Like a Bad Penny

by Harper Crowley

  “Me neither.” But Graham’s idea sounds as good as any other, so we start by knocking on the wall and looking for other changes that might indicate a secret panel or doorknob. There’s nothing. They all sound the same to me. Bored, I pan the camera over the top of the dresser and start rifling through the papers to see if there’s anything of interest there. We might not find the secret passageway, but there could be something else that could help us solve this mystery. But there’s nothing but old bills and receipts.

  “This was a stupid idea,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. Let’s keep looking. There might be something somewhere else.”

  We search the other bedroom and even the bathroom before reaching the last room in the upstairs. It’s an old guest bedroom that was converted into an office and then storage, judging by the stacks of boxes and furniture covered in heavy sheets and pushed against the walls. If we had more time, I would ask Graham if we could search everything, but we don’t.

  Graham eyes a couch shoved up against the wall at an angle. “That’s strange,” he says. “Why isn’t it against the wall? Let’s see what’s behind it.” He leans into the heavy piece of furniture and pushes it about a foot to the side, sending up heavy plumes of dust in his wake. I cough, my nose clogging up almost instantly, and step back, right into an old roll top desk.

  Being the graceful one that I am, I try to catch myself and trip, falling against an old armoire.

  The air whooshes from my lungs as I hit the wood, and the door splinters beneath my weight. I land inside, my pride bruised more than my body, thick shards digging into my backside. This is not the professional way to conduct an investigation.

  “Oh geez, are you okay?” Graham abandons the couch and hurries over to me, reaching through the broken wood to help pull me out.

  “Yeah, I think I’m fine.’ I brush myself off lightly, so I don’t get more splinters than I probably already have.

  He glances from me to the armoire. “Look. It’s a lot bigger on the inside than it looks from out here.” He pokes his head in the armoire.

  My lips twitch. “It’s not much of a Tardis, though.”

  He chuckles. “Leave it to you to be a Dr. Who fan.” Graham swings the armoire’s door open, and half of it falls off. I shine my light inside. He’s right, it is a lot bigger. Must be a built in. It’s empty, too. No shelves, no boxes, no hanging clothes. Definitely weird.

  “Why would they put all of their boxes out here, and nothing inside?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I can think of one reason.” He leans in and knocks on the wall. A hollow sound echoes back.

  “Did you hear that?” I ask. He nods and knocks on the back wall of the armoire again. Yup, it’s hollow. “Do you think this could be an entrance to the passageway?”

  “I bet it is.” He tosses a reckless grin over his shoulder and squeezes inside the armoire. He taps on the wall all over, but when that doesn’t do anything, he feels around the edges. “There has to be a way inside, if this is a hidden door.”

  “Yeah, though it would have been nice if they’d have put a door knob on these things.”

  Graham laughs. Feeling along the bottom wall of the armoire, he stops. “Here,” he says. “There’s a dent.” He presses it, but nothing happens. He presses it again, harder this time, and the wood creaks.

  “Stand back,” he says.

  Once I’m out the way but still filming, Graham puts his shoulder against the wall, presses on the groove, and pushes with all of his strength. With a groan loud enough to alert anyone that we’re here, the door swings open.

  Bear, nose to the ground, growls. We found it. I scoot back and grab the flashlight and the camera. The tunnel is dark, narrow, and the walls are rough-hewn wood coated thickly with cobwebs.

  “Do you think we should call the cops now?” I ask. Part of me wants to explore this, to get it on camera, but the other part of me remembers what Russ said, about taking stupid chances. I can’t do that to them again.

  Graham peer into the darkness with me. “No. We haven’t found anything real yet, just a tunnel in an old house. I want to check it out. If we find anything, then we’ll call the police.”

  The icy chill I felt earlier returns. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

  Bear whines and dances from paw to paw. Then he darts between Graham’s legs into the darkness and disappears beyond our flashlight’s beams.

  Damn it. “Bear!” No answering bark. No flurry of black and white fur. Nothing.

