The Dead Place

by Rebecca Drake

  Not anymore. They’d broken up in May and she hadn’t even heard from him over the summer. Until tonight, when he waltzed in with Stacy Levy in tow, both of them all dressed up as if they’d come from somewhere far more interesting. And then he had the audacity to come up, all smiley and happy, and talk to her as if there was no shared history.

  Elizabeth felt like leaving after that, but she’d come with Brooke, who was clearly having a good time. When Elizabeth had gone looking for her, she’d found her sitting on the stairs deep in conversation with two guys who definitely looked like engineering or science majors. They were probably all discussing the latest news on global warming. Brooke had woken her up just that morning to see if she wanted to watch some show on PBS about it.

  All Elizabeth wanted to do was eat her Cocoa Krispies in peace without having to listen to any talk about the state of the planet, refined sugar, and why the milk she was pouring on her cereal was bound to kill her.

  Still, Brooke could be sweet when she wasn’t all crunchy granola, and she was the ideal roommate in one respect: reliable. She paid her rent on time, she cleaned her dishes, she didn’t run up the phone bill. Unlike Stacy Levy, who had been the heavy partying slut, come home and vomit in the trashcan, and pull all-nighters even if you share a small dorm with someone sleeping less than four feet away type of roommate.

  Elizabeth knew what Joel saw in Stacy. Hell, what Stacy had to offer was readily apparent to anybody who looked at her. A walking, talking little Barbie wannabe in clothes too tight and too short, with a pert little nose, perky boobs, and floss-blond hair. Watching her hang on Joel was sickening. Elizabeth had fought the desire to walk up to them, point at Stacy’s various parts, and say, “Bobbed, implanted, bleached.”

  Not that Joel was any great shakes. His hairline was already creeping back and he had the beginnings of a beer gut. He thought he was hot shit, with all his talk of going to Harvard or Stanford for law. Give him ten, maybe fifteen, years and he’d be just like his father: a fat, balding ambulance-chaser kicking back in a Barcalounger in some suburban rec room, watching all the sports he never had the talent to play.

  The screen door whined and Elizabeth turned around. It was another couple, two guys this time, one of them with his hands stuck in the other guy’s jean pockets. They pulled apart when they saw her, one of them blushing, and the three exchanged nods before the two guys vanished down the steps in the same direction as the first couple.

  Elizabeth sighed. Who was she kidding? She missed Joel, missed being part of a couple, missed the cachet of being able to show publicly that at least one person on the planet found her desirable. And hadn’t she come here tonight hoping that she’d find someone new?

  Suddenly, all the posing she’d done in the mirror before leaving seemed ridiculous. She wanted to go home and peel off these jeans that made her butt look great but were sticking to her, rip off the dual T-shirts she’d taken such care to layer casually, and kick off the stupid platform sandals. They gave her much-needed height and the soles were cork, but they might as well have been made of lead, her feet hurt so much.

  She stepped back into the noise of the house, walking quickly back through the sticky kitchen, past the crowd in the living room, and toward the front door. She caught sight of Brooke still on the steps, but couldn’t catch her eye. No problem. Brooke was a big girl; she’d find her way home. Joel and Stacy were intertwined on the couch, and she was batting at one of his hands that was creeping up under her shirt. They were both laughing.

  Looking the other way, Elizabeth pushed past some students swaying to the thud, thud, thud coming from the speakers, and then she was out the front door and alone again.

  It wasn’t until she was half a block away, and the music had faded to a distant heartbeat, that Elizabeth realized just how late it was and how many blocks she had to walk, alone, to get back to her apartment.

  The streetlights seemed spaced too far apart. There was more than half a block between each one, and that left long stretches of shadowed sidewalk between small circles of light.

  She looked back once, but there was no way she could return to that house and let Joel see her. It would be okay. She hurried along, trying not to notice the sound of her own rapid breathing and the way the slightest thing, the distant slam of a car door or the lonely meow of a cat, made her jump.

