WILLOW MANOR

Chapter Eight

"Bill?" Katie stood over Bill, snoring softly on the couch. She raised her voice slightly. "Bill, are you asleep?"

Bill didn't stir in the least. He lay, exhausted, with one arm thrown over his eyes and the other hanging off the edge of the couch. One leg was up on the arm of the sofa and she could see the dirty scuff of his boot on the fabric. His mouth was open.

"Bill? Wake up." She touched his shoulder and he jerked awake violently. His eyes snapped open, and he looked around the room so wildly confused she instantly felt bad for disturbing him.

"No. Not asleep. I was just..." Bill sat up groggily and yawned. "Just resting my eyes."

"It's ok. Mr. Barrington is in his study and the kids are upstairs making their beds." Katie kept her voice low. "I'm sorry. I know you're tired. I just wanted to talk with you while we had a chance."

Bill rubbed his face, tried to wake up a little. "Sure, what's up?"

"That guy from the other night... I just have the weirdest feeling about him." Katie frowned. "I don't feel right about not calling the police."

"Weird feeling?" Bill shook the arm that had been hanging over the sofa, trying to get some feeling back into it. She wasn't sure he was fully awake yet. "Weird, how?"

"I don't know." She sighed. Maybe she shouldn't have awakened Bill. Walter had him standing guard every night, all night. Maybe she should have just called and made a police report. Surely, in the light of day, she would be able to make Walter see reason. "Weird, like I get the feeling he wanted something very bad for Clarissa."

"Yeah. I get that, too." Bill looked a little more engaged now. He moved over on the couch so she could sit. "Like more than just a teenage boy trying to get a teenage girl to sneak around with him at night."

"Exactly. There was just something about him, something about his manner." She shook her head, hesitated to say. After all, it was just a feeling, nothing concrete. But every instinct recoiled at the memory of his face—in real life and in her dream. "He looked right at me, Bill."

Bill leaned forward. "Yeah?"

"Yes. He was standing down in the garden, looking up at me in the window." She remembered dream floating through that window to come face to face with him—him and his lewd gesture. "He looked right at me and kind of... smiled."

"What?" Bill narrowed his eyes. "Like a hitting on you smile?"

She shook her head. The memory of his smile disgusted her. The memory of her dream disgusted her even more. "No. Like a you can't stop me smile."

"Little prick." He growled and his hands became fists.

"It was definitely not the look a teenager would give. It seemed older, more adult. More... sinister." She lowered her voice. "He gives me the creeps, Bill. Serious creeps."

Bill stood and walked a few steps away. He ran his hands over a wooden sculpture near the bookshelf, deep in thought, as if he were trying to decide on what to say. "I don't like the way he was able to get away so easily, either. We should have seen him leaving, at least. Or some evidence that he was there. There weren't even any footprints in the grass. No car nearby. Nothing."

Katie agreed. "And Clarissa..."

He narrowed his eyes. "What about her?"

"Before I stopped her, she was just looking out the window." She sighed, remembering the girl's blank look. "Almost as if she were in some kind of trance."

Bill frowned. He looked down at his hands, thinking again. "You remember when I asked you if you believed in the supernatural?"

"Bill I..." She trailed off. She was picturing the guy from the garden, the guy from her dream, and that horrible look he gave her. The image of his tongue vulgarly wagging between those pointed teeth... She shuddered involuntarily. "What do you want me to say?"