Trying to control my jitters, I made a cup of tea and walked through the silent house, alone and more lonely than I had been in years. Was this the way it would be from now on? Just me, here, locked away from the ghosts?
I thought of Devlin and wondered where he was. He hadn’t tried to contact me all day, but then…who could blame him? All he knew was that I’d pushed him away and run out of his house like a madwoman. He’d followed me home, begging for an explanation, and all I could do was keep him locked out, too.
As I allowed myself a wallow in self-pity, Clayton Masterson slipped from my mind entirely. And that proved to be a very grave mistake.
I’d gone to the front window to glance out, and as I turned, a dizzy spell struck me. I stumbled and spilled my tea. The house was completely still so I don’t know what made me look up. Daniel Meakin was there at the top of the stairs, a timid, wary shadow staring down at me. Behind him, the bolted door that separated my apartment from the second story stood wide open.
Something came back to me then—Macon Dawes in the garden telling me he’d just come off a seventy-two-hour shift when I’d heard footsteps in his apartment two nights before. Someone had been up there walking around that night. Someone else had loosened those bolts, opened that door, and now I blinked to bring that someone into focus.
The room started to spin and I clutched the wall for support. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t rush me, but eased down the stairs in a half crouch.
I knew I should turn and try to make it to the front door. Escape was only a few steps away. But I couldn’t walk without holding on to the wall. Now my gaze fixated on the spilled tea. Had I been drugged?
With an effort, I lifted my head. “What—”
“It’s just a sedative and a muscle relaxant. Nothing that will harm you,” Daniel Meakin offered helpfully. “Perhaps you should sit down.”
I didn’t want to obey him, but I had no choice. My knees folded and I collapsed to the floor.
“Oh, dear,” he murmured, hurrying to my side. “That was much faster than I expected.” I tried to get up but he placed his hands on my shoulders and pressed me back. “Lie still now. You’ll hurt yourself if you try to move around. I suspect that’s impossible right now, anyway.”
He was right. My arms and legs had gone numb.
I lay back against the floor, trying to still the rotating ceiling.
“Here,” he said. “Let me make you more comfortable.” He bustled about, cleaning up the spilled tea and fetching a pillow from the parlor, which he carefully placed beneath my head. “Better?”
“Why?” I tried to whisper, but the sound came out thick and garbled.
He seemed to understand what I meant. He sank to the floor with a deep sigh, cradling his legs against his chest and resting his chin on his knees. “You have no idea how much I hate this,” he said. “You were one of the few people who ever saw me…really saw me, but you saw him, too, didn’t you?”
I shook my head helplessly and tried to speak.
“Shush,” he soothed. “It’s okay. I know about you. I know about your ability.”
How was that possible? Unless…
I thought of Tula Mackey’s description of the other boy:
…quiet, scrawny little thing. I used to see him out wandering the streets at all hours. Or just sitting alone on the front porch. I reckon that’s why he took up with Clayton Masterson. Poor kid was lonely.
My gaze moved to Daniel’s wrist. His shirtsleeve hid the scars, but I could still see them in my mind, a jagged crisscross of agony.
Clayton bound their wrists together and forced the knife into the kid’s hand. Forced him to plunge the blade into that poor dog’s heart.
The ghost of Clayton Masterson had worn shackles last night. One end fastened about his wrist, the other end dangling free…because Daniel had been waiting for him in the front yard. The silhouette I saw at the end of the porch…
Still clutching his legs, Daniel began to rock back and forth, humming beneath his breath. He laid his cheek on his knees and watched me. “Do you know why this house is safe for you?” he finally asked.
I shook my head again.
“There used to be an orphanage on the property. This is where the chapel was located. Eventually, there were so many orphans, they had to relocate to another facility out of the city. That place burned down in 1907 and a lot of the children died.”