  As she passed beneath the branches of an old oak tree, something fluttered above her head, and she looked up in time to see a cluster of small bats rise into the sky, flapping wildly away.

  Her heels clopped loudly on the sidewalk. She had to watch to make sure she didn’t get a toe caught in the many dips and cracks in the cement. The houses sat back in the shadows, most of them dark, a few with lights on somewhere inside, the windows glowing orange like jack-o’-lanterns in the blackness.

  A car came screaming around the corner, the sudden loud noise making her jerk and knocking her off balance. She caught herself against a lamppost, hands smacking hard against the metal pole, heart racing. The group of guys crowded into the car screamed something unintelligible at her out the window.

  They vanished in a cloud of exhaust and then she was alone again. Clop, clop, clop. She hated these sandals. There was a blister forming on one ankle near the strap; every step rubbed against it, a little sore that would grow in pain. If it hadn’t been so dark, she might have taken them off, but then she could cut herself on something unseen. She just had to keep going.

  At least six, maybe seven, more blocks to go. It had seemed so much shorter when she and Brooke walked it. She wished she’d stayed with Brooke. Fuck Joel and Stacy. Who cared what they thought of her? She almost turned back, pausing to think about it and rest her feet for a second, but it was a long way back and what if Brooke had gotten a ride with one of her geeky friends and was, at this moment, opening the door to their apartment and wondering what had happened to Elizabeth.

  The sound of another car startled her. This one was moving slower, purring along somewhere behind her. Elizabeth started walking again, glancing back once to see the glow of headlights coming toward her. There was no point in turning back, she just had to keep going. Lily Slocum popped into her head and her stomach took an uneasy dip. Hadn’t Lily been walking alone when she vanished? And that hadn’t even been at night. Elizabeth picked up her pace, ignoring the pain in her ankle.

  A four-door sedan, brown or black, drove slowly past. She looked over but couldn’t see who was driving. Whoever he or she was, they braked at a stop sign up ahead and Elizabeth watched the rear brake light click on and off, on and off, a fiery red glow.

  The car didn’t move. Elizabeth’s steps faltered, then slowed. Why didn’t the car turn? Fear acted like a ratchet, tightening every muscle in her body until she was sure she could feel each individual vertebra. Her steps became mincing, childlike. Move, car, move. Click, click, click, she could hear the noise of the light and the soft rumble of the engine. Waiting. Was the driver watching her?

  When Elizabeth was very little, she’d had a habit of clutching her crotch when she was frightened, cupping her vagina with both hands as if that somehow protected her. It had been embarrassing, but involuntary, like the time at Larry Gable’s birthday party when he showed the kids the dead rat floating in a corner of his family’s pool. She’d been frightened then, clutching so hard that she wrinkled the skirt of her party dress, so that the kids stopped pointing at the rat and pointed at her instead. They’d laughed and made rude noises until the parents came running, and she could still remember the look of horror on her mother’s face and how hard she’d tugged at her arms, hissing, “Stop it, Elizabeth! Stop it!”

  Even now, her hands were inching forward. She jammed them in her pockets to stop herself and bumped against something, fingers skittering away before she realized it was just her cell phone. Phone! She’d forgotten all about her phone!

  She pulled it free of her pocket, and just then the engine gave a soft roar and the car glided around the corner and
vanished.

  Elizabeth stared after it, feeling foolish, but she kept the phone in her hand, turning it over and over like it was a yin-yang ball, her palm sweaty around it.

  She walked faster, crossing the street where the car had been, shooting a fast glance down that long empty street before stepping up on the curb of the next block. Her feet ached, the spot on her right ankle stung, but she didn’t slow down.

  The next block marked the perimeter of a neighborhood park. When Elizabeth and Brooke had been on their way to the party, kids had been climbing on the jungle gym, their parents lounging on benches nearby. It was dark now, deserted.

