Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Series

by Blake Crouch

  B E A U T I F U L

  However, there is a locked room up there

  with an iron door that can’t be opened.

  It has all your bad dreams in it.

  It is hell.

  Some say the devil locks the door

  from the inside.

  Some say the angels locked it from the outside.

  The people inside have no water

  and are never allowed to touch.

  They crack like macadam.

  They are mute.

  They do not cry help

  except inside

  where their hearts are covered with grubs.

  —Anne Sexton, "Locked Doors"

  F o u r D a y s L a t e r

  50

  MONDAY morning, 10:00 a.m., Horace Boone leaned back in his chair and sipped from an enormous mug of coffee, watching through the window as the sun made its brilliant ascent above the Outer Banks, whetting the sky into cloudless November cobalt.

  It should’ve been a lovely morning, sitting in that warm sunlit nook of the Ocracoke Coffee Company, amid the smell of fresh coffee beans and newspapers and baking pastries and the murmurs of browsing customers in the adjoining Java Books.

  But Horace was a wreck.

  It had been four days now since he’d watched Andrew Thomas board the Island Hopper with that pretty young woman and taxi out through Silver Lake harbor into the sound. He’d waited and waited, staring through the windshield as the sky dumped cold unrelenting rain. An hour had passed and the Island Hopper returned without them.

  By nightfall there was still no sign of them so he made his way back to the Harper Castle B&B, had supper, and went to bed.

  First thing Friday morning, he returned to the Community Store docks. The Jeep Cherokee that Andrew and the woman had arrived in was gone. Horace drove to Howard’s Pub, saw that the Audi Andrew had rented wasn’t there either.

  Behind the wheel of his own subcompact rental, a tiny white Kia, Horace felt the hot tears begin to roll down his cheeks. Up until a few days ago he’d sensed that he was fated to tail Andrew Thomas and record his story. He’d managed to follow him nearly three thousand miles from Haines Junction, Yukon, to Denver International Airport. There, he’d lost Andrew in security, waited all weekend in despair near a stand of payphones in the food court of Terminal B, berating himself for flushing his savings on this ridiculous endeavor. Watching the stream of travelers, he resolved to fly back to Anchorage, apologize profusely to Professor Byron, and finish his MFA in the creative writing program. This last year of his life had been derailed by a twenty-four-year-old megalomaniac who fancied he would write a book about Andrew Thomas and become famous.

  As Horace gathered his backpack and came to his feet he stared down the terminal and watched in astonishment as the man he thought he’d lost glided toward him on the moving walkway. Andrew Thomas walked right up beside him, grabbed a payphone, and with his back turned to Horace, proceeded to make a phone call.

  Horace felt certain he was hallucinating but he stood there and listened as Andrew called the North Carolina Department of Transportation and inquired about the ferry schedules from the mainland to a place called Ocracoke Island. Had Horace any lingering doubt about whether fate and fortune were in his pocket, he then observed Andrew hang up, redial, and book a room at the Harper Castle B&B on Ocracoke for the following week.

  His rejuvenation was instantaneous.

  Once on Ocracoke, Horace spent Wednesday and Thursday following Andrew’s movements throughout the island—the two trips to the stone manor on the sound, Andrew’s visit to Tatum Boat Tours, Bubba’s Bait and Tackle, his peculiar meeting with the pretty blond at Howard’s Pub, and finally, Andrew and the blond’s departure on that boat in the middle of a nor’easter.

  Apparently they had returned late in the night and for some reason left the island. Had Horace waited by the docks he might be with them now. Instead he’d come thousands of miles only to lose Andrew permanently on a small island off the coast of North Carolina. He’d let the story of a lifetime slip away. Andrew was long gone by now, pursuing Luther Kite, in a story that Horace would never get to tell.

  No question, he’d missed the party.

  Horace set the coffee mug down on his little table and lifted the purple notebook containing the first four chapters of his book on Andrew Thomas. He didn’t have the heart to write about Andrew this morning. Thumbing through the pages, he relived the thrill of finding him and standing outside the window of Andrew’s cabin in Haines Junction, watching the master write. For a month at least, Horace had known hope.

  Rising from the table, he acknowledged that this would probably be his final morning on Ocracoke. But he wasn’t going to waste it as he’d done the last three days—driving aimlessly around the island searching for Andrew’s Audi and that blue Jeep Cherokee. Tonight he would try one last thing and if that proved futile (as he suspected it would) he’d fly back to Alaska, beg his parents for a little money, and never again do anything this reckless and stupid.

  51

  BETH and Violet stirred as we entered our fourth period of light.

  It passed through a crack in the stone and slanted through darkness—a dusty shaft of daylight come to illuminate our miserable faces for an hour.

