Chapter 150
Nancy folded her arms and turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what the hell you were up to, Elliott Sanderson, but you should know, I don’t trust you one iota. Not after this.”
“What?” he asked, staring at her in disbelief. “I told you… someone broke the window. I was protecting the kids. You can’t actually think I’d try to harm them, do you?”
“I don’t know! I have no idea! I come home, and you’re standing there like a mad man, your hair all standing up, your eyes crazy. You have a butcher knife in your hand, and you look at me like you think you might have to run me through.”
“It was more of a large steak knife….”
“Elliott!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But what about the broken window? Do you think I shattered the glass to make it look like someone broke in?” He thought about telling her he’d also gone over to Mrs. Cooper’s because he’d seen someone in her back yard, too, but that probably wouldn’t make any sense. The thought of trying to explain to her what had really happened seemed out of the question considering she wasn’t even buying his human intruder story.
“I don’t know what you did. Your shoes are muddy. Maybe you went out and broke the window and then came in to kill the boys. The front door was locked and bolted. When was the last time we even locked it?”
“I lock it every night when I go to bed.” That was the truth. Since his mother had told him about the possibility of Vampires living nearby, he’d been securing the house much better than he ever had before.
She didn’t seem to think that was accurate either. “You are seriously frightening me, Elliott.” She walked over to the floor by the door and picked up her purse. Moving to the sofa, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and her lighter, her hands shaking.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he said, sitting down in a chair across the room. He knew she wouldn’t want him anywhere near her right now. “I’ll go get some particle board from the garage and mend the window for the night and get it replaced tomorrow. I’ll also clean up the glass and the… dirt.”
“How are you going to do that without waking the boys?” she asked, blowing out a plume of smoke.
“Carefully.” He had no other response. Clearly, he couldn’t use the vacuum sweeper tonight.
She shook her head. “I was just coming home to change my outfit so Linda and I could go to the movies. It’s not even 9:00 yet. There’s no way I’m leaving this house again now, though, not tonight.”
Elliott actually thought that was for the better. If there were more Vampires out there, and they were targeting him for some reason, it probably was best if Nancy stayed here where he could keep her safe. He knew he needed to call his mom soon and let her know what happened, but that would be hard with Nancy home. He had no idea what she and Linda usually did out until midnight or later on nights like these, but he had been surprised to see Nancy come back so quickly as well. Why she needed to change, he had no idea. She looked lovely as always, even if she was wearing slacks and flats instead of a dress and heels. Maybe that’s what the problem was. Maybe she wanted to look dressier to go to the cinema.
She finished her cigarette and headed to the kitchen to pick up the phone. He wasn’t trying to listen, but the house seemed eerily silent, only the sound of the wind coming through the broken window every once in a while, flapping the curtains, broke the silence. “Hi. Something’s come up, and I’m not going to be able to go.” Nancy’s voice was quiet and more serious then he’d ever heard her speak on the phone to Linda before, which made sense considering she was clearly upset by the situation.
“No. No, I told you, I’m sorry, but I can’t go. He isn’t… I can’t. Not tonight. Okay? Look, I can’t talk about it now. He’s…. Yes. Okay. Bye.”
Something about the conversation seemed off to him. He tried to imagine what it might be Linda was insisting upon on the other end of the wire, but none of what he would’ve expected Nancy’s friend to say made sense with her responses. If he had to make up a conversation where a friend was telling another friend she couldn’t go to the movies, the reply he would’ve expected would’ve been along the lines of, “Oh, okay. Maybe some other time.” But that didn’t go with Nancy’s half of the discussion at all.
“I thought you were going to clean this up!” Her tone was accusatory, and Elliott realized he’d been spending too much time analyzing the phone call for his own good.
“I am,” he said, pulling himself up out of the chair. His legs were sore; he imagined leaping fences would do that. He started to head to the garage, but a thought entered his head. “Say, what movie were you two gals going to see anyhow?”
Nancy had been fishing another cigarette out of her bag. “What do you care?”
“I don’t know. I just wondered, that’s all.”
“Uh, North by Northwest,” she replied, flipping open her lighter.
“Oh, yeah. That looks like a good one.” He pulled the front door open and stepped outside.
“Elliott,” Nancy called. He turned to look at her, eyebrows raised. “You can sleep on the sofa tonight. I don’t want someone who carries around a butcher knife sleeping in my bed.”
He stared at her for a minute, watching her puff on her cigarette, and things began to click into place. “’Kay,” he said, heading to the garage for the board. Something told him, if he checked the newspaper after Nancy went to bed, he wouldn’t find a 9:00 showing of North by Northwest. If he headed over to Linda Smoot’s house, he’d probably see her in her pajamas, watching television or reading a book. Nancy hadn’t been at Linda’s, and she wasn’t going to watch a movie. The only question was, who was the fellow she’d been driving around in his car, and how long had this been going on?
