He was past tears, his throat sore. He got out his phone to try and call Jamie again, but there was no cell reception. A sadistic fuck like William might want to mutilate her but ultimately keep her alive. Right? he wondered. There was a chance he hadn’t lost Jamie completely. He reached for the map and looked for any part of the park with big or brother in its name but couldn’t locate any. There was, however, a place called Lookout Point at the other end. The cover of 1984 showed an eye, watching. It was worth a shot.
Lookout Point was a hill at the edge of the park, which jutted out over a different river. When he reached it, he found a copy of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. He steeled himself for the next body part he might find, knowing that the leg was only the beginning. He flipped through the pages and came across an eyeball as a bookmark. It fell to the snow, staring back at him. Now he cried. He sank to his knees, bellowing “I’m sorry” into the wind. He’d been responsible for Mia dying at William’s hands, and now he’d caused Jamie’s death too. He thought of the time he and Jamie crashed a wedding in Brooklyn on a whim and made up crazy backstories and danced all night to Jewish klezmer music. And once when they went back to their hometowns in Wisconsin and went skinny-dipping in a lake, Jamie emerged with a leech on her ass, and instead of freaking out, she started laughing. He thought of early-morning cuddling sessions before their workdays began. It destroyed him that he’d never be able to feel her touch again. He was a harbinger of bad luck—all who came across his path perished. And he knew his final punishment would be to watch William dismember the second girl he’d truly loved, ten years after murdering the first.
He sat in the snow with Titus Andronicus, unaware that hypothermia was setting in. His ice-ridden brain managed to recall plot points from Shakespeare’s minor classic. The character of Aaron persuaded Titus to cut off his own hand to use as ransom for the return of Titus’s son, even though Aaron tricked him and his sons were already dead. Now William would take Jamie’s hands next. Soon there’d be nothing left of her.
He trudged to the car and read the map for any place with hands in its name. Hold Lane was a thruway in the park, so he headed there, obliterated, no longer human because he wasn’t dealing with a human anymore, only the devil at his most wicked. He almost missed the turnoff for Hold Lane because a note had been nailed to its sign, covering the lettering. He got out of the car to read it.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad.
Madmen know nothing.
I admit the deed!
Tear up the planks!
Here, here!—it is the beating of …
Kyle immediately recognized the lines from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-tale Heart.” He’d taken a Poe class his junior year with William, loving the writer’s gory, chilling humor. He never wanted to look at a Poe tale again.
A thumping sound beat from the ground below. He could feel it in what little sensation he had left in his toes. He frantically dug up a mound of snow to find a black box buried beneath. With bile lurching up his throat, he opened the box to find a speaker that mimicked a heartbeat sound along with a pair of cut-off hands holding a bleeding heart. He knew even before he picked up the box that Jamie was gone. He’d been too late. He launched the box with its dreadful contents and watched as it disappeared into the black sky. He yelled loud enough for the echoes to give him chills.
After he became too hoarse to scream anymore, he wandered back to the car, out for blood. He looked around for the shack, but he could barely see a few feet ahead thanks to the snow cover. He studied the map of the park again and considered the clues he’d been given. A leg. An eye. Hands holding a heart. He stared at the map even more closely until the park revealed itself to be the shape of a human body.
He knew precisely where to go next.
Right into its heart.
* * *
CLOSING IN ON the heart, Kyle’s cell phone buzzed. He almost didn’t answer it, too focused on what he’d do to William once they’d reunited for their final battle. He saw the call was coming from Jamie and expected to hear William’s voice on the other end.
“What did you do to her, you evil motherfucker?” Kyle shouted into the phone. “She wasn’t a part of any of this. She didn’t deserve—”
“Kyle?”
The voice was decidedly female. Definitely not William.
“Jamie?”
The steering wheel spun through his fingers as the car shot off the road. It crashed into a small tree, the air bag deploying. He fumbled for the phone, hearing a murmur of a voice on the other end.
“Jamie? Jamie, where did he take you?”
Blood gushed from his forehead, but he didn’t care.
“Kyle, I’m in the hospital.”
“But you’re alive,” he said, able to breathe again. “You’re alive?”
Jamie didn’t answer right away. A flash of Mia’s ghost exploded in his mind, and he worried he could be hallucinating again.
“It’s Sybil and her boyfriend, Erik,” Jamie said, frantic. He could hear it in her voice. Pure fear.
“What about them?”
“It’s William!” Jamie cried. “He was in my apartment. He was waiting for me but I was away all day. He drugged Sybil and Erik. And when Sybil woke up…”
Jamie let out a cry that gave him chills.
“Jamie, what? Tell me.”
“When she woke up, Erik was lying next to her. His heart had been cut out, his hands, his leg, even an eye.”
“Jesus Christ … I thought William had done that to you. That I’d lost you. I love you so much. I’m so sorry for everything.”
“Kyle, where are you now?”
“I’m in Connecticut. I’m going after him.”
“No, the police are on their way. Let them handle it.”
The reception started to break up. It was hard to tell what she was saying from the escalating winds. He held the phone close to his ear.
“Jamie, are you there?”
