The Dead Place

by Rebecca Drake

  Talking with Laurence Beetleman about the plans had been one of the few times in this hectic week when he’d had the chance to think about anything besides the murder.

  Ian picked up the next set of grant applications and settled back in his chair, trying to summon enthusiasm for another hour’s worth of work.

  Another knock on the door surprised him. Wondering what Mildred had forgotten, Ian called out, “Come in!” just as he turned his chair to look at the sun setting over campus.

  “It’s beautiful isn’t it,” he said without looking around.

  “Yes.” The voice wasn’t Mildred’s. Ian swiveled around and saw Bethany Forrester standing in the doorway with a paper in one hand and a briefcase in the other. “You’ve got the best view,” she said, walking forward.

  Ian stood up. “Come in, come in—I thought you were my secretary.”

  “Oh, dear.” Bethany gave him a look of mock dismay, and Ian laughed. She couldn’t be further from Mildred Wooden. Silhouetted in the light from the window, she looked long, lean, and beautiful. She walked slowly across the room toward him, swaying slightly on high heels, the silver of her bracelet glinting in the sunlight, and a soft shushing sound accompanying each step as her charcoal silk slacks rubbed.

  “It’s such a spectacular view,” she said, looking past him out the window where the sun was giving a terra-cotta glow to gray stone facades and setting every tree alight.

  “Yes.” He was looking at her. She wore a fuzzy, black V-necked sweater, and he had a sudden longing to place a hand against that V of pale flesh. Ian hastily averted his eyes.

  “I’ve finished the letter to some of our Drama alumni and thought you might like to take a look before I send it out.”

  He didn’t need to look at it; with anybody else he would have declined. “Sure. Let me see.”

  She held it out to him, and whether he contrived or she contrived he didn’t know, only that somehow their fingers touched. They paused. She looked at him then, staring directly into his eyes. The sunset made hers look like amber, pools of transparent brown flecked with gold.

  A sharp, buzzing noise made Ian jump and jerk his hand back from Bethany’s. The phone on his desk rang again, a shrill rebuke. “Hello?”

  “Ian Corbin?” A woman’s stern voice. He’d been seen. Ian felt heat crawling along the back of his shirt collar and creeping up his neck.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m calling from Wickfield High School about your daughter, Grace.”

  “Grace? Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

  “No, Mr. Corbin, at least not that we’re aware of. Grace hasn’t been in school all day and since this is her fourth unexcused absence we were concerned…”

  Bethany put the letter on the edge of his desk and waved. She mouthed, “Catch you later,” and walked out of his office as he watched the sway of her hips and the curve of her ass in her slacks.

  “…need you to come in and have a meeting with our school counselor, Harold Trowle.”

  “Yes, of course.” He couldn’t concentrate. The office door quietly clicked. She was gone. He felt rock hard and shifted in his chair.

  The woman said something about dates and Ian scrolled through his online calendar. “Yes, okay, and yes, I’ll be sure to tell my wife, too.”

  When he’d hung up the phone, Ian sat back in his office chair and exhaled loudly. Had that really happened? There was a certain dreamlike quality to it that made it feel like a fantasy, but no, there was the letter just where she’d left it.

  For a moment, Ian just looked at it. He had the feeling that it could hurt him, and then he realized how ridiculous he was being and plucked it from the edge of his desk. Without thinking about it, he slipped it in his briefcase.

  Damien Rattle pulled the ends of the rope tighter around her foot and Grace couldn’t help it, she made a faint noise of pain and fear.

  “Quiet,” he snapped, letting go of her foot and looking at her. “You have to be quiet or it spoils the mood.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Are you going to be quiet or not?”

  She nodded and he smiled, that perfect smile that she’d come to crave.

  They were in his bedroom in his parents’ apartment in Manhattan. When they’d met and he told Grace he lived in an apartment on the Upper East Side, she’d pictured a place like her own—small in square footage but nicely decorated with cool furniture and art.

