Read Online Disembodied Bones by C.L. Bevill - Free Book Online Page B

juggle
things without touching a single thing.”
    Babette’s words came to Jacques as she had
presented her dirty Bulova watch to him in mild indignation.
“Leonie said she found it buried in the flowerbed. She said Althea
took it and buried it there. Silly little girl should have just
told me she took my watch instead of burying it in the dirt.”
    Had my little Leonie been able to find it
because it was missing? Because Babette missed terribly her
favorite piece of jewelry, the watch her grandmaman gave her
the day she walked across the stage, when she was only eighteen
years old?
    Jacques’s face furrowed into dismayed
uncertainty. Babette would have been missing that watch something
awful, because she didn’t have many things to remind her of her
beloved grandmaman. And Leonie was very upset that her mother
accused her of lying. So when she really needed help, what was she
to do? But go find the boy herself, and come to the police
department, where she undoubtedly was accused of more mischief. No
one to trust but herself. No one at all. Not even her family. “Oh, Dieu ,” muttered Jacques. “Tell me what else Leonie said to
you, Louis. Tell me word for word.”
    Louis scratched the side of his forehead, as
if the act would help him to better remember.
    •
    The house was a shadow-filled labyrinth to
Leonie. Each room had some childish theme to it. A room was filled
with hundreds of multicolored bouncy balls so that this twisted man
could have his own indoor bounce house. Another was packed with
Star Wars toys. There were even life-sized storm troopers who were
posed on each side of the door and Leonie caught her breath before
she realized there wasn’t someone under the suits. There was even a
room filled with E.T. paraphernalia from stuffed toys to three
pinball games along one wall. But in all of those rooms there
wasn’t a windowless room filled with satin pillows and a little boy
carefully attached to the floor by an inset ring.
    Leonie found a staircase, pausing at the base
to listen. She had moved far enough from the side she had entered
that it seemed completely quiet again. She couldn’t hear the other
person moving around in the house, nor was she sure that she wanted
to hear him.
    Looking up instead she judged that this must
be one of at least two staircases in the big house. It was narrow
enough for a single adult to pass, and its wooden steps showed a
light layer of dust. No one had come this way for a while. But I
don’t have time or the safety to find the other staircase, she
thought deliberately. There was something inside her that told her
the situation had just become urgent. Douglas was waking up and his
heavy-eyed confusion was turning to fear again. It leeched out of
his mind in viscous black waves.
    Leonie mounted the stairs with ever
increasing speed. When she got to the top she was almost running.
Douglas mustn’t scream for help. He mustn’t scream at all.
    There was a long hallway at the stop. Paneled
with dark wood and illuminated by intermittent gilded light
fixtures, it stretched far and away as it traversed the length of
the house. When she looked to her side there was a smaller door
there and she opened it to find another smaller staircase, which
showed an even heavier level of dust. Leonie was only guessing that
it led to the attic. It didn’t seem like there had been a third
floor, but it was such a big house. She moved on. Douglas was
closer. She could feel it. He was so near she could reach out and
grasp one of his little arms, no more big around than one of her
own.
    A second door was a bedroom filled with old
furniture. A third door showed another bedroom filled with boxes of
unopened toys. A fourth bedroom was clearly in everyday use. Leonie
paused for a moment. It was simple and austere compared to the rest
of the house. Clearly the man she saw mentally as a monster was
undemanding in his sleeping habits. A single bed with plain covers
was centered in the room and there