“You’re … breaking…”
“Stay in the hospital. Don’t go back to your apartment in case William has some trap waiting for you there.”
“Kyle, do not go after him.”
“This has to end now,” Kyle said.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you … about William,” Jamie said. “You tried to warn me—”
“I love you,” he said, clutching himself, pretending she was actually there soothing him.
“Oh, God, I can’t believe Erik is dead,” she sniffed.
“Wait. Then who’s in the shack?” Kyle asked.
“What?”
“If you aren’t there, who did he take to the shack?”
“Kyle, I can barely hear you. Please be safe—”
The phone went dead.
He tried to call her again, but there was no reception. He tipped his head back to the sky and murmured “Thank you,” even though he’d never believed in God before. Jamie was still alive, which meant that someone was fully looking out for him. Hopefully, they would keep watch over his safety too.
With the map from Devil’s Hopyard tucked under his arm, he made his way toward the heart of the park. When he saw the shack in the distance tilting to the west, it seemed less ominous than he imagined it would be. A rather ordinary wooden lean-to that no one would ever look twice at. He left the map by its entrance and picked up a heavy branch as a weapon. Slowly, he opened the creaky door.
It was dark inside. A sliver of moonlight cut through a hole in the roof. Someone or something was moving in the back, a moan escaping from the prisoner’s lips. He stepped in farther and saw it was Sierra chained to the floor, the tips of her fingers sliced off as she bled out.
“Help … me…” she croaked, her irises traveling up into her sockets, only the whites visible.
“Sierra?”
He dropped the heavy branch and took another step as the door shut and locked. William appeared from behind as a syringe stabbed into Kyle’s neck. He fell into William’s a
rms.
“Ssssshhh, sssssshhh,” William whispered, placing Kyle down gently on the floor.
Kyle stared at the devil in front of him, hovering, having patiently planned this endgame. A smile spread across William’s lips along with a laugh that began softly at first until it made the shack quake, and then unconsciousness took hold.
38
THE MOUSETRAP HAD broken three of Brett’s fingers. He spent the day at Lenox Hill Hospital, where a doctor put splints on them and then taped them all together. He returned to the office to read Devil’s Hopyard, hopped up on pain meds. He was surprised to find Darcy still at her desk. She was nibbling on a halved avocado in a Tupperware container and sprinkling it with salt from a shaker shaped like a book.
“What are you still doing here?” he asked, seeing two of her before they finally merged into one.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” she mumbled into her avocado. She brushed a strand of long hair over one eye.
“I’m in fucking pain,” he said. “But I’m also flying high from the meds they gave me so it’s all evening out.”
“I should’ve felt the package to make sure it was safe.”
“Where’s the manuscript now?”
She pointed toward his office as if she was afraid. He barreled inside and found it on his desk. He went to pick it up, forgetting his broken fingers, and it slipped from his hands.
“Goddamn it!”
Darcy came in with an ice packet. She held it to his fingers. Maybe it was the pain meds, but he had never found her so statuesque up until that moment. She usually worked in silence, saying little, easy to overlook. The most he knew about her was that she was from Colorado and had a little dog named Jane Austen that she liked to dress up in period garb. Her cubicle wall held evidence of that. She had been with him two—wait, no, three—years, longer than any other assistant.
“How’s your family in Colorado doing?” he asked.
“My family?” She brushed away her long hair until it wasn’t covering her eye anymore. “Mom and Dad are good. They’re thinking of retiring. Selling the ski lodge.”
“They own a ski lodge?”
She gave a sad nod, which told him this was something he should’ve already known.
“You wanna pick up that manuscript for me?” he asked, indicating his busted hand.
“Sure, Mr. Swenson.”
She used both hands, struggling to get a grip, and managed to get it back on the desk.
“Am I fucking mental for wanting to finish the rest?” he asked with a laugh. “William certainly thought it was worth getting my attention again.”
She tapped at her chin. “How important is an ending for you?”
“Meaning?”
“Can you really assess a novel without completing the whole thing?”
This was why he kept Darcy around. She was a mute ninety percent of the time but a fantastic fucking reader. She was his first eye on anything crossing his desk. She rarely called them wrong.
“Have you read any of it, Darcy?”
She gulped. “Yes. All day since you went to the hospital.”
“And what do you think?”
She took a moment to compose herself, clearly having rehearsed this since he’d left.
“It’s really badly written in parts,” she began. “But I think that’s the author’s point. To show William unraveling. And soon the line between the author and the professor disappears. I started to forget about the word choice and sentence structure, it just felt as if I’d entered a madman’s mind. I believed his ravings.”
“You think it’s true? That he actually killed this girl Mia Evans who went missing?”
Darcy seemed short of breath, as if it was hard for her to continue.
“Mr. Swenson … that’s not the only person he kills.”
“Who else?”
“First, this guy Erik Lassen. He dismembers him and leaves his body parts all over Devil’s Hopyard as clues.”
“How far did you get in the book?”
“To the end.”
Her voice became hushed. He realized they were the only two left in the office. It was late at night, later than he’d ever been at work. The place had an eerie hum to it that he found disconcerting.
