Page 48 of The Housekeeper

Chapter Twenty

I didn’t gostraight home.

I stopped at my parents’ house first, ostensibly to check on my mother, but really to give myself an excuse for why I was so late getting back. It was after eight o’clock, and Harrison would no doubt question what had taken me so long. This way I wouldn’t have to lie. I already felt guilty enough, even though technically, I’d done nothing wrong.

It wasn’t as if I’d been on a date or anything, I told myself.

I parked in the driveway and approached the front door. It was still light out, and would remain so till after eight. The house itself was dark, although that wasn’t unusual. The lights were probably on toward the back. I checked my watch again, deciding it was too early for everyone to be asleep, then rang the buzzer and waited.

And waited.

“That’s odd,” I said to the empty street. “Where is everybody?”

The street had no response.

I rang the buzzer again, my mind filling with increasingly outrageous possibilities: My father and Elyse had taken my mother for a walk. Or a drive. Or maybe my mother had taken a turnfor the worse and they were on their way to the hospital. Or maybe there’d been a gas leak the previous night and they’d all died in their sleep. Or maybe some lunatic had broken in and slaughtered them all.

I shook my head. My thoughts weren’t so much deep as they were hysterical, I decided, ringing the buzzer a third time before remembering that I had a key.

I rifled through my purse until I found it. “Hello?” I called as I entered the main hall. “Anybody home?”

No answer.

“Hello?” I said again, louder this time. “Dad? Elyse? Anyone?”

Still no response.

I walked toward the stairs, listening for signs of activity, but heard nothing. “Dad?” I called as I mounted the stairs. “Elyse?”

I stopped in front of the closed door to my mother’s bedroom, not sure what to do. Should I knock or just go in? What if she wasn’t there? What if she was dead?

Enough with the what-ifs.“Just open the fucking door,” I told myself.

I took a deep breath, twisted the doorknob, and pushed the door open.

The blackout shades were down and the room was in darkness. I debated flipping on the overhead light, then decided to give my eyes time to adjust to the dark. Slowly, I approached the bed.

I smelled her before I saw her.

She was lying on her side, and the steadiness of her breathing told me she was asleep. That she’d soiled herself was obvious from the unpleasant odor drifting up through the sheets. “Poor Mom,” I whispered, gently patting the awkward rise of her hip.

Where is my father? Where is Elyse?

I tiptoed out of the room and ran down the hall to my father’s bedroom. His door was open and I reached in and flipped on thelight. But the room was empty. Had he and Elyse gone out and left my mother alone?

I hurried down the stairs to the main floor, quickly peeking into each room, finding no one.

“Dad?” I called, descending the stairs to the lower level. “Elyse?”

Unfamiliar voices wafted toward my ears.

“You killed his dog?!”

What the hell was happening?

“Who is this guy anyway? The boogeyman?”

I tiptoed down the hall.