In the Language of Scorpions. Charles Allen Gramlich

where he kept his private thoughts.

      “The bastard came back,” Dena muttered, staring at the image of the tattoo and lashing herself with words. But who had been in the house with him? A friend? A burglar? And who had killed who? Was it the rapist hanging in the hall? She hoped it was.

      A single set of chimes rang.

      Dena spun away from the sliding door, flashing her light over the walls and ceiling. The chimes hung still and stiff as cocoons. And there were no others in the house. Except! When Jeremy was born she had put a set of porcelain teddy bears over his crib, and though the crib was long gone the chimes were still there above the place where he slept. Jeremy wasn’t tall enough to reach them.

      Dena started to run, heading down the hallway on the fastest route to the stairs. She didn’t even glance at the hanging corpse; she was too busy swallowing the terrified shouts her throat wanted to let out. They would only warn the invader that she was coming.

      The teddy bear chimes rang again, louder than before, as if someone had picked up Jeremy and brushed him against the wires. And Dena heard her son’s voice, murmurous with sleep as he asked a question.

      “Mommy?”

      Dena was on the stairs, taking them three at a time, making noise now that she couldn’t control. She heard Jeremy’s bed creak as something was dropped on it, and by that time she was to the doorway of her son’s room and stepping inside. The night light had gone dark—the hurricane had finally killed the electricity—but the glow of Dena’s flash was enough to still the scene, enough to see her little boy fallen on the bed, screaming of a sudden as he saw his mommy at the door and not in the shadow looming over him.

      That shadow moved toward her, its hand gleaming with a knife. Without thinking, Dena pushed the gun out from her body and pulled the trigger twice, aiming for the torso. She saw the figure stagger as it was hit, saw its hand still moving, reaching out. She fired again, the slug punching into the face. As the shape went back and down, the reaching hand closed over the porcelain bears and ripped them shrieking from the ceiling. A knitted cap spun away and long blonde hair poured out to frame a sharp-featured face that shown waxy and bloodless in the Maglite’s glow.

      A woman!, Dena thought, as she saw the cloud of hair and the crimson lips. Then her mind translated what her eyes had registered. No. A mask and wig.

      She looked down at Jeremy. He was staring at the body where it lay pinned to the floor by the stabbing beam of the flashlight, and she stepped forward and scooped him up, tucking his head into her shoulder where he couldn’t see anything but her T-shirt. He wasn’t crying, but his arms went around Dena’s neck so hard that she thought she would choke, in more ways than one. She put her hand to her son’s back, holding him tight, and she was crying for him as she started out of the room and out of the house. She wanted him away from here, though she had an idea that it would take more than just walking out the door.

      * * * * * * *

      Twenty minutes later Dena walked back into her house without Jeremy. It had taken a while to wake Morgan Keller next door, and by the time he had answered the bell both mother and son were soaked by the slanting rain. Keller had brought towels and blankets for Jeremy, and Dena had explained the night’s events while she rocked her son back to sleep. As soon as the little boy’s eyes closed, the man carried him upstairs to bed. Morgan had asked Dena to stay while he woke his wife, but she had decided against waiting to see Marge. Jeremy trusted the woman. Keller had said he was going to call the police, too, but it might be hours before they could get here and Dena wasn’t going to wait to see them either. She had to put faces on the dead.

      Down her hall was the chandelier with its cargo of the dead, and Dena went toward it with the Maglite in one hand and the pistol in the other. She wanted to know which of the two corpses belonged to Troy’s rapist. This one had been strangled with a set of wind chimes but Dena didn’t think it was the rapist. She looked up at a face that had turned all purple from lack of air, and she realized that Marge Keller was not next door with Jeremy. She was here, with her shirt torn away and a lipstick tattoo of a heart and a cobra scrawled between her breasts.

      As if to accompany the sudden insane thud of Dena’s heart, a music box started to play. The tune was familiar. Dena had already heard it once this night, and many times before when she owned the box from which it tinkled. With fear daggering her spine, she turned to see a figure in the doorway of her house; a light in its hand was strong enough to brighten the whole hall. Morgan Keller stood behind that light, a shotgun leveled at Dena’s chest. The music box sat on the floor, its lid open.

      “Marge always liked that tune,” Keller said, as if reminiscing with an old friend. He started walking forward, kicking the door partially shut behind him. “Troy gave it to her,” he continued, stopping a few feet away. “You know...after. I think he couldn’t bear having it around. But he didn’t wanna throw it out either.” He chuckled. “Maybe your husband secretly enjoyed his experience. You think?”

      Dena’s right hand moved slightly, almost involuntarily, and Keller’s voice turned hard as the shotgun lifted. “Drop...the damn...pistol! Or I’ll turn you inside out with this thing.”

      Dena’s eyes swallowed the cold gleam of the 12-gauge and she knew the man would enjoy using it. She let the Browning slide from her fingers to clatter on the floor.

      “Where’s Jeremy you son of a bitch?” she demanded.

      “Sleeping.” The calm had already returned to Keller’s voice. “I gave him a Valium to make sure he won’t wake up for a while.”

      “If you’ve hurt my son—”

      Keller chuckled again. “Don’t worry. That was more Marge’s line of work. I like my humps a little older.”

      “You raped Troy?”

      “I’ve got the tattoo. And I have to tell you, it was a hell of a lot of fun watching your husband dying inside while I was right there on top of him. He had been bullshitting himself too long; that was his problem. It’s always worse for the ones who lie to themselves. Because they can’t lie anymore while I’m there with them.”

      “You’re sick.”

      “And you’re just full of original observations. Way I see it, I did your husband a service. I could tell by the way he looked at me he was a homosexual. God, I hate those scum.”

      Though not a psychologist, Dena sensed more than a paranoid homophobia behind Keller’s words. She might have called it evil if she’d had time to think about it. But right now she had to keep him talking while she figured a way out of this mess. “So why come here tonight?” she asked. “You know Troy’s gone.”

      “Oh, I’m afraid your hubby was a bit smarter than I’d hoped. I think he figured out the mask I wore on the big night was Marge’s work. I got a little note yesterday telling me you and Jeremy would be going to your mom’s for the hurricane, like you always used to. Hell, I thought you were gone too. Never even looked in your garage for the car.”

      “My parents are in Vegas.”

      Keller shrugged. “Too bad. I guess Troy didn’t know they’d gone. Anyway, he sent me this note inviting me over. Said he knew what I’d done and it was payback time. He wanted to kill me. Scare me first, then kill me. That’s why the chimes and the tattoo on the glass door. He just didn’t realize that Marge was my huntin’ buddy. That threw him off.”

      “Troy was in the house tonight?” Dena interrupted, her chest tightening as she realized what Keller was saying.

      “Who you think killed Marge? While I played tag with shadows. I never thought he’d be that good, and when you came down it was two against one. Course, I didn’t know it was you. Figured he’d hired a professional and it was time for old Morgan to go home.”

      Keller was grinning widely now, as if he’d just heard the punch line to a dirty joke. “I know you saw him, though. Dressed sort of like I was that first night he and I were together. Mask. Wig. Didn’t you tell me you shot somebody like