The Shadow Bird

by Ann Gosslin

  Unbearably slow, he loosened the gag at last. She coughed and sucked in a lungful of air. In another part of the cellar, a water heater clicked on, and her momentary elation plummeted. Nothing had changed. She was still trapped.

  ‘Thank you.’ She coughed again and sought his eyes, but he turned his head away. ‘And my hands?’

  Fear darted across his face. He looked at her, then looked away. Something was different, but what? Then, with a shock, it came to her. The dullness was gone, and his usually passive expression was no longer flat. He must be off his meds again. Was that a good thing, or bad? Whatever it meant, he was clearly terrified, transformed from a large man doped up on meds, into a small boy afraid of his father. Untying her might be asking too much. With her hands free, he couldn’t be sure what she might do. But at least she could scream, and with the use of her legs, she could run.

  ‘Timothy, do you know what time it is?’ Frightened as she was, she remembered to use the name he preferred.

  He held his wrist close to his face to look at his watch, the same chunky black model he’d had at Greenlake.

  ‘It’s exactly…’ He held up a finger and counted under his breath. ‘2.36.’

  ‘In the afternoon?’

  ‘No.’ A puzzled frown. ‘It’s dark out.’

  The middle of the night then. Stern would be asleep. ‘What day is it?’

  He consulted the watch again. ‘SAT. Saturday.’

  So she’d been out for more than six hours. Her throat was parched, and her head ached. ‘How did you know I was down here?’

  ‘I saw your car from the window. I heard you talking to my father.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come downstairs?’

  ‘The bedroom door was locked.’ He tilted his head as if listening for movement. ‘The rule is,’ Tim said, ‘I go to my room if anyone comes to the house. My father locks the door, so no one will take me away.’ He rubbed his eyes with his fists. ‘I saw him drive your car away. Before he fell asleep, he brought me something to eat and forgot to lock the door. So, I came down here to look for you.’ He looked frightened. ‘This is where he sends me when I’m bad. So I try to be good,’ he said, peering at the damp walls and the ceiling draped with cobwebs. ‘I don’t like it here.’

  In a few hours it would be daylight. What if Stern woke and discovered Tim’s room was empty? Her mind raced through the possible options. She needed to get out of the house without alerting him. But with no transportation, she wouldn’t get far. If she knew where Stern kept his keys, she could drive his car into town and alert the police. But she’d have to do all that without waking him.

  ‘Timothy, listen to me.’ She scooted along the floor to close the distance between them. ‘I need your help.’ She tried and failed to catch his eye. ‘But we have to be very quiet.’ She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Could you untie my hands now?’

  He chewed the skin on his thumb. ‘You won’t tell my father?’

  ‘No, of course not. We’ll be quiet as mice. All you need to do is let me out of the house so I can get to the village and after that go back to my own home. He’ll never know you helped me.’

  He gave her a frightened look and backed towards the door.

  ‘I just need some air, Timothy. Nobody likes to be locked up.’ She tried to keep her voice light. ‘If I can just get outside into the air, I’ll be fine. Then you can go back to bed.’

  Another moment passed before he looked directly at her. And there it was, the one thing she’d been hoping for all these months. A flicker of awareness, and a clear sense of their shared humanity. Despite the long years of incarceration and the constant cocktail of drugs, he was still in there.

  His hands were clumsy as he struggled with the knots. For a moment, she was afraid he wouldn’t be able to loosen them. But at last, with a gasp of relief, she was free, though her wrists throbbed as the blood returned.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, weak with relief. His face was pale, his pupils large.

  ‘Okay, Timothy, here’s what we’ll do. You go up the stairs first. On tiptoe, as quiet as possible. Can you do that? And then you’ll stand in the hallway, very still, like a statue, and listen. We need to be sure your father is asleep. If you don’t hear anything, I’ll follow you up the stairs. Then you’ll open the front door for me, so I can get out. As soon as I’m gone, you go back up to your room, very quiet, and get into bed. Do you think you can do that?’

  His eyes flicked from her face to the door. His skin gleamed with sweat. But he nodded and turned towards the stairs.

