Ruckman Road: An Alex Penfield Novel

by Robert W. Stephens

  “She’s upstairs.”

  Atwater walked toward the bedroom door. Hannah stepped to the side, and the old man passed by her without saying a word or even looking at her again. Penfield and Torres joined her just outside the bedroom door. They watched Atwater walk down the hall, open the door to the third floor as if he already knew the layout of the house, and then ascend the stairs. They followed him to the third floor. He stood on the third-floor landing.

  “Where are you?” Atwater whispered, as if to himself.

  He paused a moment, and then turned to one of the bedrooms.

  “Ah, there you are,” he continued.

  Atwater entered the bedroom with the two detectives and Hannah following him. Soon they were all standing in the center of the room. Atwater turned in a slow circle. He stopped when he faced the closet.

  “You can come out now,” he said.

  Penfield watched as the doorknob to the closet door turned slowly. The door creaked open and revealed an empty closet. Penfield turned to Atwater and saw his expression turn to horror.

  “My God,” Atwater said. “What happened to you?”

  Atwater took a step away from the closet. His body bent forward as if he suddenly had an intense stomach cramp.

  “Mommy, mommy, help me,” Atwater said.

  His voice sounded just like the little girl’s. Penfield recognized it from the recording Hannah had given him, as well as from his encounter with the girl in the basement.

  Atwater started to cough.

  “Mommy, I can’t…breathe,” he continued in the child’s voice.

  The coughing became uncontrollable within a few seconds. He covered his mouth with his hands, but the coughing didn’t stop.

  “Are you all right?’ Torres asked.

  Everyone stared at Atwater as he fell to his knees and continued to cough.

  “Mom…my,” he said, and he collapsed onto his side.

  Penfield kneeled down beside him and rolled Atwater onto his back. The old man didn’t move. Penfield felt for a pulse but couldn’t find one. He pressed his ear against Atwater’s mouth.

  “He’s not breathing,” Penfield said.

  Torres kneeled down beside Atwater and nodded to Penfield. He bent over Atwater and gave him two quick breaths into his mouth. He paused while Torres did chest compressions on Atwater. Penfield did another two breaths, and Atwater coughed. He gasped for air, and Penfield and Torres moved back a few feet to give him space. His breathing slowly returned to normal. He looked at Penfield after almost a minute had passed.

  “My God,” he said. “My God.”

  Chapter 17

  The Reflection

  Penfield suggested they take Atwater to the hospital to get him thoroughly checked out, but the old man insisted he was fine. Instead, they took him and Hannah back to the hotel, so they could hopefully get some uninterrupted sleep. They’d convinced Hannah to check back into the hotel, and Penfield had booked a room for Atwater once he’d committed to coming to Fort Monroe.

  Torres walked Hannah to her room, said goodnight, and then joined Penfield in Atwater’s room. Atwater was sitting in a chair. He seemed to be lost in thought again as he stared blankly out the window. Penfield stood by the door.

  “Is there anything you need?” Penfield asked.

  Atwater didn’t seem to hear Penfield’s question, but then he shook his head.

  “What did you see?” Torres asked.

  Atwater didn’t answer her. He just kept starring out the window. Penfield could see Atwater’s reflection in the window. He now looked worried, maybe even scared.

  “What did you see?” Torres repeated.

  “Her face, it was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He turned to Torres and Penfield.

  “She must have died in a fire. She was showing me how she died. If you hadn’t been there with me, she would have killed me in the process.”

  Atwater rolled up one of his sleeves.

  “I felt this intense burning on my arms and back,” he continued.

  It wasn’t hard for Penfield to see the red marks and small blisters on Atwater’s arm even though he was on the other side of the room. Atwater turned to Penfield and saw him staring at his arm. A look of recognition crossed Atwater’s face.

  “You’ve seen her. Haven’t you?” Atwater asked.

  “No, just Hannah. She said she might have seen part of her lower leg when she was chasing her up the stairs,” Torres answered for him.

  Penfield hesitated, then said, “I’ve seen her.”

  Torres turned to him.

  “When?” she asked.

  “This morning. In the basement.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

  “Was her face the same? Was it covered in burnt flesh?” Atwater asked.

  “Yes. She shoved me and burned her handprint into my chest,” Penfield said.

  Penfield turned to Torres.

  “I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure what happened myself. She practically threw me across the basement. Then she was gone.”

  Atwater stood and walked over to the two detectives.

  “Let me see your chest,” Atwater said.

  Penfield hesitated a moment and then unbuttoned his shirt to about the halfway point. Atwater stepped even closer and gazed at Penfield’s burnt chest. Penfield turned to Torres and saw she was also looking at his chest. He saw doubt in her eyes.

  “Is there any record of that house having burnt down?” Atwater asked.

  “I don’t know. We can check. Maybe the Army still has records of it,” Torres said.

  “Is she the one responsible for everything that’s happening there?” Penfield asked.

  “I don’t know exactly what’s happened, but I would guess she’s done some of it. There was someone else, though,” Atwater said.

  “Who?” Torres asked.