  “He probably smelled a rat or something,” Graham says. I think he’s trying to make me feel better, but it’s not working. Some sense, some feeling buzzes at the back of my mind. Something’s wrong.

  I take a deep breath. “I have to go after him.” Russ is going to kill me, but Jess would understand.

  “Wait.” Graham grabs my arm, but I shrug out of his grasp. Cobwebs tug at my sleeves and pull at my hair, but I ignore them, and the thousands of creepy crawlies probably hiding within.

  “I’m not leaving without my dog. Are you coming?” I try to keep the desperation out of my voice, but I fail miserably. I really don’t want to tromp through the tunnels alone, but I will if I have to.

  “Wait up,” he says.

  Relief floods through me. Thank God I’m not doing this alone.

  “Maybe you should have gotten a lab,” he says. “We used to have one. They listen really well, and Duke would never have attacked anyone.”

  “Right now I’m thinking I should have gotten a goldfish. A ghost-detecting goldfish.”

  He laughs, and the sound comforts me as the darkness swallows us whole. “Sounds like a TV show in the making.”

  Chapter 18

  The walls, sticky with grime and spiderwebs, close in around us as we get farther and farther away from the entrance. Reaching out on either side, I could touch the walls with my fingers, if they weren’t that gross. I quell the panic rising in my chest. I can do this. I have to get Bear back.

  Dust motes swirl around me. I wave them away, but it only makes them worse. I imagine Graham’s mother as a girl, running through these narrow corridors, playing alone. My heart breaks for her, and for her son. Graham was so young when she disappeared. For his sake and Shelley’s, I hope they find the closure they’re looking for, even if it’s not within these walls.

  Several dead-end hallways presumably lead to more rooms, but we ignore them. Bear can’t open the doors, so neither do we. He may be pretty sneaky, but he doesn’t have opposable thumbs.

  A narrow, rickety flight of stairs opens into a small room without a door. There’s a small, square window that I don’t remember from the outside, though truth be told, I didn’t look that hard, and it’s so dusty and grimy that I can’t see anything out of it anyway.

  My flashlight illuminates a small dressing table tucked under the window. It’s wooden and white with stickers and pictures covering the outside. A little white chair is tucked up against it, dusty from disuse. A twin-sized bed is tucked up against the far wall, covered in a faded flowered bedspread.

  I examine the pictures on the dresser, making sure to take the time to focus on them with my camera. One of them rings a bell in the back of my head. A young blonde smiles at me, her hands tucked in her lap. She can’t be any older than I am, and neither is the man standing by her side, his hand possessively cupped around her shoulder. It’s Graham’s mother. After seeing the picture he showed me earlier, the one from when he and his sister were younger, I would know her anywhere. But this man, this stranger with his hand on her shoulder, is not her husband.

  “Graham?” With the tips of my fingers, I delicately pick up the picture and blow the dust off. “Come here. I think you should see this.”

  He hurries over and shines his flashlight on his mother’s face and then the man standing next to her. “Who’s that?”

  “I don’t know, but I bet it’s important. Can we call the police now?”

  He nods
stiffly. His gaze shutters. There’s a whole lot of implication there in one Polaroid picture, and I don’t blame him for not wanting to face it. I know I wouldn’t want to face the worst about either of my parents.

  Graham turns just as the hooded figure who attacked us in Mr. Rasputin’s cottage appears out of the tunnel with his gun drawn. “Don’t move,” he says.

  But Graham doesn’t listen. In shock or surprise, he shines the flashlight directly on the attacker’s face. He’s not wearing a mask this time. Maybe he didn’t have time to put one on, or maybe he didn’t feel like he needed to.

  “Uncle Jay?” Graham asks.

  Chapter 19

  Holy crap. Is that... Yeah, it is Graham’s uncle. He was the masked man who attacked us at Mr. Rasputin’s? It can’t be, but it is.

  I shift my gaze from the barrel of the gun and focus on the face hidden under the hood. Graham’s Uncle Jay stares back at us, his eyes cold and emotionless.

  Graham slips the picture into his pocket. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about, boy.” He holds the gun steady, which doesn’t make me feel better. “But if you would have minded your own business, none of this would have happened.”

