“Hey, Dad!” Jody called from downstairs. “Dad?”
George brushed past her on his way to the bedroom door. “Goddamn you for doing this,” he growled. Then he went downstairs to their son.
Ina wasn’t the only one feeling uncertain. In the weeks that followed, it got so that George wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay married to her, either. They’d been having problems for at least two years. They’d seen a counselor-six counselors, in fact-until she found one she liked: a “feelings physician” (at least that’s what it had said on her shingle) with gobs of turquoise jewelry and green-tinted glasses. George hadn’t noticed any medical degrees hanging on her wall, but she’d insisted on being called “Doctor.” After twenty minutes of stroking a mangy cat in her lap and listening only to Ina, she’d suggested a trial separation. George had walked out on the session. Ina still went to her once every two weeks on her own. All too often Ina quoted her: “Dr. Racine says I should assert myself. Dr. Racine says I need to be more selfish. Dr. Racine says I need to take time to focus on myself.”
He really had to hold his tongue when Ina came out with lulus like that. Ina was beautiful, funny, and intelligent, but as Ina’s sister, Jenna, often said, “Ina’s only really happy when it’s all about Ina.”
George had already known that about her. But he’d been in love. He used to feel so lucky. He was just a history professor with a modest income and, somehow, he’d landed this gorgeous woman who had so much class and style. Plus, she and her sister were loaded. The money part never really mattered to him. But Ina could have easily paired off with some hotshot millionaire who played polo and drove a Porsche. George hadn’t even owned a car when he’d met her, and his idea of a terrific time was sitting on the beach, gobbling up a new biography of FDR. And yet he was the one she wanted.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always been afraid she would get bored with him. And now that she had, it broke his heart.
Just recently, he’d started imagining his life without her. He thought about a divorce-after fourteen years together. She would get the house, of course. They’d bought it with her money-a four-bedroom split-level in West Seattle. She’d gone nuts decorating it. He wouldn’t miss it. He’d do just fine in an apartment somewhere near the University District, so he could be close to school. But the place would need at least two bedrooms for when Jody and Steffie visited. Visits with his kids, allotted time with them; the notion made him sick.
He wanted to keep the marriage going for the kids. Yet Ina wasn’t exactly the most nurturing mother around; at least, it seemed that way lately. All of Ina’s shortcomings had become glaringly obvious once he knew about her and Mark. He studied the way she treated Jody and Stephanie, and noticed when she ignored them, or was curt with them, or when she had them fetching things because she was too lazy to get off her ass. “Jody, honey, get me my purse…”).
Then again, maybe he was just hypercritical of Ina because somewhere along the line, while wrestling with all his hurt, confusion and anger, he’d fallen out of love with her.
He had to be fair. She wasn’t a bad mother. And he was in no position to criticize Ina’s parenting skills right now. At least Ina had never lost one of the children while shopping.
It had happened so quickly. George had gotten a saleswoman in Pottery Barn to help him, and together they’d found the stupid eight-inch pillars in fig. She’d been ringing up his sale when Jody had come up to the counter and squinted at his father. “Where’s Steffie?” Jody had asked, scouting out the general vicinity. “Didn’t she come back to you, Dad? She said she was gonna…”
“But I left her with you,” George had murmured.
She’d been missing for almost twenty minutes now. In his jacket pocket, George felt her inhaler. Stephanie had asthma. What if she was having an attack right now?
He couldn’t get past the awful feeling that he’d never see his daughter again. God, please, if I can find Stephanie, I’ll work things out with Ina. I’ll do whatever she wants. I’ll even go see that stupid Dr. Racine with her. Just please bring Steffie back to me.
Jody had been peeking into different shops on the shopping mall’s main level. Now he hurried back to George at the concierge desk. Shaking his head, Jody looked so forlorn. “Dad, I’m sorry,” he said, his lip quivering. “It’s all my fault-”
George mussed his son’s unruly, brown hair. “It’s all right, Jody. We’ll find her.”