  It had the cool furniture and art, all right, but it was anything but small. It was a huge place, four bedrooms, each one of them the size of the living room in her house, each with its own mammoth attached bath. The sunken living room had a spectacular view of the park. There was a doorman downstairs, and a maid upstairs. The wooden floors were inlaid on the edges and polished to a high shine. The place smelled of furniture polish and fresh flowers, which adorned large porcelain vases on spindly-legged tables in the hall.

  Damien’s room had an enormous iron bed frame, and he’d grinned when she’d admired it.

  “It’s French,” he said. “Mother found it when we were in Brittany last year. Doesn’t it look like something belonging to the Marquis de Sade? I don’t think she had that in mind, but we can christen it in high style.”

  That’s what they were doing, christening the bed. He’d produced the rope, a tightly wrapped coil of black nylon, after picking her up from school.

  “It looks painful,” she’d said, but he only laughed.

  “You’ll love it.”

  Only she didn’t. She didn’t love it at all. First, he’d wanted her undressed. She didn’t want to get naked in front of him. So far, she’d been naked in pieces with him, allowing him to touch her under her shirt, to slip his hand down into her pants, to feel her and see her in pieces, but never whole. Somehow, it was more real whole.

  “It doesn’t work if you’re dressed,” he’d said. “C’mon, it’s much more fun if you’re naked.”

  And he’d smiled at her, the smile she loved, and she’d stood between his legs while he sat on the bed and began the slow undressing of her, taking his time.

  That part had been okay, that part she’d even liked a little, her nervousness fading away as he muttered “Perfect” as each part of her body was revealed. She’d glowed from the praise, stood up a little straighter, even admired the way her breasts hung like small apples when he removed her bra.

  Then he’d had her lie down on the center of the bed and he’d climbed on top of her, straddling her torso, his jeans scraping the tender skin of her waist. She’d told him it hurt, and that’s when he’d first said to be quiet. He’d taken her hands and raised them to curve around the bar of the iron headboard above her.

  “Stay that way,” he whispered, and then he slowly, ever so slowly, inched out the rope and wound it about both her wrists and tied them to the headboard.

  That hadn’t been too bad. Exciting, even, with Damien watching her, but then it changed. He’d turned, for starters, taking his eyes off hers and focusing on her feet. He’d jerked them a little too hard toward the foot of the bed, and now he was tying them, one by one, just as he had with her hands. She didn’t like it. It felt like she was stretched too far, and she remembered the chapter from her history book on the Inquisition and the illustration that showed a screaming figure stretched on the rack.

  “I don’t like it,” she whispered, hoping that if she spoke quietly he wouldn’t be annoyed. He ignored her, finishing with her right foot. He clambered off the bed and stared down at her, moving about the room to view her from different angles.

  “Perfect,” he said again, and he smiled as he reached out a hand to snake along her leg, moving up and up toward her crotch. She tried to pull away, but couldn’t.

  “Damien, stop! It tickles!” She spoke without meaning to, her voice a whine, but he only laughed.

  “Wait here.” He laughed at his own joke. As if Grace could go anywhere. She turned her head, lifting it from the pillow with an effort, but all she
saw was his back as he left the room.

  Her head flopped back on the pillow and she stared up at the high ceiling, tracing the molding with her eyes and trying to count the fine hairline cracks in the cream-colored plaster.

  It struck her as weird that Damien had nothing really personal in the room, but he’d told her that his family also had homes in Connecticut and the Hamptons, so perhaps he didn’t stay here much.

  Besides the bed, there was a heavy-looking, dark wood dresser adorned with a few family photos in silver frames—Damien, his mother and stepfather—and a mirror suspended above it. To the left was a wrought-iron candle stand with a large, unlit pillar on it. Directly across from the bed was a wooden bookcase filled with a collection of what looked like old law books and a few other things—a white conch shell, a plaster bust of some Roman-looking guy, a silver paperweight. Three photos framed in black hung to the left of the bed. They were black-and-white shots of what looked like water running over rocks.