  Graham ignores his statement, even though he must be dying to ask him what he’s talking about. I know I am. “Put away the gun, please.” He holds his hands up to show that he’s harmless, but his uncle maintains his position. “We’re not going to tell anyone.”

  I let the selfie stick hang at my side, slightly behind my back, and hope Graham’s uncle doesn’t notice. It’s still filming—well, it’s filming the floor, but anyone watching will hear what’s going on. I should have given some clue as to where we are. I always keep it a secret because we’ve had groupies show up before, but now, when we really want someone to ride in and help, we’re shit out of luck.

  “Stupid kids,” he says, his voice laced with desperation and fear. “You have no idea what you’ve done. What you’ve unearthed. The past was supposed to stay buried. But now... now the whole damn thing’s going to come out. It’ll ruin this family. Ruin your father.”

  “What do you mean?” Graham asks.

  Good, ignore me. With my free hand, I reach into my pocket very slowly, flick the ringer off on my phone, and press the volume button several times until it must be on mute. I can’t let Graham’s uncle know what I’m about to do, or he’ll shoot me for sure. He might let Graham go, but I’m nothing to him. I hold the two outside buttons on either side until I feel my phone vibrate, letting me know I’ve activated the emergency call feature. Thank God Jess showed me how to do that. I hope they don’t think this is a prank and can figure out where we are, since I can’t exactly tell them our location.

  As if noticing me for the first time, Graham’s uncle swings the gun in my direction. His finger tightens on the trigger, and I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the second when everything stops, because I’m sure I’ll be dead before I hear the gun’s retort.

  “If it wasn’t for you and that damn dog, none of this would have happened. They never would have found the body.”

  Okay, even I can’t resist that one. “Don’t you mean if it weren’t for us meddling kids?” Sarcasm is my last defense in times like this. It’ll probably get me killed.

  Graham snorts.

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  At least he’s not going to shoot us in the tunnel, although it’d probably be easier to hide the bodies that way. Graham slides between us, as if that will protect me if his uncle really wants me dead, and we pass through the little room. Before we leave through a tunnel on the other side, Graham pauses.

  “Was this my mother’s room?” he asks. Graham gestures at the bed, the dressing table, and the pictures.

  “Yes, that was her secret little hideaway. She had a rough childhood. Her parents, your grandparents, were cold. Your grandfather drank a lot. She came here to forget, to escape.”

  Graham opens his mouth, and I wonder if he’s going to ask about the man in the picture, but then he would have to admit that he knows it’s not his dad. That could make the situation worse. He closes his mouth.

  Graham’s uncle gestures with the gun. “Come on. Move it. We gotta get out of here before your sister or the other two show up. We don’t have a lot of time left unless you want more people to get hurt.” More? Are we part of that? I’ve got to keep him away from my sister. Russ is smart. He’ll do his best to protect Jess and Shelley, but he has no idea what he’s walking into. Hopefully, the inner geek in him has stopped to check and make sure the feed is uploading correctly and can see my video. I hold my breath for a second, straining in the quiet with only our footfalls for a backdrop, listening for sirens. There’s nothing.

  Nothing except a low growl, that is. Bear. My scruffy little superhero dog leaps out of the shadows, pearly white teeth bared, and latches himself onto Graham’s uncle’s calf. He yells, the gun swings wildly, and he pulls the trigger. The bullet whizzes past my head, and I push past Graham. I’ve got to get over there. In the dodgy flashlight beams, Graham’s uncle kicks Bear, flinging him against the wall. Thud. Bear yelps but lays still. Thick plumes of dust clog the air.

  “Don’t touch my dog!” I scream. Wielding the selfie stick like a club, I whack Graham’s uncle over the head, the shoulders, the chest, and anywhere else I can reach. “Leave my dog alone, you asshole!”

  He grabs the selfie stick and flings it away, coughing in the thick, dusty air, so I start pummeling him with the flashlight. I manage to get in a couple good whacks before he jams the barrel of the gun against my temple. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot you right here, and then I’ll kill your sister, too.”

