Perfect Little Angels Read online

  Perfect Little Angels

  Andrew Neiderman

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1989 by Andrew Neiderman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition May 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-786-9

  Also by Andrew Neiderman

  After Life

  Duplicates

  The Maddening

  Deadly Verdict

  The Magic Bullet

  The Solomon Organization

  Guardian Angel

  Teacher’s Pet

  Child’s Play

  Sight Unseen

  For all my former students who became my present fans

  Prologue

  He pressed the palm of his hand against the glass and pushed out, but the thick storm window was as hard as cement. He studied the way the tips of his fingers whitened with the effort. Where did the blood go? he wondered. My blood. He’s taking my blood in little drips and drabs, studying it under his microscope, and leaving it on slides until it dries into a dark amber blotch and no longer looks like a part of me. As well as a part of him, for I am a part of him.

  Or, at least, I was.

  Vaguely now, he understood that his doctor father no longer treated him as a person. He saw him as a creature.

  But doesn’t that make me still a part of him? he thought. He created me again, didn’t he?

  It struck him as funny, so he laughed. And yet, the sound of his laughter seemed to come from somewhere else—not from inside him. Where was he? Gradually, he was losing contact with his own body. Yesterday, he had awakened to find a strange leg in his bed.

  Another one of my father’s sick experiments, he’d first thought. He’d touched the leg and made it bend at the knee, surprised at how flexible and warm it was. He’s keeping a human leg alive, keeping the blood beating through it, keeping the muscles limber, keeping the skin hairs growing, even keeping the toenails growing. And then, as part of his treatment for me, he put the leg in my bed, he concluded. The indignity of it all.

  “I want my own bed!” he’d screamed.

  Naturally, she’d come running in, Mrs. What’s-her-face. He couldn’t recall her name; he didn’t want to.

  “If you can’t remember my name, just call me ‘Nurse,’” she had said. But he even forgot that.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” She was still slipping her faded light blue robe over her sheer gray nightgown as she came rushing into his room. Her big breasts shook so hard, he thought they might come falling down over him.

  “Unstrap me. Quickly,” he demanded. “Quickly!”

  “Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” she said. She had gotten hold of herself; she was a professional. His father usually left her in charge. She reached forward and put the palm of her hand against his forehead, just the way he was pressing his hand against the window now. She had pushed, too, pushed his head back to the pillow and forced the thoughts that had spilled out over his forehead back into his brain. He feared his head would crack like an eggshell, and what was left of his brains would come pouring out, yolk and all.

  “I’ve got to get out of this bed,” he said. He tried to tug at the strap, but his hands were bound, too. He could feel the veins in his neck straining like rubber bands pulled a little too far. Soon they would snap, and little drops of blood would appear all over him. He would look as if he had the measles.

  “You have to calm down. If you don’t control yourself, you can’t get up today,” she said. He saw by the way her eyes narrowed that she meant it. He had learned to read her gestures well—as well as he’d once read books. But he hadn’t read a book since…since the accident.

  “All right,” he said, forcing himself to calm down. “I will.” He swallowed emphatically to show her he was gaining control of himself. “It’s morning and I want to get up. Isn’t it morning?” he asked to be sure. Light filtered through the dark brown curtains on his windows.

  “It’s morning, but it’s early. I haven’t even washed or dressed.”

  “But I can still get up, can’t I? If I control myself?”

  She studied him a moment. “There’s something making you want to get up earlier than usual this morning. What is it?”

  “Unstrap me and I’ll tell you. I promise,” he added quickly. He made an attempt to raise his hand as if taking an oath, forgetting for the moment that his arms were restrained. He was always strapped down at night. The doctor ordered it that way.

  He could see she was thinking about it, considering his promise. He watched her eyes. The pupils darkened and deepened, moving in and out like tiny microscopes. Most of the time, he thought she was fat and ugly. Sometimes, he could see the very pores in her skin, and her face resembled perforated cardboard. When that happened, everything around him was magnified; she was only the ugliest thing. Fortunately, right now, she didn’t look any bigger than usual, he thought. He couldn’t take that, too.

  She reached down and unfastened the strap around his waist. He closed his eyes. Only a few more moments, he thought, and he would be away from it. He felt her undo the bands around his arms, and a rush of freedom washed over his chest. He didn’t get up too quickly, however. He knew that might incite her to strap him in again. It wouldn’t be the first time he was kept in bed or made to wear a straitjacket. In fact, the straitjacket hung on the wall above his bed as a reminder that it would be used any time it became necessary. And he knew the jacket was eager to be used, eager to embrace him and suck out his energy.

  “Now, what is it?” she demanded.

