Her tiny fingers were cold in his grip. “Uh-uh. Mom’ll be mad enough we were gone all night.”
If she even noticed, David thought.
* * *
But Honey had noticed, he realized as they walked along the riverside path. Clad in a garish yellow T-shirt that didn’t hang nearly as low as Ivy’s did, Honey was striding purposefully toward him, her bloodshot eyes grim. “What’s wrong with you?” Honey demanded.
Your kids came to me, he started to say, but stopped, not wanting to get Ivy or Mike Jr. in trouble.
Honey grabbed Ivy by the hand and yanked her away from him. The girl didn’t fight, but she didn’t look happy with the transfer. Her eyes were lowered, her shoulders stooped. Preparing for punishment, he thought. Goddammit, Honey.
“Get home,” Honey barked at her daughter. “Your dad’s been worried sick.”
Sure he has, David thought.
When Ivy had gone, Honey stepped nearer.
“What the hell did you do to them?” Honey demanded.
David stared at her. “Now listen—”
“Mike Jr.’s scared out of his mind, and I wanna know why.”
It occurred to him Honey might not even remember the night before, that their surreal encounter might have escaped that spongy tangle of desires that functioned as her brain.
“Your kids were distraught,” he said. “Do you even remember the storm?”
Honey folded her arms. “Where’d you put their clothes?”
David flushed. Was this lunatic actually implying…. “They were like drowned rats. They—”
“Don’t you call my kids rats,” she growled, taking a step toward him. Her bloodshot eyes widened. “Just because Michael and I aren’t big-shot writers like you doesn’t mean you can mess about with our children. I’ve a mind to call Sheriff Harkless.”
David nodded at Honey’s house. “Let’s call her now. I’d love to tell her what kind of parents you are.”
Like a switch had been flipped, Honey uncrossed her arms, donned a pouty look, and fingered the hem of her T-shirt. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Like to worm your way into my home.” She fondled the shirt, which crept up, revealing a V of turquoise underwear. She stepped closer, her muscular legs flexing. “Michael’s still snoozing. Bet you’d like to inspect me a little, wouldn’t you, professor?”
She reached out, fingers closing on his crotch.
He shoved her hand away. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Honey smiled hungrily. “You’re gettin’ hard, professor. Why not show me how naughty I’ve been?”
“Do you have the slightest…conception of how fucking crazy you are?”
Honey pooched her lips. “Ooh, I like it. The buttoned-down professor turns wild man.” She twisted the fabric of her T-shirt so that it rode higher, revealing more underwear, which turned out to be sheer, so that her dark thatch of pubic hair showed prominently.
David headed back to the Alexander House. Honey’s laughter dogged him for a good twenty paces before it subsided. By the time he’d made it to the house, he’d resolved to call Sheriff Harkless himself. If Honey couldn’t be reasoned with, maybe the sheriff would intervene.
What if Honey tells lies about you? a nagging voice wondered.
Then the kids will refute them.
Unless they’re too scared of Honey to tell the truth.
The thought stopped him. He’d heard of people being falsely accused of doing things to children. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it was ruinous.
What if Honey made scurrilous accusations?
“Shit,” he muttered. He stood on the porch, thinking. If he didn’t go to Harkless, what else could he do? He couldn’t leave Ivy to languish in that house of horrors. Even Mike Jr., with his filthy mouth and his disturbing chalk art, deserved better parents than Michael and Honey Shelby.
David went in, fixed himself toast with butter. He poured a tall glass of orange juice, downed it in three gulps, and felt better. Yes, he decided. He’d see Sheriff Harkless. He couldn’t imagine the children selling him out. Ivy was quality through and through, and despite being a little shit, he suspected Mike Jr. would tell the truth.
Breathing evenly again, David was halfway out the door before he remembered where the car keys were.
Upstairs, on the floor of the long bedroom.
Hell. David stepped inside the foyer, the screen door easing shut behind him. He’d told himself a hundred times to tape the spare Camry key to the back of his license plate, but it remained in his kitchen drawer back home, where he’d deposited it the day he’d bought the car.
He peered up the staircase. There was no other way. Either remain stranded or go up and get the damned keys.
You could get Ralph.
Sure, he thought. That was admirable. Rely on the elderly neighbor for courage. While he was at it, why not enlist Ivy and Mike Jr. to assist him too? Maybe send them upstairs to retrieve the keys while he cowered down here.
“Enough,” he muttered.
As David started up the stairs, he recalled last night’s disturbing visions.
Yes, visions were exactly what they’d been, he thought, as he advanced through the coolness of the stairwell.
(why is it colder upstairs?)
There’d been a figure in an old-fashioned nightshirt…and the burned, crimson horror with the leering white eyes.
No. One vision at a time, he thought, nearing the second-story landing. The figure in the nightshirt…that could have been a trick of moonlight. The shadows of the wind-worried trees could easily simulate the folds of a gown.
David reached the landing, turned immediately toward the door of the long bedroom. The door was open and the morning sun was slanting through the windows, leaving half the room in shadow, the other swathed in dull umber light. Ignoring the chill atmosphere and the suffocating silence, David inched toward the foot of the first bed. This was where he’d fallen last night. This was where the keys should be.
