by Stella Hart
“Yes. It was uncharacteristically sweet of him, and I remember being very surprised by it,” Colette said. “Anyway, I said yes and tried to put the whole incident out of my mind. Then, about an hour later, I decided to trim one of the indoor plants your grandparents had in the foyer at the time, because one of them was shedding leaves all over the floor. I went into one of the garden sheds to find some secateurs, and I found your uncle in there.”
My skin prickled with curiosity. “What was he doing?”
“He had the bird on a bench, and he was operating on it.”
“Operating?”
“I don’t know what else to call it. He had a scalpel, needle, and thread, and it looked as if he’d conducted an autopsy on the bird. He was sewing it back up when I walked in on him.”
“That’s fucking weird.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought too.” Colette paused and swallowed audibly. I could tell the incident still had her shaken all these years later. “Technically, he didn’t do anything wrong. The bird was already dead when he got to it, so he didn’t hurt it. But it was still so strange, and it gave me such an odd feeling about him. What kind of teenager does things like that?”
“A psycho one.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. Guilt had crept into her tone. “Like I said, it made me think he was a bit creepy, but he didn’t actually do anything wrong. I suppose he could’ve just done it out of interest.”
My brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, he was a very smart young man, and he became a surgeon when he grew up, remember? He was actually one of the best transplant surgeons on the west coast,” she said. “So perhaps he decided he wanted to do that sort of work at a very young age, and the bird was just practice.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” I muttered, brows furrowing. I’d completely forgotten that Greg was a surgeon. “So is that all you remember about him? That he was a weird teenager?”
“No, there’s more,” Colette replied. Her tone had turned frosty. “The main reason I disliked him so much was because of the way he acted as an adult.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, as the eldest sibling, I always assumed he’d take over the estate when your grandparents decided to retire and move away. But he didn’t seem to have any interest in being here, even when he came back to the island after finishing medical school. He moved up to Avalon City and let your mother have the place instead, which was probably the only nice thing he ever did for her, though I suppose it was only for his own benefit in the end. He worked at the hospital in the city as well as the teaching hospital near Blackthorne, so it was probably more convenient for him to live there instead of here.” She paused and let out an annoyed sniff. “Anyway, after that, he hardly ever came back here to visit your mom, and he never went to visit your grandparents at their new place, either. It was like he didn’t really consider himself to be part of the family. Either that or he simply didn’t care about anyone but himself. I’d say the latter was more likely.”
My brows lifted. “What did you mean when you said it might’ve been the only nice thing he ever did for my mom?” I asked. “She’s never said a bad word about him, so I always thought they were close.”
“Not really. She loved him, but he was quite awful to her.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I always got the impression that he was envious of her, and that was why he behaved in such a way.”
“Why would he be envious of her?”
“I have no way of knowing for sure, but I always thought it was because your mother is so—” Colette stopped and made a soft humming sound, obviously searching for the right word. “Normal, I suppose. She’s always seemed like a perfectly normal person, and Gregory was always strange and antisocial. I think he resented her for her normalcy.”
“Right. What did he do to her that was so awful?”
“Well, I’ve already mentioned how he rarely came to visit her. It wasn’t my business, of course, so I never said anything, but I don’t think family members should be so distant with each other,” she said. “He never seemed happy for your mom, either. He’d just sulk and glower like a child if anything good happened to her. Did you know he didn’t even go to your parents’ engagement party or wedding?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It’s true. And here’s the worst part.” Colette lowered her voice. “After the wedding, your parents started trying for children right away. Your mom fell pregnant three times before you, and she lost all of them.”
I felt a pang in my guts. “Shit. She never told me that.”
“Yes, well, she probably doesn’t like to bring it up. I’m only telling you because it’s relevant to the story,” she replied. “Anyway, she told Gregory about the miscarriages when he finally came to visit one day. He didn’t seem sad for her at all. If anything, it seemed as if he was gloating. Like he was pleased that something hadn’t gone right for her for once. I think he even laughed about it, although I may have misinterpreted that particular moment. He could have been laughing at something else, I suppose.”
“Jesus, what an asshole.”
“Yes. Now you see why I never liked him very much.” Colette paused to concentrate as she placed another strip on my head. “He didn’t get any better when you were born, either. Part of me thought he might take a liking to you because you looked so similar to him. I suppose I thought he’d see that and form a bond with you. But he didn’t seem to care about you at all. He hardly ever came to visit you, either.”
“Yeah. I barely even remember what he looks like,” I said. “I mean, looked like.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Colette let out a long, heavy sigh. “Your mother still loved him despite it all, and she tried her best with him. I was very sad for her when he died in that terrible accident. For her to lose her husband and her brother like that…” She trailed off. “It was so awful. I worried she would never recover, because I know firsthand how terrible a loss like that feels, but she was very strong. Very brave. You should be proud of her, Nate.”
“Hm. Yeah.” I pressed my lips into a tight, grim line. My mother was strong and brave, sure, but she was also hiding a lot of shit from me and the rest of the world. There was no way she didn’t know that Greg was still alive.
