The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle

by Jennifer McMahon

  “Jesus,” he mumbles. Outside, he hears something. A popping sound. Then another. He freezes, eyes still on the drawing.

  Suz. It’s Suz.

  Now a dog is barking, far off in the hills.

  Is that a car door closing? Shit. That’s all he needs now, for Tess to come home and catch him here. He snaps the sketchbook closed, throws it on top of the photos, and flips off the light. He stands at the door for a moment, listening. Nothing. Or almost nothing. There’s the faintest sound of footsteps on the gravel path that weaves through the garden. And they’re coming his way.

  In his pocket, Emma sleeps on through the static.

  Looking around the dark studio frantically, he sees there’s no place to hide. His only hope is to open the door and make a break for it, hope she isn’t close enough to see him.

  Slowly, he opens the door, heart leaping, mouth salty with blood from where his teeth have been clamped down on the insides of his cheeks. He crouches down and sneaks along the edge of the building like a burglar. When he gets to the back side, he stops and listens. Nothing. Had he imagined the footsteps?

  Still crouched down, running like a soldier in battle, Henry hurries around the edge of the sculpture garden, to the driveway where he stands up straight at last. No sign of Tess or the Volvo. And no motion lights. It’s pitch black. He gets close to the one angled down from above the front door of the main house, jumps up and down to try to get it to come on. Nothing.

  “Must have blown a circuit,” he says out loud, thinking that the sound of his own voice will help keep things rational.

  He makes his way to the barn and checks the breaker, which is fine. He flips it off, then on. Henry pulls back the stapled-on black plastic and looks out the window. Still no lights.

  He chomps down on the inside of his cheek, tells himself he should get back out there and check the lights more carefully. But somehow, the very thought of it makes his guts go cold. So much for being rational.

  “Coward,” he says.

  What is it that’s supposed to be out there?

  In his mind, he sees the sketch of Suz in the lake, going under.

  He steps toward the sliding barn door, then stops, hears Winnie’s voice in his head: In all that chaos, there are patterns. There’s no such thing as coincidence.

  His fingers are on the door, but instead of opening it, he finds himself pushing the latch closed, bolting himself safely in.

  He’s just had too much to drink. That’s what Tess would say. The wine’s making him jump to conclusions rather than think things through. Maybe Tess is right. Maybe it’s time to give up the drink once and for all.

  He looks out the window again. It’s dark. Too damn dark. He’ll probably trip over shit if he goes out there. Break an ankle or something. It’s best to stay inside. He’ll check the lights tomorrow when he can actually see what he’s doing.

  Content with this plan, he refills his coffee mug with wine, settles back into the canoe with Suz’s journal.

  July 18—Cabin by the lake

  Beautiful day today. We went skinny-dipping. Henry and I had a contest to see who could swim farthest underwater. I made it all the way to the rocks and won. Scared the shit out of poor Winnie. She thought I’d drowned. Henry and I sat on the rocks and talked about the model rockets he used to build when he was a kid. I told him I thought model rockets were sexy. He said, “Everything is sexy to you,” and kissed me on the cheek, then he slid back into the water before I could say the thing I was gonna say next. Which I guess is for the best.

  I have been working hard on the sketches for my new sculpture. But it’ll be more than a sculpture—it’s a key piece in the new plan I’ve been working on, our next mission, the biggest yet. What it is is a blind. A Trojan horse of a sort. I showed the drawings to Henry and he thinks it’ll work. Then I showed them to Tess and Winnie.

  “A moose?” Tess asked. “A fucking moose?”

  “I think it kicks ass,” Winnie said, leaning in and kissing me hard on the mouth.

  It’s eleven at night now. I worked all evening sorting wood, cutting pieces for the frame. In my mind, the moose is beginning to take shape. I’m thinking I might take a break from the sculpture part and do a huge, life-size painting of the moose, a sort of moose study. I can work out the dimensions, get the details right before tackling it in 3-D. I want the final product to be as realistic as possible.