David reached the foot of the bed.
Stared down at the bare wooden floor.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, then regretted it. The aura of this room, though he was loath to admit it, was different than the rest of the house. It was time to employ the pseudo-scientific instruments in the trunk of the Camry, if only to begin the process of proving to himself there was nothing supernatural about the long bedroom. But of course the Camry was locked. And the keys were somewhere in this room.
(unless something took them)
There’s nothing up here! he wanted to scream.
He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He hadn’t driven more than eight hundred miles to be thwarted by a few mystifying occurrences. Hadn’t he encountered strange phenomena before?
(nothing like this)
He drew in a deep breath, let it out. He moved about the room, glancing between the beds, the tops of the nightstands, but that was foolish of course. Like checking an old coat you hadn’t worn in years for a wallet you misplaced an hour ago. He considered kneeling, peering under the beds, for that’s where the keys had to be, right? He’d fallen, heard the jangling sound….
Something from across the room drew his attention, a muted twinkle of light.
The car keys lay on the windowsill. At the opposite end of the long bedroom. An area into which he hadn’t ventured, last night or any other time.
It was a test, he realized. To reach the keys he’d have to cross the whole room, nearly thirty-five feet of space.
But he was already fifteen feet in. He could make it twenty more.
Knowing he’d lose what frayed nerve he still possessed if he hesitated longer, David strode toward the northern window, his eyes never leaving the keys. He worried that if he looked away, if only for a moment, they’d disappear.
They didn�
�t disappear. David reached the windowsill, snatched the keys from their resting spot, and stuffed them in his hip pocket. He was about to go when he discovered his iPhone lying facedown on the nearest nightstand.
He swallowed, scooped it up.
He’d started back when he noticed something he hadn’t before: the four single beds bore the imprints of bodies.
Why this should disconcert him, he couldn’t say. After all, he’d only been in this room on two other occasions, one of those during a violent thunderstorm that had played tricks on his perceptions.
What of the other time? the hard, implacable voice asked. The first time you inspected this room was in full daylight. Why didn’t you notice the imprints then?
Because, he thought with a rush of hope, I was standing in a different part of the room at a different time of day. Light’s a funny thing. It can alter the appearance of a place dramatically.
Can it conjure leering, white-eyed monsters?
No, he thought, his mouth going dry. No, not even a change of light could do that.
David hurried from the room.
Chapter Nineteen
He grabbed lunch at a drive-thru in Lancaster. Ten minutes later he was motoring through the countryside with the burger and most of his fries eaten. The Coke was a trifle watery, but it refreshed him. He’d passed over a goodly span of bridge a while back, and he was trending west, in the direction of his house.
But he was on the other side of the Rappahannock now, and the sights were becoming familiar. There was the graveyard he’d once passed in a big white Buick LeSabre. There were the tobacco fields lining a straight shot of country road three miles long.
Ahead was the entrance to Oxrun Park.
David brought the Camry to a halt outside the entrance, where he found a painted brown box atop a splintery wooden post. It resembled a birdhouse, only instead of a hole for birds to climb through, there was a hinged door that read ‘$5.00.’
David smiled. He’d always liked the honor system and remembered, many years ago, cramming a couple singles and some coins into the box, the three of them – David, Chris, and Anna – having exhausted their cash supply on beer and needing to scrounge the floor for change.
A horn blasted behind him. David glanced in the mirror, discovered a guy in an SUV with a pontoon hitched behind it.
“Take it easy,” David muttered. He moved the Camry into gear and pulled forward. After the guy paid and trundled past, David leaned over the steering wheel and saw a slender green sign reading ‘Old Bay Road.’
Images flickered through his head:
A woman knifing through the water.
His kayak drifting into the bay.
The woman climbing onto the dock and disappearing up the stairs.
He drove forward, hooked a left turn.
There were only three houses on Old Bay Road. One of the dwellings, situated on a cul-de-sac, was little more than a shack, probably some fisherman’s hut without electricity or running water. Another house was larger but not impressive either. If people lived there, they didn’t put much stock in upkeep. The front lawn was strewn with junker cars and weeds as tall as David’s waist.
It was the house nearest the park he was interested in. Unless he was mistaken, this was the place that connected to the dock he’d spied two nights ago, the one onto which his mischievous sprite had climbed.
It was a modest ranch with yellow aluminum siding. Nestled in the forest, set fifty feet back, the place was the antithesis of the other two houses on Old Bay Road. David parked the Camry along the grassy shoulder and ventured up the drive, which was redolent of honeysuckle, cedar. A hint of lavender.
He noted as he drew nearer how tidy the lawn looked, how many distinguishing features the yard boasted: A hummingbird feeder dangling from a shepherd’s hook. Multiple dogwood trees, pink and white and red ones, a few with their flowers still clinging to glory after last night’s storm. Vibrantly colored vases, most of them ceramic. Bluebells and irises in bright orange planters bookending the front porch. Terra-cotta pots were positioned strategically about the yard, these housing zinnias and marigolds and a few flowers he didn’t recognize. On the right stood a weeping cherry tree larger than any he’d ever seen, which sprouted from its own garden of lush foxtail, blue pansies, and an underlayer of sedum. Beyond that he discovered an unexpected touch: at the bases of two gigantic maple trees crouched a pair of stone gargoyles, each two feet high. Their faces were drawn back in hideous grins, their heather-colored wings eager to hunt.
