Hell Within -- Chapter Ten: The House of Lancaster -- Scenes 4-7

-4-

"Quite a place you got here," Detective Davis said following her through the main hallway toward the den -- his voice echoing profusely off the high arched ceiling.

"What was all of that about back there?" Amy said without turning.

"I worked with Mandy on an unrelated case. Don't figure she's got any love for me."

Amy stopped and turned around.

"What was it?"

Davis wagged his bald head. "Nothin to worry about. She turned out to be a real tough girl. -- She's pullin herself up by her bootstraps."

Amy frowned.

"Her no-account Momma was using the system to beat up on her."

"Oh," she said.

"That ain't what I'm here about."

Amy turned and led them into the den. Davis and his partner stopped just inside and looked about.

"Man this sure is livin high on the hog."

"What can I do for you, sir?" Amy said folding her arms and looking at the detective.

"Do you know where Mr. Richard Little might be?"

She frowned. "Dick?"

Davis nodded.

"I haven't heard from him in two weeks. I've tried to call him. . . ."

The other cop cleared his throat. "What's your relationship to him?"

She eyed him with misgiving. "He's an old friend of my husband's. They went to college together."

Davis took a step toward her. "And you husband is?"

"Ben Eaton."

He nodded and recorded something in a notepad he'd brought along.

The other cop paced the room. "How long have you known Mandy Green?"

Amy looked at him. She didn't like their aggressive pacing and gesturing at all. They were too close to her. She took a step back.

"She just started today. We met in an interview a few days ago."

He nodded looking at one of the many paintings of Ben's ancestors.

"So how well do you personally know Mr. Little?" Davis said.

She eyed him. "He's been over for dinner several times. He was my husband's boss for over a year before he inherited all of this."

"That's funny, Amy," the other detective said facing her. "Because the Gainesville Police had us under the impression that you and him had a little something going on the side."

Amy stared at him wide eyed. "That's a bullshit rumor. Where did you hear that?"

He shrugged.

Davis took another step toward her causing her to back away again. "So did your husband know that you and his buddy were foolin around?"

She scowled at him. "My husband's asleep in this house. I don't even want to think about what would happen if he were to walk in on this conversation!"

"I'll take that as a no," Davis said.

She held her hands up. "There was no damn affair, and I really would like to know who fed you all this bullshit."

Davis nodded. "Must've been some other Amy Eaton who borrowed your cell phone eleven times over the last two weeks and left those messages on his home phone."

Amy didn't know what to say. She covered her eyes.

"You know," the other officer said. "That man is a real son-of-a-bitch. There were three other women who left similar messages on his phone, and all of them were married."

Davis looked over his shoulder at his crony. "Yep. I'll bet a man like him took one look at this place and saw dollar signs."

"He wasn't like that," she snapped.

The other cop took a step toward her. "She said that her husband inherited this place. I'll bet a man with money like that wouldn't put up with a woman cheating on him for a minute."

"You don't know Ben," she sighed.

Davis nodded. "You're right. We don't. When would be a good time for us to come by and have a little chitchat?"

She dropped her hand and stared him down. "Don't you dare."

Davis wagged his head. "I'm sorry Ms. Eaton, but we've got a job to do. These missin persons cases usually turn out to be nothin, but you have to admit that two weeks is a long time to go without callin someone or wippin out a credit card or somethin."

She covered her eyes again. "Will you at least be discreet?"

Davis smiled. "I'm not gonna tell him anything he already know."

She nodded without looking at them.

Davis reached in his wallet and came out with a business card and passed it to her.

"Just tell Mr. Eaton to call me at his leisure."

She nodded again.

"And if I were you," Davis said. "I'd watch out for that Green girl; she's a real spit-fire."

-5-

Detective Davis nearly ran straight into Mandy turning out of the Main Den. He stopped a half-step short of her and smirked, and Mandy felt like a shit for getting caught eavesdropping.

Davis nodded at her. "You have yourself a good day, Miss Green."

Mandy gave him her best go-to-hell look.

Davis shook his head and grinned as if he found her contempt funny, and then he side-stepped her and continued on his way to the foyer with his lap-dog lagging behind just long enough to give Mandy an evil look.

Mandy shrugged it off and walked into the Den where she found Amy pacing the floor and covering her mouth.

"Amy?" she said.

Amy spun around as if something had startled her and gaped at her.

Her eyes were red, and the look on her face was confused and grief-ridden at the same time.

"How much of that did you hear?"

Mandy squared herself in the archway. "Are you okay?"

Amy frowned. "I asked you a question."

"I didn't hear anything."

Amy shook her head. "Make sure it stays that way."

And then Amy brushed past her out into the hall and stomped toward the foyer with Mandy looking after her.

-6-

Ben found himself floating through gray hazy clouds. Lightning tore through them, and icy rain sliced through his hair and pierced his scalp like needles.

Black branches of trees below him swayed like tentacles in the tempest. Small rivers of water poured across the surface of the roads. And thunder cracked like the report of a rifle.

And a voice called him from far off, barely audible over the thunder and wind.

Ben moaned and rolled over on his side.

