The Whispering Room

Twelve

Late that same afternoon, Lynette was in the kitchen rolling out pie dough when she experienced a strange feeling that something was wrong in the house.

She couldn’t put her finger on the trouble. It was nothing concrete. No rhyme or reason for it. She hadn’t heard a noise or seen movement out of the corner of her eye. Nothing like that at all.

It was more the sixth-sense type of sensation she got about the weather, although those premonitions were also rooted in science.

This feeling was just plain weird.

She tried to ignore it, but the impression grew so strong, she dreaded looking over her shoulder for fear of what she would see in the doorway.

She turned anyway, and of course, nothing was behind her.

J.D. was in his high chair at the table, banging a wooden block against the plastic tray. He seemed oblivious to whatever had raised his grandmother’s hackles.

Drying her hands on her apron, Lynette walked calmly to the back door and checked the lock. Then grabbing the rolling pin, she marched through the house to the front door and checked that lock, too. Naturally both doors were secured. She’d always been cautious about that sort of thing, but especially since Katrina.

Moving over to the window, she looked out on the street. After a brief rainstorm earlier, the sun was back out, but Lynette wondered if another front might be brewing over the gulf. Maybe that was why she felt so uneasy.

She spotted Peggy Ann Grainger across the street sitting on Janet Tilson’s front porch steps. The two women were having drinks, and she saw Peggy Ann gesture toward Lynette’s house with her glass. At first, Lynette thought Peggy Ann was waving at her, but then she realized that the woman wasn’t even looking her way.

They were probably talking about her, Lynette thought peevishly. For all she knew, her marital problems were already fodder for the neighborhood gossips, Janet being one of the biggest motormouths on the block. Her son, Ronnie, worked at the auto parts warehouse that Lynette’s husband owned, and God only knew what Don might have let slip.

At the thought of her husband, a wave of rage washed over Lynette. How dare he treat her like this? After she’d given him the best years of her life. She knew that sentiment was a cliché, but in her case it was true! She had done everything for that man. Good God, the sacrifices she’d made, and for what? To suddenly be cast aside like an old coat when she was no longer needed or wanted?

Even when Don was home—which was rare enough these days—it was as if…he didn’t even see her. And that was the worst insult of all. To look at her and not see her. He sat across from her at the dinner table and made small talk just as they had for years. Sometimes they even watched television together afterward. But something had changed. He’d changed.

Lynette didn’t even know him anymore and that seemed to her like the worst betrayal of all. He’d changed while she’d stayed the same. He’d moved on while she remained embedded in their old way of life. How unfair was that? Here he’d gone and turned everything upside-down, and she hadn’t even had a say in it. Yet she was just supposed to accept whatever he dished out without a squabble.

Across the street, the two women were still chatting up a storm, and as Lynette backed away from the window so they wouldn’t see her, she saw an old black Cadillac parked at the curb a few houses down. A Cadillac exactly like the one the stranger had driven away in earlier.

From this distance, Lynette couldn’t tell if anyone was inside, but she still got uneasy just looking at it. She didn’t like the idea of that weirdo lurking around the neighborhood. Why had he come back? If he’d truly been looking for his friend, he should have been long gone by now.

But that was the same car. Lynette was sure of it.

And with that certainty, the premonition of danger swooped down on her again. She gave a little gasp of panic as she turned and rushed back to the kitchen.

The baby was still playing in his high chair, but when Lynette came bursting through the door, the noise startled him and he began to cry. She went over and picked him up, cradling him against her bosom.

“It’s all right, Boo. Nana’s here.”

She held him close until he quieted and then she reached for the phone. “Let’s give your granddad a call, what do you say? See if we can get him to come home early today.”

Maybe she was overreacting, but seeing that car parked at the curb, along with her earlier premonition, had left her shaken. She didn’t have grounds for calling the police, though, and besides, she didn’t want to worry Evangeline. Don could just get his ass on home for a change and take a look around the neighborhood himself.

She was facing the glass slider to the patio, and as she punched in the number, she saw what she thought was a tree branch on the brick pavers. When she realized what it really was, she stifled a scream so as not to scare the baby again.

Lynette saw snakes all the time when she gardened. The garters didn’t particularly bother her, but the snake on her patio now was at least six feet long and as thick as a man’s arm. She was pretty sure it was a water moccasin and big enough that she wasn’t about to go out there and try to kill the thing by herself.