  As she neared the swings, Elizabeth could hear them creaking, but it was only a breeze. That was a shadow on the last swing, not someone sitting there swaying back and forth, waiting for her.

  Sweat pricked along her hairline and trickled into her cleavage. The raw spot on her ankle was actively bleeding now, she could feel the squish of it under her heel, but she didn’t stop.

  Her skin crawled with the sensation of being watched, and she turned back at the edge of the playground, but there was no one there.

  Except a car.

  It was back at the beginning of the park. Sitting there along the curb. She hadn’t noticed a parked car. Definitely not. She would remember if she’d seen one.

  As she stared, the car pulled slowly away from the curb and headed toward her with a familiar purring sound. Jesus, was it the same car?

  Elizabeth broke into a run. It was more of a trot, really, full step with her left foot and half step with her right. Hobbling forward as fast as she could go. The car was coming. The engine noise grew stronger, she imagined she could feel the heat of the motor. It approached in darkness, no headlights.

  No longer caring how it would look, Elizabeth punched in 911 on her cell phone and continued to run while holding it against her ear. Only it didn’t ring. She looked at the screen and saw zero coverage. She was in a dead zone.

  The car rumbled closer. The edge of the park was coming. All she had to do was get past it and there’d probably be reception. Elizabeth counted as she took the steps past the edge of the baseball diamond.

  The car was at her back, then it pulled alongside her, moving so slowly that she knew the driver wanted her to know that she was being watched. She kept her focus ahead of her, blinking back tears and clutching the phone like a lifeline.

  The car moved past, pausing at the corner before turning left and slipping away into the night. A half block. A quarter. The perimeter of the park was a stand of soaring pine trees. All she had to do was get past them and she’d have coverage. But getting past them meant arriving at the street where the car had turned.

  Something was wrong with the streetlight on that corner. It flickered on and off, on and off. As she approached it, the light went out again. She glanced at her phone. No coverage yet.

  She didn’t see the gloved hand come out of the darkness until it settled on her wrist. The phone dropped, forgotten, onto the street. She screamed once before the other hand closed over her mouth.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate was gone when Ian woke on Saturday morning and when he stretched his hand out to her side of the bed, the sheet was cool. He felt groggy, as if he’d had too much to drink the night before, and was surprised to see that the clock read nine-fifteen.

  Under the hot spray of the shower, he struggled to clear his head, thinking about the conversation he needed to have with Kate. He would offer to do the work of finding another therapist. Hell, he’d go and do therapy with her if that’s what she wanted, but this wasn’t something they could deal with alone. It needed professional help.

  Steeling himself for an unpleasant conversation, he wasn’t prepared to find Kate sitting on the kitchen floor in her pajamas surrounded by papers. As he stood there, stunned, she dug through the pile of papers in the wicker basket they used for recycling. As she pulled out another one, she looked up and saw him.

  “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you get up.” She didn’t sound as if anything was wrong, which made it stranger. She nodded at the counter. “I made coffee.”

  He saw her own mug sitting next to her on the floor and looked at the half-full pot in the coffee maker. Just how many cups had she had? He poured himself a cup and took a badly needed swallow. “Bad night?”

  “Yeah, but weird, too.” Talking rapidly, she described seeing lights on in their neighbor’s basement and how he’d carried out women’s clothing to his car and how even Margaret had commented on the enormous bag of trash he’d been carrying.

  “Whoa, wait, I’m confused.” He held up his hand to stop her, trying to make sense of what she’d said. “Our neighbor had the lights on in the middle of the night—”

  “His basement lights.”

  “His basement lights on in the middle of the night and because of that you think he’s up to something?”

  “Yeah, and because of other things. Lots of things. Look at this.” Kate stood up, thrusting a paper at him. She looked like a little kid in an oversized striped pajama top that hung almost to her knees, the baggy sleeves making her own skinny arms look even smaller. It was his, she was always appropriating his shirts, though they were way too big for her. He felt a surge of affection, and reached out a hand to push one of her curls back from her face, ridiculously pleased when she didn’t shy from his touch.