"It's important," the voice said, this time clearer.

He sighed.

"The police just came by," the voice said, and this time he recognized it. It was Amy's voice.

He opened his eyes, but a harsh white light from the window seared his eyes and burned like flames on the skin of his face. He rolled away from the windows.

He'd never been this sleepy in his life. He felt as though every inch of his body weighed at least a hundred pounds.

"Have you seen Dick lately?"

Ben only half-heard the question. He felt himself slipping back into oblivion, and the icy rain began to tear at his scalp yet again.

Amy grabbed his chin and turned his head back around into the sun. And the light seared him.

"Let go," he snapped.

"Dick's Missing!" Amy insisted.

"Dick Little?"

Amy let go of his jaw. Ben turned his head back away from the sunlight and drifted back under.

"Yeah," she said.

But Ben only halfway processed this last bit of information. By the time she said it, he was once again drifting through gray storm clouds.

"Ben?" The voice was saying again.

"Go away," he grunted.

"Have you heard from him?"

Ben turned his head toward the voice and opened his eyes wide despite the pain of the light.

"Close the curtains and return to your hole!"

She recoiled.

Was that an English accent?

-7-

After Mandy finished moving the five boxes full of all of her personal possessions into her new bedroom, Amy, who'd been on her phone all afternoon having hushed conversations, gave her a list of cleaning tasks.

As it turned out, the house was well prepared for a maid. Each floor had a cleaning closet full of cleaning supplies, and each had a metal cart like one might find in a motel to wheel around.

But most of the cleaning supplies in the closets were too old to use -- dating back to the sixties.

Mandy cleaned all the closets out, throwing away everything she couldn't use, and Amy provided her with the only items she had in the house -- a bottle of Windex, a can of Pledge, toilet cleaner, trash bags, a feather duster, a vacuum, a Swiffer and some old towels.

Around three, when Mandy was polishing the mahogany desk in the master's study, Amy poked her head in and informed her that she was going into town to buy some more cleaning supplies and to tell Ben, if she saw him, that she would not be back until early in the morning.

Mandy asked her again if she was okay, but Amy only turned and walked away red-eyed and with her keys in hand as if she didn't hear the question.

It was eight at night by the time she finally made it down to the third floor library.

And the look of it took her breath away.

There were rows upon rows of books in 12 foot tall maple shelves all situated beneath a dome decorated in blue ceramic tiles.

Just inside the room, set up on three easels were charcoal renderings on canvas of the various different stages of the building of the house.

As she was eying the first one on the left, the rendering that looked more like a stone fortress, she felt eyes at her back.

She spun around.

Paper-white skin.

Green eyes.

Black hair.

Bushy beard obscuring cruel blue lips.

She fell backwards into the easel causing the canvas to skid across the floor to her right.

The man took a step toward her, and she scuffled backwards.

He stood up straight and studied her.

"Who the hell are you?"

No accent.

And now that she looked at him, it seemed that there was a little color in his cheeks after all. And his hair wasn't black as she'd first noticed but dark brown peppered with a bit of gray. His eyes -- not green but steel blue -- seemed much softer. And his beard was a new growth that hadn't yet filled out.

"I'm the maid," she said.

The man frowned. "A bit young to be a maid, aren't you?"

She squinted at him. "And you are?"

The man stretched out his hand.

She searched his face carefully for any sign of ill intent, but he appeared numb. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet.

"Ben Eaton," he replied.

"Oh," she said. "Well, it's nice to finally meet you."

"What's your name?"

"Mandy," she said.

He nodded. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"So I guess you're part-time?"

She shook her head. "I'm a full-time live-in maid."

He scratched his head. "What do your parents think about that?"

"My mother's dead."

"What about your father?"

She huffed. "He wouldn't know me if he ran straight into me."

"In that case, make yourself at home."

She smiled.

"Have you seen Amy around here?"

"She went to get cleaning supplies. She told me to tell you that she wouldn't be back until early in the morning."

"What?" He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

"And there's one other thing, too."

He looked at her.

"The police came by earlier today, and left a card for you. They want to talk to you about one of your friends."

Ben rubbed his mustache. "I don't have any friends."

Mandy laughed.

He nodded. "Where's the card?"

"Amy has it."

He folded his arms. "Do you know who they're looking for?"

She shook her head, and then she just stared at him for a long moment.

So this was the man who was supposed to be her father. She guessed that he did look somewhat like her. He had approximately the same hair color, and his eyes were similar. And she saw herself in the way he carried himself.

"What?" he said.

She shook her head again, and he looked down to the floor.

"Do you know where everything is?"

"Amy showed me around the house this morning."

"Okay, well if you get hungry, feel free to make yourself something to eat in the kitchen, but keep in mind that you are the maid. Clean up after yourself."

"Sure."

"If you have any questions, I'll be around."

She smiled.

He looked her over a moment, and then he half-smiled and turned around toward the double doors. Then he paused and turned back around as if recalling an important point.

"No hell raising," he said looking her in the eyes.

She waved it off. "I wouldn't even think of it."

He nodded and left her to her thoughts.

(Continue to Scenes 8-11)