In the hall, he heard Joey padding back to bed. Then Jack went back to sleep.

Chapter Four.

Jack wondered if Liz was having trouble sleeping. She was waking up later than usual. He kissed Joey goodbye, then Liz as she was coming out of the bathroom, heading back to the bedroom to get dressed. "Don't forget about the pest control guy," he said on his way out the back door.

On the way to work, Jack drove past Westgate Music to check their hours. He found them open and decided it would only take a second to get a new string. As he went inside, he pa.s.sed the white acoustic again and thought once more of buying it.

Not today, he thought. Of course not today. But soon, I hope.

He bought his new string, tossed it on the pa.s.senger seat, then headed for Fett Technologies.

Turning back onto Tenth Street, Jack found himself behind a school bus going a record twenty miles an hours.

What the h.e.l.l's a school bus doing out in the middle of June?

He wanted to go around it, but oncoming traffic wouldn't let him. So he trudged along, getting later by the second, and glancing at the new guitar string, thinking, I should have waited until lunch and come out then.

The bus turned off on Checker Street and he saw it was a church bus.

Then he put it out of his mind and had forgotten it completely by the time he reached work. He parked, used his ID card to scan the door open, and was there.

He made the rounds of the cells, checking out what everyone was doing. Jack was almost always the last one there. The door was already unlocked in the mornings, and the alarm turned off. One of the night guys in another building usually had to come over and get a part for something he was working on. So everyone on Jack's shift was there early in the morning, not so much out of dedication, as out of trying to get that extra three-fifty a day by showing up fifteen minutes early.

He pa.s.sed Charley Clark's chair and Charley said, "You oversleep? Stay up too late with the wife?"

"No," Jack chuckled. "I just stopped to get a guitar string on the way. The place closes before we get off at night."

"I didn't know you played the guitar."

"I didn't know you were supposed to know."

"I guess you wouldn*t," Charley said, turning back to his work. "But it would be nice to have someone to play with once in a while."

"I didn't know you played," Jack said.

"Didn't know you were supposed to."

"I see."

Jack went back to making his rounds. He checked the list of parts they were short, copied it, and stuffed it into his pocket for his meeting at ten.

He noticed today was country day on the radio. While it wasn't his favorite, he was able to admire the guitar work in a lot of country songs. Fingerpicking was one technique Jack had never been able to grasp.

His ten o'clock part shortage meeting went quickly and before he knew it, it was eleven and lunch would be in thirty minutes. That half-hour pa.s.sed in what seemed like seconds.

Only half the shop went out for lunch today. Jack took his place across from Charley Clark and said, "So what do you got?"

Charley looked down at his microwave plate and said, "Enchiladas. My wife made them last night. They're hot as h.e.l.l, though."

"No," Jack said. "I meant your guitar."

"Oh. '57 Gretch Silver Jet."

"Nice. What color?"

"Silver."

"Nice."

Jack bit into his Hot Pocket, then realized he should have blown on it first. Steam escaped and burned the roof of his mouth. He drew back, wincing and trying not to drop the food out of his mouth.

"How 'bout you?" Charley asked before Jack had swallowed.

Finally, he was able to mutter, "White Strat. '87. Lily."

"Good choice," Charley said. "How long have you been playing?"

"Not as long as I've had her. I got her in high school, back when everyone had a guitar in high school. Then she lay in the case for a few years."

Charley knocked back half his c.o.ke.

"What made you take it out again?"

"My wife left," Jack said. He swallowed another bite, wiped his mouth, and said, "My son was only a few months old, and she just left. I was just finishing college and I had a baby and a full time job, and I was not ready to deal with all that by myself."

"I can imagine," Charley said. But Jack wondered if he really could. How could anyone imagine, realistically, what that situation is like without being in it?

"So as I'm starting to go into the requisite depression, trying to work enough to pay the bills and now a babysitter, and trying to spend time with the baby when I am home, I decided I needed something to take my mind off all the bulls.h.i.t."