  This is my favorite part of a project: the beginning. Everything seems possible. The art lives in the mind’s eye, beautiful and shimmering, some kind of holy grail you have to get to. And the act of creation is the quest. But I haven’t set out yet. I’m still just gathering supplies, visualizing the end result, all golden and perfect, infused with this kind of light that lives only in my mind. I pity anyone who is not an artist. Who doesn’t know what this feels like. This beautiful gestation.

  Henry sits up, closing the book. He hears a sound on the baby monitor. He fumbles in the pocket of his jacket, turns the volume all the way up.

  Emma’s awake. Talking. Whispering. Having a conversation.

  She’s not alone.

  Henry holds his breath. Puts the receiver to his ear, trying to make out words in the static.

  They’ll burn, he hears a voice say.

  But this isn’t just any voice.

  It’s Suz. Crackly, faint, but Suz. He’s sure of it.

  Henry stands on shaky legs, coffee cup in one hand, monitor in the other. Dropping the cup of wine, he bolts out the door, monitor in hand, heading for Emma’s room, terrified of what he might see when he gets there.

  But he stops dead in his tracks, arms pinwheeling like a cartoon character who has just found himself at the edge of a cliff.

  Across the yard, the little shed Tess uses as her studio, the building where he was just a trespasser, is in flames.

  Chapter 52

  TESS WAKES UP DISORIENTED and in complete darkness. She’s naked. Hot under a thick comforter, the sweat making the cotton stick to her like loosely wrapped bandages.

  Then she remembers.

  “Claire?”

  She reaches over to the left side of the bed. Feels a warm pillow, but other than that, only empty space.

  Tess rolls out of bed, gropes around on the floor for her things, and dresses quickly in the dark. Her body feels liquid, mercurial. Tangled in her shirt is her digital watch. She pushes the light. It’s 12:13 A.M. Shit! She can’t believe she fell asleep. How could she? What will she say to Henry and Emma?

  Guilt floods over her. What has she done?

  It was all so easy—the kiss, the way she let Claire lead her up the stairs to the bedroom. It felt so…inevitable. Unstoppable.

  But maybe she should have stopped. Thought things through a little more.

  She’s not the sort to just jump into bed with someone she hardly knows. The truth is, other than Henry, the only other person she’s slept with was her high school boyfriend.

  And now here she is, slinking around in some other woman’s house, feeling more like a character in an art house movie than herself.

  Stumbling her way through the dark, Tess heads out of the bedroom and down the carpeted hall on tiptoe, reaching the doors to the bathroom and office, which are both closed. She pauses a second, listening.

  “Claire?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

  There’s no response. Tess puts her hand on the bathroom doorknob, starts to turn it, then is overcome by the need to get home. She needs to get away, think things through on her own before facing Claire again.

  She gently releases the doorknob, and pads down the stairs. The living room and kitchen are dark.

  Fumbling in her purse, Tess pulls out her keys and hurries out the front door, down the steps and to her car, where she backs down the driveway with her headlights off, feeling like a criminal who’s just barely gotten away.

  TESS IS PASSING THE woods that line the road on the north side of their property when she sees it: red lights circling, f
lashing.

  A rush of adrenaline quickens her heart even as she holds her breath, all her senses on overdrive.

  The tires of the Volvo squeal as she guns it down the road to the driveway, where she loses control on the turn, nearly ramming one of the fire trucks.

  Whatever has happened, I am to blame, she thinks. When you have an affair, you leave your family wide open to danger.

  She makes a quick deal with God right then and there: If everyone is all right, she will break things off with Claire. She will be a better mother. She won’t leave her child unguarded. She’s not going to run off again like some hormone-crazed, love-struck teenager.

  Who does she think she is? How could she forget her responsibilities, her own daughter, like that?

  “Emma,” she says without even knowing she’s saying it. Her daughter’s name is like a breath. That much a part of her.

  Please, God, let her be all right.

