Free The Woman Next Door by T. M. Wright Page B

attic door's locked, Brett, and I can't find the key." Then she'd go lock the door and hide the key. But it was no good. Every lock inside the house worked with one skeleton key, and there were at least a half-dozen doors in the house with skeleton keys in their locks. Brett knew that.
    "Oh, for Christ's sake!" Marilyn was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was no way out of it, that she'd have to put aside her fears. That she'd have to go into that damned attic.
    She took a deep breath. "Stupid shit," she repeated.
    No, the house isn't at all drafty; it's just my imagination, just my imagination . But that didn't work, either. The flow of cool air was obvious, even here on the first floor.
    She left the living room, took the stairs quickly, nearly at a run, walked briskly to the attic door.
    And found it open. Wide open.
    "Oh, for Christ's sake!"
    All this anxiety, this apprehension, just because the goddamned attic door was open. "You really are a stupid shit, Marilyn."
    She peered up the stairs, thinking that with what courage she had she might be able to check that window after all. It was obviously open; the draft here, in front of the attic door, was like a stiff wind.
    Marilyn shivered.
    She mounted the attic stairs slowly at first, then, halfway up, more quickly. She paused on the top step and studied the window across what looked like an acre of attic floor. Christ, all that junk we put up here and it still looks like an auditorium!
    The window, she saw, was open. Brett would be so smug about that, about being right.
    She started across the attic floor to the window. She wished, suddenly, that she'd brought a coat up with her; it was so cold here, so chilling.
    She winced as a bead of perspiration trickled from her forehead into her eye. She rubbed the eye angrily. " Goddamnit !" she hissed. " Goddamnit !"
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    S he closed the window with effort and cursed Brett's laziness. The window had probably needed fixing ever since they moved into the house. Well, she'd certainly see to it that it was fixed now, even if it meant calling a damned repairman.
    She started back.
    How long was it since she'd been up here? she wondered. Five years? Ten? Of course, there had never been a reason to come up here. Brett had seen to it that whatever needed storing got stored either here or in the cellar. Or got thrown out. Most of this stuff—the lamps that needed rewiring, the baby furniture, the worn-out chairs, the boxes of letters and postcards could be thrown out. It was all junk. Some women would call it memorabilia ; that was just another word for junk . The past is the past. Why leave its props lying around cluttering things up?
    Several seconds before she could see it, she knew that the attic door was closed. She had heard it close.
    She stared at it a long while. Perhaps it would open suddenly through the force of her will. That would spare her a lot of agony, because, of course—she knew it, there was no doubt of it—the door was not just closed; it was locked.
    "My God," she murmured.
    She took the first step, paused. "Please . . . ." And the second. "Please. . . ." Of course it's locked. Something's locked it. Something wants me locked in here .
    She listened to her thoughts, and that portion of her consciousness told her she was being an ass.
    She found that she was halfway to the door, and so drenched with sweat that drops of it were falling to the stairs, making small, dark circles on the old, dry wood. A firetrap. . . . This place is a firetrap .
    She reached for the knob, saw that her hand was trembling, felt certain now, as she had guessed all the way down, that something was behind her, at the top of the stairs, that it was biding its time, waiting for her to discover that, yes, the door was locked before it started down the stairs—very slowly, very casually, while she cringed in a heap. Waiting.
    She turned the knob, pushed.
    The door swung open. She stared at it disbelievingly. It was an