Tales of Sin and Madness Read Online Free PDF

shirt with a collar? Usually I have to beg you to put on some clothes.”
    “Just…it’s my writing. I’m having trouble with it in this heat. It’s nothing.”
    “Bullshit it’s nothing. It’s that house isn’t it? It’s gotten to you.”
    Sometimes Julia hated that her best friend was her sister. She couldn’t put anything past her. “Well it got to you , didn’t it? You’re the one reading up on the murder.”
    “You’re right, my love. But at least I admit to being affected by it.”
    Julia stood up suddenly. Claire jumped back a little. “What?”
    “Let’s go. This place is too crowded.”
    “Okay,” Claire said, eyeing Julia’s half-eaten sandwich.
    “I’ll get us a doggy bag, okay?” Julia said, taking her purse out of her handbag.
    “No, I’ve got this one. You paid for the drinks last night.”
    “It’s okay, really…” The photo fell onto the table.
    “Hell, Jules. You’ve still got that thing?” Claire reached out and picked up the photo. She studied the small, wrinkled picture. “Hey, the father’s pretty cute,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “You know, they look kinda familiar.”
    Julia snatched the photo from her sister and pocketed it.
    “And you’re carrying it around with you?” Claire chuckled. “Why?”
    “I dunno,” she snapped. “No reason. Jesus, do I have to tell you everything? I like it. It…” she thought of the most plausible answer that came to mind, “it helps with my writing. Like a muse, a reminder of the house.”
    Claire stood and put up her hands. “Okay, whatever. Make peace, not war, remember?”
    Julia threw down two tens, put away her purse then walked out from under the annexed café and into the glaring sun.
    “Hey, what about the sandwich?” Claire called.
    “Just take it and eat it on the run,” Julia called back, shoving her hand into her left pocket to make sure the photo was definitely there.
    It was and it made her feel a whole lot better.
     
    * * *
     
    Julia listened as the phone rang out for the fifth time that night. She knew it would be either Belinda or Cindy. She usually went out with her old college friends Saturday nights.
    Julia didn’t feel like it tonight, though. She didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone, and that included whoever was on the phone. She considered taking the phone off the hook, but couldn’t be bothered getting up to do so.
    She lay naked on the bed, on her side clutching the photo, the window open, curtains drawn but billowing with each sigh of the wind. The television was on but the volume was low.
    She had been staring at the photo for the past few hours. Claire had been right – the house had affected her more deeply than she first thought.
    The spot on her body had grown since this afternoon. It now ran from the top of her left breast to the center of her chest – a sort of oblong patch roughly the size of a matchbox. She had no idea what it could be: cancers didn’t grow that fast, and it didn’t hurt like a bruise would.
    Had she picked up some disease from the house?
    She didn’t want to go to the doctors – they terrified her. She wanted to tell Claire about it, but not tonight. Tonight she just wanted to lie in bed with the photo. It was the one thing that gave her comfort, the one thing that kept her mind off the heat, the writing and the blemish.
    She smiled at the family in the photo, pretended they were smiling back at her. She had named them – the man was Sebastian, the woman Heather, the boy Craig and the dog Sammy. Silly, she knew, but she didn’t care. There was something about the photo, something special. She was drawn to it.
    She still wondered who they were, where they lived and what the photo was doing in the house. But those questions seemed less important now than the photo itself, the energy and solace it gave her.
    She turned on to her back and blinked hot sweat from her eyes. The heat was getting to the picture too. A small portion of the photo was