Psychological Thriller Boxed Set

by Addison Moore

  “We were religious about emptying our guns.” Tears blur my vision. “My father handed me that rifle.”

  “Don’t look down the barrel.” He gave a hard wink my way, and like a moth to fire I needed to sneak a peek.

  Rich taps his foot anxious against the floor. “Between you and your brother Aston, which one do you think your father favored?”

  The words from that conversation on my father’s porch come back to me. You’re the moron who should have died that day!

  God, it all makes twisted sense.

  “It was me he wanted to kill. Only I was going to get to do the honors.” Tears roll down, fast and hot, and I’m quick to wipe them away. “What a revelation.” A dull chuckle escapes me. “I had always wanted to believe that my father treasured me—the lone child, and here he resented me for surviving.”

  Rich slaps his hand over my back, warm and comforting, just the way my mother used to. “You are family, James. You’re loved. I’ll follow your lead in this. I know you’ve got more than you can handle on your plate right now, but if you ever want to open a case, make it official, we’ll run with it. I’ll support you in whatever you decide to do.”

  “Sounds good.” I sniff back my emotions. “I think we need to let it ride until we find Reagan. God, Reagan.” I plunge my face into my hands.

  Rich knocks his knee to mine. “So what is it you’ve got to tell me?”

  I glance to the top of the stairs. Not a sound comes from the bedroom. A good thing. I think.

  “You are never going to believe this.” I start in on last night, the odd clue my father gave me about Monica. I tell him about the night games Monica and I played, the boxes upon boxes of Price family treasures I stumbled upon. The basement, the little girl’s bed, and the handprint.

  “Angel?” Rich inches back a notch. “I don’t know Monica that well, but I seem to remember her parading around town with a kid a few years back. I can look into it.”

  “Yes, please do. And if you can score any pictures, that would be great.”

  “You don’t think…” Rich stops shy of letting another demon loose in the room.

  “She suggested it. She told me the baby we had died. Look, I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “That’s pretty wild.”

  “Hang on to your hat. It’s about to get wilder.” I fill him in on my brief yet fucked-up history with Hailey, how the move came after the indiscretion, how Reagan got kidnapped on the heels. How this entire unholy series of events could all be traced right back to my boxers. “But that’s not the strangest thing I’ll tell you today.”

  “If you tell me you’ve got another kid, I might be moved to call psych services. I’m sensing a running theme and perhaps a transference issue blooming.”

  “In fact”—I glance upstairs one more time—“I do have another kid. I have no clue if she’s mine, but right about now, she’s as close as it gets. Ota showed up last night.”

  “Who?” He follows my gaze upstairs before his spine straightens. “Oh shit.” He jumps to his feet and I pull him back down. “When were you going to call me? Basic fucking protocol, you call the police.” Those ropes in his neck distend. Gone is the docile cousin I know. “What in God’s name are you doing with her upstairs?”

  “Allison’s trying to get information out of her.”

  “Is it working?” His eyes bug out wild. In no uncertain terms is Rich unimpressed with our need to retain one-half of the missing duo.

  “As long as she holds back those PB and J sandwiches, she’s getting somewhere.”

  “You’re starving the kid?” His body lurches once again.

  “No.” I hold out my hand like I’m trying to stop a freight train. “We’re getting her to warm up to us. She’s not speaking, but she’s nodding. It’s a start. We just need a little time. Until tomorrow at least.”

  “Tomorrow?” His voice swerves, incredulous. “Listen, I can’t keep this under wraps. Child Protective Services finds out and we’re both in trouble. They’ll take my badge. I’ll lose my house. I can’t do this, man.”

  “Then I suggest you walk back out that door, because this conversation never happened.”

  “Oh, it happened.” Rich glances out the window. “And about twelve news outlets are witness to the fact I was here. That kid starts singing and telling everyone she meets she’s been here for days, you’re going to have a problem, too.” He moves for the stairs and I bolt to block him. “Where is she, man?”