  “Look,” she insisted, tapping the page. It was the front-page story about the photo of Lily Slocum being found.

  “Okay, I’m looking. What is it?”

  “Flowers.” She tapped the slightly fuzzy reproduction of the photo of Lily Slocum lying on a chaise lounge surrounded by flowers.

  “What about them?”

  “They look real, don’t they? Who do we know that has access to lots of fresh flowers?”

  The laughter bubbled out of Ian before he could stop it. Kate’s mouth dropped open in surprise and then she frowned. “I’m serious, Ian.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help it.” He tried to stop, but dissolved in laughter again. When he caught his breath, he said, “Oh, c’mon, it’s absurd. You think our neighbor is a killer.” He’d used a spooky voice, but she didn’t smile.

  “I’m glad you find it so amusing.”

  “Kate.”

  She folded the paper with short, sharp movements. “I told you about his weird doll collection. She’s posed just like one of his dolls.” She didn’t look at him.

  Ian sighed and swiped tears of laughter from his eyes. “I’m sorry I laughed, but this is just crazy.”

  She looked up then, eyes blazing. “Crazy like I’m crazy?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “But you meant it.”

  Christ, he didn’t know how he ended up in these conversations. He paused, burying himself in his coffee for a moment, struggling with how to proceed. “About last night,” he said after a minute.

  She looked up at him from under her eyebrows with a glint in her eyes. “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry for how I acted, reacted, but I think we need to take a good hard look at what’s going on and realize we could use some help.”

  “We?” Her voice was cold. She stood up and held onto her own mug, her knuckles white. “Don’t you mean me?”

  “No, not just you. It’s me, too. We’ve all been affected by what happened.”

  “Rape. I was raped, Ian.”

  His temper frayed. “I know! Jesus Christ, Kate, do you think I don’t know that? I can say the word—it’s you who doesn’t like to say the word!”

  She reacted as if he’d slapped her, taking a step back, tears flooding her blue eyes. She let her coffee cup drop on the table and walked out of the room. Ian followed her. “Kate, wait.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  “No!”

  She ran up the stairs and he ran after her, slowing to a walk when he realized this was like a scene in a bad movie. The slam of their bedroom door made him wince. He paced the hall for a m
inute, taking deep breaths and resisting the urge to throttle her and her artistic temperament.

  She was overreacting because she was tired, tired because she didn’t sleep, didn’t sleep because she had bad dreams, and had bad dreams because she needed to talk with someone about what had happened. It all made perfect sense, but knowing this didn’t make it any easier to deal with nor did it mean she would accept the logic of it.

  When he finally opened the bedroom door, it was to find her lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling. She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, and he braced himself for more anger, but instead she said quietly, “I’m sorry.”

  Knocked off balance, as he always seemed to be by her despite eighteen years together, he managed to say, “Me, too.”

  They talked about other things then, the ability to let an argument go part of the glue that held a marriage together. She showered and dressed and he took off to run some errands, and neither of them spoke about what she’d seen at Terrence Simnic’s house.

  She folded up the old papers she’d scattered across the kitchen floor and tossed them back in the recycling basket, adding the one with Lily Slocum’s picture last, pausing to look at it again and then out the window at Terrence Simnic’s house.

  The curtains were still drawn, but the van wasn’t in the driveway. He’d probably gone to work; florist shops were open on Saturday. Maybe Ian was right and it was crazy to suspect her next-door neighbor, but there’d been so many cases where the mild-mannered guy living next door turned out to be a cold-blooded killer. It always happened, so why not here? She knew better than anybody that nobody was immune.

  The thud of her backpack hitting the porch signaled Grace’s arrival home. Kate hurried to the door to let her in, hand already raised in anticipation of a thank-you wave to Haley Chin’s parents, but their car was nowhere to be seen. The street was empty.