  We sat across from one another in a cold stone room, our wrists manacled and chained to an iron D-ring, bolted to the rocky floor between our feet.

  A doorway opened into a dark corridor, through which spilled the disconcerting sounds of hammering and drilling that had been ongoing without respite for what seemed like days.

  I raised my head.

  In the twilight I could see that the women were also conscious.

  A stream of water trickled down the stone beside Violet.

  Two roaches crawled through the oval patch of daylight at my feet.

  A strained and hopeless silence bore down upon us.

  Beth wept softly as she always did when the light appeared.

  Violet sat stoical, a line of dried blood streaked from her scalp across the left side of her face.

  There was nothing any of us could say.

  We just stared at each other, three souls in hell, waiting for the darkness to come again.

  52

  LUTHER drilled the last hole into the right armrest. Rufus was screwing a leather ankle strap into the left front leg of the chair. Because the wood was oak the old man had to lean into the Phillips head to make the screw turn.

  "Lookin’ good, boys."

  Maxine stood in the narrow stone doorway, a glass of lemonade in each hand, the single bare light bulb accentuating deep creases in her face. "My Heart Belongs to Jesus" was spelled out in rhinestones across the front of her bright purple sweater.

  Father and son lay their tools on the dirt floor. Rufus grunted as he struggled to his feet. He walked over to Maxine, leaned down, planted a kiss on her forehead. Her big baby black eyes sparkled, her only feature that showed no age.

  "Bless your little heart," Rufus said and he took the glasses of lemonade from her and went and plopped down beside his son, their backs against the cool stone.

  They drank.

  Maxine stepped into the small room and sat in the chair.

  She lay her forearms on the armrests, looked over at her boys.

  "Zzzzzzzzzz!"

  The old woman shook violently and laughed.

  "Beautiful, you rattle that chair apart, we’ll strap you in for real."

  Luther finished off the lemonade, set it down.

  "What’s for supper, Mama?"

  Maxine got up, walked over to her son, framed his face in her hands.

  "Whatever my good boy wants. What does he want?"

  "Boiled shrimp."

  "You gonna help me peel ’em?"

  "Yes’m."

  Maxine gently slapped his pale drawn cheeks and lifted the empty glasses.

  She said, "Boy, I thought you were gonna take care of Andrew’s and that detective’s c
ars."

  "I moved them both over to the Pony Island Motel parking lot this morning."

  "Ah. Good. Well, can I say for the record what a colossal waste of time ya’ll are spending on this chair?"

  Rufus stood, pushed back his white tresses.

  "Now hold on there, Beautiful. Is it a waste of time to spend hours preparing for a fine dinner? You have to think of this as a gourmet meal. It takes a little more time, but it’ll all be worth it in the end. And this isn’t a one-time deal. Once the thing’s built, my God, it’ll last forever. Besides, I’m happy. Down here working with my boy. Making memories."

  Maxine said, "Well, I’m gonna go feed the guests, let them do their business. It’s funny—Andrew still thinks I’m senile from that Alzheimer’s bit I pulled on him."

  She disappeared into the dark corridor.

  Rufus gave Luther a hand, helped pull him to his feet.

  "All right, son. Once you get that copper plating screwed into the arms, what say we call it a day? I’ll help you and Mom peel the shrimp."

  The downstairs runs the length and breadth of the hundred and eighty-six-year-old house, unique to the island as the vast majority of residences sit several feet above ground to protect them from the flooding nor’easters and storm surges of hurricanes. Consequently, this basement has been underwater numerous times since its construction.

  It served as slave quarters in the 1830’s.

  Servant quarters at the turn of the century.

  One of the most extensive wine cellars in North Carolina in the 1920’s.

  A decade ago Rufus wired several rooms and passageways for electricity.

  The rest are lit by candle or not at all.

  The stone in one of the rooms is charred black all the way up to the ceiling.

  In another the rock is stained burgundy.

  Though Luther has spent a great deal of time down here, he’s still prone to losing his way, particularly when he ventures beyond the cluster of rooms near the stairs, a maze of confusing corridors that were lined with wine racks eighty years ago. Broken glass and pieces of cork can still be found in some of the nooks and crannies.

  Now Luther slips soundlessly through a pitchblack corridor, feeling his way along the wall. His parents are busy upstairs preparing food. He’ll join them shortly.

  At last his fingers register the break in the wall—the alcove where Andrew and the women wait.

  Luther stops, leans against the stone, listens.

  No one is talking. He hears breathing. Chains clinking.

  The little blond has been chained facing the doorway. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll come back when the light slips through so he can watch her from the shadows. But it’s enough now to know that she sits there, just a few feet away, sharing the darkness with him.