  “She’s safe.” I offer him a firm push away. “But you’re not getting to her. Back up, rewind. Give us just one more night. Believe me, we don’t want this any more than you do. But that little kid is freaked out enough. Once she sees you in all your uniformed glory, that gun you’ve got poking from your waist—she may never speak again. And child services? They’re going to hustle her out of here so fast we’ll never have access to her again. You and I both know she is our only link to Reagan.”

  “Shit.” He does a little spin in a fit of frustration. Judging by that pitch in his voice, I’ve led him right to the brink of insanity. Welcome to my world, Rich. Sanity left the station about six months ago. “Do you realize the amount of evidence that might be lying out there right now? Tire tracks, hair, clothes, fingerprints. Whoever dropped her off could have littered the place with clues that might just lead right back to wherever they’re holding your daughter! But you waited—waited to call me! I’m on your side, dude.” He snatches his keys and phone off the coffee table in haste. “I’m getting a couple guys and combing the periphery.” He moves through the kitchen and heads for the door. “I’m walking back in here tomorrow, and you are going to have one fucking surprise for me.” He takes off and the door slams with a bang.

  “Crap.” I lean against the wall and take a deep breath. One night. Allison had better get that little stray bird to sing. That kid knows something, and something useful had better vomit from her mouth.

  * * *

  In the unbearable hours of the late afternoon, with Allison and me making a mockery of ourselves in an effort to get this little whippet of a being to give up a squeak, my phone buzzes.

  “It’s McCafferty.” I frown over at my wife, who now looks only vaguely at all like herself, with her electrified hair, those dark crimson circles around her eyes, her lips chalky and cracked. It feels as if we’ve been up for a week straight. Even when Reagan was a newborn, we got more rest than in this new hellish season of our lives. We had run ourselves ragged, and now we were facing a cruel end by way of delirium. Nobody could blame us for what we would do next, whatever dark and dangerous event it might be. We had formally become unhinged, lost all of our screws and marbles at the very same time. There was nowhere to go but down. And just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, the floor gives way again. “She wants to stop by.”

  “No.” Her voice is demonically hoarse.

  Ota stares at the two of us with those dark ovals she sees the world through, her hair matted on one side from leaning against the wall. She’s still adding to her art collection, albeit slowly, and every now and again she takes a hearty bite of her crayon and chews it, pink, then yellow, then green. Neither Allison nor I say anything about it. She’s hungry and she smells that feast Allison has just out of reach. She’s bound to say something soon. Or at least she’d better.

  I text McCafferty back and let her know we’re too tired to play her reindeer games today. Try again tomorrow. If I could keep everyone at bay another twenty-four hours, I might just have all I need to get my baby back.

  Ota reaches into the crayon box and pulls out a pristine white stick of wax, miraculously unbroken from the snapping spree she went on earlier. She takes her tiny fingers and begins to work the paper off—quickly, like unwrapping a candy bar. I wonder what appeal she sees in this one. White the color of marshmallows, the color of taffy. Maybe it will have peanut butter in the center to offset that cruel craving we’ve invoked in her. God, we never even asked if she had a
peanut allergy. We could have killed her and been harboring a corpse. But thankfully, she’s fit enough to eat all the peanut butter she wants and starved enough to desire it. Hell, I’m about to scarf one down myself or twelve.

  Ota gives both Allison and me a bored glance before bringing the crayon to her lips, and without offering it another thought I pluck it from her.

  She takes an audible breath, almost as good as speaking in my book. Her fingers dive back into the bin, but I swipe the box off the table and land it by my feet.

  “Just a few words, Ota.” It comes out far more stern than I had hoped it would. “Tell us where they took you. How many were there? Are they your parents? Your family? Because if they are, they won’t get in any trouble. I can promise you that.” I’m lying. I think we both know that, but for better or for worse, this little girl is as close as I’m getting to hostage negotiations for my daughter.

  Her gaze lingers over mine, angry, hesitant, but mostly I fear she’s regretful that she ever came back here. Maybe she expected us to call the cops, too.