  The scrape of his trainers on the gritty floor boomed in her ears. She flinched at the sound.

  A thought suddenly hit her. The dog. Where was Lulu? Was she in the house or asleep outside?

  Fear lodged in her throat. ‘We need to be quiet, Timothy. Very, very quiet.’

  One step, two. Another step, agonisingly slow. As Tim eased his bulk up the stairs, the steps creaked under his weight. Erin held her breath, waiting for Stern to fling open his bedroom door.

  At the top of the stairs, Tim stopped and cocked his head to listen. No sounds came from the upper floor. She swayed on her feet as her heart raced, worried she’d faint dead away from the fear alone.

  Tim beckoned her to follow. She climbed the steps with care, testing each tread before putting her weight on it. When she emerged into the hall, it was stuffy and warm. No hint of fresh air from yesterday’s storm. Every window in the house must be shut tight.

  She touched Tim’s arm and held her finger to her lips. Aside from Stern, her biggest worry was the dog. Where was Lulu? Would she start barking when Erin, a stranger, fled across the lawn? To keep the dog quiet, Tim would have to come with her, at least to the end of the drive. But that was three hundred metres at least, and he might not agree to accompany her that far in the darkness. If there was a moon, it was obscured by clouds. The hall was pitch black. Only a dim glow came from a light in the kitchen.

  She motioned to Tim to follow and crept towards the front door. Under his weight, a floorboard creaked. Panic gripped her chest. She sucked in her breath and counted to ten. Upstairs, all was quiet.

  Almost there.

  At the front door, she tilted her head to listen before reaching for the handle. But when she pulled, nothing happened. The deadbolt was locked, and the key removed. No way out from here. As she struggled to quell her panic, her breath came in gasps. The logo on Tim’s trainers glowed like an iridescent beacon in the darkness. A surge of adrenaline urged her to flee. But how?

  47

  She leaned close and whispered, ‘Let’s try the kitchen door.’

  With infinite care, they headed towards the light at the end of the hall. Erin winced at each creak of the floorboards, expecting at any moment for Stern to bolt from his bed.

  A flash of lightning lit the hall, followed by the crack of thunder. The sudden clatter of rain on the roof was a relief, if only as a cover for her escape. As they moved towards the kitchen, each sound was like a knife at her throat.

  At the door to the backyard, she turned the knob, but it was locked from the inside.

  Tim peered at her with frightened eyes. ‘There’s a key.’

  She waited. ‘Do you know where it is?’

  He pointed to a row of canisters for sugar, coffee, and flour. Taped to the lid of the sugar canister was a door key. She peeled the tape away and clutched the key in her hand.

  ‘I’m going to leave now,’ she whispered. ‘As soon as I’m out the door, you relock it, return the key and go back to bed. Okay?’

  He nodded. The yellow glow from the stove light cast a sickly hue on his skin.

  Almost there. She eased the key into the lock. Freedom was but a moment away.

  When a flash of lightning lit up the room, Tim cried out. She turned to see a shadow in the doorway. The overhead light flicked on, dazzling her eyes. The key clattered to the floor.

  ‘Are you off then, Dr Cartwright?’ He turned to Tim. ‘You’ve be
en a bad boy, Timmy.’ In the sharp, halogen light, Stern’s eyes were brittle as glass. With his right hand, he gripped a shotgun, wielding it like a truncheon.

  ‘Timothy,’ she said. ‘Help me.’

  But he was looking at the weapon in his father’s hand and backing away.

  Stern raised his free hand and jingled a set of car keys. ‘Since you’re so anxious to leave, why don’t we go for a little drive. Just you and me. There are some lovely back roads through the forest. The road to the quarry is especially scenic, particularly in a storm. Lots of thrashing pine trees and hairpin turns. Quite thrilling, actually.’

  He turned to address Tim. ‘Go on up to your room. We’ll have a little chat about your behaviour when I get back.’

  Her pulse jumped.

  Tim dropped his head and scuttled away. As he mounted the stairs, each step felt like a nail in her coffin.

