The Portrait of Doreene Gray by Esri Allbritten Page A

tree, black and very still, showed against a neighbor’s security light.
    Angus felt for the window’s latch and opened it. Cool, damp air chilled his face and hands, but there was no wind. He closed the window and went to his bedroom door, where he briefly looked into the hall. Yawning, he closed the door and went back to bed.
    *   *   *
    The next time Angus woke, it was to the sound of a woman’s scream, high and shrill. He froze for a moment, then threw back the covers and found his boxer shorts on the floor. From the amount of light coming through the windows, he guessed it was about six in the morning.
    The scream came again, and he heard the skitter of Gigi’s claws as she ran past his door and down the hallway. She began to bark.
    Angus left his bedroom and trotted down the hall. Gigi stood upright against Doreene’s door, barking. In the pauses between, Angus heard Reynaldo’s voice, alarmed and questioning.
    Angus pounded on Doreene’s door. “Is everything all right? Do you need me to call nine-one-one?”
    The door opened a bit, and Reynaldo stood there, in much briefer and tighter underwear than Angus’s. “I don’t think so, no.” An overhead light showed that his lithe body was corded with muscle.
    Angus felt the hardwood floor vibrate with footsteps and turned to see Suki, wearing a silk robe patterned with peacock feathers and holding a camera in her hand.
    Michael was close behind, wearing jeans and glasses, his chest bare. “What’s going on?”
    Suki looked Reynaldo up and down and gave a barely audible whistle.
    He smiled shyly.
    The door jerked open farther and Doreene stood there, wearing a long, elegant nightgown of cream satin and clutching a wadded tissue in her hand. “Did you do this?!” She shook the tissue at them, panting with rage.
    â€œI don’t think so, but what are we talking about?” Angus asked cautiously.
    She flung the door open and gestured to the room. “This!”
    Dead leaves littered the carpet. At first Angus thought some of them had somehow stuck to the wall, but then he realized that those were Washington’s infamous banana slugs. They moved sluggishly across the floor, their glistening trails crisscrossing the hardwood floor and leaving strands of mucus on the Oriental rug. One hung halfway off the shade of a bedside lamp, its questing horns waving gently.
    Gigi ran around the room, sniffing busily.
    Doreene leaned against the door frame. “I got up to go to the bathroom and stepped on one.” She opened the hand that clutched the tissue and they saw the sad little corpse.
    Suki raised her upper lip. “Ew.”
    Lupita came running down the hall, a terry cloth robe cinched around her waist. “What happened?”
    The others stood aside so she could see.
    Doreene made an angry gesture around the room. “Get a bucket and a broom or something,” she snapped.
    Lupita’s eyes widened. “Spirits of the dead,” she whispered.
    â€œDon’t be stupid.” Doreene gave her a little push. “Go on, get something to clean this up.”
    As Lupita scurried away, Doreene turned back to Angus with a glare. “Admit it. You did this to drum up interest in your little magazine.”
    Angus drew himself up. “I assure you, we did nothing of the sort.”
    â€œPrincessa,” Reynaldo said hesitantly, “don’t you usually lock the bedroom door when we have guests?”
    â€œThat’s right, I did lock it.” Doreene’s angry expression faltered, but then she turned on Reynaldo. “Did you unlock it? Maybe you did this!”
    â€œNo! I swear.” Reynaldo raised both hands in denial, causing his pecs to jump.
    â€œCan I take a look?” Michael asked. He pushed his way past the others and went inside the room, where he got down on his hands and knees and tilted his head this way and that.
    Doreene folded