  Allison leans in and strokes Ota’s hair back, exposing a wall of a forehead, smooth and unblemished. I hope when she’s my age this episode plays back and steals her youth like it did mine.

  “It’s okay,” Ally whispers in a soothing tone that has no basis in reality at this point. “It’s all going to be all right.”

  I’m not sure whose lies she appreciates more right now, Ally’s or mine.

  Ota brings her close-fisted hand over the table, floating across it with the grace of a cheap Vegas magician, and with a pop unfurls her fingers, exposing a broken purple crayon. There’s a defiance in her eyes, an arrogance that screams I have the upper hand, suckers. I have the ability to raise or deplete you. After all, I’ve already defeated you.

  She plucks a crisp piece of paper from the quickly dwindling ream and proceeds to create a series of circular shapes until it becomes obvious she’s spelling something. Spelling her name. Otaktay. Then with the feathery grace and ease of a true artist, she draws an eye in each rounded letter, one in the O, one in each A.

  “Otaktay.” Allison bites down over a smile. “It looks as pretty as it sounds.” Liar. It’s bad pig Latin. We’ve both firmly established that. But Allison is willing to strip the moment of any porcine implications just to move things the hell along. And I’m right there with her.

  “Very pretty,” I echo. “How do you say it? Let me hear you say it.” For God’s sake, use those vocal cords for something. I’m beginning to think she had them removed, and for a second I imagine Reagan tied up in some barbaric lab with metal tongs reaching down her throat. The thought makes my gut wrench, my eyes water, and I shake my head hoping to evict the image.

  Allison knocks my foot with hers. “These eyes.” She touches over the first one. “There are three of them, just like there are three of us!” Her voice rises with elation at the thought. “I see you. James sees you. And you, Otaktay, you see us.”

  “Yes.” I go with it. Allison has always held an unmitigated brilliance. Deep down, I’ve always known she was the smarter one in the family. I never once believed I was pulling anything over on her. Even when I was deep inside of Hailey Oden’s body, I knew that I knew my day of reckoning was just around the corner. It was Allison’s angry eyes I saw when I closed mine all those months ago. And rightfully so. Because for the months leading up to it, while I was deep inside of Allison, I used to make myself see Hailey. Get me off a little faster, harder, and it only led to destruction. Instead of trying to fix what was wrong with what I had, I stepped in shit and smeared it over the proverbial carpet of our lives. My stench is so great it has gone over all the world. And I brought my daughter down to eat it. That’s the most damning part. In a roundabout way, this little girl too, and for a second I’m overcome with guilt and grief for what I’ve cost everyone in this room.

  Ota bounces her finger over the first eye and nods to Allison before proceeding to trace it with her finger. She does the same with the second eye, only she looks to me that time. She lands a lanky little finger, the size and shape of a runt French fry over the third eye before looking past the two of us at the fluffy stuffed letters nailed to the wall that spell out Reagan.

  Allison gasps. “This is Reagan’s eye?”

  Ota gives a solemn nod, her gaze lost in my wife’s as if they have a supernatural connection. She resumes her attention to the page at hand and proceeds to color in Reagan’s eye in haste, sealing it shut forever.

  Reagan’s eye is closed. I may not need a road map to figure out what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m not sure I believe it.

  It can’t be true.

  Reagan can’t be dead.

  Reagan. Dead Reagan.

  Dear God, no.

  Allison

  The sky clots up with soot as the day turns ashen, and the evergreens that line our home lean across the roof like insolent shadows bearing down their judgment over us. Fall was crushing us with those pregnant, tenebrous clouds. Every chimney in the neighborhood spewed the thick scent of charcoal, choking out the oxygen in the air. We didn’t have a need for oxygen anymore. Without Reagan, we couldn’t take our next breath.

  McCafferty let James know she’d be here in fifteen minutes as we pace the living room like skittish caged animals. She wasn’t taking no for an answer. She certainly wasn’t about to wait for morning.