The angels, I thought. Papa’s angels had a connection to this house. No wonder I felt so safe here. Until now…
He lifted his head and glanced around. “I knew this place was special the moment I first set foot inside. You’re lucky to have found it. Though I’m not sure luck had much to do with it. Everything happens for a reason. Why else were you sent to Oak Grove if not to free me?”
“How…long…?”
“Have I been watching you? Since that night at Rapture. I came here to keep track of you. I needed to know your weak nesses, your routine. How best to approach you. It was easy because your neighbor’s schedule is so erratic. But then when he left on vacation, I got the idea that I could stay here. That I might be safe here, too. But it was only a temporary reprieve. There is only one way I can truly be free of him.”
He reached over and very gently checked the dilation of my pupils. “I saw your face that night at Rapture, you know. You spotted Clayton’s ghost in the garden. No one else would have noticed that look in your eyes, but I knew. I knew.”
He went back to rocking.
“All these years, no one else could ever see him. You have no idea how lonely that was for me.”
“You’re…wrong…”
He put a hand on my arm in remorse. “Forgive me. I spoke out of turn. You’re the only one, perhaps in the whole world, who can understand what I’ve had to live with.”
I heard both wonder and sorrow in his voice.
Then his eyes filled with tears. “You can’t get rid of them, you know.”
“I…know.”
“No matter how deeply I sliced, I couldn’t cut him loose. And then I saw you at Rapture and I thought maybe there was hope after all. I went home that very night and began to plan how it would end. It took some time and I had to be careful that Clayton didn’t catch on. I knew he would try to find a way to stop me, but this time I was too clever for him. I finished my last book, put all my affairs in order and then I sent you clues so the bodies could be found. I couldn’t go with that on my conscience. I tried to give most of them a decent burial with the proper respect but it wasn’t always possible…”
“How…many?”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. “I don’t know. I’ve lost count. I tried to be judicious with the selection…choose only those poor souls that needed freeing. The rest was Clayton. The shackles, the torture…” He said the last word on a whisper. “I was once foolish enough to think that I could stop him, back when we were young. I was so happy when the police took him away that time—like I’d been reborn—but eventually he got out of that place and showed up at Emerson. When he told me what he had done to my cousin Afton…that he had been plotting her death for years to taunt me, to spite me…I knew I would have to find a way to end it. He would never leave me alone.”
“You…”
“Yes, I killed him. And his ghost has been bound to me all these years. Still making me kill.” He stared at me through tormented eyes. Haunted eyes. “You have no idea the things he’s forced me to do. Those poor women…”
He rocked now with his eyes closed. “Time and again I tried to end it…take my own life, but he always found a way to stop me. And then one day I realized that even if I managed to kill myself, he would have been waiting on the other side…binding me to him for all eternity…” His breath caught on a little sob, and in spite of everything, I felt a rush of pity because I knew he spoke the truth. He had been driven to the very brink of madness by Clayton’s ghost.
He sniffed and wiped his eyes. “But it�
�s all right now because I know now how to finally end it. Every last obstacle has been removed.”
“Camille…?”
He drew a shaky breath. “I didn’t want that. If there’d been any other way…”
He had killed Camille. Not Clayton. Whether he wanted to believe it or not, there was a bit of that monster inside him.
“I thought you’d caught something with your camera that day, but you were never a threat. It was Camille. She saw me on the path one night coming back from Oak Grove. I told her I was researching my book, but she was too smart for her own good and started asking questions. If she could have just left well enough alone for a little while longer, it wouldn’t have mattered. She could have gone to the police, told them what she suspected and I would have still been free of Clayton forever.”
“How…?”
“By allowing him to come to you, Amelia.”
An icy shiver went through me.
“After tonight it wouldn’t have mattered,” he repeated sadly.
And then I understood. The moment Clayton’s ghost latched onto me, Daniel planned to kill himself. It was the only way he could be free of his ghost. For all eternity.
“Sleep now,” he said softly. “It’ll soon be over.”