  “It didn’t fully reveal itself to me, but it’s darker, stronger. It wants to remain hidden for now. Hannah is connected to all of this. Maybe her brother, too. That’s why all of this is happening now. She’s returned to the house.”

  “She said she’s never been there before this week,” Penfield said.

  “I suspect she’s lived there before,” Atwater said.

  “She said she’s never even been to Virginia?” Torres said.

  “Not now, but before, in another life. I saw another person when I looked at her in the window,” Atwater said.

  “What are you talking about?” Torres asked.

  “When I walked into that back room and found her by the window, there was someone else’s reflection in the glass. It wasn’t Hannah.”

  “Who was it then?” Penfield asked.

  “It was her reflection from another life,” Atwater said.

  Atwater could see the look of confusion on both the detective’s faces.

  “She’s connected to that house. She’s connected to that girl. Maybe she was her mother or sister. Maybe she’s the girl herself.”

  “How’s that even possible? How can she still be in that house yet have been reincarnated as someone else? That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?” Torres asked.

  “When something terrible happens, like a murder or some horrible accident, the energy lives on. The event lives on. The little girl is no longer there, but the fear and pain she experienced at death manifested itself into a new lifeform. It’s a form of energy, not that different than you or I. It’s alive just like you and I. It can feel things. It can have emotions, and it can kill, like it tried to kill me tonight and tried to hurt Detective Penfield in the basement.”

  Torres looked away. Penfield studied her a moment. He couldn’t tell if she was starting to believe Atwater or not. He wasn’t sure if he did, either, but he’d seen the girl with his own eyes. He’d felt the pain she’d inflicted on him. He turned back to Atwater.

  “So she could have done something to Joseph Talbot? She could be responsible for his de
ath?”

  “Maybe. Maybe it was the darker energy I sensed. We need to force it out into the light. We need to get it to reveal itself,” Atwater said.

  “Is Joseph Talbot gone? Was he the body in the water?” Penfield asked.

  “I don’t know. The other energy I felt, I think it’s male. It might be him. I don’t know.”

  Atwater told them he needed to rest, and they agreed to come back in the morning.

  Penfield and Torres walked back to their cars. Neither of them said a word to each other on the walk out of the hotel. Torres unlocked her car with her remote but then turned to Penfield before opening the door.

  “Why don’t you trust me enough to tell me these things? First you withhold your sighting of the girl in the basement. Then you race off to Richmond without giving me as much as a clue as to who you’re going to see,” Torres said.

  “I’m sorry. No more secrets.”

  “You don’t think I might have needed to know you saw the girl?”

  Penfield didn’t answer her. He knew there was no point in arguing. She was right. He’d been losing it from his first day on the Talbot investigation. He wanted desperately to remove himself from the case. He should have never come back so soon. Torres had been right about that, too.

  “The guy can put on a hell of an act. I’ll give him that,” Torres said.

  “So everything that happened upstairs, he faked it all?” Penfield asked.

  “He did the girl’s voice. We all heard it,” Torres said.

  “And the voice on Hannah’s phone? And what I saw? He did all that too? How did he do any of it? How did he reach the inside of that window when our own guys couldn’t do it without cutting it out first?”

  “I don’t know, but what makes more sense, a real person we can touch or some invisible girl?”

  “She’s not invisible,” Penfield said.

  “Show me your chest again. Show me where she burned you.”

  Torres walked around her car and approached Penfield. She stopped a few feet from him. Penfield hesitated a moment and then unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt again. Torres looked at his chest more closely this time.

  “There’s a red mark, but it could be from anything,” she said.

  “I’m telling you it was her hand.”

  Penfield buttoned his shirt as Torres took a step back, as if she were disgusted by him.

  “What’s happening to you?” she asked.

  Penfield didn’t know how to answer, so he said nothing. Torres walked back to her car and drove off. Penfield stood still and watched as her car disappeared over the bridge. He looked at his chest again in the reflection of his car window. The mark wasn’t as clear as it had been. There was still considerable reddening on the chest, but he could no longer make out the handprint. He could understand Torres’ doubts, though. He would probably have the same reluctance to believe if he were in her position. He and Atwater had both seen the girl’s burnt face, though. He hadn’t shared that encounter with Atwater, but he’d somehow known Penfield had seen the girl.

  Penfield climbed into his car and drove home. It was after three in the morning by the time he collapsed into bed. It seemed like only a few minutes passed before Penfield heard his phone vibrate on the nightstand. He thought about ignoring it, but he knew that was an unrealistic option. He rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. The room was still dark, and he couldn’t see his phone. It took him another second to realize he couldn’t see anything at all. His eyes should have adjusted to the dark, even with all the lights out and the curtains pulled tight. Penfield lifted his hand to his face, but he couldn’t see it. He reached for the lamp on the nightstand, but has hand crashed into a solid surface. He ran his hand along the object, and it felt like wood. Penfield rolled onto his other side and extended his hand. He hit the same kind of surface. He began to panic as he tried to climb out of bed. He immediately hit his head on the wood. He was in a box.