  “I can’t do this,” I say it mostly to myself, rubbing down my arms, staggering from one foot to the other as if the motion alone could somehow bring me comfort. “I need to get some air.” That horrible drawing. The unholy eye with its final curtain call makes the bile stir up in the back of my throat. All signs point toward Reagan’s death. Dolla Chetney shouted it from the rooftop as if it were a winning lottery number. And when Ota showed up solo I wondered. Had they been purposefully separated? Why did they keep Reagan? Do they even realize they gave me back the wrong child? Maybe that’s what comes next. Some big press conference to let them know there’s been a mix-up. But what if it’s too late? Yes, all the signs point to something tragic. They did weeks ago, only I was too blinded by hope to see them.

  I snatch the keys off the hook and pull a trench coat out of the closet. “I’ll be back in a minute. I just need to clear my head.”

  James catches me by the waist as if we were teenagers. “But—”

  “I know. I said I’d be right back.” I give a hard glance upstairs. “Watch her.”

  In some barbaric move to preserve our trump card, James proceeded to jam the door to Reagan’s room from the outside. I’m sure she could get out if she really wanted to, but the poor thing doesn’t have the energy. She’s so listless, so dehydrated, nutrition and oxygen deprived. In the mother of all ironies, Reagan will come home, and I’ll go away for unintentional homicide.

  James tries to increase his grip on me, but I slink away and open the door enough to let in a whistling wind, Mother Nature berating us for doing to someone else’s child what someone else has done to ours.

  “Where are you going?” His eyes do their best to beg me to stay.

  “Just out.” I seal the door shut behind me, careful not to slam it and invoke the curiosity of the dwindling number of reporters getting paid to eat their Subway sandwiches and guzzle their half-gallon Cokes to the tune of their intermittent laughter. The ranks have diminished. The world is losing interest. But after McCafferty shows up, after Rich does, it will all ratchet right back up again.

  I drive past the infantry of evergreens, their judgmental boughs all pointing down at me as if to call me out on my own indiscretion. I don’t know that I would call Len an indiscretion. James and I weren’t married. But I’ve perpetuated the lie for almost seven years and going strong. A part of me thinks why back down now? And the other part of me says the fever of this nightmare won’t break until I tell James the truth. Like any good parent, I’ve devised a way for this to somehow, existentially, be all my fault. I already know that James is absorbing the b
low. This is where he spent his childhood. He’s the reason we’re back here. His home turf. But casting blame his way feels a little too convenient. I like to make things difficult. That’s my specialty. I’m not letting James and his I-slept-with-a-glorified-stripper-and-now-I’ve-lost-my-family head game get to me. I get to own this one, James. You might have plunged your penis into someone else’s body for three weeks straight, but I’ve pulled the wool over your eyes for over six long years and never felt half the remorse that you did.

  Len is dead. Len was already dead before I knew I was having a baby. James and I were in love, locked and loaded and ready to roll the marital dice anyway. What reason, outside of cruel honesty, would I have to tell him the truth? James wouldn’t have cared. Or at least I’d like to think so.

  I wonder where Reagan and I would be if I had told him the truth all those years ago.

  My car makes a left and I come to. Driving with only half your mind at attention to the task will land you in exactly this type of seedy end of town, past the homeless shelter where I half-expect to see Charles on his daily do-gooder mission, past the hotel that doubles as a brothel, past the church that doles out salvation—and straight for the no-tell motel where I left Heather and her make-believe daughter. Finally, after all these years, Heather Evans and I have something in common. We both have an invisible child.

  I park and head up the back stairs as icy bites of wind chew at my flesh with their knife-sharp teeth. I’m showing up unannounced, a surprise visit that will probably make her year. No sooner do I reach the crest of the stairwell than a short stalky woman in a blue janitorial uniform jumps backward out of Heather’s room with a shriek. I watch as she swims uneasily down the hall hissing frenetically to herself, making the sign of the cross as she disappears out of sight.

  My heart jumps into my throat as I race to the room, my feet stall unnaturally on the threshold. The blackout curtains are drawn, dampening the light right out of the room, save for the flood coming through the door. My eyes dart directly to the desk, directly to a very slumped over Heather Evans.