Nightscape

by Stephen R. George

  She is changing me into something else. Infection. She passed it to me. Doctors couldn’t help. Only way. I think this is just the beginning.

  And suddenly things changed again. The handwriting, which had become very loose and full of flourishes, shrank into the compact, tight script of the first few entries.

  Evan next. Please forgive me. Must tell Bonnie.

  “And that’s it,” Bonnie said. “He never told me anything.”

  Shep was still pale and now his hands were shaking. He stared at the notebook.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” He absently flipped some more pages, and froze.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s more here.”

  “Read it aloud.”

  Shep wet his lips. His voice shook as he spoke.

  “The creche has me.”

  “I’ve heard something like that before,” Bonnie said. “I visited a cult expert, and he showed me an excerpt from a diary of a missing girl from California. She wrote something like that, too.”

  “I guess they get around.”

  He slammed the notebook closed. His forehead was dripping sweat. He looked sick and frightened.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” Bonnie said.

  “I almost feel like I know what he’s talking about.”

  “Harris?”

  “Something’s happening, and I don’t know what.”

  “If there is something, you better tell me.”

  Shep reached to his neck and gently tugged the bandage away from the cut. Bonnie covered her mouth in surprise. She had cleaned the cut for him only last night, but now it looked much, much worse.

  It glistened in the kitchen light, and the skin was puckered like a mouth. She could see raw flesh inside the wound. Around the scratch, the skin looked soft and puffy.

  “I got this from one of them. Scratched me.”

  “It looks infected. I told you that. You better get it looked at.”

  Shep shook his head and chuckled bitterly. He picked up the notebook and opened it.

  “Listen. ‘She is changing me. Infection. She passed it to me.’ Don’t you get it?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Evan, too. His rash. Don’t you see?”

  “See what? You’re frightening me!”

  “Good! Because I’m terrified. Whatever happened to Harris, it happened to Evan, and now it’s happening to me!”

  Evan woke. He was lying on the damp bed in the basement. The window above him was still light. He could make out the print on the yellowed newspaper taped to the glass. TWINS DO IT! How old was that? Three years? Four? Five?

  He sat up and listened.

  The house was quiet. The floor had been creaking earlier, as somebody had moved around, but now everything was silent.

  He tossed off the blanket the redhead had given him and tiptoed across the cold floor. He pressed his ear to the door. Silence. He opened it slowly, careful not to make noise.

  He crossed to the stairs, then climbed them, stepping nimbly from step to step until his ear was pressed to the door. He closed his eyes. His heart pounded and blood roared in his ears.

  It took nearly a minute for him to calm down enough to be able to hear. Beyond the door, only silence.

  He imagined, for a moment, the redhead standing on the other side, smiling, waiting. When he opened the door, she would grab him and pull him close. He could almost feel her breath on his mouth. The thought of it nearly turned him around, but he swallowed hard and stood his ground.

  He turned the handle and pushed the door open. The kitchen was as old-fashioned as Mom’s. A stove and oven with white turn-knobs for the elements; a loudly humming electric clock; a battered white monstrosity of a fridge; red and black linoleum on the floor, peeling and curling at the edges; a single window above the porcelain sink.

  He could see trees outside. Gray sky. Rain spattered the glass.

  He stepped up and closed the door behind him. It was warmer up here and he stopped shivering almost immediately.

  The kitchen table was cluttered with plates and cups, half eaten slices of toast, open jars of jam and marmalade. Evan’s mouth watered.

  He made himself turn away, and moved tentatively into the living room. Here, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, he froze, and his heart pounded. He experienced a feeling of déjà vu more intense than any he had ever felt.

  With pounding heart, he surveyed the room. The walls were pink or purplish, but two of them had been half painted. The streaks of white paint ended halfway toward the floor. Beneath the paint, the plaster was cracking, so severely that it looked like an immense spiderweb. A painting hung from one wall. A seascape, hanging askew.

  In the adjacent wall was a door. Closed.

  In the center of the room was a cot. Above the cot hung a light. A single bulb. He had been here before. In his dreams. This was the place.

  He was suddenly so frightened that his legs quivered. He stumbled to the cot in the middle of the room and fell onto it, too frightened even to flee. He hugged himself and closed his eyes, shivering again.

  When he opened his eyes, he was no longer alone.

  The redhead was standing next to him, and the immense boy/man, Henry, beside her. They both looked down at him. She was smiling.

  “You’re up,” she said.

  “Where am I?”

  “Don’t you know? Don’t you remember this place? Or me?”

  Evan shook his head. She laughed like a little girl, a high tinkling sound, and bent down close to him.

  “You’re lying! Are you frightened?”

  Evan nodded.

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “Where’s my dad?”

  “You don’t really want to see him, do you?”

  Evan slowly shook his head.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  And as she said that, he thought he heard a noise came from beyond the door behind her, and suddenly all the terror of his nightmare came rushing back.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  “You are being shaped,” she said.

