Accidentally Pregnant with the Horror Boss novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Lost and Found

In the attic Daisy finds glasses, sees the Master clearly, and holds his head without fear until it settles onto his neck, then a scream from below knocks it loose.

Kyle took one step toward me.

Penny stepped in front of me before he could take another.

She was a head shorter than him and she didn't care.

"Touch her," she said, "and I'll find out what the headless guy does to people who bother his wife."

Kyle looked past her shoulder.

At the end of the hall, a tall black shape stood perfectly still with a head tucked under its arm.

Kyle laughed.

He took his team up the stairs.

Penny turned around and put both hands on my shoulders.

"Okay. Real talk. You can't do ninety-nine more nights at minus nine."

"I'm aware."

"You walked into a doorframe on the way to breakfast."

"Mouse was supposed to warn me."

"I did warn you," said a small voice from inside the wall. "You didn't listen."

Somebody knocked on the open doorframe behind us.

Penny jumped about a foot.

"There's an attic," the Master said. "Guests leave things behind."

The attic stairs were narrow and steep. He went first and held his free hand back for me.

His palm was warm. I hadn't expected that.

Up top it smelled like dust and old paper.

Penny clicked on a flashlight she'd found in the kitchen.

There were boxes everywhere, stacked to the rafters.

Each one had a year written on the side in fat red crayon.

1994. 2003. 2009. 2015.

Penny opened the nearest one.

A man's wallet. A pair of running shoes. A Discman with the headphones still wrapped around it.

She closed it again very slowly.

"These aren't left behind," she said. "These are the people who didn't go home."

The Master didn't answer.

That was its own answer.

I sat down on the floor next to a box marked 2015.

"I don't even know your name," I said.

The head turned toward me. "Ambrose."

"Ambrose what?"

"Halbrook."

"That's a piano teacher's name."

"Piano tuner," he said. "Pittsburgh. I was very good at it."

"Was?"

"There aren't many pianos here. There's one. It's always in tune."

Penny was digging through the 1994 box.

"Daisy. Catch."

A hard little case landed in my lap.

Inside was a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, the lenses thick as bottle bottoms.

I slid them on.

The room jumped into place so fast I grabbed the floor.

They weren't perfect. The edges of everything were a little soft.

But I could see.

I could see the dust floating in the flashlight beam.

I could see Penny's freckles and her chipped purple nail polish.

I looked up at Ambrose Halbrook.

He was standing under the slanted roof in a black three-piece suit and a dark red silk tie.

Above his collar, his neck just stopped.

It was smooth and pale.

His head sat in the crook of his arm.

He had black hair that needed cutting, gray eyes and a long, tired, careful face.

A shadow of stubble along his jaw.

He was watching me like he expected me to scream.

"Oh," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"You're really handsome."

Penny snorted so hard she had to sit down.

Ambrose's head blinked at me. Twice.

"That isn't the usual first word," he said.

"What's the usual first word?"

"Usually it isn't a word."

I got up off the floor and dusted my knees.

"Can I hold it?"

"Daisy," Penny said.

"I hold sick kids all day. I can hold a head."

Ambrose looked at me for a long moment.

Then he held it out with both hands, the way you'd hand someone a baby.

It was cold for a second. Then it was warm.

It was heavier than I'd guessed.

His eyes were very close to mine.

There were little lines at the corners of them. He'd smiled a lot, once.

"Are you frightened?" he asked quietly.

"Nope."

"Not even a little?"

"You said please at breakfast," I said. "Monsters don't say please."

I lifted his head up.

I set it on top of his neck.

"There we go. Back together."

Something clicked.

I felt it in my palms.

I let go.

His head stayed.

Ambrose stood very still.

His hand came up slowly and touched his own jaw.

Then his throat. Then the collar of his shirt, where there was no gap anymore.

He breathed in through his nose. It shook on the way out.

"Eleven years," he said.

His voice came from the right place now. Right in front of me, low and rough.

"Holy crap," Penny whispered.

He looked down at me.

He was so much taller. I had to tip my chin all the way up.

His eyes were wet.

"Miss Lund," he said. "What did you do?"

"I don't know. I wasn't scared, I guess."

He lifted his hand like he wanted to touch my face.

He stopped an inch away.

Then a scream came up through the floorboards.

It came from deep under the house, long and high and terrified.

A young man's scream.

I flinched.

Ambrose's head tipped off his neck and dropped straight into my hands.

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