He asked the concierge to make the announcement again. Then he put down his shopping bags and turned to Jody. “You stay here and keep your eyes peeled,” he said. “I’ll start on the top floor and work my way down. Have the woman call my cell if Steffie shows up. Okay, sport?”
Jody nodded. George kissed his forehead, then hurried toward the escalator. “Stephanie! Steffie?” he called, loudly. People stopped to stare at him, several of them scowling. He didn’t care. He brushed past shoppers on the escalator, saying, “Excuse me,” over and over again. He yelled out Stephanie’s name a few more times. He kept looking around as he moved from each shopping level, stepping off one escalator and starting up a new one.
As George reached the top floor, where the restaurants and movie theaters were, he felt his cell phone vibrating. He stopped in his tracks. He quickly snatched the phone out of his jacket pocket, then switched it on. “Yes, hello?” he asked anxiously.
“Uncle George?”
“Amelia?” he asked.
“Yeah, hi, listen,” she said. “Has Aunt Ina called you from the cabin today?”
Flustered, he shook his head. “Not yet,” he said into the phone. “She’s supposed to call from that diner near the cabin when they go to breakfast. I’m sorry, Amelia, but I-”
“Uncle George, it’s past noon. She should have called by now-”
“Amelia, honey, I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something. I need to call you back.”
“No! Don’t hang up, please! Uncle George, something happened at the Lake Wenatchee house, something horrible.”
He stood by the entrance of a fifties diner with the cell phone to one ear and a finger in the other to block out all the noise. “What are you talking about?” he asked, trying not to sound impatient.
“Remember how when Collin died, I knew before everyone else? Remember that premonition I had? Well, this is the same thing. I feel it. I know something happened at the cabin. You probably think I’m crazy. But I’m scared, Uncle George. My gut instinct tells me they’re all dead-Mom, Dad, and Ina. I hope to God I’m wrong-”
“Amelia, I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something right now. It’s an emergency. Let me call you back-”
“This is an emergency too, Uncle George! I’m serious-”
“Honey, I’m going to hang up, okay? I–I’ll call you back just as soon as I can, all right?” Wincing, George clicked off the line. He felt awful hanging up on her, but he just didn’t have time for Amelia’s dramatics right now.
He hadn’t even gotten the cell phone back into his pocket when it vibrated again. “Oh, Jesus, please, Amelia, leave me alone,” he muttered. He clicked on the phone, and sighed. “Yes?”
“Mr. McMillan, this is Jennifer, the concierge. Your daughter’s okay. She hadn’t wandered too far. She heard the last announcement, and came right to us. She’s here at the desk, waiting for you….”
“Oh, thank God,” he whispered. “Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you very much.”
Fifteen minutes later, he was walking with the children toward the Pine Street lot where he’d parked the car. George gripped Stephanie’s little hand. He felt as if he’d just dodged a bullet. He’d thanked the concierge, stopped by Pottery Barn to tell the saleswoman all was well, and he’d assured Jody that he wasn’t mad at him for letting Stephanie wander off. But he still had some unfinished business.
He needed to call back Amelia, and he didn’t want to. She’d been babbling on about some premonition she’d had that her parents and Ina were all dead.
; “Okay, watch your fingers and feet, pumpkin,” he said, helping Stephanie into the backseat. He shut the car door and made sure she was locked in. While Jody climbed into the front passenger side, George stashed the Old Navy and Pottery Barn bags in the trunk. He closed it, and then glanced at his wristwatch: 12:35.
Ina definitely should have phoned by now.
He checked his cell to see if he might have missed a call. There were no messages. The only call had been the one from Amelia.
Pulling at her leash, the eleven-year-old collie led the way. Abby knew exactly where her owner was headed. She had that sixth sense some dogs had. When they came to a split in the forest’s crude path, Abby sniffed at the ground and quickly veered onto the trail that went along the lake’s edge-toward the Faradays’ house.
“That’s a good girl,” Helene Sumner said, holding the leash tightly. A chilly autumn wind whipped across the lake, and she turned up the collar to her windbreaker. Helene was sixty-seven and thin, with close-cropped gray hair. She was an artist, working with silk screens. She had a studio in her house, about a half mile down the lake from the Faradays’ place.
