by Nicola Marsh
Then I tried the handle. Locked. I’d hoped to avoid breaking and entering but had come prepared to do whatever it took to get answers.
A narrow veranda wrapped around the house and I tried to peer into windows along the way to the back, but couldn’t see past the blinds. The back door was also locked and as I glanced around for something to smash the window next to it, I noticed a small gap where the wood didn’t meet the frame.
I found a decent stick, levered it in the gap and wriggled until it became big enough for me to slide my fingers underneath the window and heave. The window groaned as it slid upwards a few inches, enough for me to reach in and flick the latch on the door.
I stepped into the kitchen, absorbing every detail: the four-seater Formica-topped table, pine dresser filled with mismatched crockery, old cook-top, avocado green cupboards from the sixties, black and white checked linoleum ripped in places. Noah had eaten here, had shared meals with his siblings—with Seth. He’d probably sat at the table and read the newspapers for the comics.
Overcome by a sudden wave of sadness, I swallowed the emotion lodged in my throat and turned to close the door. That’s when my gaze fell on the glass. An upturned glass with water droplets clinging to its surface sat draining on the sink.
I froze, the hairs on my arms snapping to attention as fear ripped through me. The door was right behind me, within reach. I eased back, desperate to maintain silence, my ears straining for a sound, any sound, to indicate I wasn’t alone.
I’d almost reached the door when a shadow fell across me.
From outside.
Stifling a scream, I whirled around to see a figure disappearing around the corner of the house.
Trapped, I stared at the door, wondering if I should make a break for it outside or if I was safer inside, away from whoever had run past.
That moment’s indecision cost me, as I heard footsteps on the veranda coming back towards me.
Considering how I’d struggled to open the window that first inch, I didn’t have time to try to close it. I settled for locking the back door and finding a weapon.
My heart pounded as I darted a frantic glance around the kitchen, spying a knife block wedged behind a kettle. Desperate for anything to protect me, I grabbed the sole knife, grateful for its big handle. I slid it out of its steel sheath, and hoped to God it was as sharp as it looked.
Keeping my back against the wall, I sidled towards the door leading into the house, my gaze fixed on the back door and what I could see of the veranda.
No shadows, no noise.
I sidestepped my way into a hall running the length of the house, wondering if I could make it to the front door.
And then what? Risk going outside with whoever was loitering out there?
I patted my pocket to check for my cell. I needed to call for help. Now.
But as my fingers clenched around the comforting smartphone, I heard another noise.
The screechy grind of metal on metal, like a rusty lock sliding back.
Then a footstep.
Inside the house.
Rigid with terror, my fingers froze around the cell. I didn’t have time to call 911; couldn’t take the chance of making a noise and drawing those footsteps towards me.
A footfall, then another…closer.
I yanked my hand out of my pocket and inched along the wall away from that footfall.
Part of me wanted to yell out, to make a stand.
If this was Sammy, as I suspected, caught up in some weird plan with Seth to get back at me, I’d kill her myself. But I couldn’t take that chance; couldn’t draw attention until I knew who I was dealing with.
The wall at my back ended and I risked a quick glance over my shoulder.
Into the room.
The one I’d seen in the music clip.
Same chair, same Chinese trunk, same calendar stuck on today’s date. With a mottled, port-wine mark staining the boards in the middle of the room.
Panic welled in my throat, making breathing impossible as I stared at that stain, the truth dawning far too late.
Dried blood meant that video had been real, that Sammy was already dead.
And I’d been lured here to a similar fate.
Spots danced in my vision and I dragged in several deep breaths. No freaking way would I pass out and make it easy for the son-of-a-bitch.
Because I now knew who was in the house with me; knew it with the certainty that comes from being blind for too long and finally having the blinkers ripped from my eyes.
I gripped the knife tightly in both hands and edged away from the room, keeping my back to the wall. The hallway made a right angle at the end and hopefully, the front door lay beyond. If I could make it outside, I could make a run for the forest, find a hiding place and ring for help.
I’d made it halfway down the hall when the smell hit me.
The disgusting stench of rotting meat.
I gagged but couldn’t risk taking a hand off the knife to cover my nose. The stink increased with every step—pervading, stifling, clinging to me like a miasmic cloud.
Tears streamed from my eyes and I blinked and glanced upwards to stop them. My blurry gaze landed on a square trapdoor with a small metal ring.
The entrance to the attic.
The vile odour was at its worst here and as my stomach roiled and bile scorched my throat, I registered what could be in the attic causing this god-awful stench.
I retched, the coffee and pancakes splattering the boards at my feet and adding to the unbearable smell.
I had to get out of here and get help, and considering my puking had shattered the silence, there was no point skulking around. I ran, my footsteps unbearably loud as I skidded at the end of the hallway, my heart sinking as I spied the front door eighteen feet away. With three doors to pass on the way.
Trying not to hyperventilate from panic, I gripped the knife tighter and restarted my crab walk, back to the wall, sidestepping so I could see into the rooms at all times.
I strained to hear something, anything, to give me an advantage.
Nothing.
No footfalls, no breathing.
I’d reached the first room, bare bar a fireplace, when I heard it.
