He wrapped her in a big fluffy white bathrobe and led her up to the mansion’s main level, where the rooms were all color-coordinated, designer-arranged, and soulless as magazine spreads. It smelled a little disused though there was no hint of mildew, and her nose tickled with the dusty aura of a house nobody had really lived in for a while.
Still, the place was clean. At least there was that—and it meant people had done the cleaning. Which was great, if she could somehow...what? Get a message out?
To who?
The green-and-gold master bedroom’s vast walk-in closet was stuffed with suits and a few other assorted oddments down one side—which was thought-provoking enough, since each piece was clearly tailored and their gradations of color went from charcoal to grey to navy, not a single bright color to be found even in the ‘leisure’ wear he clearly didn’t use very often.
Bea really couldn’t imagine this guy in a polo and khakis, let alone jeans and a rock band T-shirt. Even a different haircut wouldn’t help. He was just too alien.
The other side of the closet was truly frightening in its implications—a rainbow of women’s clothing, heels and sandals and two pairs of sneakers neatly arranged in fabric-covered shoeboxes underneath. Dresses, sundresses, skirts and blouses hung neatly, twinsets and other tops folded on color-coded shelves, panties and brassieres arranged in deep cedar-scented drawers, a total of two whole pantsuits, no jeans, and certainly no sweats.
Every piece of clothing fit, and there was no mark of previous ownership on even the most delicate fabrics. The shoes were new, their soles pristine; the underthings were laundered but unworn, and none of it was anything she would willingly wear.
She knew some of the labels, and of course everything was quality, including a pair of alligator pumps she would have cheerfully elbowed other shoppers out of the way for during college thrifting.
The monster waited while she wandered through the closet, trying to figure out what on earth she was supposed to do or if there was a secret passage leading to the outside she could somehow trip over by mistake. Her throat kept rasping; she finally found the least objectionable option by running across two drawers’ worth of sleepwear.
Blue fleece pajama bottoms decorated with snowflakes and a matching waffle-weave shirt were hardly body armor or outside wear, but she figured with them and a pair of stolen boots she could maybe reach the end of the driveway.
She’d freeze to death a few blocks away, but that was a problem to be dealt with later. So much glass, the heating and cooling bills for this place were probably astronomical. She couldn’t figure out if the whole heap felt so coldly foreign because a monster had taken up residence or because rich people were always a different species.
“These are simply guesses,” the monster said from the closet’s entrance, and Bea nearly leapt out of her skin. “They do not please you?”
“Um.” The persistent swimming sense of unreality intensified. The marks on her neck had faded amazingly, and though she felt tender and thin-skinned all over there weren’t any fresh bruises, just yellowgreen ghosts as if the contusions had been healing for weeks. Even her wounded knee looked a lot better. “It’s really pretty, but I’m more of a Levi’s type of girl.” Was she really standing here discussing fashion with a bloodsucking freak who had…
Had he murdered her brother? Doubt had invaded her deep, glowing-coal certainty, and she hated the contamination.
“Ah.” He leaned against the side of the doorway, suit jacket unbuttoned and his hands thrust deep in trouser pockets, a peculiarly male-human stance. “Do you enjoy shopping?”
I had a fun time looking at stakes and switchblades online, does that count? Bea decided to change the subject. “Everything fits. Why?”
“Easy enough to tell your sizes. Your preferences are a different matter.”
Why do you care? Buying an entire wardrobe kind of argued against her imminent demise, but that could change at any moment.
Maybe he did this all the time and donated the leftovers.
One thing was for goddamn sure: she could not trust a single word the monster said. Bea miraculously found another pair of plain black socks, thankful he didn’t try to dress her again, and braced herself for whatever was coming down the pike.
The big guy with the mustache and penchant for bowler hats was named Wren—like the bird, mum, he said in a startlingly pleasant tenor brogue, very quiet-spoken for one so huge. The housekeeper, a round middle-aged partridge in wine-red polyester slacks and huge, shivering shell earrings, was Mrs. Martinez. Both referred to her as ma’am, mum, or Mrs. Andranov, and the last made Bea want to glance nervously over her shoulder.
You are Valentina Andranov to them, the monster had cautioned before they left the green-and-gold sitting room at the edge of the master suite. Try to remember that; I will deal with the rest.
Nice of him, or maybe not. Beatrice was at a complete loss how to handle this goddamn situation; what would she be doing now if she hadn’t stepped out of a motel bathroom to find him waiting?
Still driving? Already settled two states away, finding a low-level job and compulsively washing her hands?
Others bustled through the house, all human—so far as she could tell—and all appearing blissfully oblivious of the monster. Suddenly he was almost the man from the costume party again, save for the subtle changes to his accent. Now he sounded a little stilted, a faint Eastern European rhythm rubbing through textbook English, and nobody seemed to notice a goddamn thing. More than that, though, he moved differently, in some indefinable way.
Chris Everly had walked like a prep-school douchebag. This guy Andranov’s body language shouted thug.
He complimented Mrs. Martinez on the mansion’s ‘readiness’ and the middle-aged woman outright blushed, smiling broadly. A lanky guy in his twenties, ginger scruff clinging to his cheeks, was Hardison ‘the driver’—Christ knew the monster was a menace on the road—and a few others were introduced, their names passing right through Bea’s head, refusing to lodge. The staff did not shake hands, instead bowing and smiling like she was some kind of foreign dignitary.
Should’ve worn something other than pajamas. Bea was past embarrassment—or so she thought, she flinched internally when the monster, as an aside, smoothly mentioned she was jet-lagged.
“A long flight,” he intoned, and that smiling mask must have fooled everyone but her, because Wren grinned back and Mrs. Martinez chirped in agreement before hurrying for the kitchen to take care of something or another.
It was so bright, too. All the glass meant grey winter stormlight poured into rooms blazing with electric fixtures; Bea’s eyes smarted. She should have been ravenous, after...after everything, but even the spread laid out in the huge breakfast nook—pancakes, bacon, assorted fruit cut into decorative shapes, toast, sausages, fresh coffee in a thermal carafe, on and on, Mrs. Martinez and two silent younger women clearly serving as maids hustling between table and kitchen—turned her stomach.