FORTY-ONE
I woke up with the taste of vomit in my mouth and the smell of decay in my nostrils. The surface beneath me was cold and rough, and something cut into my cheek so I tried to lift my head. A wave of nausea rolled over me and I retched violently.
Collapsing back to the floor, I lay perfectly still until my head began to clear. Bits and pieces came back to me. Daniel Meakin had been in my house. He’d confessed to killing Clayton Masterson. What was it Ethan had said about the murder? At least seven major stab wounds. It was a vicious kill.
He’d tried to free himself of his tormentor, only to find he was still bound to Clayton’s ghost. Now he meant to lure Clayton to me.
Stumbling to my feet, I shuffled forward until I felt the wall. It was damp and slimy, like the walls in the chamber below Oak Grove.
I reached down and patted my pocket, surprised to find he’d left my cell phone on me. Why wouldn’t he? There was no signal down here, no way of calling for help. At least the display offered some illumination and maybe that was his intention. I’d gotten the impression he wanted me to think kindly of him. It was important to him that I understand his motivation.
I did understand. But I couldn’t condone or forgive.
Holding the light up, I inspected my prison. Ancient, brick walls. Thick, drapey cobwebs. I had a feeling I was deep, deep underground, in an undiscovered part of the tunnel, but unlike before, I saw no opening, no door, no way out. Nothing but solid brick.
How could that be? He’d put me in here. There had to be a way out.
Unless the wall had been sealed behind me…
A scream welled in my throat, but I pushed it back down. I couldn’t panic. I couldn’t lose my focus or I would be doomed.
I walked the room again and again, tearing through the sticky webs and prying at bricks until my fingers were raw and bleeding.
Exhausted, I sank to the floor and buried my head in my hands. How would anyone know to look for me here behind a solid wall?
As I sat there, I felt a cold presence. Something stirred my hair, skimmed the back of my neck. Tugged at my hand…
My head came up in panic and I lifted the cell phone, but I could see nothing in the gloom.
Was Clayton already here? Terror washed over me and I scooted back against the wall, my eyes wide and searching.
After a moment, the coldness faded and I told myself I’d imagined it. I was still suffering some of the aftereffects of the drugs he’d put in my tea. He must have been observing me for some time to know my habits well enough to predict I would have a cup when I came home. Maybe he had peepholes in Macon’s apartment through which he’d been watching me.
I shivered and wrapped my arms around my middle. I was cold, scared and so very lost. I thought about Mama and Papa and Devlin. All the people I cared about. Would I ever see any of them again?
At some point, I must have dozed off, because I saw myself fleeing down an endless tunnel where hands reached through walls to grab me. I ran through rooms of hanging corpses, ghosts floating at my heels, and somewhere in the distance, always just beyond me, I could hear Devlin’s voice calling out to me. This way! Hurry!
But it wasn’t Devlin who guided me. It was Shani.
She tugged on my hand, urging me forward. Then, just ahead of us, I saw the ghost of Robert Fremont. He hovered beyond the hanging corpses, waiting for us. As we made our way to him, he turned and disappeared through the wall.
I could hear footsteps behind us and the sound of dragging chains. Tearing my way through the cobwebs, I closed my eyes and followed Fremont through the wall. I looked down at my hand. Shani was gone. For some reason, she hadn’t come through the wall with me. I wanted to go back for her, but the wall was solid now. I’d lost her….
With a start, I lifted my head and gazed around. I was alone in the chamber, but for a moment, I’d felt their presence so strongly…
Struggling to my feet, I walked over to the wall where I had seen Fremont disappear in my dream. I held up the cell phone and scrutinized every inch of the wall, finding nothing but badly crumbling mortar.
And then I saw it. My way out.
If a fly had led Devlin and me to that first hidden chamber, another would show me the way out of this one.
I would never have noticed the crack in the wall if not for the iridescent glint of a fly slipping through a tiny hole in the mortar. I traced the fracture with my fingertip.