The faintest squeak of a rubber sole hitting liquid behind me.
As if in slow motion, my head came up and I locked gazes with a killer.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I DIVED INTO the room and slammed the door, wishing a lock would miraculously appear.
I spun around and lunged for the window, only to find it nailed shut.
Adrenalin electrified my muscles and I sprung around like a caged feral cat, desperate to escape, seeking an out.
The doorknob slowly turned. I stopped bouncing around and braced my back against the fireplace.
I had no other choice.
Time to make a stand.
The door swung open and I almost peed my pants.
So much for Mom’s spiritual protection. Like everything else she’d said, the ritual meant jack in the face of reality.
Seth hovered in the doorway, his frigid stare as chilling as the eerie smile twisting his mouth into a grimace. “So, here we are.”
Of all the things I’d expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them.
“Fuck you,” I said, terror making my voice quiver.
“Like how you fucked over my brother?”
He took a step into the room and slammed the door. I screamed, making a mockery of my defiant stance.
“Stay away from me.” I held the knife out in front of me, hating how my hands shook.
“Or what?” His eyes bored into me, cold and lifeless. His complete lack of emotion scared me more than anything he could say. “You’ll cut me with that knife?”
His manic laughter froze my blood. Blood I’d rather stayed in my body than ended up splattered like Sammy’s.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Noah?”
His upper lip curled in disgust. “Tell you w
hat? How you drove him to kill himself? How his death left me and my sister vulnerable to a monster again? How I ended up in an asylum for three months?”
He took a step closer and I gripped the knife tighter.
“Should I tell you how our father ritually abused us ’til Noah found out, stepped in and took us away? How our mom couldn’t function after she discovered the truth and ended up in a psych ward indefinitely? How Massimo started threatening Noah via Mom with what he’d do to us if he found us?”
Massimo?
So that’s why Noah had progressively withdrawn from me, had turned moody and self-absorbed and surly. The poor guy had been under constant stress protecting his siblings from psycho Massimo.
“How your constant nagging at Noah to spend more time with you only increased his stress? How you distracted him to the point he didn’t know Massimo had found us ’til it was too late and he walked into an ambush?” He lowered his voice to a cold whisper. “How the day before he killed himself, Massimo knocked him out, tied him up and made him watch as he violated me and my sister?”
Oh my God.
Revulsion burned the back of my throat and acid rose to choke me.
My kind-hearted, responsible, caring boyfriend, forced to watch his siblings defiled by a monster. It explained everything: his manic, drugged-out behaviour when he turned up late to our picnic, his anger and barely restrained violence.
My heart ached for what he’d been through, for what he’d been driven to do, and while learning the truth eased my guilt it didn’t eradicate my sorrow that an amazing young man had taken his life.
“And you dumped him a few hours after that,” Seth sneered, baring his teeth like a rabies-infested dog. “How does it feel, being responsible for pushing a guy who’d just been through hell to kill himself?”
My teeth chattered as chills of repulsion racked my body and I clamped my jaw shut. I wanted to retch but had nothing left.
“What we went through? Makes you sick, huh? Imagine living with it every fucking day!” His shriek pierced the fog of repugnance clouding my head and I recoiled.
“When Noah died, and with Mom still in the loony bin, I had to protect Jayne.” His shoulders drooped, the first sign of sorrow I’d seen. “Massimo bolted before we could untie Noah, and didn’t return to torture us some more after he died because people were crawling over this house like ants, concerned for us. Too little, too late.” Then his head snapped up and the force of his hatred slapped me anew.
“When Social Services turned up here two weeks later I told her to run and hide, to get as far away from here as possible while I caused a diversion.”
By the pain contorting his face, he seemed to genuinely care about his sister. “I’m glad I beat the crap out of that Social Services guy because Jayne got away, but now I can’t find her.”
He glared at me, blamed me for all this, for every last misery that had befallen him since Noah had died. If he’d clobbered some random guy as a diversion, what was he going to do to me?
“Being locked up for three months in the loony bin after bashing that dweeby dufus wasn’t all bad.” Evil oozed from every pore as he grinned at me. “I had twelve long weeks to plot your downfall.”
He laughed, a soulless sound that raised my hackles. “Was too easy, being on my best behaviour, getting a clean bill on my psych evaluation, being released into the custody of my half-sister.”
Half-sister?
Another piece of the puzzle slid into place.
So that’s how Tabitha fitted into the scheme. It had confounded me, how she knew about Noah. With Seth feeding her info, setting up the séance would have been easy. But why did she do it? I couldn’t see her being part of this madness.
“Thought you were pretty smart, huh, finding out Tabitha was Massimo’s daughter? Illegitimate daughter, actually.”
His hands scrunched into fists. “She was the lucky one. Her mom had her suspicions about Massimo. Never left him alone with her whenever he drifted into Allentown.” He shuddered, his fists clenched so tight the knuckles stood out. “Then one day when Tab was seventeen her mom got held up at work. Caught him trying it on with Tab when she got home. Took photos. Threatened to go to the police unless he left Tab alone and set her up in that shop in the city.”
Her graduation gift…Abhorrence made me gag. Massimo was a monster and sadly, Seth had inherited some of his madness.
