Out of Body

Chapter 46

Pillars had been removed from the facade and balconies. This had started as a stuccoed dollhouse, not a piece of chinoiserie.

Gray worked with the little chisel he’d found on Marley’s bench. The lacquer peeled quite easily, but took some of the underlying coat of paint with it.

There had been writing on the wall in the center of the front wall, where the door must once have been. He had taken most of it off with the lacquer.

A magnifying glass hung on a hook and he used it to peer at what was left of black, fanciful words. There wasn’t enough. All he made out was “Eau,” which meant nothing.

He turned the piece around, but stopped when the house started to shift off its base. Carefully, he tilted it sideways and revealed what was covered by the mound of lawns that sloped up on all four sides.

A web of pipes opened to show how a basement—not really a basement but the lowest floor hidden with earth and grass—was reached by a staircase. In a corner, another compartment puzzled him, until he saw little dolls wrapped like mummies and hanging from hooks.

Marley had talked about a cold room with hooks.

That’s where she said Liza and Amber had appeared to her.

His belly felt rigid and he stiffened, willing himself to stay calm. Righted again, a panel at the back of the house had obviously been pried open, then put back. Gray opened it again and followed the floors up with the tips of his fingers.

The lower room was accessed from the kitchen, from a pantry off the kitchen. And to reach the kitchen you would walk behind a curved staircase and along a corridor.

A curved staircase, one of two rising up through a circular white entry hall.

“Gray?”

He dropped the chisel. Marley’s voice was distant but clear. He squeezed his eyelids together and concentrated. “I’m here,” he said aloud. “Marley, where are you?”

Nothing.

Then, with concentrated inner will, he saw her face and the shadows of people moving around her. “Marley,” he whispered. Why couldn’t he talk to her with his mind as he had before?

He hammered the bench with both fists. He couldn’t because he wasn’t practiced enough, but they were Bonded. They were one. He must be able to go to her.

Of course he had seen this house before, a real one just like it—minus red lacquer.

“Eau,” he said. “Water. L’Eau.”

Knocking a picture frame over as he went, he dashed from the workroom, but was cautious going down the stairs. He didn’t have time or inclination to explain where his thoughts were going and if these Millets were all so talented, they should already be on their way to finding one of their own in trouble.

The shop was empty. He looked back, expecting to see Winnie, but she hadn’t followed him. She would be safe where she was.

He caught sight of Willow through the back windows. She was hauling a box to the garbage.

The shop door wasn’t locked. He opened it and stepped onto the sidewalk—and walked into Pascal’s trainer, Anthony, who carried loaves of French bread under one arm and a bunch of cut flowers in the other hand.

“Who died?” Anthony said.

Gray figured he looked desperate. “Nobody. Yet. I’m looking for Marley.”

“She left,” Anthony said, pushing open the shop door.

Gray gripped the man’s brawny arm and Anthony’s expression immediately mirrored Gray’s concern.

“Did you see which way she went?”

“Sure.” Anthony came back from the door. “She left with a woman I don’t know. In a black BMW.”

“I gotta get a cab.”

“Want my car?” Anthony asked, wrestling to pull keys from his pocket. “The green MGB back there. I was just dropping these off, but I don’t need the car.”

Gray hesitated, but only briefly. He took the keys. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, buddy.”

The top of the MG was down and Gray vaulted into the driver’s seat.

Sidney Fournier had left in her BMW—and Marley had gone with them. When he opened that dollhouse and recognized it for what it was, that’s when he had heard Marley trying to reach him.

Bord De L’Eau, the Fourniers’ home. He had never felt anything as strongly as he did the presence of Marley. She was there and she was calling for him.