  Erin eyed the gun. Though Stern was fit for his age, and a good fifty pounds heavier than she was, he was an older man and, once outside in the darkness, she could probably outrun him.

  He stood aside to let her pass. ‘Let’s go out through the front door, shall we? So much more civilised.’

  But fear rooted her feet to a spot on the floor. It was impossible to breathe. The old terror, always lurking beneath the surface, came roaring back. Vivien’s cobra eyes, glinting in the dark. The sour smell of Graham’s breath. All those hours and days locked in the damp cellar. The threat of the asylum and Vivien’s cold sneer. I can have you locked up, anytime I want.

  Erin straightened up and found her voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ Her legs were shaking, but she turned to face him. ‘If you’re planning to kill me, you’d better do it here. Though you won’t get away with it. Several people know where I am and why I’ve come. If I disappear, the police will show up on your doorstep asking questions.’

  Stern snorted with laughter. ‘In that case, I would kindly invite them in, like the gentleman I am, and inform them that you came here to thank me for the care I’ve provided for my son, after saving him from that wretched asylum. And after having a drink with me, you left for home in the middle of a storm, where you must have met with a terrible accident.’ He fixed her with a bloodless stare. ‘It happens all the time in the backwoods. People disappear. Sometimes they die.’

  With her brain reeling, she scrambled to come up with a plan of action, while pretending to give in and follow him to the front door. When they reached the stairs, she could make a dash for Stern’s bedroom and bolt the door. There was a telephone in there. If she moved fast enough, she might be able to alert the police in time.

  ‘Coming, Dr Cartwright?’

  With an eye on the shotgun, she moved past him and into the hall, her eyes flitting from side to side, searching for a weapon or a way out, but Stern kept close behind. So close, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. If she was lucky, he might be unsteady on his feet.

  Halfway there. The hall clock ticked the minutes as rain drummed on the roof. A bolt of lightning lit up the dark hall, blinding her briefly. This was it. She spun round and pushed Stern hard on the chest. As she fled up the stairs, fear gave wings to her feet. If Stern had locked his bedroom door, she’d be trapped. But the door was open, and she flung herself through it, scrabbling for the bolt as Stern pounded up the stairs. She shot the bolt closed, a second before he slammed his weight against the door.

  She sprang away. Solid oak, but was it strong enough? Could he break it down, or blast through the door with the shotgun?

  The room was dark, and she stumbled to the bedside table, where a white phone gleamed, and switched on the light. At the sound of the dial tone, she was flooded with relief, but as she punched in the emergency number, the line went dead. Erin dropped the receiver and scanned the room for a weapon. He’d lied about the shotgun. So there might be pistol in the nightstand. She yanked open the drawers and felt around, but there was nothing.

  Sprinting to the dresser, she rummaged through his clothing. Nothing. As she straightened up, she came face to face with the row of photographs on top of the dresser. One looked oddly familiar. It was the photo of Ray and his father on the beach in Santa Barbara. But it wasn’t Ray’s father. The man in the photo was Stern. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Ray and Stern. Pain squeezed her chest. Everything he’d told her was a lie.

  Something hard smashed against the door. She dropped the picture and ran to the window, but it wouldn’t budge. By slamming her palms against the sash, she managed to raise it a few inches.

  Another crash against the door splintered the wood. He must have got hold of an axe. Terror gave her strength and she wrenched the window wide enough to climb out. Rain hammered the roof tiles, and the wind blew her hair in her eyes as she scrambled onto the steeply pitched roof. The ground was dizzyingly far below, but if she could skirt round the back, she could drop onto the roof of the kitchen, and from there onto the ground.

  Rainwater streamed down the back of her neck. Clinging to the slippery roof tiles, she crab-walked away from the window, moments before Stern smashed through the door. She turned to see his face, tense with fury as he raised the shotgun to his shoulder and took aim. Tim loomed up behind him. They locked eyes for a split second before he lunged forward and grabbed Stern around the chest.

  She was two storeys off the ground, but there was no time to lose. Her wet hair stuck to her face, blocking her view. For a moment, she was too frightened to move. If she lost her grip, that would be it. Don’t look down. Sprawled flat, she inched forward, praying the rain gutter would hold her if she slipped.