  Not that she could tell from the bed. She’d looked at them earlier, when he’d first shown her the room. From her current position, all she could see were gray blobs and squiggles.

  She felt an itch far down her right leg and there was nothing she could do to scratch it. Pressing her leg against the sheets and twisting back and forth didn’t work. Another itch appeared on her right shoulder. The top of her head tickled. She could relieve none of them, could do nothing but twist in the rope, helpless. She wanted to call out to Damien, but he’d told her to be quiet.

  Somewhere in the apartment, she heard the sound of a door closing. Panic set in. What would happen if the maid came back? He’d said it was her afternoon off, but what if she’d returned? Grace knew the door to this room stood open. What if the woman walked in and saw her?

  She tugged futilely at the knots binding her wrists and tried to pull her legs up, rubbing her ankles raw against the rope in her attempt to get free, but nothing worked.

  There were footsteps in the hall. She could hear them approaching, but couldn’t tell who they belonged to. What if it wasn’t the maid? What if it was one of his parents? He’d said they were in the Hamptons, but what if they’d returned early?

  Grace couldn’t help the low keen that escaped from her. She wished she hadn’t come, wished she hadn’t agreed to this stupid idea. What was he thinking leaving her like this?

  The footsteps were louder, slow and deliberate and coming toward her over that shiny wooden floor.

  “Damien!” It burst from her, she couldn’t stop it. “Damien! Is that you?”

  The footsteps sped up, and suddenly there was movement in the doorway and Damien came running in, and she was relieved, so relieved. Only, he glared at her and then his hand flashed forward, the slap coming so suddenly that she had no time to anticipate, and her head bounced to the side with the force of the blow.

  She cried out and he yelled, “Shut up!”

  Tears flooded her eyes and her cheek burned. Grace tugged at her hands, trying to get them free, and stared up at Damien, who looked wobbly.

  “I did tell you to be quiet, Grace,” he said in a regretful voice. He reached out his hand and she flinched, but he merely stroked the cheek he’d struck, rubbing out the sting. “I told you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Untie me.” Her voice came out as a whimper, and he shook his head at her.

  “You’re still talking, Grace.”

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  She saw the second slap coming, and moved her head so it was deflected and his fingers slid from her face to the pillow.

  “Stop,” he said. “Stop right now.”

  She was afraid suddenly, really afraid. There was no one in the apartment, only them. His parents were at their house in the Hamptons and it was the maid’s afternoon off. That’s why he’d done this, because nobody was here to see it.

  A sob rose in her and another followed on its heels, and suddenly she couldn’t control it, sobbing and sobbing. Damien scrambled off her, untying the ropes with haste, cursing under his breath.

  “Okay, okay, you’re free.”

  She pulled her limbs toward each other, curling up in a ball for a moment before rolling to her side and reaching for her clothes.

  Damien put a hand on her shoulder, but she shook him off.

  “C’mon, Grace, it was just a game.” One part defensiveness, two parts coaxing. “C’mon, now, you knew it was a game.”

  “You hit me.” She’d wanted that to come out strong, but instead she sounded pathetic, her nose stuffed, her voice wavering.

  “Did I hurt you, baby?” He sounded surprised, regretful.

  She ventured a look at him and he smiled at her. A sweet, wide smile that made what had happened seem like a misunderstanding.

  “That’s right, look at me, it’s okay.” He stroked her hand and tugged gently on her wrist. She let him pull her to her feet, wrap her in an embrace. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he crooned, holding her naked against him. “It was just a game, baby, just a game.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Bouquet Florists was on the first floor of an old brick building on Yates Street. Not a fashionable address, two blocks back and several long blocks down from the central business district, and not a fashionable shop, with its faded pink awning and peeling gilt letters on the window.

