The Dwelling: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

her point, she gave it a little push. Light flashed and blurred on the wood walls, throwing shadows around the room. Daylight tried to peer through the little window. A cold spot of air swirled around her. She shuddered.
    She reached out to still the bulb, and to her right, something moved.
    She swung around to where she’d seen the movement. “Who’s there?” she called. The room was bare. Empty.
    “Who’s there!” she said again, firmly.
    She reached down, not looking, and picked up the pole. She realized she was shaking.
    Glenn scrambled down the ladder, feeling foolish as she did it, and at the bottom pushed it up and pulled the hatch closed with the hook on the end of the pole.
    She’d left the light on.
    She stared up at the hatch, listening. Imagining.
    Mwa—ha ha ha…
    Horror movie laughs from Hammer horror films of her youth.
    Screw it. The light could stay on.
    There were two cards left by other multiple-listing agents on the counter in the kitchen. She knew them both vaguely and that they had been there that morning. One of them would have left the attic hatch open, the light on.
    She scooped up the cards and called them from the little kitchen on her cell phone.
    Maggie Richards answered at first ring. She’d shown the house around nine, to two people (they’re not married, she almost whispered) before they went off to work. She had never been in the attic.
    “Is it nice?” was what she said.
    Mike Persher had dropped by with a woman that morning, just after ten.
    “You left the attic light on, and the hatch open. I had an incident because of it,” she said sternly.
    He was defensive immediately. “I never went near the attic,” he said. He asked if it was worth showing.
    Glenn heaved a sigh. He was lying. Had to be.
    “Well, what happened?”
    Glenn explained in brief, saying only that the girl had thought she’d seen a man up there. “It was the light, I suspect. You’ll have to be sure that you turn them out if you’re going to show the property,” she said, poshly as possible.
    “That’s so weird,” he said.
    “Well, her mother said she was high-strung.” Glenn heard his confused hmmm on the other end. It might have been amusement. She was losing patience.
    He said, “My client saw a woman.”
    Glenn looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t help it.

Three
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    “Of course, he’s lying,” Elsie said later. “And he said the thing about the woman to rock your boat. Don’t you remember the story about him and Patty Bunkle?” Glenn did. Mike Persher had stolen a client right out from under her nose and then sold it for more money than the original asking.
    Glenn hadn’t had time to dwell on either incident. The constant showing and non-sale of the Belisle house had brought her a number of listings as well as a number of clients looking for “the same but different.” It was a buyer’s market right now and she had two more couples looking at houses almost across town from each other. She didn’t have time to do more than grab an apple from the company fridge for lunch before heading out again.
    “Your hair is so modern,” Elsie told her, and she couldn’t tell whether she meant that in the right way or not. She tugged at it all the time. When she had switched from glasses to contacts in her thirties, she had spent half her time pushing glasses that weren’t there higher up on her nose; now she spent half her time brushing hair that wasn’t there off her cheeks. Secretly, she was starting to like it. It was easy to keep and flattered her now-thinner face.
    She was a half-inch from a sale with the second couple by five o’clock that evening. They were going to sleep on it.
    *  *  *
    It was after eight when