“About what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Qhuinn shrugged. “Well, as much as I’ve liked talking to you here, Ronnie boy, I’ve got work to do. So you need to go upstairs and tell your wife again that everything’s fine. It’s nothing. And then you’re going into your office, and you’re going to delete the security feeds from tonight. Let’s say, from eleven forty-five to two a.m. After that? You go to sleep. Oh, and when that alarm technician shows up here, don’t be a fucking douche, ’kay? You got a lotta things going for you, there’s no reason to be rude.”
“Okay. I won’t be. Promise.”
“Attaboy, Ron.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re so welcome.”
The man nodded and turned away. As he shuffled off, he walked like a man whose lower back hurt. Or maybe it was all those miles running on those fifty-six-year-old knees.
A moment later, there were footfalls ascending the stairs, and then a door shutting. And then more footfalls overhead, walking into another part of the house.
Good ol’ Ron, following directions.
Bracing himself yet again, Qhuinn went out into the front hall, and found more of the same decor, the modern, black-and-white, strange-art theme like a rash on a body. Everywhere.
Pausing, he looked to the wall where the big-ass mirror had always hung, the one where guests could check their appearance when they arrived, or his parents could inspect their own whenever they left. Such mirrors were standard issue for glymera houses. Always right by the front entry.
No mirror anymore.
Now? It was a picture of four hubcaps. That probably cost more than a Lambo.
Unbelievable.
Qhuinn mounted the steps one at a time. Funny, when he’d thought about coming here, he’d imagined himself rushing through the rooms and the hallways, all scrambled and freaking out. Not it. Instead, he took his time, looking at the weird shit hanging along the staircase’s wall—he was pretty sure it was a school of taxidermied goldfish, except they had Barbie heads on them?
What a transformation.
And it was not hard to find a metaphor in all of it. When he’d been here with his parents, he’d assumed everything in the house, like his destiny, had been unalterable. Not true, as it turned out.
When he got to the head of the stairs, he looked to the right. Just more barren black-and-white floors, and stuff on the walls that could have been created by first-graders. Then he turned to the left. Luchas’s bedroom was all the way down at the far end. As the preferred son, he’d been given the second-best-appointed suite in the house, behind only the master and mistress’s.
God, his chest hurt, he thought as he started walking again.
When he got to his brother’s door, he glanced down at his feet to gather himself—only to have a chilling thought when he focused on the hall’s glossy tiles. Mother… fucker. That hiding space of his brother’s. When they’d redone his room, had they pulled up the floorboards, too—
He shoved the door open. And let his head fall back. “Shit.”
The whole room was black and white. Including the floor, which had been—surprise!—tiled in black marble. Whatever his brother had hidden there, under that old, loose board? Was no doubt gone.
“Whatcha doing, mister?”
At the sound of the squeaky voice, Qhuinn cranked his head around—and had to look down again. Standing in the hall, in a Frozen nightgown, was a human young of about five or six. So not the one who’d sunk the phone in the loo.
The little girl was staring up at the intruder in her house without any fear. “That’s my older brother’s room,” she said.
Qhuinn cleared his throat. “It was my older brother’s, too.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
As she tilted her head to the side, her hair, which was the color of Ron’s, moved over her tiny shoulder.
After a moment, she said with suspicion, “Are you allowed to be here, mister?”