David squeezed Karyn's hand and nodded sagely. "I'm sure Dr. Goetz knows what he's talking about, dear."
"Not in this case, he doesn't," Karyn said. "There is someone following me. A woman. Since the other day when I first saw her in the coffee shop, I've seen her again on the street, once at the library, and again just this morning in a taxi driving by right in front of our house."
"You're sure it was the same woman?"
"I'm positive. She was dressed differently, and always had her face covered or turned away, but I couldn't miss that white streak in her black hair."
David listened thoughtfully. When Karyn finished speaking he rubbed his jaw and gazed off at a corner of the ceiling. "Karyn, about your going to work - do you think we might be rushing things a bit?"
"No, I don't! And what the hell does that have to do with anything?"
"I just thought that, well, the added strain of taking on an outside job just now might... might..."
"Might make me start imagining things?" Karyn finished for him. "Like people following me?"
"I didn't mean that, exactly."
"Like hell you didn't." Karyn saw the hurt look come into his eyes, and she reached up to touch his cheek. "I'm sorry, David. I know. You're trying to do what you think is best for me. So is Dr. Goetz. It's just that neither of you wants to consider the possibility that I am seeing exactly what I think I'm seeing."
David smiled at her, but the doubt was still in his eyes. "I'm trying, dear. I'm really trying."
They talked no more about it that evening, and went up to bed early. David fell asleep almost immediately. It was another hour before Karyn began to get drowsy. Then she was jolted back to full wakefulness. Something was moving around downstairs.
It was not any distinct sound that she could identify. Just a sort of soft shuffling. Then nothing. For a long time Karyn lay tense, staring into the darkness. She fought to convince herself that she had heard no sound, and she prayed that it would not come again.
Then she heard it again. Just the suggestion of movement. She wanted it to be Mrs. Jensen, but knew that it was not. The housekeeper moved with a firm, heavy tread, not the furtive shuffling Karyn heard now.
Her mind groped for possible explanations. The wind. The house settling. Mice. The plumbing. But it was no good. She knew it was none of these. She lay utterly still and listened. For many minutes the only sound was David's deep, regular breathing. Her ears ached with the effort of listening. Then it came again. Something sliding, like cloth on cloth. Then a muffled thump, barely audible, but unmistakably real.
"David." Her voice was a rasping whisper.
"Wha - "
She placed her fingers lightly on his lips to silence him as he awoke. When his eyes were fully open and alert, she took her hand away.
"What is it?" he said, whispering in reaction to her tension.
"There's something downstairs."
"What do you mean?"
"Sssh. Listen."
They sat up in bed, their shoulders touching, and listened. The seconds ticked by. Karyn's chest began to ache, and she realized she was holding her breath. She let it out in a long, silent sigh.
"I don't hear anything," David said. A touch of annoyance had crept into his voice.
"No, I heard something. Really."
For another interminable two minutes they sat in the bed, their heads cocked toward the door.
Nothing.
"Karyn - " David began, speaking now in a natural voice.
"I didn't imagine it," she said. "There's something down there. Or at least there was."
"Why do you say 'something' instead of 'someone'?"
"God, I don't know. What difference does it make?"
With a sigh, David threw back the covers. "I'll go down and look around."
Karyn watched as he got out of bed, pulled on a robe over his white pajamas, and went out into the hallway. She felt foolish. Like some giddy wife in an old television sitcom. "Ricky, get up. I heard a burglar!" "Aw, go back to sleep, Lucy, ees nothing."
Briskly she threw off the blankets and got up. At least she did not have to stay up here cowering in bed, playing out her role. Pulling on a quilted robe, she went out the door and headed down the hallway toward the stairs. At the head of the stairs she stopped to look into Joey's room. The boy was sleeping peacefully. Karyn went on down to join her husband.
All the lights were blazing now as David flicked them on as he walked from room to room. When Karyn reached the bottom of the stairs he was just coming back from the rear of the house. Behind him was Mrs. Jensen, her face puffy from sleep, her hair twisted around plastic rollers.
"Nothing down here," David said. Karyn knew he was making an effort not to let his irritation show.
"Mrs. Jensen," she said, "Did you hear anything?"
"Not me. Not until Mr. Richter knocked on my door. But then, I sleep like the dead anyway."
Karyn looked around helplessly. "I'm sure I heard a noise down here."
"Well, there's nothing here now," David said. "You can go back to bed, Mrs. Jensen. Sorry to disturb you."
Karyn waited while David went around turning off the lights, then followed him upstairs. They got into bed and he lay rigidly with his back to her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, bring him close, but she could not. She had to listen. But there were no more sounds from downstairs. After a very long time she fell into a troubled sleep.
CHAPTER
NINE
For the next two nights, Karyn slept fitfully.
She was waiting, straining to hear even the smallest sound from downstairs that did not belong. All she heard were the normal creaks and snaps a house makes as it cools off at night, but her imagination gave them strange and sinister implications.
During the daytime she stayed close to the house. When she walked even as far as the mailbox she watched carefully behind her. No one followed.
Finally she began to relax a little. Maybe, just maybe, she had imagined those things - the watcher, the night sounds downstairs. Maybe everything was going to be all right.
Then her plants began to sicken.
The Boston fern was the first to show symptoms of trouble. While making her rounds with the watering can and spray bottle, Karyn noticed several of the little saw-toothed fronds, curled and brown, lying on the floor under the fern. When she examined the plant more closely she found dying fronds, and the remaining, living fronds had lost their resiliency. She moved on to the spider plant and saw that the bladelike leaves no longer held their proud arch. The pointed tips on several were beginning to turn brown. Her pet, the philodendron, seemed robust still, but even its leaves looked duller than they should be.
Karyn heard Mrs. Jensen out in the kitchen. She called to her, and the housekeeper came out wiping her hands on a towel.
"Yes, Mrs. Richter?"
"Have you been watering the plants?"
"I never touch those plants. You asked me not to, as I remember."
"Yes, that's right. Thank you."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, that's all."
Karyn read the woman's resentment in the set of her shoulders as she marched back to the kitchen. She'd make it up to the housekeeper later, by praising the dinner or something.
Karyn walked around and looked at the plants again. There was no doubt that something was wrong with them. Even the strong philodendron. The trouble was that sick plants looked the same whether they were over-watered, under-watered, or suffering from any number of horticultural maladies. Karyn had always been careful about the watering, and she had seen to it that each got its proper amount of light and was kept within the acceptable temperature range. The soil had been specially blended at the store where she bought the plants; the nutrients she added at specified intervals came from there too.