Smiling, David inspected the layout. Whoever lived here knew her plants and loved them well.
Why do you assume it’s a woman? a voice asked. You love wildlife too.
But I saw her, David thought. Saw her climb onto the dock in her white two-piece and scurry into the woods.
So go to her door. Demand to know why she tried to strand you.
That made sense, David decided. Yet he hesitated. Despite the stress the woman had caused, he found he wasn’t all that angry with her. Mildly annoyed, sure. Who wouldn’t be? Yet as far as pranks went, hers had been pretty innocuous.
“I hope you’re not here to save my soul,” a voice behind him said.
David whirled and beheld an attractive woman grasping a leash. Rather than barking at him, the dog, which was medium-sized, white-haired, and looked almost as old as the woman, simply cocked its head at David as if he were some exotic creature.
The woman and the dog remained at the end of the drive, obviously having returned from a walk. She carried a knotted blue bag of the dog’s waste. A responsible pet owner, he thought. Even out here in the sticks where no one was likely to step in one of the dog’s surprises.
“What breed is he?” David asked, going toward them.
“The kind that doesn’t like aggressive men.”
The woman had long hair, parted in the middle and flowing over her shoulders like black silk. She wore a sleeveless white exercise shirt, black leggings that stopped just below her knees. She was curvy and very fit, her calves sculpted, her arms dark and toned. But it was her face he couldn’t get over. There was something familiar about her. She wasn’t smiling – was maybe close to scowling – but in the shape of her mouth he sensed someone who liked to smile, who frequently laughed. Her cheekbones were prominent, rounded, her lashes long. Her eyes were an atypically deep green, like the forest surrounding her property; her lips had a natural coral tint.
David realized he’d been staring.
He gestured toward the Camry. “I was out for a drive and….”
She lowered her face, waiting.
He opened his mouth, shut it. Chuckled and sighed. He put his hands on his hips and looked at her. “Did you push my kayak into the water?”
“The park closes at nine. You were there at midnight.”
He ventured a grin. “Is it your job to enforce the curfew?”
“I live next door,” she answered. “What goes on there affects me.”
“You act like I was setting fire to the place.”
“I don’t hear you explaining yourself.”
David realized the dog was glancing from face to face, taking in the exchange.
“I don’t need to explain myself,” David said.
The woman’s expression was inscrutable. She glanced at the dog, murmured, “Come on, Sebastian,” and when the old dog had finally made it to his feet, the woman started past David and said, “Get off my property.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Ah, come on.”
She kept walking.
“Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry for trespassing.”
She stopped but did not turn. “Now or the other night?”
“I don’t….” He hung his head. “Both, I guess. Can we just start over?”
She did turn then. Watched him expressionlessly.
&
nbsp; “I botched it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have surprised you like this.”
“You didn’t surprise me.”
“Well, that’s good.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Not giving an inch. “What about starting over?”
She eyed him a moment, then seemed to come to a decision.
“There’s no such thing as starting over,” she said. And with Sebastian in tow, she walked away.
Chapter Twenty
He drove the back roads a long while, his thoughts consumed by Anna. Anna with her sense of humor and her smoking habit and her un-self-aware beauty. Everyone had recognized her magnificence but her. And in the end, she had felt low enough to—
“Stop it,” he muttered, his voice hoarse. Goddammit, he could scarcely breathe, thinking about her.
So stop thinking about her. You can’t take it back.
His mood dismal, he drove the final fifty yards to the Alexander House and parked under a towering oak. Midafternoon, another night looming, and a day he’d hoped to spend on his book squandered.
So do something, David. That’s what work is for. To distract you from your disastrous personal life.
One corner of his mouth upturned in a grin, David reached down and pushed the trunk button. He went to the trunk and stared down with vague distaste at his ghost-hunting equipment. It was all nonsense, but his editor had impressed upon him the need to give the possibility of the paranormal fair shrift, and the only way to do that was to employ the tools of the true believers.
He chose the rechargeable infrared light. If he plugged it in now, it’d have plenty of juice by nightfall. Next, he selected the thermal camera. He’d need to charge it too. Moving cautiously, he carried everything to the house. The thermal camera, a nifty device that captured high-def video, had cost him more than four grand, and that was half a decade ago. If he broke it, he’d have to pay handsomely for a replacement. He found an outlet in the hallway and set both the infrared light and the thermal camera on to charge.
Returning to his trunk, he scanned his other equipment and eventually settled on the grid scope. Though it was as bogus as the other items he’d brought along, he enjoyed situating it on its tripod and watching the green laser patterns form on walls. One could adjust the type and intensity of the pattern; supposedly, the grid scope was helpful in picking up supernatural movement.
The Siren and the Specter Page 10