“Who else does he kill?” Brett asked, tugging at his collar.
“Let me read it to you,” Darcy said, and sat at his desk.
Her bottom lip was quivering. She took a deep breath and turned to the final chapter.
“Devil’s Hopyard. Chapter 38. ‘Good night,’ William says, laying a kiss on the top of Kyle’s head. William waited for Kyle to wake up after injecting him with a heavy dose of GHB. He had bandaged up Sierra’s fingers to stop them from bleeding out. The police would come for him eventually. He’d either be dragged out of the shack dead or carted off to jail, but death would be a more dramatic end, so that was what he’d aim for. This would be all over the headlines tomorrow, his name trending. With the final manuscript in Brett Swenson’s hands, Burke & Burke would be foolish not to publish his masterpiece. Sensationalism sells!
“The world will always wonder: What came first, the idea for his modern classic or the egg??? Meaning, did he set out to write this novel to cope with killing Mia, OR did he murder her to have fodder for a surefire bestseller?
“But an even bigger question remained. Would its hero, Kyle Broder, live to tell the story?
“Readers are inclined to think that the hero MUST make it to the end. We hold our trust in this setup. It is an agreement between the author and the reader. But I think I’ve shown that my book zigs when you expect it to zag. I let the girlfriend, Jamie, live, dear readers, when you thought she had died. I kidnapped Kyle’s star protégée instead, for there can be only one true mentor and I am he. Kyle will watch as young Sierra pays the price for his mistakes. If he had trusted how good Devil’s Hopyard was and agreed to have it published, he wouldn’t be receiving a syringe with something way more sinister than a tranquilizer. But sometimes greatness comes from our biggest mistakes, right, Alexander Fleming? For the best way Devil’s Hopyard can end is with its so-called hero’s heart stopping. What could be more SHOCKING THAN THAT?
“Ah, I look over and see that Kyle’s eyes have finally opened!
“He stares at me. I creep over to Sierra and unravel her bandages until her blood coats the shack’s floor. She begins to convulse. Kyle tries to shut his eyes, but I keep them open. I make him watch. After a few minutes there is no way she can still be alive.
“‘Why?’ Kyle asks me, barely making a sound. I read his lips that look like a dead fish’s.
“And now we’ve reached the moment in the book where the villain normally reveals his diabolical plans, but not in this one. I won’t give Kyle or you readers the satisfaction. Soon the local police will show up. Since they are untrained dealing with a crime on this level, they will shoot before questioning. A shot would land right in my brain. This is the optimal ending, Kyle closing his eyes for good and then mine will shut too. I will return into the ground, to her, to Mia. And we’ll watch from below as our names unite the world in rapt horror.
“I have written a note for my wife, Laura, and my children. It has been left in Mia’s skeleton hands. I wrote it ten years ago on paper I made sure would never disintegrate. All my affairs are in order and I am ready to go.
“‘The truth is, Kyle, you are not the hero of this story,’ I tell him.
“‘Why?’ he manages to ask. This takes a great deal of struggle because I have loaded the syringe with pure strychnine and injected it in his shoulder.
“‘Because the hero is whoever wins at the end. Solves his quest. Realizes his full potential. A shelf in Barnes & Noble with Devil’s Hopyard front and center will prove who is the hero.’
“Kyle’s eyes flutter before closing.
“‘You were always my favorite pupil.’
“A loud knocking soon beats the door down. There is yelling and men in blue. One bullet in
the chest brings me to the ground. Another gets me right between my eyes. In that second before the lights go out, I envision Mia Evans walking into my class for the first time. I’m scribbling on the chalkboard and my fingers go numb. I foresee what our future holds—this vision all too real—as I speed through the next decade until that final bullet spirals toward my fate in Devil’s Hopyard.
“But in darkness, we ascend. In death, she and I become more alive than we ever were in life. We will be reincarnated and read my novel for the first time, again and again through the ages, each time clutching our hearts through its twists and turns, unaware that we are viewing our past lives, but completely enthralled by the tale.”
39
KYLE MANAGED TO open one gummy eye. The other lay flush against the shack’s floor. A metallic taste sat under his tongue. His hands had been tied tight with a chain around his wrists. A silver line of moonlight found its way through a broken slat, the only source of light. He parted the cobwebs in his brain, slowly circling back to reality. This was exactly how Mia met her end. He thought of her lying in the ground beneath him, waiting.
In the corner, William was bandaging up Sierra’s fingers. A large pool of blood had collected by her feet. She was unconscious, a limp doll in his arms. He noticed Kyle waking up and came closer.
“Ah,” William said. “You’ve opened your eyes.”
He carefully lifted Kyle’s head and propped it against the wall. It started to slip but he caught it.
“Why are you doing this?” Kyle managed to say.
From the way Kyle was positioned, he was able to see that a third person had entered the shack. Mia—just bones and dust, a handwritten note clasped in her skeleton fingers. With the soil flung around her, it looked like she’d erupted from the earth.
“I’ve dug up her body to make it as easy as possible for them,” William said, filling his syringe from a small brown bottle labeled STRYCHNINE.
The Mentor Page 26