  “This,” he said, pointing to the leg. “It’s disgusting. How could he do such a thing? No matter what I did, how could he do that?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The leg, the leg. Christ, the leg!” He reached down and grasped it around the calf muscle. When he looked up at her, she was staring at him with new interest.

  “What about the leg?” she asked.

  “It’s in my bed. That’s disgusting. I won’t share my bed with someone’s leg,” he added, pushing the leg off the bed. He tumbled off with it, following it to the floor.

  That was when he realized it was attached to him. The realization drove him to tears, and the tears made his body limp and weak.

  She had to help him back onto the bed. She pushed his head onto the pillow again, and tucked the gray wool blanket under his chin.

  “It’s too early to get up,” she barked. “I told you. Sleep some more, and I’ll come in and wake you when it’s time.”

  He didn’t say anything, but merely stared at the ceiling.

  Right now, he continued to study his fingers. The whiteness around his nails was spreading, moving down to his knuckles. His blood was retreating rapidly. It would all join together in a ball in his stomach, and his stomach would explode. It was getting late. Soon he would have no chance, no chance at all.

  He looked back to see if she were watching him, and he was glad to see she had gone out of the room. Her magazine still lay open on the chair where she had been sitting, doing some kind of needlepoint.

  He moved slowly across the room and took the needle out of
the cloth. He crossed the room, still studying the needle, its blue and green threads trailing behind him on the dark brown carpet. When he reached the window again, he took the needle and drove it into the tip of his right forefinger. He didn’t even feel the pain, and for a moment, he had to consider whether or not he was driving it into his hand or into someone else’s hand. He concluded that it was his hand, but he was losing it, just the way he had lost his leg in the bed. He worked faster, turning the needle harder and wider, until the hole in his finger permitted a nice size glob of blood to emerge.

  Then he took his finger and began to write on the windowpane. Every once in a while, he had to squeeze the finger to draw more blood. Finally, he had to drive the needle into his left forefinger to take over the printing, though it didn’t work as well because he was right-handed.

  After he wrote the word, he stepped back to appreciate it. It looked good; it looked promising. He stepped forward again and pressed his face against the windowpane to look down at the houses and people in the development below. Surely someone down there would glance up soon and notice the word on the window.

  He waited. It was as quiet below, as usual. His father kept it that way, but his father wasn’t here right now, so maybe someone would come out of his house and look up. He wanted to shout, but he remembered that shouting did no good. No one could hear him because of the thickness of the windows and walls. In fact, his father, smirking at him one day, had said, “Shout your damn lungs out, if you want.”

  He would have screamed, too, only his father had stopped him—the way he always stopped him from taking action.

  It was so frustrating. There was another him trapped inside this body.

  That’s why I don’t know this body, anymore. The thought excited him. That’s it. It’s not my body. My body is inside. This is a shell my father made. I know his secret.

  He laughed, only this time the laughter remained within because it was his real laugh. He was still laughing when she returned to his room and interrupted him.

  “What are you doing? What have you done?” she screamed, rushing across the room. “You fool.” She ripped the needle out of his fingers. “Get away from that window. Get away now,” she demanded.

  He stepped back obediently.

  “Don’t move from that spot,” she ordered, stomping out of the room.

  He didn’t move.

  She returned with a wet rag and quickly washed away his word. But even after it was gone from the window, he still saw it. It had sunk into the glass and embedded itself within the pane. He smiled.

  “What are you grinning at?” she demanded.

  “It’s still there,” he said. “You can’t wash it away.”

  “It’s still there,” she mimicked and shook her head. “Follow me. I want to clean and bandage those fingers.”

  He followed her, but he looked back once before leaving the room just to be sure the word was still there.

  It was. He could see it as clearly as he had seen it after he had written it in his own blood. The sunlight even lit it up and made it stand out more.

  Soon, someone below would notice. They would look up and see HELP written on his window.

  And then, they would come and take him out of here.

  1

  Justine Freeman pressed her face against the rear window of the metallic blue Mercedes and looked out at the rich green lawns and the bright flower beds. Despite the beautiful landscape, the view seemed grim, as though she were looking through gray-tinted glass. The moment they had driven through the security gate, she felt her depression deepen. As if losing her friends wasn’t bad enough, she’d also been torn from city life just to move out to the suburbs. She couldn’t feel happy about being here, even though her parents were so pleased. Her father went so far as to describe the development as hypnotic. How could a place be hypnotic? Eyes could be hypnotic, like the eyes of Tom Cruise, for example, but a place?

  They turned up Long Street and passed the Dukes’ residence, a large, milk-white colonial-style house, not unlike the one they had bought. Her mother said both houses had fronts like Tara in Gone With the Wind, and she always wanted to live in a house like that. Justine had never seen the movie and couldn’t imagine giving your house a name.