  Right away, she sees her prayers are answered. Emma’s standing in her moose pajamas next to Henry in the yard, holding his hand. They’re watching the volunteer firefighters douse what’s left of her painting studio with their hoses.

  “What happened?” Tess asks, running up to them over the grass. She hugs Emma fiercely.

  Henry looks at her with sadness. He doesn’t seem angry or suspicious. He doesn’t ask where she’s been until after midnight.

  “They think it started with a candle,” he says.

  “But I wasn’t even in there today. I never lit any candle.”

  “Maybe it was your daughter,” one of the firefighters suggests. He’s joined them in their little semicircle.

  “She never goes near the studio,” says Tess. “She knows better. Don’t you, Em?”

  Emma nods.

  Tess hugs her again, pulling Emma tight against her own body, holding her there.

  “You’d be surprised how long a candle can burn,” the man says. “You could have lit it yesterday.”

  “I’m always careful,” Tess says.

  I will be careful. From now on. My daughter is safe and I will keep my promise and be a better mother. No wild affairs or great search for all the passion missing in my life. I will not see Claire again.

  “I’m kind of suffocating here, Mom,” Emma says, her voice muffled. Tess lets her go.

  “Sorry.” She gives Emma an apologetic smile, watches the fireman leave them, go back over to one of the trucks.

  “Pretty flowers, Mom,” Emma says, and it’s only then that Tess realizes she’s clutching the bouquet of irises, now crumpled, ruined.

  “I bought them earlier today,” she says, as if Emma has asked for an explanation. “I thought it would be nice to put them on the table. Paint them maybe.”

  She thinks of the matching bouquet she took Claire, how it was dropped on the floor in the front hall, forgotten once their kissing began.

  Tess blushes, self-consciously raises her hand to cover her right shoulder where she knows Claire left tooth marks in her skin. She won’t be able to wear a bathing suit for a while.

  “It’s okay,” she tells Henry. “It’s not as if anyone was hurt. And there weren’t many paintings in there. Just a lot of supplies. A few new sketches. It can all be replaced.”

  She feels a stab of pain at the thought of the new sketches being gone. Then, she remembers the Polaroids she’d taken from Henry’s studio. Shit.

  “Danner says it will be worse next time,” Emma tells them. Her arms are crossed tightly against her chest.

  “What?” asks Tess.

  “She says something bad is going to happen.”

  “Bad in what way?” Tess asks.

  Emma bites her lip, shrugs.

  “Emma, before I called the fire department, I heard you talking in your room,” Henry says. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Danner.”

  “Is Danner ever a…real lady? That other people could see?” he asks.

  Emma smiles. “She’s real now,” Emma says. “Come see.”

  Chapter 53

  HENRY FREEZES IN THE doorway of Emma’s room. Emma and Tess have stepped inside, Emma’s voice babbling, bright with excitement.

  “It’s my sculpture,” she tells them.

  Tess makes a strange gurgling sound.

  Henry tries to speak, but feels like he’s been gut-punched, there’s no air left. He reaches toward Emma as if to save her, but as usual, he can save no one. He can’t even gather up the courage to step through the doorway.

  There, reclining on Emma’s bed, is Suz.

  Suz in rag doll form.

  Her face is made from an old pillowcase, her mouth stitched up with thin red yarn. On top of her head is a blond wig: Winnie’s wig, Henry’s sure. The one she left in the bathroom to dry and could never find.

  But the most disturbing thing by far is the doll’s eyes. Emma has taken close-up photos of the eye of the moose painting in the hall, blown them up, cut them out, and stitched them onto the plain white face. They’re so like Suz’s eyes: flickering amber and golden brown. Henry can almost see them move.

  Emma has clothed the doll in an old sundress of Tess’s—pale gray wrinkly rayon. Underneath are leggings. And—can he be seeing this right?—his own beat-up boots tied onto its stuffed sock feet. The boots Danner was named for.

  He shivers.

  None of them speaks.

  Emma’s rocking back and forth, from her heels to the balls of her feet, excitedly waiting for their response.

