Three Things

IV.

“…but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain…”

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

For what had to be the twelfth time the car engine sputtered and refused to start properly. Stella kicked the brake pedal and tore the key from the ignition. The rental car was officially a piece of crap and it didn’t help that she couldn’t find where she was supposed to be going on the map they’d given her. She got out of the car, hoping to flag someone down before the forecasted rain started falling, but she hadn’t seen anyone for at least ten minutes before she broke down so she doubted she’d have much luck.

She leaned back against the hood and pulled out her cell phone to dial the rental company. She was met with a less than helpful recording about their business hours. With a growl she hit the end call button and considered her options. The road she was stuck on was all rich people’s mansions, separated by huge stretches of property filled with towering trees and surrounded by security fences. She doubted she’d find any help from them.

The only people she knew in LA were celebrities who she’d designed for, so they were out of the question. She considered calling Giselle, the model who was lending her the vacation house, but it was the middle of the night in Paris and she didn’t really think she’d be much help.

She hit the speed dial and prayed that Macy would be able to help. It rang five times before going to voicemail.

“Urgh,” Stella muttered as Macy’s recorded voice instructed her to leave a message. “Listen, Macy, I’m in LA and I know you’re on the other side of the continent but my rental car broke down and the company’s not answering their phone. I was hoping you knew of a good cab company out here. And when you call back, please do not lecture me on why I’m on the other side of the country instead of in Paris. I don’t want to hear it. I know it’s cowardly and I’m just avoiding the inevitable, but I don’t need to hear it from you. So please call me back soon because -- it’s raining. It’s officially raining. I gotta go. Call me soon!”

She pulled the car door open and threw the phone in her purse. After a moment’s hesitation she grabbed the purse and keys, locked the doors, and set off down the road, holding the purse over her head in a futile attempt at keeping herself dry. She knew it was stupid to go begging at rich strangers’ gates in the pouring rain, but it was probably even more stupid to sit in a dead car in low visibility weather while it got darker and darker when the roads were at their slickest.

At the first gate she hit the call button but received no answer. She hit it several more times and peered through a gap in the wooden gate at the large house across the lawn. The windows were all dark and her soaking shoulders sagged. How far was it to the next house? She had no idea, but she wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

A flash of light from somewhere behind her lit up the house’s façade and thunder roared overhead.

“Oh, hell no,” she muttered and tossed her purse high over the gate.

She would sit in their doorway if she had to but she would not stand out in the open a second more. With much cursing and effort, she managed to pull herself over, suffering only a cut on her leg for her efforts. Thankfully, she was in better shape than she’d been in during high school. She pulled the purse out of the mud and sprinted across the grass, noticing as she did that a light was on in one of the second floor bedrooms. It had been hidden from her view at the gate by a tree branch. She cursed again and ran straight at the door, pounding heavily on it.

“Let me in!” she bellowed, punctuating each word with a bang. After several moments with no response she ran back out onto the lawn. She picked a stone from amid the flowerbeds beneath the windows and tossed it towards the lit bedroom. It missed -- maybe she wasn’t so much better than she was in high school. She picked up a whole handful and began throwing them, getting closer and closer to the window.

Another lightning strike, another roll of thunder and she gasped, dropping her stones and turning towards the center of the storm. When her heart had slowed to a reasonable pace she turned back to the window, only to find it dark. Before she could wonder what had happened light flooded the front windows beside the door. A moment later the door knob turned and the door fell open slightly.

Stella ran for it and burst into the house just in time to see someone disappearing upstairs.

“Hey! Wait!” she called. The comm unit beside the door crackled to life.

“The kitchen is to the right,” a voice said. It was so mangled by static that she could only tell that it was a man’s. “You’ll find a phone and phonebook there.”

Stella hit the button to talk. “Do you really think anyone’s going to come all the way out here in this weather?”

There was a moment of silence, then, “You can take the first bedroom to the left of the stairs.”

Stella sighed and, rather than head into the kitchen, searched for a bathroom. She found one, mostly because of the large hole in the wall through which she could see a toilet. She dried herself off and cleaned the mud off her purse quickly, hoping she hadn’t done any permanent damage. The cut on her leg was bleeding and as much as it pained her she had no choice but to tear off the bottom foot of her jeans -- both legs, she would never walk around with mismatched pant legs. She should probably have gotten stitches but satisfied herself with stopping the bleeding and bandaging it.