"That's right," Charley chimed in. "You'll show her."

"Well, I never got the chance for that. I haven't seen or heard from her since she walked out. Anyway, I decided to take out my guitar and try to learn to actually play the thing instead of just seeing how much noise I could make." Jack took another bite, chewed, swallowed. "Turned out to be great therapy, and I fell in love with it," he finished.

"Cool beans," Charley said. He was nodding, but something in his eyes said he'd moved on to something else. "So d'ya get that book I told you about? Freaky stuff, isn't it?"

"I don't know," Jack admitted. "I haven't got it yet. But I am going to the library this weekend, I might do it then."

"I'm telling you, you got to get that book. You think this place is screwed up, you haven't seen the rest of Angel Hill. That'll set you right on what screwed up is."

"I don't know if I could take more screwed up stuff. It's bad enough this job is the way it is. Plus I got squirrels at home, or something in the third floor making noises." He took his last bite. "But at least that's getting taken care of right now."

"Third floor?" Charley asked. "You got a third floor to your house?"

"Yeah," Jack said. "Why?"

"Well, 'cause there's not many houses in Angel Hill with three floors. Which one do you live in?"

"It's on Fourth Street. Between Roland and Pacific."

"Man," Charley said, smiling and shaking his head. "You're right, you don't need a book for screwed up stuff. You probably got enough problems living in that house."

"What are you talking about? That's a great house. It needs some work on the top two floors, but it's gonna be really beautiful once my wife and I are done with it."

"Uh-huh," Charley nodded. "Yeah, it needs some work, all right."

Jack watched him, waiting for the punchline. The seconds stretched out, and Charley never delivered. Finally Jack said, "What are you talking about?"

Charley smiled like he knew something.

"I'm talking about four kids dead in an upstairs bedroom and a grown man hanging over the top rail of the banister."

Jack shook his head. "What? No, you got the wrong house."

"Three stories?" Jack asked. "Walkway from the porch to a set of steps leading down to the sidewalk, right? Next to an empty lot?" Jack was nodding. "I got the right house."

"Then tell me what you're talking about."

"You didn't hear the story when you bought the place?"

"No," Jack said, "and I'm beginning to think that with your hedging I'm not going to. If there really is a story."

"There's a story, baby," Charley said. He downed the last of his c.o.ke, crushed the can, and tossed it into the trash can someone had mislabeled "can's only". He belched, loud and from the gut. Then he said, "About, I don't know, nine, ten years ago, this guy and his wife bought the house. They had four kids, three boys and a girl. The guy was a railroad engineer, named Milo Dengler. He was, I guess, never home. You know, out driving the train all the time."

Jack was listening, but kept checking the clock over Charley's shoulder. Lunch was over in eight minutes.

"Well, his wife got cancer and she's dead in two years. This guy, Dengler, he's now trying to work enough to keep the house paid and all that, plus trying to take care of his four kids--I think the oldest was twelve, so he helped out a little, I'm sure--and trying to deal with his wife being dead, you know?"

Jack said, "I can relate."

"Yours left you with one. Imagine four. Anyway, in the end he goes crazy, gets all stressed out, can't deal with everything like it is. You know, his kids are growing up without him. s.h.i.t's falling apart. With four kids and no one to take care of them, he's trying to work enough, but can't do it. So some bills aren't getting paid, stuffs getting turned off, and what have you. I'm sure he got it right back on again. Probably let the phone go. I would have. And the cable. You know, you do without the things you don't need in that kind of situation."

"Really," Jack said. "s.h.i.t, cut down on anything that's not a necessity."

"That's what I'm saying. Anyway, I'm sure he was under some huge stress. So, he decides one day he can't deal with stuff the way it is. He snaps, and thinks he'd be better off dead. But then who's gonna take care of his kids? He's got the solution to that."

"No way," Jack said.

"Yep. Took 'em all with him. Cops found them in one of the upstairs bedrooms, all lined up along the wall. He put 'em there, leaning up against it."