“Jennings Auto Parts,” said a feminine voice on the other end of the phone.

Lynette had been so fascinated by the snake, she’d forgotten she had the phone to her ear.

The woman who answered was Don’s new secretary. New being a relative term. She’d been there for several months, but compared to Adele, her predecessor, who had worked for Don for nearly thirty years, Deanne Hendrix was still a novice.

Though you couldn’t tell that by her attitude.

The woman grated on Lynette’s nerves something fierce.

“This is Lynette. I need to talk to Don.”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jennings, but he’s out in the warehouse right now. May I take a message?”

“Last time I checked, there was a phone in the warehouse. Can’t you transfer my call out there?”

“It would be easier if I just took a message. That way he can call you back whenever he has a free minute.”

“Now, look,” Lynette said testily, “I need to talk to my husband and I need to talk to him right now. You get him on the line. I don’t care if you have to carry the phone out to the warehouse yourself.”

“Hold, please,” the woman said coolly.

Snotty-ass bitch.

It was times like this that Lynette really missed Adele. The older woman had her faults, but she’d also had the good sense and the gracious manners not to try and make the boss’s wife jump through hoops every time she called the office.

Lynette kept her eye on the snake while she waited for Don to pick up. As far as she could tell, it hadn’t moved so much as an inch. Maybe it wasn’t even alive, but who in the world would put a dead snake on her patio?

“Lynette? What’s going on? Deanne said you sounded upset about something.”

“I am upset and I need you to come home.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Come home and I’ll tell you.”

He gave a frustrated sigh. “I can’t just leave work. We’ve still got a lot of orders to get out.”

“Even if your grandbaby’s in danger?”

That stopped him cold. “What are you talking about? What’s happened to J.D.?”

“Nothing yet. But there’s something strange going on around here, and I need you to come home and help out.” Quickly, she told him about her unsettling encounter earlier with the scarred man, the car she’d spotted down the street a little while ago and the snake that was still stretched across the back patio.

“Lynette, for God’s sakes, you’ve seen snakes before. They were all over the place after Katrina. If you’re that worried about it, just don’t take the baby outside.”

“And what about that strange man?” she demanded. “What if he tries to break in?”

“He’s not going to try and break in. Not in broad daylight. He was probably lost, just like he said.”

“But what if he wasn’t? What if something happens to me or the baby? How are you going to like having that on your conscience?”

“Come on, Lynette.”

“No, you come on. If you cared a whit about either one of us, you’d already be on your way home. Just forget it. I’ll call Vaughn. Or Evangeline. Although you know how she feels about snakes.”

“All right, all right. Jesus. I’ll get away as soon as I can.”

“How soon?”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to wrap things up here. Is that soon enough for you?”

“I guess it’ll have to be, won’t it?” Lynette grumbled.

She hung up and walked over to the window with the baby. She peered around the edge of the slider until she could see the snake’s head and she caught sight of the flicking tongue. Definitely not dead.

Then she saw now what she hadn’t noticed before. There were two of them. The second snake was coiled at the edge of the patio, head lifted, tail quivering as if ready to strike.

Heart hammering, Lynette backed away from the glass. Two snakes on her patio. What were the chances of that?

Don took his time clearing off his desk. In spite of Lynette’s call, he was in no hurry to get home. It was obvious she was trying to manipulate him and he refused to rise to the bait. If she hadn’t dragged his grandson into the conversation, he would have told her flat out he wouldn’t come home until he was damn good and ready.

Well, maybe he would have couched it a little more diplomatically than that, but still, Lynette’s behavior was getting tiresome. After forty years, Don had had enough.

Forty years of marriage and only the first five had been good. It was a wonder he’d stuck it out for as long as he had.

But for a time there, right after Vaughn’s birth, life had seemed pretty damn great. Lynette had been so beautiful back then, so sweet and flirty, and she’d devoted herself to being the kind of wife and mother any man would be proud to call his.

But then a string of miscarriages had plunged the woman Don had married into a black abyss of despair, disappointment and bitterness. Even after Evangeline came along, Lynette had never fully recovered. It was like a part of her had withered and died with each lost pregnancy.