She limped back out into the foyer and stopped dead in horror. Now that she was over the shock of the storm and actually being let in, she took a good look around. There was dust everywhere. It looked like one of those lame sci-fi shows where the world ends and years later the last surviving humans come to a town that’s almost exactly the same, but without the people. Looking down she could see her own soggy tracks in the dusty carpet. A well-worn path through the dust led from the stairs across the foyer to what turned out to be the kitchen.

At least her savior seemed to eat, she thought, noting that the kitchen was clean. The phone was attached to the wall beside the fridge, the phonebook beneath it, and Stella set to work finding a way out of here.

An hour later she was stuck. She’d called half the taxi and tow services in the book and no one would come get her.

She tried Macy again on her cell and was met with the same message as before. She would have to spend the night in a creepy, rundown house with a hermit who she hadn’t even seen.

“Oh, God,” she muttered, “I’m in a horror movie.”

Joe couldn’t sleep. There was someone in his house. There hadn’t been anyone in his house since he kicked Macy out. Granted, the woman who delivered the groceries came once a week, but she stayed in the kitchen the whole time. And the gardener only came inside once every two weeks to grab his check off the table in the foyer before leaving. This woman, whoever she was, would be staying the whole night. At least, he assumed she would. She was right, no one would come this far out of town on a night like this.

When he’d looked out the window because of the lightning and thunder he’d been surprised to see her, especially since his first thought was that she looked like a wet alley cat standing on his lawn. He couldn’t just leave her out there, much as he wanted to. His mother would be ashamed. Plus, if she died of exposure in his yard the police would come and the press would follow and soon the whole world would know that Joe Lucas was the ugliest man alive.

He sighed, staring up at his ceiling. She was probably downstairs looking at everything he owned, exploring the creepy mansion. It was what he would do, if he was her. He should go make sure she wasn’t. There was nothing to link him to JONAS down there, it was all random crap he’d bought because he thought it made him look cool, adult. All the JONAS paraphernalia was on the second floor -- where he had told her she could sleep. Idiot.

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and pulled on a pair of sweats. He checked the hallway before daring to go near the room he’d given her. Creeping around his own house on tiptoe wasn’t exactly something he’d imagined doing in his adult life -- unless of course there was a baby in the house, a sweet little thing with curly blonde hair and -- He shook himself. That was a dangerous train of thought.

He knocked when he reached her door and when there was no answer he peeked in. No one was inside. He breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she had found a ride. The sound of the toilet flushing downstairs told him otherwise.

He cursed silently and looked around the room, making sure there was nothing there to give away who he was. He didn’t need it getting back to the press that Joe Lucas was actually in California. Finding nothing he crept back to his room and, just to be safe, put on a sleeping mask. Not that it helped him, he couldn’t sleep for more than thirty minutes together the whole night.

In the morning Joe woke up with a start. Was she still here? Had she found a ride? Had she discovered who he was and called the paparazzi to invade his life and ultimately blow his secret? He rushed down the hall to see.

The bed was undisturbed so either she was a really good guest or she hadn’t slept there. He groaned. That probably meant she’d spent the night exploring. He walked to the nearest comm unit and hit the button, hoping that wherever she was she would answer.

“Hello?” he called. “I’m not mad if you spent all night going through my personal belongings -- okay, I’m kind of mad -- but could you just answer so I know you’re okay?”

There was no response and he could hear feedback coming from throughout the house. He shrugged, telling himself that she’d probably just gotten a ride earlier in the morning. The sun was shining outside and it promised to be a nice, if slightly soggy, day. Cautiously, he went downstairs.

“Hello?” he called when he reached the first floor.

He flicked off the foyer lights and looked around. He couldn’t hear anything in the kitchen or the bathroom. Shrugging, he decided to get something to eat. A moan from behind him stalled his steps. He waited a beat but instead of footsteps heard cloth moving against cloth and a soft sigh. With a prayer he turned, holding his hand up over his face. Instead of the woman he saw only his sitting room or tea room or whatever the realtor had called it when he’d bought this place. It took him a moment to realize that there was a foot hanging over the edge of the loveseat.

He entered the room carefully, keeping his hand up just to be safe. As he came around to the front of the love seat he saw more of her. She’d taken her shoes off, though they were nowhere to be seen. The leg that was propped up was wrapped in bandages just below the knee and he could see a brown blood stain through the white gauze. The bottoms of the jeans were torn off, though he could tell that they were designer beneath the mud stains. Her plain white t-shirt was played up by her pink jacket, while her long blonde hair hid her face from view.

She shifted again while he watched, letting out a small moan and turning half over. His hand fell as she instinctively pushed the hair out of her face and he stared in shock.

Stella Malone.

Stella Malone was in his house. Stella Malone was sleeping in his loveseat.