Hickory Dickory Dead - Chapter One Sneak Peek
At
ten minutes past three in the morning a shrill, hair-raising scream woke
seventy-year-old Maisie Fezzwig from a semi-sound sleep. Over the last half
hour she’d drifted in and out of consciousness, trying to get some shut-eye
while the male counterpart sleeping next to her sounded off like a wheezy,
broken-down foghorn. It wasn’t his fault, of course. It was hers. She accepted
the blame. After all, she’d broken rule number one: never, ever, under any circumstances, allow a man she was
sleeping with to stay the night. Up to now, Maisie had never broken that rule,
but after one too many glasses of red wine, she’d lost track of time and dozed
off unintentionally.
To rectify her mistake, Maisie
decided swift action was the perfect remedy. She switched on the lamp next to
her, and, using two fingers to remove the arm her date had draped over her
chest, she lifted the hand cupping her right breast and deposited it back on
Daniel’s chest. When the gesture didn’t wake him, yawned loud enough for the
neighbors to hear. And when that didn’t wake him, she stabbed his shoulder
repeatedly with her finger, aligned her mouth with his ear, and said, “Daniel,
wake up!”
Daniel partially lifted one eye,
closed it, and rolled onto his other side. “What is it, Maisie? I’m trying to
sleep.”
“Did you hear that noise?”
“What noise?”
“It sounded like someone screamed.”
“Maybe you should turn off the TV.”
Maisie looked at the flat screen on
the wall, failing to see why he didn’t see what she saw. The television wasn’t
on. It was off. “The noise didn’t come from inside the house. It came from
outside.”
“If you really want me to get up and
look around, I’ll do it.”
Although the offer had been made, he
made no attempt to get up, which suited Maisie just fine. She didn’t need him
to do the dirty work. She was more than happy to do it herself.
Maisie
rose from bed, walked to the dresser, and opened the top drawer. She pulled out
a pair of binoculars, walked to the window, and peeked through them, canvassing
each house in her neighborhood.
Daniel
propped himself up on one arm, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What in the
hell are you doing, Maisie?”
She shooed a hand in his direction.
“Shh. Stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“There’s no need to get snippy with
me. Come on now. Come back to bed.”
Come
back to bed?
He’d
said the words like it was an order, as if the lackluster moment of passion
they’d shared an hour before gave him permission to treat her like they were
more familiar than they were. It was the very reason rule number one wasn’t
meant to be broken.
Maisie set the binoculars down,
picked Daniel’s pants up off the floor, and hurled them in his direction. She
attempted a smile, but felt certain it wasn’t very convincing. “Time for you to
leave.”
“What are you talking about?” He
patted the side of the bed she’d just risen from. “Come on, baby. I could go
for another round? Whadd’ya say?”
Baby.
A
word she hadn’t been called in some time.
A
word that was just eww for a woman of
her age.
They’d
only been together twice. Both times his bedroom prowess had been mediocre at
best. “You need to go, Daniel.”
“Maisie—”
Maisie pointed toward her living
room door. “Out.”
Daniel stood, taking his time
pulling his pants back on like he was giving her a minute to change her mind.
“I like you. We have a good things going here. Can I at least see you again?”
“Your fifty. I’m seventy. It was
nice, but let’s call it what it was, shall we?”
He scratched his head. “What was
it?”
“A one night stand. A bootie call. A
hook up as the teenagers say.”
His eyes widened. “You’re not
serious?”
“Quite.”
She escorted him to the front door,
opened it, and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re very sweet, Daniel. Thanks for
a nice night. Goodbye.”
Daniel stood with his arms crossed
in front of him, dumfounded and confused, making it all the more awkward for
her to look him in the eye, so she didn’t. She offered the same smile she’d
offered before and closed the door. As soon as his Subaru backed out of the
driveway, she scurried back to the binoculars again, scanning the neighborhood
a little longer than she had the first time. All was quiet now. Everything
appeared normal except for one thing: Sylvia Frazier’s house was black, and
Sylvia never retired to bed without switching the front porch light on.
Maisie threw a robe over her short
silk nightie, a coat over the robe, slipped into a pair of rubber-soled
slippers, and opened the top drawer of her dresser once again. Besides the
binoculars, the velvet-lined drawer also contained several relics left to her
after her late husband passed five years earlier. Once such relic was a
revolver. And not just any revolver. A Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum.
After
completing a bullet check, Maisie scampered across the street to Sylvia’s
place. Finding the front door unlocked, Maisie walked in, letting the revolver
in her outstretched hand lead the way.
“Sylvia?
Are you there? I’m coming in!”
As
someone who’d familiarized herself with all of her neighbors, Maisie knew the
layout of each house on the block. She paused for about ten seconds. When there
was no reply, she flipped on the hall light and showed herself to Sylvia’s
bedroom. Halfway down the hall it occurred to Maisie that Sylvia might not have
replied when she’d called her name because Sylvia was sleeping. It further
occurred to her that Sylvia may have forgotten to illuminate the porch light
this one time. If true, the appearance of a gun-toting neighbor in the wee
hours of the morning was likely to give the eighty-four-year-old woman a heart
attack. Adversely, the lack of an illuminated front porch light was one thing;
an unlocked front door was quite another.
Maisie
entered Sylvia’s room, feeling her way up the wall until she felt the light
switch. She flicked it on. A terrified Sylvia sat straight up in bed, yanking
her blanket over her face like if Maisie was an intruder, she believed she
could protect herself with it.
Sylvia
looked at Maisie then the revolver. “Maisie? What the hell are you doing here?
And what are you doing with a gun?”
Maisie
lowered her weapon. “I apologize, Sylvia. I thought you needed help.”
“I’m
in bed. Sleeping. What help could I
possibly need?”
“I
heard someone scream earlier, and when I saw your front porch light wasn’t on,
I thought it may have been you. I called your name when I came in. You must not
have heard me.”
Sylvia
inserted her fingers into her ears, pulling out a pair of plugs. “I’m wearing
these tonight. I don’t hear anything.
My nephew’s staying here this week. He blasts the television. Without ear
plugs, I don’t get any sleep.”
Maisie
assumed Sylvia’s nephew was also to blame for the front porch light being off
as well as the unlocked door. “I suppose it wasn’t you who screamed then.”
She sighed. “Of course it wasn’t. And, by the
way, you can’t just walk into my house whenever you want without knocking.”
“The
front door was unlocked.”
“That’s
not the point. This isn’t your house.”
Maisie
stuffed the revolver into her jacket pocket and turned. “You should tell that nephew
of yours to lock the front door.”
Sylvia
grunted an inaudible reply.
She
walked back down the hall confused. She
had heard what sounded like a woman’s scream, and not just any scream; a
desperate cry for help.
Stepping
outside again, the air seemed staler tonight, like the atmosphere had sucked it
all in and zipped it up tight.
Maisie
may have been wrong about Sylvia, but someone, somewhere was in trouble.
She
didn’t know how she knew.
She
just knew it.
BUY LINKS:
