by Lisa Jackson
Her stomach clenched as she realized the last time she’d climbed down these stairs to the basement was the week of Noah’s disappearance. She, along with dozens of others, including the police, had searched the house from top to bottom, and she’d clambered down the old staircase at least a dozen times, her hope dwindling with each search.
Now, heart beating with the memory, she slapped the light switch and headed down the heavy plank steps. At the bottom of the staircase, she found another light switch, hit it, and suddenly the labyrinth of unfinished rooms was partially illuminated by five or six bare, dusty bulbs, one of which flickered out while the rest gave off a dim, feeble light that washed over the junk that was stored down here: shelves of empty jars, broken picture frames, and old sports equipment, even a slot machine that no longer worked.
Aside from Jacob’s bachelor apartment with its own exterior access and a wine cellar that Wyatt had insisted be built five years ago, the area was unfinished and had been so for nearly a century. She passed the glass door to her husband’s wine room with its perfect blend of temperature and humidity, and out of a sense of due diligence, she tried the mysterious key in the door, which was just plain silly. The room was new, its lock shiny and large. The key she’d found was old and the wrong shape. Of course it didn’t work, but as she tried to force the key into the lock, she looked through the glass door and noticed the labels on a few bottles before giving up.
She turned her attention to the main area of the cellar, a space that had been dug out and created with the rest of Neptune’s Gate.
The ceiling was low, and several times she was hit in the face by cobwebs that clung to her hair, leaving a sticky residue that couldn’t be brushed off. “Yuck,” she muttered, wiping her hands quickly over her face.
As she passed through aisles of clutter, she saw her grandmother’s sewing machine draped with its cover next to a pile of out-of-date textbooks from half a century earlier. Her uncle’s bow and arrows were hanging near a pair of hip waders and crab pots complete with floats. Nearby, next to the NordicTrack, she nearly tripped on a set of dumbbells and weights.
She’d always hated it down here.
If the dampness and the smell of mold wasn’t enough, the knowledge that this space was shared by mice, rats, wasps, and God only knew what else was unnerving.
But she felt compelled to check it out.
Her heart clenched when she spied a plastic tub of baby clothes, marked and labeled with Noah’s name. Next to the container were a few of his toys. She spied a fire truck with a broken wheel and a set of blocks, still in their box. Fondly, she touched the hemp-like mane of a rocking horse he’d never really used.
Her knees nearly gave way as she pried off the plastic lid and almost reverently dug through the sleepers, layette blankets, and jackets, clothes she’d boxed up before he’d turned two. She’d stored them on the shelf of the closet of one of the guest rooms, but obviously someone had taken it upon themselves to bring them down here. Her throat was thick as she fingered a tiny little pajama set made to look like a tuxedo, and she had to blink away tears when she remembered propping him under the Christmas tree that first year and taking twenty or thirty pictures with the new camera they’d bought just for the occasion. She opened one of the plastic bags and smelled the scent of the special baby soap she’d used to wash his clothes.
“I miss you,” she said, then, hearing footsteps overhead, refolded the tux, slipped it into its plastic sleeve, and returned it to the tub. Clearing her throat, she crammed the lid onto the plastic bin and returned it to its shelf.
She couldn’t spend much more time down here or she’d be missed, and she didn’t want to explain herself.
Reaching into her pocket, she grabbed the key again and began searching for old lockboxes or desks or drawers, anything with a lock. It seemed a nearly impossible task, as a hundred years of broken, forgotten, or outgrown clutter surrounded her. Generation after generation of Churches had stored unused items between the old walls of the basement.
Starting at the far end near the ancient furnace with its huge ducts, she searched through the discarded junk and uncovered one lock after another.
First, she slipped the key into the lock of a rolltop desk.
No go.
Next, two trunks from another century.
Uh-uh, but there was evidence of mice or rats on the clothes from a long-ago era that smelled vaguely of mothballs.
Shuddering, she reminded herself to have this place cleaned.
She uncovered an attaché case and diary, both locked, but their keyholes were much too small, and as she walked through the dingy place, she became more and more creeped out. It was like picking her way through the ghosts of her ancestors, and a chill crawled up her spine, a chill that had nothing to do with the cool temperature within.
Don’t let your nerves get the better of you.
Spying a dusty secretary desk in the corner of a room that had only been framed in, she threaded the key into the lock. For a second she felt triumph, but the key wouldn’t budge one iota. “Useless,” she told herself. She’d been in the basement nearly an hour, and she still had no idea where the damned key belonged. Maybe it had nothing to do with Neptune’s Gate at all.
She stood in the middle of the room and tried to concentrate, to come up with a logical idea for what the key was used for.
“Nothing,” she said, the musty smell of the low-ceilinged room heavy in her nostrils. The damned key is probably just part of a prank. Right up Jewel-Anne’s alley.
“But why?” she wondered. Was the girl bored, or just mean-spirited?
Shaking her head, Ava moved on. She found a vanity with a mirror that folded out into three sections. Her image in the dusty, speckled glass appeared worried and wan, on edge. “Well, duh,” she whispered to the woman in the reflection. In her mind’s eye, she saw her grandmother, seated on this faded, padded bench in her bedroom on the second floor—the same bench where Wyatt had been known to crash—and looking at herself in the mirror. Grannie always wore her hair wound into a knot, a perfect twist of snow-white hair, but at night, she’d let it down and stroke it in front of the mirror, her white locks still thick as they curled past her bony shoulders. Ava had been allowed inside the room that smelled of Joy, an expensive jasmine and rose fragrance rumored to have been favored by Jacqueline Onassis, or so Grannie had bragged as she’d turned her head in the mirror to view her profile, then push up the bit of a sag beneath her chin. She’d also been allowed to brush Grannie’s hair, a privilege that wasn’t bestowed upon any of her other grandchildren.
A cool breath of stale air touched the back of her neck and Ava shivered. She could almost hear her grandmother whispering, Don’t give up, Ava. You’re a Church, a fighter. And don’t be played for a fool . . . oh, no, that would never do . . .
BANG!
Ava gave an involuntary cry and jumped from the bench at the sound. Something hard had fallen onto the concrete floor. Banging her knee on the vanity, shaking the mirror in the process, she dropped the key as she whipped around, looking through the shadowy, draped clusters of furniture.
“Who’s there?” she said, her heart thumping, her nerves as taut as bowstrings.
But nothing moved.
Everything was still.
Aside from her wild, galumphing heart.
“Show yourself!”
Her throat was dry as she squinted through the two-by-fours of the unfinished wall and past the odd shapes of discarded furniture.
No one appeared.
No sound or smell indicated she wasn’t alone.
But she had the distinct feeling that someone was hiding in the shadows. Watching.
She strained to hear and thought, just briefly, that she heard the sound of music, an ancient Elvis hit, probably whispering through the dirty air ducts overhead.
She forced her breathing back to normal levels.
She hadn’t imagined the sound.
Something definitely
had fallen.
And not on its own.
Still eyeing the shadowy room, she bent her knees and felt along the cracked floor for the key. When she didn’t immediately find it, she used the flashlight app on her cell to illuminate the area and found that the key had slipped beneath the vanity. She grabbed the tiny piece of metal and straightened, her face turned toward the dusty mirror.
An image moved in the reflection, a dark shadow that quickly darted across all three mirrors.
Whirling, her skin crawling, Ava forced her eyes in the direction of the movement, reversing it in her head as it would move opposite of what she’d seen. Toward the stairs. “Who are you?” she demanded, straining to hear footsteps.
Nothing.
Oh, God.
Maybe it was her imagination, her sick mind playing tricks on her. No. She’d seen something! She had!
Her throat dry with dread, she moved forward, shining the beam of her phone flashlight into all the hidden corners where someone could hide.
What if he’s got a weapon? A knife? Or a gun?
A cold fear settled in the pit of her stomach, and her entire body broke into a cold, damp sweat as she edged her way through the shadows and dust, following her flashlight’s tiny beam, ready to jump out of her skin if the light caught in someone, or something’s, eyes.
Dear God, she was really freaking herself out. She made her way toward the stairs but stopped when she saw Noah’s toys. The rocking horse was moving, back and forth.
Her heart pounded and she looked over her shoulder, half expecting someone to jump out at her.
Someone was in the basement.
“I know you’re here,” she warned. “What is this?”
But no one answered. All she heard over her own shallow breathing was the creak of the floor overhead.
There was nothing more she could do down here, and truth be told, she wasn’t in the mood to sit in the semidark trying to coax some sicko from his—or her—hiding spot.
“Fine. Sit down here if you want. But I’m locking the door!” Heart beating a frightened tattoo, she mounted the stairs, and only when she’d reached the top, did she take a breath.
She closed the door to the stairs and was about to make good on her promise to lock the door when she heard the distinctive whine of Jewel-Anne’s wheelchair. A second later, her cousin, earbuds in place, buzzed around the corner. Upon spying Ava, Jewel-Anne appeared surprised for just an instant, then smiled slyly and shook her head. “You were in the basement?” She pulled a face as she stared at Ava’s shoulders and hair, popping out one of her earbuds, the soft notes of Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds” sounding tinny and faint. “What for?” Jewel-Anne wrinkled her nose. “It’s nasty down there.”
Ava tried again to flick the cobwebs from her mussed hair. “How would you know?”
“What?” Jewel-Anne whispered, stricken for an instant. Wounded. Her fingers clenched over the wheel of her chair and she blinked hard against tears. “Low blow, Ava,” she said roughly.
Ava felt like a bit of a heel.
“We’re caught in a trap . . .” Elvis warbled almost inaudibly.
Then her cousin’s lips pursed self-righteously and she lifted her little chin defiantly. “You know, Ava, I haven’t always been in this chair. If you hadn’t insisted we go out boating that day, Kelvin would still be alive and I’d be able to walk!”
“You’ve got to stop laying the blame on me,” she shot back, sick of Jewel-Anne’s warped view. “The accident wasn’t my fault.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Jewel-Anne said before reversing her electric contraption and calling over her shoulder as she rolled out of sight, “Maybe someday you’ll convince yourself.”
Torn between fury and, yes, guilt, Ava sagged against the door frame. Intellectually she knew that Jewel-Anne was completely wrong, but sometimes it sure felt like someone was to blame. That emotion she totally understood.
CHAPTER 15
Dern hadn’t counted on Ava Garrison being as sharp as she was. From what he’d understood, she was a basket case, one step out of the loony bin, but the information had been wrong. After hauling her out of the bay on the first night, he’d discovered that she was far more intelligent and intuitive than he’d been led to believe. In fact, he decided as he kept to the shadows as he made his way back from the main house to his apartment, she was a force to be reckoned with.
“The best laid plans . . . ,” he muttered under his breath as he quickly climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and stepped into his temporary home.
Rover was anxiously waiting for him and giving him the evil eye as only a dog can do for being left to his own devices. “You can’t always come along, y’know.” Dern scratched the shepherd behind his ear and was, it seemed, immediately forgiven. The old dog grunted in pleasure as Dern scratched his back.
“Our secret, okay?”
As if he understood, Rover let out a soft woof, then, when Dern straightened, padded over to his spot by the fire and settled in. “Good boy,” Dern muttered as he fired up his laptop and stuck his connection device and jump drive into the appropriate USB ports.
Within seconds he was connected to the Internet and double-checking all the files he had on Ava Church Garrison as well as Church Island, Neptune’s Gate, and the people who had lived and worked on this miserable scrap of an island. The history of the island was in one file, ties to Anchorville in another, and there was another dedicated entirely to Sea Cliff. His jaw tightened as he thought about the crumbling asylum. He’d scaled a fence and walked through the old hallways where staff members and patients had once worked and lived. Aside from a thick layer of dust, stagnant air, and a general feeling of neglect, the building was intact. On the outside, however, where the wind and rain buffeted the walls, the feeling of abandonment was more pronounced. Picnic tables were rotting, their paint peeling, the dappling of seagull droppings ever-present.
With his collar turned toward the elements, he’d walked around the outdoor area inside the fence. The old familiar paths in the grass had become overgrown, barely visible with the new growth of weeds and the concrete walkways had cracked.
Disuse and despair, that’s what remained.
Sea Cliff hadn’t been built as a prison, and yet that’s what it had come to symbolize.
At least for Dern.
He just had to keep up the charade.
For as long as it took.
He started to second-guess his reasons for being here but quickly dismissed any lingering doubts. Ava Garrison wasn’t going to ruin his plans. If she became more of a problem, he’d just deal with her.
It wasn’t as if she were the first woman to get in his way.
She wouldn’t be the last.
That thought stopped him short because he had a tiny, niggling suspicion that dismissing Ava Church might not be so easy to do.
The dock was empty.
Even through the shifting fog, Ava saw that her boy wasn’t standing near the water.
“Mommy!” His voice called to her, and she threw off the covers. Naked, the breath of winter’s air caressing her skin, she reached for her robe, but it was caught on the hook of the door and wouldn’t budge.
“Mommy . . . ?”
Oh, God, he sounded frightened. “Noah! I’m coming.” She flung open her bedroom door and found herself in the boathouse where the smell of diesel and brackish water filled her nostrils. Why was Noah here? Her eyes searched the murky waters, but all she saw was her own naked reflection and that of a man standing behind her, just over her left shoulder. Austin Dern, his eyes full of secrets, met her gaze in the undulating surface. He, too, was naked, and when he reached for her, placing a hand around her torso, strong fingers pressing into the flesh over her ribs, she gasped.
“Mommy?”
Noah’s voice again. She turned and Dern disappeared, like a puff of smoke as she reached for the door of the boathouse and stepped outside. Dawn was streaking the morning sky as she raced baref
oot up the path to the porch and inside. Taking the back stairs, she ran to the second floor and heard Noah’s tiny voice calling her.
“I’m coming, baby!” she yelled, flying along the hallway, her feet slapping the wooden floors, the spindles of the railing near the front stairs rushing by in a blur.
At Noah’s door, she heard him sobbing. “Oh, honey,” she said brokenly. Her heart leaped at the thought of seeing him again. It had been so long, so damned long . . . She yanked on the doorknob.
Nothing.
Again, she grabbed hold of the glass knob and twisted hard.
It didn’t budge.
“Noah?” Oh, God, had he stopped calling for her? “Mommy’s here, just on the other side of the door. You didn’t lock it, did you, sweetie?”
She pulled with all her might, her muscles straining, her shoulders aching. Through the door, she could hear his sobbing, his soft little cries.
Her heart shattered into a million pieces. “I’m coming!” Closing her eyes, she grabbed the door handle with both hands, twisting and throwing herself backward.
The glass knob came off in her hands, cutting her palms and fingers. “Noah?” she called, and heard him whimper.
Looking through the hole left by the broken knob, she saw into her son’s room where all had gone quiet except for the tinkling notes from the mobile as it spun slowly over his crib. The tiny seahorse and crab seemed to be laughing at her, and she knew in her heart that her son was gone again.
Falling onto the floor, she lay in a shivering puddle of despair and terror. “Noah,” she whispered brokenly, her tears mingling with the blood dripping from her clenched fists, “where are you? Where? ”
“Ava!” Wyatt’s sharp voice cut into her sobs. “Ava! Wake up!”
Strong fingers wrapped around her shoulders, and she blinked hard against the sunlight streaming through the windows. Wyatt was leaning over the bed, shaking her gently.
“What?” she whispered, then sat up and scooted into the pillows toward the headboard, away from him. The dream, so real, clawed at her brain; she actually looked at her hands for any trace of blood, but they were unmarked, not so much as a scratch upon them. A dream. Only another dream.