Page 20 of Black Curtain

Who the fuck were these people?

They were almost as creepy as the one who hired him.

“He didn’t let me know others would be here,” Dan said. “Do you mind if I call him?”

She smiled, stretching those blood-red lips.

“Of course you can call him, sweetie,” the black-haired woman said.

Something in the impossibly fake saccharin of those words made him flinch.

He hoped it wasn’t too obvious on his face.

She continued to smile at him as Dan studied her strangely empty eyes. The tall, broad-shouldered men standing behind her, wearing very expensive-looking tailored suits, smiled along with her. Something about all four of those smiles put together unnerved Dan, as well. Maybe it just happened too easily, too smoothly, too much in synch.

It was like they’d coordinated facial expressions, along with their clothing.

Similarly, something unfathomable about the eyes unnerved him.

All appeared to be similar shades of muddy brown, with pupils of exactly the same measure of dilation. It’s not something Dan would have thought he’d even notice, the color of four strangers’ eyes, but the uniformity of those staring, unblinking orbs caused him to look from one to the other, trying to decide if he was imagining things.

Then, hearing what she’d said to him belatedly, he reached into his vest for his phone.

Pulling it out, he found the contact listing for the client and hit the green button to call his mobile. He’d just put it to his ear when he glanced back at the group in the foyer.

They stood closer to him.

He swore they stood closer.

Hesworeit.

He hadn’t seen them move.

He hadn’t sensed a damned thing in his periphery.

He was someone generally very aware of whoever and whatever stood around him. It was part of being a builder, perhaps. He tended to be a very spatially oriented person, and conscious of where other people stood and worked.

With these people, there was nothing.

It was like he looked away and the film stuttered, losing a few frames. That loss of frames dragged them closer.

Dan Lamas looked from one of those pale faces to the next.

The hair on the back of his neck began to rise.

The phone at his ear continued to ring and ring.

No one picked up.

The woman, who continued to smile at him with that fixed, dead-looking smile, spoke through the smile, her eyes unmoving on Dan’s face.

“I think we should do a quick inspection, boys,” she said.

The words barely left her lips when the three males with her dispersed, walking towards the stairs, towards the kitchen, towards the living room.

Dan watched them go, bewildered.

The phone continued to ring.

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