  Michael Duke and his wife Christy stood in front of their house and waved enthusiastically as they drove by. When Justine’s father pulled into their cobblestone driveway, the Dukes hurried toward them.

  Right now, Justine disliked Michael Duke. He was one of her father’s law associates, but from what she understood, he was chiefly responsible for talking her father into selling their co-op on Seventy-first and York and buying a home in this housing development called Elysian Fields. She didn’t even know what “Elysian” meant, but she’d never asked because she didn’t want to show her father she was interested.

  “Welcome, Elaine, Kevin,” Michael said even before any of them stepped out of the car. “Hi, Justine.”

  Michael Duke’s eyebrows went up as though they were on little springs. His hair was midway between brown and red, but his eyebrows were even a shade lighter. Justine imagined he could go without shaving for days.

  He took her mother’s hand to help her out of the vehicle. Justine thought her mother looked like one of her teenage friends beside him; not that he was that big a man. Michael Duke was probably six feet tall, but her mother was only five feet four. Her father was five feet ten, but only weighed about one hundred and sixty-five pounds, so her parents didn’t look awkward together. Her father wasn’t physically impressive, but he was a confident, bright man who usually commanded the respect of those who met him. Justine was proud of her father most of the time; she was just upset that he and her mother had been persuaded to make this move.

  “Hi,” Christy said, coming around to meet them.

  Justine knew her mother liked Christy Duke. They had so many common interests: Both women were trying to be artists, and both had a relaxed, youthful appearance. Although Christy was nearly six inches taller, they could be mistaken for sisters. Both women wore their light brown hair long and straight. Christy had soft, symmetrical facial features, highlighted by cerulean blue eyes and a dimple in her left cheek. Elaine Freeman’s features were diminutive, but she, too, had sky blue soft eyes.

  “Let us help you with some of those things,” Michael said, reaching in to take a carton from the back seat. “Brad and Steven should be home any moment, Justine.”

  Justine faked a smile. Brad and Steven, she thought. She had met them only twice before, and although Brad, a senior in high school, was quite good-looking, she found him rather dull. Steven was her age, fifteen, but quite immature, in her opinion. Life for teenagers was different out here, she concluded sadly. She wouldn’t expect them to be as sophisticated as her friends back in New York.

  “Hey, thanks,” Kevin said. Justine saw his hazel eyes sparkle with excitement. He’d told her that nothing he had done during his seventeen years of marriage was as exciting as this. What was so exciting about moving into a housing development? she wondered. Will I get this way when I’m their age? It was a frightening thought.

  She could see why her mother was impressed with the place. The house was enormous compared to their co-op, and the development had its own tennis courts and Olympic-sized swimming pool, and clubhouse. There was also a private golf course adjacent to the development.

  Her father had talked her mother into it, however, by emphasizing that like Christy Duke, she would have the space for a studio in the house. “And plenty of landscapes to paint.”

  What could Justine offer in opposition to all this? That she would miss her friends? Her father didn’t like many of them, anyway. That there wasn’t much to do? Her father was always complaining about her hanging out in the streets, and New York was less than an hour’s drive. They could still go to the theater, and her mother could still go to museums.

  The big kicker was the security here. The entire development was fenced in, wi
th a beautiful stone wall in the front, and a booth at the entrance manned by a security guard twenty-four hours a day.

  The whole thing was designed by some famous doctor who’d bought all the land, then decided to build a special housing development. At least, that’s how Justine understood it. He lived here, too. Michael Duke had mentioned him frequently, and now Justine’s father was always talking about him. Dr. Lawrence. She never understood what he was doctor of, anyway. Doctor of developments?

  “I’ll help you organize your kitchen things,” Christy told Justine’s mother.

  Justine contemplated her new home. The two other times she had come out here, she had been so stubborn about it, she really hadn’t looked. Now she studied it more seriously. No matter how she felt, it was going to be her home, and she took a certain pride in it, even though she wanted to resist that feeling. She hoped she wouldn’t become a snob, as her city friends had predicted.

  Her eyes skimmed over the house. To the right of the portico were privet hedges shaped in an S. The blue flagstone walkway to the portico was edged with blood-red impatiens. The driveway was lined with stained railroad ties, and low-growing vines were woven over them to create a smooth linkage with the lawn itself. There was a small rock garden in the center of the lawn, and an egg-shaped fountain at the center of that.

  The front entrance had double doors built out of rich, dark oak. The pillars and the siding of the house were only a shade darker than the Dukes’ white. There were light blue shutters on the windows and a triangular stained-glass window just above the front entrance. Her mother particularly liked the backyard patio and the fruit trees behind it.

  Her mother turned around and saw that she was lingering by the car. “Come on, honey,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to do. Grab something and follow us.”

  “She’s a little frightened by the move, huh?” Christy asked, looking back at Justine.