Helene had hardly gotten any sleep last night. When those shots had gone off at 2:30 this morning, Abby had started barking. She leapt up from her little comforter in the corner of the bedroom and onto Helene’s bed. The poor thing was trembling. So was Helene. She wasn’t accustomed to being woken up in the middle of the night like that.
Hunting was prohibited in the area, and even if it were allowed, what in God’s name were they hunting at that hour? The tall trees surrounding the lake played with the acoustics, and sounds traveled across the water. Those shots rang out so clearly, they could have been fired in Helene’s backyard. But she knew where they’d come from.
She’d just started to doze off again when another loud bang went off around five o’clock. Helene dragged herself out of bed and threw on her windbreaker. Grabbing a pair of field glasses, she walked with Abby to the lake’s edge, and then peered over at the Faradays’ house. No activity, no lights on, nothing.
She retreated to the house, crawled back into bed and nodded off until 10:30-very unlike her.
An hour ago, while having her breakfast-coffee and the last of her homemade biscuits-Helene had figured out who must have encroached on her sanctuary. Those three loud shots in the early morning hours must have been some kind of fireworks-bottle rockets or firecrackers.
Now, walking with Abby along the lakeside path, Helene gazed at the Faraday place and thought about the daughter, Amelia. She used to be such a polite, considerate girl-and so beautiful. But there was an underlying sadness about her, too. And talk about sad, it was such a tragedy when the Faradays’ son drowned. It had been around that time, maybe even before, when Amelia and her lowlife boyfriend had started showing up at the weekend house without her parents. They were so obnoxious. Helene didn’t care about the skinny-dipping, but did they have to be so loud? She heard their screaming and laughing until all hours of the night, and sometimes it was punctuated by bottles smashing. They trashed the lake, too. Helene would find food wrappers, cigarette butts, and beer cans washed up on her shore after each one of their clandestine visits. Those kids were making a cesspool out of her lake.
About a month ago, when the Faradays had come for a weekend, Helene stopped by with a Bundt cake and offered her belated condolences about Collin. Then, privately, she talked to Amelia about her secret trips there with her boyfriend. “It’s none of my business what you do with him, Amelia,” she told her, walking along the trail beside the water. “But I wish you’d be a little less noisy about it. And so help me God, I’m going to say something to your parents if I see one more piece of garbage in that lake. It’s my lake, too, and I won’t let you and your boyfriend pollute it.”
Amelia stopped and gaped at her with those big, beautiful eyes and a put-on innocent expression. “Oh, Ms. Sumner, I–I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured. “I haven’t come here with my boyfriend. I swear. Shane’s never been here. You must be mistaken.”
Helene shook her head. “You can deny it all you want. I know what I saw, Amelia. I’m really disappointed in you….”
Now, as she approached the Faradays’ front porch, Helene figured she’d get the same Little Miss Innocent routine from Amelia as last time. She would probably wake her up-along with her boyfriend-since they’d been lighting off firecrackers until the wee hours of the morning.
But something suddenly occurred to Helene that made her hesitate at the Faradays’ front stoop. Why didn’t she hear any laughing or screaming? People always laughed, yelled, or cheered when they let off fireworks. But there hadn’t been a human sound-just those shots.
Abby sniffed at the front door to the Faradays’ old Cape Cod-style house. She started whining and barking. The collie backed away. She had that sixth sense.
Something was wrong inside that house.
Although Abby tried to pull her in the other direction, Helene stepped up to the door and knocked. Abby wouldn’t stop yelping. “Quiet, girl,” Helene hissed. She tried to listen for some activity inside the house. Nothing. Helene knocked again, and waited. She wondered if she should take a cue from Abby and get out of there. But she knocked once more, and then tried the doorknob. It wasn’t locked.
Abby let out another loud bark, a warning. But it was too late. Helene was already opening the door. From the threshold, she could see up the stairs to the second floor hallway, where a messy brownish-red stain marred the pale blue wall. Baffled, Helene started up the stairs, having to tug at Abby’s leash. Only a few steps from the landing, Helene stopped dead. She realized now that the large stain on the wall was dried blood. Beneath it, Jenna Faraday lay on the floor, her face turned to the wall. The oversized T-shirt she wore was soaked crimson. Her bare legs looked so swollen and pale-almost gray.