After a time, she’d learned to put up a good front. Sometimes everything would seem so normal that Don would be fooled into thinking his old Lynette had finally found her way back to him. But then he’d look into her eyes and realize all over again that the woman he’d married was gone forever.

To be fair, much of their life together hadn’t been as bleak as he now made it out to be when he looked back. Lynette had always kept herself fit and attractive, and he’d always been proud to be seen with her. Their home was immaculate, their children well-cared for, and she had never denied him in bed. Things could have been worse.

But things could also be a whole lot better as Don had recently discovered.

He glanced out the glass partition that divided his office from the reception area. Deanne sat in front of the computer, her brow furrowed as she concentrated on her work. Her dark hair fell like a curtain across her smooth cheek, and she unconsciously lifted a hand to tuck it behind her ear.

With his eyes, Don traced the contour of her jawline, the graceful curve of her neck, the sensuous mounds of her breasts beneath the light blue blouse she wore. For a moment, he imagined himself undoing the pearl buttons, slipping the silky fabric over her shoulders and down her arms, planting his lips on one of her dusky nipples as she moaned softly into the darkness.

Jesus.

He took no small measure of delight in the stirring of his body as he watched her. What a kick it had been to find out that he could still pleasure a woman like Deanne. That even at his age, he still had a few good miles left in him.

But guilt punched a hole in his happiness, and his newly found swagger deflated like a pinpricked balloon.

He didn’t know what he was going to do about Lynette.

Don hadn’t set out to hurt her. She was still his wife, the mother of his grown children, and he would always care about her. But he was sick and tired of the pretense. Maybe if Deanne hadn’t come along, he could have muddled through the rest of his life without thinking too much about what he was missing. But now he didn’t see how he could ever go back.

Shoving some paperwork aside, he got up and walked out to Deanne’s desk. She looked up with a ready smile, the same one she had for everyone, but there was a little knowing glitter in her eyes that she reserved just for Don.

How had he gotten so damn lucky?

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey.” He could see just the barest hint of cleavage from where he stood. Deanne was a curvaceous woman, and even the conservative clothes she wore couldn’t disguise the lush body beneath. Lynette was thinner and firmer and a much better dresser, but there was something so…earthy and maternal about Deanne’s softness.

“Is everything okay at home? Lynette sounded pretty upset.”

“I don’t know. I need to drive out there and see what’s going on.”

“Of course. If there’s anything I can do…” She slid her hand over his and squeezed.

Don waited a moment, then slipped his hand away. They’d been careful to keep their relationship private. He didn’t want word to get out until he’d had a chance to talk to Lynette.

Coward, a little voice in the back of his head goaded him.

He’d had plenty of chances to talk to his wife. It wasn’t like it would come as a total shock or anything. Lynette had to know things weren’t right between them. It might even come as a relief.

Of course, Evangeline wouldn’t take the news well. Not that it was any of her business. He’d had reservations about her marriage to Johnny, but she hadn’t been of a mind to listen so now she could just damn well sit back and bite her tongue the way he’d had to do for so long.

Vaughn would be okay. He was a lot less judgmental than his sister. He might not be thrilled by the news, but at least he’d be supportive.

“I don’t know how long this will take. I might not make it back in time to have dinner with you,” he warned.

A little frown puckered Deanne’s brow as she pouted her full lips. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

Her voice lowered and her eyes deepened. “What about…later?”

“I’ll get away if I can. You know that.”

“Don?”

He’d started toward the door, but now he turned back. “Yes?”

She glanced around as if making sure they were all alone. “Come back to me,” she whispered.

His heart melted and he nodded.

He thought about Deanne all the way home, and it was only when he pulled into his driveway that his conscience started to act up again.

What was he doing? What the hell was he doing?

Men his age didn’t have affairs. This was just crazy. Men his age gardened and golfed and took fishing trips with their buddies.

Men like him didn’t cheat on their wives or turn their backs on a forty-year marriage. They didn’t attract the attention and the affection of a woman almost half their age.

Except…miracle of miracles, he had.

And as he sat in his car and stared at the one-story ranch he and Lynette had shared for nearly as long as they’d been married, it hit him suddenly that this house was no longer his home. He didn’t belong here anymore.

The only place he felt truly at peace was in Deanne’s soft, warm embrace.

He was so preoccupied with getting back there, he didn’t even notice the blond woman who watched the house from across the street.