  It was Atwater. The old man had taken him again and placed him inside the box. Penfield pounded on the lid, but it wouldn’t move. He extended both arms out in opposite directions and pushed with all of his strength. The sides of the box wouldn’t move either. Penfield screamed for help, but he doubted anyone could hear him. He was probably several feet underground. He thought of his father. He wasn’t going to save him this time. Penfield heard a woman’s laughter.

  “Help me,” Penfield yelled again.

  Then he realized the woman’s laughter was coming from inside the box. He rolled onto his side and saw Patricia Porter’s face just a few inches from him. She laughed at him again.

  “Did you think you could escape him? Did you think you were safe?” she asked.

  Penfield turned away from her and pushed on the lid again. He screamed, but he knew it was useless.

  Penfield’s phone vibrated. He opened his eyes. This time he could make out dull shadows in the room. He rolled onto his side and saw the digital display of the nightstand clock. It was just after eight in the morning. He saw the faint glow of his cell phone display as the phone vibrated again from the incoming call. He grabbed the phone from the nightstand and looked at the display. It was his department calling.

  “This is Penfield.”

  “Hey, Alex.”

  Penfield immediately recognized the voice of one of his crime scene technicians.

  “I ran those prints for you,” he continued. “The fingerprint from the bedroom windowpane matches prints we pulled off the TV remote. We also compared it to the prints we lifted from the first-floor windows the other day. There were multiple prints on those, but get this: we found the same set of prints on each of those windows, and they match the prints from the bedroom and the remote.”

  “So whoever lifted those windows or touched them in the past, also touched the remote and left the handprint on the bedroom window?” Penfield asked.

  “Exactly.”

  Penfield thanked the crime scene technician and ended the call. He went to call Torres, but his phone vibrated again. He saw her name on the display.

  “Hey,” Penfield said.

  “How are you?” Torres asked.

  Her voice was calm and casual. He hoped she’d gotten over her anger with him from last night. Penfield immediately related the call from the crime scene tech.

  “Talbot left that handprint in the bedroom?” Torres asked.

  “Looks that way,” Penfield said.

  “So he did crawl out of that water.”

  “Then he tries to communicate with his sister when he sees her in the house. Why he doesn’t just walk through the door is beyond me,” Penfield added.

  “Maybe it’s us. Maybe the guy’s got something going on, and we’re the last people he wants near him.”

  “It fits. At this point, I don’t see how it can be anybody but Talbot,” Penfield said.

  “Okay, I’ll buy that, but it doesn’t explain how he gets to the second floor, or how he got his prints so high on the inside of that pane.”

  “It doesn’t explain the girl either. Who is she and how does she relate to all of this?” Penfield asked.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I think we should split up this morning. You go back to his workplace. If he’s still alive, maybe he tried to make contact with his co-worker after we’d met with him. It doesn’t sound like he has many friends based on what we’ve learned about him. Maybe this guy is the only one he really knows well in the area.”

  “And you?” Torres asked.

  “I’m going to check with the FMA, see if I can get any more info on that house.”

  “There’s one more thing. What I said last night as I was leaving,” Torres said.

  “It’s my fault,” Penfield said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that stuff sooner. This guy’s made us run around like we had our heads cut off. Let’s find him and be done with this.”

  “Sounds good,” Torres said.

  Penfield ended the call after they agreed
upon a time to connect later in the day. He walked into the bathroom and got undressed. He could still make out the reddening on his chest. The girl in the basement was real. He was sure of that, but it didn’t explain the burns on her face and how she was able to survive with them, unless they were faked somehow. But why? Who would go through the trouble to do that? If it was Talbot, then why, and how did he recruit the girl?

  Penfield showered, got dressed, and headed out for the fort. He called Amy on the way over, and she told him they had limited information on the houses. She did suggest he contact the military historian who worked at the Casemate Museum that was inside the fort walls.

  Penfield found a small group of tourists milling about the fort as he swung his car into one of the parking spaces in front of the museum. He entered through the museum door, which was located just outside one of the tunnels that passed through the stone walls of the fort. He passed multiple small displays that outlined the history of the fort and its role in the Civil War. He had to duck low as he walked through the many rooms of the museum. The casemate had been built over one hundred years ago, and the average height of a soldier in those days was several inches shorter than Penfield.

  He found a tiny gift shop at the end of the museum. He could see the employee offices through the open door behind the shop counter. Penfield showed his police badge and asked for the manager. Thomas Hagerty came out a second later. He looked about the same age as Penfield. He had short, brown hair and brown eyes.

  “Can I help you?” Hagerty asked.

  “Got some place we can talk?”

  “Sure, back in my office.”

  Penfield walked around the counter and followed Hagerty to the back rooms. They passed two small offices, and the hallway emptied into a third, larger office at the end. Penfield saw the words “Museum Director” on a plate above the door.

  Hagerty sat behind the cluttered desk, and Penfield took one of the two small chairs in front of it.

  “What’s this about?” Hagerty asked.

  “I’m looking for some history on one of the houses inside the fort.”