  My breath freezes in my throat. I stop, every muscle screaming at me to do something, anything, to stop this asshole, but I can’t. Not if he’ll kill Jess.

  Still wheezing, Graham’s uncle kicks me in the back of the knee. Pain explodes down my leg as it buckles, but I don’t give him the satisfaction of making a sound as I fall to my knees. After I struggle to my feet, he pushes me forward.

  “Now, move it,” he says.

  A few yards further, the tunnel turns again, ending with a fake wall. Graham’s uncle forces us through into the pantry then swings the door shut behind us.

  “You can’t do this to us,” Graham says. “You’re my uncle. I’ve known you my whole life.”

  “I’m not going to do anything to you, boy. It would kill your father to lose you.”

  “What about me?” My words, as empty and hollow as the shelves, bounce off of the walls of the small room. There’s a part of me, a large part, that doesn’t want to know the answer, but I ask it anyway.

  Graham’s uncle raises his gun. “Move it. We’re going outside.”

  With a sudden clarity that makes my hands shake, I imagine the cliff and the fallen oak tree hanging precariously over the river. Shit.

  Graham pushes me behind him. “I’m not going to let you hurt her.”

  “It’s for the best, boy. You’ll see.”

  Now it’s my turn to be strong. I don’t want Graham to get hurt, either. “It’s going to be okay,” I say. God, I wish I felt as sure of that as I sounded. I wish I heard sirens, too, but I don’t hear much of anything right now past the beating of my racing heart and the thrumming of the blood through my veins. I’ll find a way out of this. I know I will.

  The night sky is bleak and black. Not a single star peeks through the cloudy sky. Thorns from one of the rose bushes reach for me, snagging on my sleeve. I drag my feet and scan the vacant yard, looking for any kind of help, any sort of escape. I don’t see any.

  “Just a little bit farther,” Graham’s uncle says.

  My stomach sinks as he pushes us until we reach the edge of the bluff overlooking the river. Bottomless black water crests against the banks, rushes over the rocks, and races past us. Wind whips my hair across my face, and I brush it away.

  Graham balls his hands into fists and gl
ares at his uncle. “Did you kill my mother?” he yells above the roaring of the river below.

  His uncle’s shoulders stiffen. “If that bitch hadn’t been sleeping around on your father, none of this would have happened.”

  “Don’t talk about my mom that way,” Graham growls. I step back at the fierce protectiveness in his voice and almost trip over the tree. Come on, Meredith. Don’t be an idiot. You don’t want to kill yourself before Graham’s uncle can do it for you.

  His uncle snorts. “It’s true. If she hadn’t been sneaking around at night, meeting that... that hired help, then she would never have died.”

  My jaw drops. Please let my phone still be on. I may not be recording anymore with the GoPro, but the cops might be listening. “So you did kill her.”

  Graham’s uncle’s gaze swings to me, and it’s filled with such loathing and rage that I barely keep myself from looking away. “She had it coming. But no, I didn’t. It was an accident.”

  Graham roars and tackles his uncle. The gun blasts, and Graham crumbles to the ground, doubling over a spreading dark stain on his stomach.

  I shriek his name and drop to his side, pressing my hands to his wounds. He groans, and his eyes flutter open against the pale, pasty white of his skin.

  “Look what you’ve done! Goddamn you!” Graham’s uncle grabs my arm and jerks me to my feet.

  I wrench myself back and forth, but he’s too strong. “I didn’t do anything. You shot your nephew!”

  “It’s your fault. This could have ended now, here, and no one else would have had to get hurt.”

  “Besides me,” I say, my voice flat. A coldness spreads throughout my body.

  He shrugs. “The cliff is steep. It’s happened before.”

  Graham’s head rolls to the side. He’s regaining consciousness. Good, at least he’s not dead. There’s been enough death in this family. I silently will him to play possum until help arrives so he doesn’t draw attention to himself.

  “Is that what happened to Graham’s mother?” I let his uncle draw me away to take his focus off of the wounded man on the ground.