  “Shaped?”

  “Hmmm.”

  She bent over him and kissed his mouth. He did not turn away from her. He tasted something sweet, heavy, and for a moment he felt dizzy.

  “Shaped into what?”

  “Into something alive,” she said.

  And the thought rushed through his mind that she meant alive for the first time, a new state, that what she meant was that he hadn’t been alive up to now, that he had only been pretending, that what lay ahead of him was real life, the only life, and although this thought didn’t even seem to be his own, although it seemed to come from outside of himself, he understood it, or seemed to at any rate, for a very brief moment.

  He closed his eyes. He felt warm and safe and comfortable. He didn’t really need to understand anything.

  It would be good, he thought, to be alive.

  The reception area of the law offices of Peterson, Norstrum, Betham and Snell looked like a quiet lounge Shep sometimes frequented in Chicago. Abstract oil paintings, splashes of color atop splashes of color, hung over blood-red leather-upholstered sofas and chairs. The lighting was intimate, except for an area directly over the reception desk.

  The receptionist was a knockout blonde with impeccable makeup, whose long red nails did not look conducive to typing or taking dictation. She smiled courteously, favoring Shep but not Bonnie with her look.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m a private investigator from Chicago,” Shep said, deciding on a moderately honest approach.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m working on a case in which one of your clients may play a part, and I’d like to talk to somebody who can help me identify her.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nobody here right now.”

  “It’s either
that, or I take the information to the police. It’s possible your company has inadvertently played accomplice in a case of child abduction.”

  The woman looked at Bonnie, who was looking suitably stricken, then back to Shep.

  “Perhaps Mr. Snell could see you.”

  “That would be great.”

  “And your name?”

  “Shep Thomas.”

  She indicated for Shep and Bonnie to take a seat. Shep led Bonnie to the sofa, and they sat down. Within a minute a small, very clean, very sharp, very efficient-looking man, about Shep’s age but dressed with money, came into the reception area and walked over to them.

  “Mr. Thomas? I’m Iain Snell.”

  “Hello.” Shep stood quickly and held out a hand.

  Snell did not take it. “What do you want?”

  Against his better instincts, Shep liked Snell immediately. Liked his blunt, direct approach. He decided to return the favor.

  “I’m working on a case involving a missing child. Last week I followed a suspect up to this office. She left within half an hour carrying an envelope. I got my hands on that envelope. Inside it were surveillance photographs of a woman and a child. This woman,” he indicated Bonnie, “and her son. Shortly thereafter, Miss Laine was attacked, and her son abducted. I want to know the name of that woman and how to contact her.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I’m familiar with the rules of client confidentiality. You can stick to them if you want. I haven’t shared this information with the police, yet, but if you don’t tell me, that’s what I’m going to do. For some reason, you led this group to Miss Laine and her son. Why?”

  Snell pursed his lips. He did not look threatened or worried. He was simply weighing the facts, deciding which course led to the least trouble for him.

  “A redhead,” he said at last.

  “That’s her.”

  “I could ask how you got that envelope.”

  “You could.”

  He rubbed his chin, looked at Bonnie, then nodded.

  “Her name is Constance Morgan. She acts as a liaison for a group called Marchmount Trust. On her behest, acting on behalf of Marchmount Trust, we hired a private investigator to locate Miss Laine as quickly as possible. The job took two days.”

  “How can I get in touch with her? Or with this Trust.”

  “We have no address for the Trust. Our contact is entirely through Miss Morgan. Our address for her is…” He closed his eyes for a moment.

  Shep gave him the address of the house on Empire Street.

  “That’s it. But we have never had occasion to contact her. She visits or writes nearly monthly, at which time she generally deposits funds in the Trust account.”

  “How big is it?”

  “I don’t think you need that information.”

  Shep chuckled softly. “Guess not.”

  “The information I have given you in no way admits liability for any action that Miss Morgan or other representative of the Marchmount Trust have taken or may take in the future. I supply this information only as a courtesy.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I would appreciate it greatly if you would not reveal the source of the information.”

  “Sure.”

  Snell nodded, then walked back through the door from which he had come. The receptionist smiled at Shep, then began to type so quickly that he changed his mind about her nails.

  He led Bonnie out of the office. In the hallway he was overcome by dizziness, and he leaned against the wall.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  For a moment, he felt himself spinning, looking up at a cracked ceiling, faces circling around him. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. The faces faded.

  “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “I’m fine,” Shep said. “Just don’t question me.”

  The tone of his voice shut her up and he felt immediately guilty. That concern again.

  On the way down in the elevator, the dizziness returned. This time, he felt deep, terrible fear, and realized with a shock that it was not his own. It had come from outside of him. Evan? He leaned into Bonnie. She held him up until the dizziness passed.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “We’re getting closer,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty

  The house on Empire Street was two-story, modern, and well maintained. The neighborhood, Bonnie thought, was at least a full flight up from her own. A PARAMOUNT REALTY sign was embedded in the front grass.

