Right Hand of Evil by John Saul Read Free Book Online Page A

were laid out, and to which she'd attached the receipts indicating that Cora had paid her own funeral expenses in advance. "Really, all you need to do is contact Bruce Wilcox." The name meant nothing to Ted. "Your aunt's attorney," the receptionist explained. She picked up the phone on her desk and dialed the lawyer's number from memory, then handed the receiver to Ted.
    Ten minutes later, with Janet and Kim back in the reception area, Ted repeated what the lawyer had told him.
    "There's some kind of trust," he explained. "I'm not sure I understand it, but this guy Wilcox says Aunt Cora ' tried to break it a long time ago, and couldn't."
    Janet's eyes clouded. "Why did she want to break it?"
    "Wilcox said she wanted to get rid of the house. But apparently that was the whole point of the trust-to keep the house in the family."
    "So we've inherited a house?" Janet asked.
    Ted shook his head. "What we've got, the way Wilcox explained it, is the right to live in a house."
     
    They gazed at it in silence. Their eyes moved over the massive structure that stood amidst an acre of land so overgrown with weeds that it was hard to tell where-or indeed if-gardens might ever have existed.
    Besides the enormous gabled building that was the house, there was also a large carriage house-big enough for half a dozen cars, apparently with some kind of apartment above it.
    Though most of the windows of both buildings were intact, the paint had peeled away from the clapboard siding, and the smashed roofing slates that lay around the perimeter of the house testified to the water damage they might expect inside.
    Vines, unchecked by any hand, had threaded their way through the great willows, oaks, and magnolias that dotted the property and were banked against the house itself. Tendrils were creeping toward the eaves, and had established a hold on one of the half-dozen gables that pierced the steeply pitched Victorian roof three stories above them.
    But more than the broken windows, the fallen slates, the peeling paint, and the kudzu, there was an atmosphere hanging over the house-a dark melancholy-that all of them felt.
    It was Molly who finally spoke. "Wanna go home," she said plaintively, her tiny hand clutching her mother's.
    Janet lifted her youngest child into her arms. "In a little while," she promised. "We just need to look around first. All right?"
    Molly said nothing, but stuck a reassuring thumb into her mouth and began sucking. For once, Janet made no effort to stop her.
    "I wonder what the inside looks like," Ted mused, starting to pick his way through the tangle of weeds toward the broad front porch. The broken remnants of the ornate gingerbread trim that had once graced the eaves and posts of the porch now looked like the jagged remains of broken teeth surrounding the gaping maw of some dying beast.
    "Is it even safe to go up there?" Janet fretted, tentatively following him. "What if the porch collapses?"
    "It's not going to," Ted assured her. "They built these old places to last. The frame's probably oak." He stopped and considered the looming mass of the house, a few yards away now. "When you think about it, it's not in such bad shape, considering it's a hundred and twenty-five years old and no one's lived in it for the last forty years."
    "It doesn't look like anyone's even been inside it," Janet replied.
    Ted winked at Jared. "What do you think?" he asked his son. "You game?"
    Jared's reply was to start ripping his way through the tangle, tearing vines from the railing and steps before gingerly testing the strength of the old wood. "Dad's right," he called back to his mother and sisters. "It's fine!"
    Ted tried the keys Bruce Wilcox had given him, and found a fit on the third one. The lock stuck, and he had to jiggle the key several times, until he felt it twist and the bolt slide back. Then the latch clicked, and the door itself-a huge slab of ornately paneled and molded oak hung from four tarnished brass hinges-swung slowly