"Where was he?"

"Hung himself," Charley said. "Tied a rope to the top of the banister and just let himself drop."

"Christ," Jack said. "How much of that you think is true?"

Charley looked confused.

"All of it, man. That story's been known in Angel Hill practically since it happened. Why do you think no one's been in that house since? n.o.body wants to buy that place. If it's any consolation though," Charley offered, "you got one of the most famous houses in town."

"Wow," Jack said, sliding his chair back and standing up, "I'm honored. And how is it you know all this?"

"If you'd buy that d.a.m.n book I was telling you about, it's all in there. The whole story."

Jack c.o.c.ked his head. "Are you sure you don't get a commission on this? You seem pretty adamant about me getting this book."

"I'm just trying to give you forewarning about Angel Hill," Charley said.

"It's just a city, Charley."

"If you say so. But I was born here. I'm telling you, get that book."

It was time to go back to work. Boards needed stuffed and soldered. Cables needed cut. Switches needed to be put into control faces. And all of it needed to be shipped out the door.

Jack went to his office for a while after lunch. He sat at his computer and, to anyone pa.s.sing by, it looked like he was doing work. The mainframe was up and Jack ran part numbers from his short parts list, checking due dates on delivery. While his fingers did this, his mind was on Charley Clark's Outsider's Guide to Angel Hill. If the story he told was really in there, Jack was curious to read it. But if Liz found it and saw someone had killed his family in one of their upstairs bedrooms, there was no way she'd want to stay there. And Liz was into that psychic, paranormal stuff. She'd take one look at the story of the house and instantly swear she'd sensed something wrong with the house the moment she set foot in it.

Too late, Jack thought. We've already got the loan and signed the papers. We don't have much choice.

Liz watched the exterminator go up the stairs to the third floor, thinking You won't find any squirrels. And anything you do find, I don't think I want to know about it.

Liz stayed on the second floor. When the exterminator, his shirt read "Carl", came down, she didn't want to have to trudge past the bedroom and wake Joey. She looked at the deep color on the walls and thought she should really get back to work on the house. She hadn't done a thing in two days. If she started slacking off now, the house would never get done and they'd be stuck living in four rooms on the bottom floor.

Who gives a s.h.i.t, she thought. If all this freaky s.h.i.t keeps happening, I'd just as soon not be here at all.

She heard him walking around up there. At least, she thought it was Carl. And if it wasn't, did he hear it too? If he heard it, what would he think? What if he did find squirrels?

That doesn't explain the voices, nor the hands on her back the other night in bed, nor a dozen other things. Whether Carl found squirrels or not, there was something rotten in this house. If the blessing worked, great. If not, she'd been thinking of having investigators come in and look at the place. But so far, she hadn't been able to find anyone who could do the blessing, and that was the first step.

And there would be another step between the blessing and investigators. If the house were blessed, and still nothing changed, if the noises upstairs persisted, if Liz heard footsteps in the hall at night, or felt anything at all brush her skin only to look and find nothing there, she couldn't do anything further until after she'd convinced Jack.

That's the great obstacle, isn't it? she thought. What would it take to make Jack believe there's something in the house?

She didn't know. And, knowing Jack's rationality, she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. Anything bad enough to convince Jack of something out of the realm of normal, definable reality had to be big. Maybe Carl would find large, invisible, talking squirrels and that would explain everything.

In waiting, she began to grow bored. Liz walked into the empty upstairs kitchen and stared out the back window. The back yard was bright and empty. Looking down on it, she could imagine the scent of the gra.s.s and water spray from the sprinkler. The sun on her face and arms was nice, thawing the chill of a lonely summer afternoon.

She glanced toward the retirement complex across the alley behind their house, wondering if the naked woman was standing at her window. Before she could remember which window it was, Carl was lumbering down the stairs.

"Mrs. Kitch?" Carl was calling.

"In here," she said.

Carl came into the kitchen and said, "I need to run out for a second and grab the ladder out of my truck."