  Finally, Tess, in a voice so meek it sounds completely unfamiliar, almost foreign to Henry, asks, “Is it…supposed to be anyone in particular?”

  Henry holds his breath as he waits for the answer.

  Emma smiles so wide her teeth glow. “It’s Danner.”

  Chapter 54

  “I’M NOT SURE THEY liked you,” Emma whispers, curling up against Danner, nuzzling her bunched pillowcase neck. Danner smells fresh and clean, like cedar from the little sachets her mom keeps in the linen closet. But underneath that sweet woodsy smell, there’s something damp. The slight scent of decay.

  “Does it matter?” Danner asks, her voice louder, clearer than ever before.

  “I wanted them to. That was kind of the whole point.”

  But the truth is, now that she’s made the sculpture—turned Danner into this solid, real-life thing—Emma feels as if her project has taken on a much deeper meaning than just trying to impress her parents. She’s discovered what true art can be, and that it’s so much more important than everything else.

  Emma studies her handiwork in the low red glow of the clock radio. She strokes Danner’s hair, the blond wig Emma found in the bathroom the day Winnie pulled her from the pool. Emma remembers the guilt she felt at taking the wig—how Danner was the one who insisted Emma stuff it under her shirt, carry it up to her room and hide it under the bed.

  “What for?” Emma had asked, the damp wig pressed against the skin of her stomach.

  “You’ll see,” Danner had promised.

  Now Emma understands. Danner, whether she’s a part of Emma or not, has a way of knowing what’s going to happen next.

  “You’re real now,” Emma says, holding the doll tight.

  “I was always real,” Danner says.

  “Yeah, but now everyone can see you.”

  Emma thinks she sees Danner’s stitched mouth twitch into a grin.

  She leans in and gives Danner a kiss on the cheek, which feels cool, moist, not like a pillowcase at all.

  Chapter 55

  “WHERE THE HELL DID she get that wig?” Tess asks.

  They’re alone in the kitchen, having tried their best to convince Emma that they were genuinely pleased with her sculpture and that it was time to go to bed. They tucked her in and turned out the lights, the Danner doll nestled under the covers beside her. The Danner doll, who, Tess has to admit, looks an awful lot like Suz.

  Coincidence?

  There’s no such thing as coincidence, babycakes.

&
nbsp; “It’s Winnie’s. She left it here to dry after she jumped into the pool that day.”

  “Winnie’s? You mean she was wearing the wig when she jumped into the pool?”

  Henry nods. “When she first came back…she thought it would be easier, safer, if she wore a disguise.”

  Tess can’t believe what she’s hearing.

  “So, what, are you telling me she was dressed like Suz?”

  Henry nods again.

  “Jesus! Is she crazy?”

  Is Winnie the ghost she’s been so afraid of? The one who painted the trees and left the knife? Who’s been watching, spying, from the woods? It made perfect sense in a sickening sort of way.

  And hadn’t Emma just told them that Winnie knew about her sculpture project? She’d been giving Emma advice over the phone.

  “I heard them on the monitor, Tess.”

  “Them?”

  “Emma was talking to someone. It was Suz,” he said. “It sounded just like her.”

  Tess shakes her head. “It was ten years ago, Henry. How can you be sure it was her voice?”

  “I remember. I’d know it anywhere.”

  Of course. Of course you would.

  Tess turns away.

  “And what did it say? This voice that sounded like Suz?” she asks.

  “It said: They’ll burn.”

  A chill overtakes Tess. “Henry, do you think—”

  “Yes!” he interrupts. “That’s what I’ve been saying all along. I think Suz has found a way back. I think that maybe…maybe Danner is Suz.”

  Tess lets out a breath of disappointed air. “That’s not what I was going to ask, Henry. What I want to know is if it’s possible that Emma had something to do with the fire.”

  Tess hates to suggest it, hates herself for thinking it, but they’ve got to look at the evidence. The fire didn’t start itself.