Something else occurred to me all of a sudden, and I turned my head over my shoulder to look at Colette. “Why did Greg hang out with my father if he hated us all so much?” I asked. “I mean, they were in the car together when they crashed off that cliff, and Mom always said they were on their way to visit a mutual friend. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true. At least that’s what I was always told,” she said. “I think the two of them eventually realized they had some things in common—along with a few mutual friends—after Francis had been married to your mother for a few years. Gregory started being civil to him after that, and they became friends.”
“Right.” I wrinkled my forehead. “Do you remember anything else about Greg? Like any hobbies or interests he had apart from his job? Or places he liked to hang out? Maybe the names of some of his friends from the city?”
Colette pushed my head back around so she could put on the last Steri-Strip. “No, I don’t think so.”
“What about Greg’s old room in the house? Did Mom keep any of his things after he moved out?”
“Not to my knowledge. Why are you suddenly so curious about him, anyway?”
I hesitated. I couldn’t use my previous excuse—that I simply felt bad for not knowing much about him—because it was obvious by now that that wasn’t true. I was clearly angling for something else.
“The ten-year anniversary of the accident is coming up,” I finally said. “I was thinking of putting together a memorial thing for Mom, with stuff from Dad and Greg. But like I said before, I really didn’t know Greg that well, and I don’t have any of his things, so I’m a bit stuck on what to do.”
Colette came around
to my front and started dabbing at my right temple with a wet wipe to remove the dried blood that had spilled over my face earlier. “That’s a very sweet idea. I’m sure your mother will appreciate it,” she said. “Now, let me think… I know Gregory moved most of his things out of the house when he went to medical school, and the rest went to Avalon City when he moved up there, but there might still be a few things in the—” Her eyes went wide. “Oh!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head slightly. “I just remembered something that might help you.”
“What is it?”
“Actually, no. Forget it. It’s far too morbid.”
“Just tell me, Colette,” I said, rolling my eyes upward.
She blew out a deep breath. “All right. Obviously, you already know there was no body after the accident,” she said in a low, tentative tone. “Greg was just… gone.”
“Yes.”
“The day before his funeral, I bumped into your mother leaving the house. She had two big boxes in her arms. I asked if she wanted any help carrying them, but she said no. I was worried, because the boxes looked very heavy, so I asked if she was sure, but she seemed quite protective of them and insisted that she was fine on her own.”
“What was in them?”
“I couldn’t see because they were taped shut, but I think Annalise could tell I was curious, so she told me. She said it was some of Gregory’s things. Old personal effects and so on. She thought it would be nice to put it in his coffin as a sort of symbolic gesture, seeing as there was nothing else to bury.”
“Right.”
“I thought it was a good idea to help the family get some closure. It was very hard for them without a body. At least with your father, there was…” Colette trailed off, cheeks flushing pink.
“There was something left of him to bury,” I said, finishing her sentence for her.
She tightened her lips and nodded. “Sorry, Nate. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s fine. What were you saying?”
“Oh, yes. The boxes.” She straightened her shoulders. “From what I gathered, they contained things like old books and toys that Gregory had as a child or teenager, photos of him, and also some items from his house in Avalon City. So if you’re looking for ideas about his hobbies and interests, those boxes would probably be a good place to start.” She waved a hand. “But like I said, it’s a very morbid notion. You’d have to go into the family mausoleum and open his grave, and I doubt you’d want to do that. I couldn’t think of anything worse.”
“Yeah, it sounds pretty fucked up,” I said, smiling thinly.
I was going to do it as soon as I got out of here.
Colette finally finished patching up my head five minutes later. She ran me through a list of symptoms that I could experience later and made me promise to see a doctor if any of them actually happened. Then she let me go with a kiss on the cheek and a grumbled comment that went along the lines of, ‘If you keel over and die at any point in the next few days, I’ll never forgive you.’
I drove back to the main house and located the key to the family mausoleum. It was on the rack with the keys to all of Mom’s cars along with the mansion’s house and window keys. It was an old-fashioned looking thing, large and silver with an elaborate ornament at the end shaped in our family’s crest—a sloping arrow with a line crossing through the center.
After I had the key safely tucked away in my pocket, I went out to the biggest garden shed and rifled through it, hunting for useful tools. There was no way I’d be able to waltz right into the mausoleum and open up a grave on the wall. I’d need a crowbar, at the very least, and possibly a hammer too.
I loaded up my arms and dumped the stuff in the back of the car before peeling down the driveway and turning left on the road beyond. The Arcadia Bay cemetery lay on the outskirts of town, about twenty-five minutes away from the estate. By the time I got there, it was almost half past five, and the sun was just beginning to slip up the horizon, spilling fire over the clouds and tinging the fog with shades of pink, orange, and purple.
A large wrought iron gate and ivy-covered stone wall guarded the cemetery, and ancient trees lined the main path inside, so tall and wide that their gnarled branches acted as a canopy. Gravestones were visible all around me in varying shapes and sizes—small stone crosses barely peeking above the frosted grass, hulking slabs of marble with carved names, towering statues of angels.