  The store looked like it had been there for many, many years, and Kate wondered how Terrence Simnic kept it going. Perhaps it was just customer loyalty. It looked like the sort of shop that got only certain customers, widows who remembered their husbands bringing them Easter corsages from this shop thirty years ago, or poor college girls who hoped flowers would brighten up their dank apartments and couldn’t afford the nicer, bigger shop on Penton.

  It could hardly be Terrence drawing customers. As Kate watched from her car across the street, she saw the dirty white van with faded letters pull up out front and her neighbor climb out.

  He wore a hangdog expression and a gray cardigan that stretched across his large, muscular shoulders and hung open in front to reveal a green plaid shirt buttoned to the top.

  He trudged up to the front door in his large work boots, looking around in a furtive way that made her slump down in her seat, anxious not to be seen. She’d parked the Volvo in the shade of a massive oak tree and tucked close to the fender of a big red SUV hoping not to be noticed.

  He’d been late getting here. Afraid that he would notice her following him, Kate had waited until his van left the driveway before pulling out in the opposite direction, purposely taking a circuitous route to the shop. Not that it had been hard; she’d gotten briefly lost in a warren of back streets.

  This was a section of Wickfield that looked like it had fallen on hard times. Slumlord student housing in the form of crumbling duplexes and flimsy-looking apartment buildings. A few single-family homes stood like lone flowers among the weeds, fresh paint and the struggle to keep their yards litter-free making them stand out. There were several cleaner multifamily units, too, obviously rehabbed by developers hoping to flip the neighborhood.

  Relief at finding the shop gave way to surprise that the van was nowhere in sight. Where was he? While she’d waited, Kate sketched the shop in a small notebook she carried in her purse. A series of straight lines, except for the awning, which rippled and created shadows. She moved a charcoal pencil deftly over the page, lost in her work.

  The sound of an old muffler had brought her out of it in time to see the van come chugging slowly around the corner. It had taken him forever to turn off the van and get out, but maybe it was because she was so nervous about his arrival. She sketched Terrence Simnic standing in front of the building, taking a few tries with the charcoal to get the expression on his face just right. Before she was done, he unlocked the door and disappeared inside.

  As she pondered what to do next, a young woman came riding up the street on a bicycle and stopped in front of the shop. From a distance, she looked like she could be Lily Slo
cum’s sister, with her long, blond ponytail and slim build. As she locked the bike to a lamppost, Terrence appeared at the front door, switching the cardboard CLOSED sign over to OPEN.

  Kate sketched her quickly as well, just because the young woman was there, and watched her enter the shop. Minutes passed. Kate fully expected to see the girl come out carrying flowers, but eight minutes later the bike was still locked to the lamppost.

  Kate tapped her hand against the steering wheel. Come on—where was she? What could be taking that long? The longer she sat, the more certain Kate was that the girl was in danger. What if while she was sitting there, Terrence Simnic had approached the girl, asked her to see some flowers in the back of the shop?

  He would tell her they’d just gotten a shipment of roses that she might like and then, while she was looking, he’d wrap one of those simian arms around her neck…

  Kate got out of the car and started toward the shop. She acted on impulse, surprised to see her feet moving so quickly, but she couldn’t let someone else get hurt. She had nothing to defend herself with, much less the girl, only her cell phone and keys. She wrapped the key ring in her fist so the keys jutted out between her fingers.

  As she crossed the street, the door to the shop suddenly opened and the girl came out wearing a pink apron and carrying a green bucket stuffed with deep yellow carnations. She set it down along the wall by the front door and went back in the shop, a bell jangling when the door opened.

  Kate slowed. The young woman was an employee? That hadn’t occurred to her. The bell jangled again and the same girl came back out carrying a large plastic pot of purple mums. She set it down next to the carnations and vanished back inside.

  It was too late to turn back. If Terrence could see Kate through these windows, he’d be sure to notice if she suddenly walked away. She kept moving forward, but she tucked her keys casually into the pocket of her black corduroy jacket.

  The girl came back out with another pot of purple mums. She arranged the buckets one way, then another, standing back to survey her work with her hands on her hips.