  “Wait here,” Shep said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To check the lockbox.”

  He was out of the car before she realized what he meant, and then it was too late to call him back. He was thinking of breaking in! Shep disappeared around the side of the house, then returned a few seconds later.

  He got in the car and showed her a vague, relieved sort of smile.

  “We’re in luck. It’s one of the old key lockboxes. The new combination locks are impossible.”

  From the glove compartment he pulled an immense ring of keys. Bonnie could see car keys of all sorts, house keys, keys too small to fit anything but toy locks. He ran his finger around the ring and stopped at a strange-looking key with a circular cookie-cutter end. He pulled this one free.

  “Come on. I’ll show you the house.”

  “Just wait a damned minute. I don’t like this. We should call the police.”

  “Have they really been that much help to you so far?”

  “It’s different now. They believe me now.”

  “They believe your son is missing. That’s all.”

  “But this is illegal.”

  “I know that.”

  In the face of his determination, her arguments were amounting to nothing, and she could not quite put into words what she was really feeling. That she and Shep were going to hurt Evan by working alone, not help him. That the more people they had on their side, the better. That she felt totally inadequate for the job at hand.

  “Shep, please. Don’t you think that with their help, we’d have a better chance of getting Evan back? Maybe even of finding your brother’s killer?”

  Shep slumped in the driver’s seat.

  “I’ve been looking for these people for six months now. I’ve learned a little bit about myself. I know what I’m capable of, and I know what kind of job I can do. And I’m honest with myself, too. And I’m telling you, I know I can run these bastards down.”

  “But…”

  “Minneapolis cops, I know from shit. Cops are all alike. They got rules to follow, procedures they can’t ignore. That’s not going to help them on this case. These people, whoever they are, they’re above the law. I mean, they’re outside it. Don’t you see? We’ve got to come at them under their own rules. We’ve got to play dirty.”

  The confidence in his voice, in his look, in the strong touch of his hand on her leg, was like a surge of energy rushing through her. For a few seconds she felt what she imagined he must be feeling, a sense of purpose, a sense of sureness, a feeling that her own resources were enough to pull her through this, that to depend on anything else would be pure folly.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, then.”

  She followed him through the rain to the back door. He fumbled with the lockbox a minute, then got it open. Inside were the house keys. He plucked them deftly out and opened the door. Bonnie followed him into the house.

  The kitchen, though sparkling clean, did not look like it had been abandoned. The smell and feel of the house seemed familiar to Bonnie, and it took her only a moment to place. This was how she remembered her parents’ house, when they came back from annual vacations. Not abandoned, not empty, simply hibernating.

  “I thought you said the place was empty.”

  “I thought it was,” Shep said.

  He o
pened the fridge. The shelves had bottles of ketchup and salad dressing, two bottles of Pepsi, not much else. The true perishables had been removed. Bonnie checked the cupboards. Organized, but full.

  “Somebody lives here.”

  “Sure as hell looks like it, doesn’t it?”

  He didn’t sound so sure of himself any more, and Bonnie didn’t like that. She stayed close to him as they explored.

  In the living room Shep studied some photographs on the wall unit. The usual assortment, Bonnie thought. Parent portraits, the occasional snapshot of a distant cousin sent proudly in a sporadic letter. Shep was looking at one photograph in particular. Bonnie pressed close to him for a better look.

  “That’s her,” he said.

  “Attractive.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Her name suits her. Constance. Constance Morgan. Sounds romantic.”

  “I suppose.”

  She left him staring and checked the other shelves.

  On one, she found a commendation plaque from the Minnesota Bar.

  “Look at this.”

  Shep looked, and whistled. “So she’s a lawyer.”

  “Does that mean something?”

  “It means this whole thing is getting weirder and weirder.”

  They went upstairs. Three bedrooms in all. Master, guest, and office. Constance Morgan’s bedroom was sleek, well furnished, and about as personable as a public toilet. No dresser covered in makeup. No cupboard full of clothes. No full-length mirror on the door. It seemed a lot like a hotel room, Bonnie thought. A place you wouldn’t mind staying once in a while, but certainly not to live.

  “Bet she doesn’t take men up here,” Bonnie said.

  Shep grunted. He dutifully checked under the bed, shook his head.

  The guest bedroom was the same. There was a shelf of books near the bed, including a hardcover Revised Standard Bible, but not much else in the way of guest bedroom accoutrements.

  The office, which looked into the backyard, was the best equipped of the bedrooms. A computer sat on the desk, beside it a dot matrix printer, beside that a fax machine, and on the other side of the room a photocopier. There were three file cabinets in all. Shep opened them and flipped through. He seemed to look for something, then shook his head and slammed the drawer closed.

  “Don’t even know what to look for.”