It was a door of sorts, cut so that the bricks matched up perfectly when fitted into place. Setting aside the phone, I pressed with my hands, then leaned a shoulder against the bricks. Finally, I dropped to the floor and kicked as hard as I could until the panel fell away, revealing another chamber.
The smell of putrefaction rolled out of that opening, along with a black cloud of buzzing flies.
They lit on my arms, my face, my lips. I swatted them away and, pulling my shirt up over my mouth and nose, inched up to the hole with the light. The smell was definitely coming from inside. I gagged and rocked back on my heels, shuddering at what must lie beyond.
Bodies. The ones Daniel hadn’t had time to bury.
How many? I wondered.
I’ve lost count. I tried to be judicious with the selection…chosen only those poor souls that needed freeing…
Ignoring the crawl of tiny legs in my hair, I swung the cell phone light into the opening. More brick walls. More cobwebs. The silhouette of what I feared might be a hanging body.
And that smell. It was everywhere, permeating every crack and crevice, clinging to my clothes, my skin, the inside of my nostrils…
I pulled my shirt tighter against my nose.
As I stepped through the opening, water sloshed over my boots. The smell rose again, stronger than ever, and I wondered about that liquid beneath my feet.
I wouldn’t think about it…couldn’t think about it now….
My feet slipped from under me and I landed with a horrible splash. Water splattered into my face and I screamed. I pulled myself up, gasping and gagging.
Careful of my footing, I eased along in the darkness.
The drone of flies filled my head, making me thankful I couldn’t see beyond the anemic illumination of my cell phone.
I walked in a straight line as best I could until I came to another wall, and then I searched and searched until I finally stumbled upon a second opening. Wet and shivering, I crawled through only to find myself in a similar room.
Just when I despaired of ever getting out of that maze of chambers, I crept through yet another hole into a long, narrow tunnel. The air was fresher here and the fetid odor faded. I hoped that meant I was near an outside entrance.
I stood for the longest moment in an agony of indecision. Which
way to go? Then I heard footsteps coming up hard behind me, and I didn’t wait to see who would emerge from those shadows. Who else could it be but Meakin?
Turning, I fled down the tunnel, the cell phone barely lighting my way.
Scurrying through yet another hole, I found myself in a round, well-like enclosure and I knew exactly where I was. I glanced up and saw the soft lavender of a twilight sky and felt like weeping for joy.
I began to climb. I was almost all the way to the top when I heard footsteps, the scramble of a body through the hole and the clang of the metal ladder as my pursuer came up after me.
He said my name. Just that. Amelia. In that soft drawl I loved so much and I glanced down into Devlin’s upturned face a split second before a hand clamped around my wrist.
I would never have thought Daniel Meakin so strong, but he dragged me through the opening, slammed the cover shut and shot home a bolt that had not been there when Devlin and I had come up through the well weeks before.
Devlin pounded on the door and I tried to get to him, but Daniel grabbed me and I went at him like a demon, clawing, kicking, pounding him with my fists.
He cowered away, then whirled with a knife, slashing the blade across my upper arm. I felt searing pain and a gush of blood as I staggered back and fell to the ground.
He stood over me, but he was no longer alone. Now that twilight had fallen, the ghost of Clayton Masterson had slipped through the veil.
His right hand bound to Meakin’s left.
It was Clayton who had slashed my arm…
Daniel whimpered. “You can see him. I know you can. All you have to do is acknowledge him and it will all be over. Please…please…let it be over.”
It would be over for him, but not for me. So I did not acknowledge the ghost. I lay with my gaze fixed on Daniel. As blood gushed through my fingers.
He fell to his knees, face crumpling, and for a moment, he and the ghost were caught in a terrible struggle. I saw my chance and lunged for the well. My fingers closed over the bolt and I shot it back just as Daniel rose with the knife. I knew what he meant to do, but Devlin did not. As he flung open the door and came up out of the well, he saw Daniel standing over me with a bloody blade. He couldn’t see Clayton. He couldn’t know the battle that waged between them.
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