“Why didn’t you all go to the police?”
His mouth twisted with disgust. “We tried. Those hick county sheriffs didn’t believe us. Shame on you kids, making up stories about an upstanding citizen like Massimo the Magician.”
He started pacing, increasingly unsettled. “Tab wouldn’t say anything because she’d scored an out with those photos. But Jayne and I tried and we were labelled liars and brats, ganging up on a stepfather we hated.”
“Stepfather?” I couldn’t keep track of Seth’s convoluted family tree. Maybe knowing some of his familial background might help me get through to him somehow. “Is Massimo Noah’s dad?”
Seth sneered. “No way. Noah’s dad died when he was one, then Mom hooked up with our dad, Jayne’s and mine, and he was killed in a mill accident when we were eight.” His eyes darkened with pain. “She married Massimo when we were thirteen.”
Which explained why the monster had never got his hands on Noah; he would’ve been eighteen and at college at the time.
“He ruined our lives,” Seth said, his devastation audible.
A small part of me felt sorry for him. The horrors he must have endured…
“But don’t worry, once you’re sorted, I’m going after Massimo. I’ll find him and once I do…”
I could have sworn his eyes glowed red before he blinked and refocused on me.
Sorted.I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Why involve Tabitha?”
“She’s not involved in any of this.” He glared at me like I was an idiot. “She feels guilty she escaped when we didn’t, so when I told her you’d hurt Noah and pushed him over the edge, she was only too happy to help her half-brother spook Noah’s old girlfriend as payback for ‘breaking his heart’.” He made inverted comma signs with his fingers. “Tab doesn’t know anything else.”
I believed him, because Tabitha hadn’t seemed malevolent in any way. Just deluded by her psycho half-brother.
I had to keep him talking. “How did you find me in New York?”
He sniggered. “I witnessed your tender little burial ceremony with that crappy necklace. Followed you home. Watched you for a week before I was locked up in that psych ward. When I got out you’d vanished, so I ransacked your mom’s house one night when she was sleeping, found your aunt’s address.”
The thought of him watching me at Noah’s grave, then digging up the necklace and stalking me for a week made me feel sick, but imagining him searching Mom’s house while she slept filled me with fury. He could come after me, I could fight back, but my defenceless Mom…shit.
“Then I staked out your aunt’s apartment, followed you to school, enrolled, and…well, you know the rest.”
“So the necklace, the doll, the death signs, all your idea of a good time?”
His eyes narrowed in hatred. He didn’t like my confidence. He wanted me cowering in fear.
Screw him. He’d be waiting a long time, the sick bastard.
“I wanted to make you suffer like Noah suffered, how we all did.”
He leered at me and I backed up a fraction. “Admit it, you thought you were going nuts.”
I shrugged, determined not to show any sign of weakness. I’d read somewhere psychos got off on that and he was crazy enough without me waving any red flags.
“Yeah, that stuff messed with my head for a bit, especially when no-one else could see that body.”
“Too bad for you my talents don’t stop at solving chemistry problems.” He laughed. “My home life was so shitty after Mom married Massimo, I escaped into online video games. Hacking beca
me a natural extension of that, a hobby if you like.” He glowered and I swallowed my fear. “It was so easy, planting that piece, having it re-run on a specific cycle, then embedding the final scene.”
Crap. Sammy. In light of his revelations, I’d forgotten about her.
“Why’d you kill Sammy?”
He picked at a fingernail, his nonchalance as chilling as his confessions. “We hooked up at Noah’s funeral. Hung out. She seemed to hate your guts as much as I did, so I made the mistake of telling her a plan or two.”
He’d taken two steps towards me before I could blink, his speed terrifying, and I scrambled backwards, my heel slamming into the skirting board.
“She didn’t agree with my visions of torturing you, then killing you.” His maniacal gaze focused on the knife in my hand. “Stupid bitch wanted to warn you. So I got rid of her.”
While Sammy and I had never been close, my eyes pricked with tears. She’d died trying to save me.
“She also served a purpose. Brought you here, didn’t it?” He gestured around the room. “Though I wish she hadn’t camped out in the lounge room. Having her sleeping on the floor was an inconvenience when I…” He shook his head and I felt faint, grateful he hadn’t elaborated on how he’d disposed of poor Sammy. “She made more of a mess than I anticipated and it took ages to clean up around Jayne’s favourite things.” His eyes glazed, as if lost in a precious memory. “Jayne loved collecting exotic stuff. She adored that Chinese trunk.” His eyes refocused and his expression hardened. “Treasured stuff she had to leave behind because of you.”
I hated his cold, logical presentation of facts, like his grand psycho plan was something to be proud of. And as he stared at me with hatred, I couldn’t believe this was the same guy I’d befriended at school.
He took a step towards me, then another, and a bolt of adrenalin cut through my fear. I had to get out of here or die.
“It all comes down to this.” He spat on the floor near my feet and I edged back. “You messed with my family, I’m going to mess with you.”
“I didn’t mess with Noah—”
“Don’t you dare say his name!” he roared, a vein bulging at the side of his neck. “You killed him. You!”