Helene gasped. She and Abby retreated down the stairs, and then she noticed what was in the living room. Helene stopped in her tracks. A second dead woman lay sprawled on the floor-a few feet from the kitchen door. She had beautiful, curly auburn hair, but her face was frozen in a horrified grimace. Her burgundy-colored robe and nightgown almost matched the puddle of blood on the floor beneath her. The shotgun blast had ripped open the front of that lacy nightgown. Helene could see the fatal, gaping wound in her chest.
Not far from the second woman’s body, Mark Faraday’s corpse sat upright in a rocker. At least, Helene thought it was him. Blood covered the robe he wore. The butt of the hunting rifle was wedged between Mark Faraday’s lifeless legs, with the long barrel slightly askew and tilted away from his mutilated, swollen face.
One hand remained draped over the gun, his finger caught in the trigger.
Chapter Four
“What about that woman who lives down the lake from the cabin?” George asked. “Your dad told me they’ve used her phone in the past for emergencies. Do you know her number?”
“Oh, God, Ms. Sumner,” Amelia murmured on the other end of the line. She sounded as if she were in a daze. “I forgot all about her. We have her number written down someplace, but I think it’s shoved in a desk at home in Bellingham.”
“Do you know her first name?”
“Hold on for a second, Uncle George. I’m about to go through a tunnel.”
“I thought you’d pulled over. You shouldn’t be on your cell while driving-”
“God, you sound just like Dad. It’s okay. I have friends who text-message while driving.”
“Well, then they’re idiots,” George said to dead air. She must have entered the tunnel.
Holding the cordless phone to his ear, he glanced toward the living room windows. From this spot in the kitchen, he could see through the sheer curtains to the front yard. He’d sent Jody and Stephanie outside so he could phone Amelia and talk to her without the kids hearing. They didn’t need to know he was worried about their mother.
While driving home from downtown, George had gotten more and mo
re concerned. Ina had promised to call and check in with him this morning.
There were no messages on the answering machine when he’d gotten home with the kids, except two from a panic-stricken Amelia, both within the last hour. Her premonition that Ina, Mark, and Jenna had all been killed seemed preposterous, but unnerving, too.
“Remember how when Collin died, I knew before everyone else?” she’d asked. What George remembered was Amelia claiming after the drowning that she’d seen it all-in her mind. She didn’t think Collin had accidentally fallen off the dock and hit his head on those pilings. She insisted there was more to it than that. She had a feeling.
George remembered when Amelia had made all those wild claims. He and Ina figured their sweet-but-screwed-up niece was looking for some attention. Amelia must have felt like an also-ran alongside her winning younger brother. Back in 1992, Mark and Jenna had been trying to have a child. Finally, after weeks of foster parenting, they adopted beautiful four-year-old Amelia. They didn’t think anyone could eclipse her-until two months later, when Jenna learned she was pregnant.
Amelia adored her little brother. But apparently she became a handful. Mark and Jenna lost more sleep on account of Amelia’s nightmares than the baby’s feedings. And even when Collin was supposed to sleep through the night, Amelia always woke him up when she jumped out of bed shrieking. The nightmares hadn’t yet subsided when Amelia started developing phantom pains and faked illnesses. “It feels like someone’s twisting my arm off, Uncle George!” he remembered her screaming during a family Thanksgiving at his and Ina’s house. It took several minutes for her to stop crying. According to Jenna, two days later, Amelia claimed her arm was still sore, though she didn’t have a mark on her. Other times, she said it felt as if someone were hitting her or kicking her. There were several trips to the doctor and the hospital emergency room for absolutely no reason. By early high school, certain phantom aches and ailments prompted Jenna to rush Amelia to a gynecologist. Jenna had confided to Ina that she thought someone might have been molesting Amelia. But the doctors found no physical evidence of this whatsoever.
One Last Scream Page 4