  53

  HORACE Boone pulled off Kill Devil Road and parked his Kia in the sand behind a yaupon shrub. Reaching into the backseat, he grabbed the flashlight he’d purchased earlier this afternoon at Bubba’s Bait and Tackle.

  It was nearing 10:00 p.m. on a cold and glorious November Monday, the sky more milky, star-ridden than any night in the last three years. Loading his precious purple notebook into a small backpack, he climbed out of the car, shut the door, stepped out into the road, blending seamlessly into the dark in black jeans, hiking boots, and a chocolate-colored fleece pullover.

  The night was windless, the first killing frost of the season beginning to blanch blades of grass and island shrubs. He started walking, past the mailbox, down the shadowy drive, the ceiling of live oaks and Spanish moss shielding the starry sky. Horace almost turned on the flashlight but then decided it might be prudent to arrive unannounced.

  He broke out of the grove and there loomed the House of Kite—crumbling masonry and rectangles of orange windowlight embossed against the blackwater sound. Andrew Thomas had come here twice last week, presumably in search of Luther Kite. Before abandoning Ocracoke and his dream for good, Horace felt an inexplicable pull to see this manor for himself.

  He crept along the perimeter of the live oak thicket until he faced the side of the house. The yard was a field of waist-high weeds. He dropped to the ground, crawled through them, the icy fingers grazing his cheeks.

  The moon lifted out of the live oaks, lit the sound.

  Horace scrambled to the corner of the great stone house. Rising, he palmed the granite, fuzzy with frosted fungi. Two steps and he peered through a tall and narrow window. The room was dark, empty. Bare bookshelves abounded. Embers glowed in a distant corner.

  Horace crept to the other side of the stoop where he knelt finally beneath the only lighted window on the first floor.

  He crouched in the sandy soil to rest.

  The night aged silently.

  He gazed up briefly into the stars, his breath clouding now in the damp southern chill.

  When he’d caught his wind, Horace turned and faced the house.

  He rose up slowly to the window ledge, stole a glance inside.

  He ducked down instantly, back against the stone, replaying what he’d just seen—a living room steeped in firelight, decaying furniture, and a pale-faced man with long black hair sitting directly across from him on a couch, staring through the window into nothing.

  Horace heard footsteps. He stood, peered back through the glass in time to see the long-haired man exit the living room into a foyer, where he stopped beneath a staircase. Plucking something off the wall, he reached forward, opened a little door, and stepped through into total darkness.

  Two seconds later, it hit Horace between the eyes—he thought of Andrew’s manuscript, Desert Places, and his descriptions of a man with long ebony hair and a pale "baby ass-smooth" face.

  Horace smiled but fear tempered the excitement—he’d found Luther Kite.

  And it suddenly occurred to him.

  What if Andrew had never left this island?

  What if Andrew Thomas was dead along with the blond who’d been with him?

  Horace sat down in the shadow of the House of Kite. For twenty minutes he watched the moon rise into the sky, mulling over whether he should do the safe thing—leave immediately and contact the police—or the ballsy thing that might make him famous.

  By the time Luther reemerged from the door beneath the staircase, Horace had made his decision. From the window he watched Luther trudge upstairs. A moment later, the last light on the second floor went out. Now, aside from the dwindling firelight in the living room hearth, the house stood still and dark.

  Horace came to his feet, moved quietly toward the stoop, and climbed four steps up to the door, his legs gone weak and rubbery. Regardless, he reached for the doorknob. It turned but the heavy door would not open. He leaned his weight into it, gave the wood a bump with his shoulder. It didn’t budge.

  Horace walked back down into the yard and jogged through the beach grass around the side of the house, the smell of woodsmoke strong at the chimney’s base. There were no windows on the north end—just a wall of granite pushing into the sky.

  The moon was high enough to set the backyard alight with its sickly-gleaming radiance. The Pamlico Sound stretched out before him, a black chasm, hugely silent and smooth as volcanic glass.

  Horace proceeded toward a stone porch with a jaw-dropping view of the sound, climbed several steps to the back door, and looked through screen and glass into a kitchen.

  He pulled on the screen door. It opened. He tried the next door knob and though it wouldn’t turn, the inner door appeared not to have been soundly closed.

  He thrust his shoulder against the door.

  It jarred open.

  Horace stepped into the kitchen and carefully shut the door behind him.

  There didn’t appear to be a single light in operation in the entire house.

  Nor was there any sound.

  The kitchen reeked of raw fish and vinegar.

  Horace inched forward. The splitting linoleum creaked.

  Three more steps and he reached the
intersection of two hallways, one leading to the front door, the other running the whole of the first floor into a room whose only light source emanated from the weak brown glow of those dying embers he’d glimpsed from outside.

  Horace crept across a dusty hardwood floor, through the corridor that led past the staircase into the foyer.