  ‘There’s nowhere to hide.’ Stern was at the window, pointing the gun at her head.

  Erin pressed her face against the slate. As she scrabbled for something to hang onto, her hand whacked against a metal spike. Lightning rods. The roof was lined with them.

  Stern fired and missed. She grabbed a rod and then another, pulling herself along, inch by painful inch. Lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a symphonic clash of thunder. The metal rods tingled in her hand.

  Stern climbed out the window, leaving the gun behind. Better if she fell, he must be thinking. It would look like an accident.

  Move. The ground was far away, but she forced herself forward, one inch, two, risking a glance over her shoulder. Stern, tethered to a rope, was closing the gap between them.

  A thump was followed by the crack of splintering wood, and a sharp cry. Erin, spreadeagled against the shingles, looked back in time to see Stern tumble off the roof, the loose rope flailing in his hand.

  Tim leaned out the window, his eyes wide in fright, as the rain streamed down his face.

  Stern grabbed for the gutter, legs flailing. But the metal groaned and pulled away, sending him cartwheeling through the air. The crack of his skull on the flagstones was like a gunshot.

  Tim looked terrified.

  She called out to him. ‘Grab the sheet off the bed and throw one end to me.’

  He disappeared from view. She pressed her face against the roof, desperate to keep her grip as the rain streamed down. A thud sounded behind her. Tim had tossed a rope out. Better than a bed sheet. Lying flat, a starfish splayed against a rock, she stretched forward and grabbed the rope, already sodden and slippery from the rain. Tim leaned out the window to haul her in. Too tired to do anything but hold on, she went limp as he dragged her over the sill, where she flopped onto the carpet, gasping for breath.

  Relief lasted only a moment, until panic seized her. Where was Stern? Did he die in the fall, or was he still out there, about to come after her again?

  Heaving herself upright, she gasped. ‘Timothy. Your father? Is he…?’

  Tim leaned out the window. ‘He’s not moving.’

  ‘We need to call for help.’

  He hobbled to the far wall and slid to the floor. ‘I think he’s dead.’

  ‘We still need to call.’

  They eyed each other across the distance, before he dropped his
head on his knees and mumbled something.

  From where she lay, flat on the floor, her ears pricked up. ‘What did you say?’

  When he lifted his head to stare at her, the light dawned in his eyes. ‘I didn’t kill them.’

  ‘No, Timothy,’ she said. ‘You didn’t kill them.’

  ‘I didn’t do it.’ His eyes, perfectly clear, locked onto hers. ‘It wasn’t me.’ He dropped his head in his hands and burst into tears.

  48

  Dobbs Ferry, New York

  September, Present Day

  Ray was waiting for her at the café by the river. Their café, as she’d once thought of it, where they’d had dinner on the terrace on a sultry summer evening in June. But as Erin crossed the street, she looked away to avoid his smile. How easy it would be to get sucked in again by Ray’s good looks and charm, when what she needed was to stay clear-headed and in control.

  As she approached the table, he leaned in to kiss her tenderly on the lips. She submitted without flinching, but when she pulled away, rather abruptly, he gave her a puzzled look.

  Friday afternoon, and the riverside terrace was teeming with the happy-hour crowd. Animated laughter rang out over the water. Faces were flushed with wine and sunburn, as the jubilant patrons, sprung from their office drudgery, got a jumpstart on the weekend.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ Erin said. ‘It’s a bit noisy out here.’ Without waiting for an answer, she stepped through the door and headed to a table in the back. The dining room was empty.

  No one wanted to sit inside on a day like today, with the sun suspended above the river like a jewel.

  A waitress hefting a tray of drinks glanced at them in surprise. ‘Be with you in a minute,’ she said.

  Erin pulled out a chair and sat, holding her bag on her lap.

  ‘Why don’t I go out and give her our order,’ Ray said. ‘Faster that way. I don’t know about you, but I’m parched.’ ‘Could you get me an iced tea?’ She patted her face with a napkin.