots weren’t getting her down tonight.
Operation Memory Making was back on.
TWENTY-TWO Eileen
There was nothing in the boxes.
Eileen had reached the last of them and come up empty.
Nothing.
No life-altering document.
No answer to her question.
Nothing earth-shattering disguised as innocuous junk. This really was innocuous junk.
And what was she looking for, anyway? A letter from Mark Enright, laying it on the line, confessing everything in explicit detail?
I am guilty of parricide.
I did have an affair with Leslie Clark, who later married my brother in a severely twisted way.
I am the father of Eileen.
I am a psychopath, and she’s got all my traits—ask anyone who’s seen her art.
Nothing like that, though.
Bills, newspaper clippings, expired coupons, tax forms, and partially filled-out Nielsen rating surveys.
No answers.
“Goddamn you, Mark,” Eileen growled, pushing away the final box and sprawling on the ground, sapped of will.
What the hell was she doing? Following a vague hunch that there was a reason Uncle Patrick had left her this house, and a reason why William J. Knutsen had told her there were “documents”?
She’d grown so reckless, she hadn’t even cared about sifting through contents in front of Murphy, telling her sister precisely what she was looking for. She’d felt she was so close, and she had to make up for the time she’d lost when she’d fallen asleep last night. The storm had been a gift. This was her chance. She had to seize it.
Only there was nothing to be seized.
Her heart beat slower, each thump a sad defeat—ch-change, ch-change, until the word had faded altogether.
Nothing had changed.
Now Eileen was stuck in this house on Christmas Eve with no electricity, rained and sleeted into captivity. All along, the storm hadn’t been a blessing, but a curse.
God, she needed a drink.
She didn’t have one, though. She didn’t even have Dubble Bubble left.
She’d drained the last of her Jack Daniel’s the night before, during her search, and for a few hours she’d been numb. Removed.
A headache was forming, angrily pulsing under her temples in erratic red bursts. Eileen knew the cycle. She’d been in it for a long time.
Sometimes, Eileen tried to remember what it had been like to enjoy life. She had once, and then one day she hadn’t. There wasn’t a definable breaking point—not even the night of her junior art exhibit, or the day she’d found the infamous letters. The loss of liking life had