I took a left halfway down the main path, heading for the cemetery’s private section, where the family plots and mausoleums lay. The path here was slightly narrower and lined with thick shrubs, along with a handful of cast iron lampposts. The light from them cast an eerie yellow glow over the lingering mist.
The Lockwood mausoleum rose up in the dim light ahead of me; a hulking marble and granite sepulcher with a steeply-pitched roof, fluted columns, and intricately-carved sculptures. At the front was a bronze door with a stained-glass window.
I unlocked the door and went inside, bracing myself against the freezing air. The huge space beyond was dark, but enough early morning light filtered in through the small window at the front to make it possible to get around without a flashlight.
A columbarium with niches for urns lined the back wall, for members of the family who chose cremation after death. The rest of the walls were lined with much larger nooks for coffins. Those in use were covered with stone, engraved with the details of whoever was interred there.
I spent the next twenty minutes searching for my uncle’s grave. I eventually located it in the middle of the left wall. Gregory Carson Lockwood. April 4, 1970 – December 7, 2009.
I used the tools to pry off the stone covering, and with gritted teeth, I pulled out the large tray that was wedged in the slot. Uncle Greg’s casket was made of dark polished wood with golden ornaments and handles.
As expected, there was no body inside. Just a couple of large boxes, exactly as Colette described. I hauled them out and dropped them on the floor, desperately hoping that some sort of clue about Greg’s life and habits would present itself from the material inside.
When I sliced open the tape on the first box, my brows shot up. There wasn’t a wide range of personal effects inside. It was just stacks of what appeared to be DVD cases. Each one had a first name and date on it, printed in small, messy handwriting.
Frowning, I opened the second box to find more of the same. There were a few old-fashioned VCR tapes in amongst the DVDs as well, all marked with the same handwriting.
I frowned and stepped back, wondering why the hell my mom put this stuff in here. Was Uncle Greg secretly into filmmaking, and these tapes and DVDs were his personal projects? Or were they sex tapes? If so, why the fuck would my mom know about them and leave them in his grave?
I closed the boxes, carried them out of the mausoleum, and carefully placed them in the back of the car, figuring I needed to take the tapes home and watch a few of them before I jumped to any more conclusions. If Greg actually made them, there could be hints in some of them that could lead me to his current location.
When I finally arrived back at the mansion, I took the boxes up to a spacious room right next to my bedroom. It had been converted into a personal home theater for me years ago, and there was an old DVD player in one of the cabinets. I found it, hooked it up to the huge flatscreen TV, and selected a DVD at random from the first box. Then I slid the disk in and hit play. This one was titled ‘Sarah – April 17, 2006’.
Nothing happened for the first couple of minutes. It was just a blurry shot of a room from a low angle. Then came the sound of shuffling feet, and a pair of black shoes appeared in the frame. A man stooped to pick up the camera. When he pulled it back slightly, ensuring that his whole face was on the screen, I realized it was Greg.
Now that I was finally seeing him again, the way I remembered him from the few times I saw him as a kid, I couldn’t believe I’d ever forgotten what he looked like. Colette was rig
ht—he looked quite similar to me. The only major differences were his nose, which was more of a hooked shape than mine, and his mouth, which was slightly thinner than my own.
The camera moved to a new location. Greg’s forehead creased as he tilted it until it was in the exact spot he wanted. Then he stepped away and left the room.
It was a large space with multiple fluorescent lamps that threw glaring blueish-white light over everything. The walls were dark beneath the plastic that had been hung up to cover them, and a stainless steel cabinet stood against one of them. Beyond that, in the center of the room, was a large black and gray operating table. A smaller table stood next to it, and on top of that was a silver tray laden with medical instruments and bottles.
On one of the other walls, a wide rack displayed saws, knives, and cleavers. Near that, a collection of chains, hooks, and shackles hung from the low ceiling, right over a large drain.
My chest tightened as I stared at the screen. I recognized the room. It was the place I tortured Alexis in when I had her down in the Blackthorne tunnels.
A sick realization began to dawn on me as I let the film play, but I tried to push it aside. It wasn’t possible. There was just no fucking way.
Somewhere offscreen, a plaintive cry echoed through the air. A few seconds later, a girl came into the shot, pushed along by Greg. She was naked and dirty with bruises on her body and blood caked around her nose. Her dark eyes were wide with terror, and her thin mouth drooped at the edges as she took in her new surroundings.
“What is this place?” she asked. There was a distinct tremor in her voice.
Greg smiled at her. “It’s time for you to go, Sarah. This is where it happens.”
The girl shook her head. “Please. No. You can’t do this.”
Greg let out a sigh, as if he were a parent dealing with an errant child. “Don’t be silly, sweetheart. You knew you weren’t getting out.”
“I… I can get you money. I can get in touch with my parents. Please, just give me a chance!”
“You’re worth a lot more to me dead than alive, sweetheart.”