Eerie - Crouch Blake - Страница 28

“Instead of calling you last night,” Grant said, “I called Don. He came over, tried to talk to Paige. She was acting crazy. Saying there was something upstairs in her bedroom. That she couldn’t leave the house. I thought she was psychotic.”

Grant opened the door.

“Don offered to come upstairs and walk through her bedroom. Prove to her there was nothing strange going on. That it was all in her mind.”

“Is this her bedroom?” Sophie asked.

“No. This is where I found Don. After he’d been inside her bedroom.”

“What do you mean ‘found him?’ Is Don okay?”

“No.”

She snatched the flashlight out of his hand and started into the guestroom.

“Sophie, it’s not pretty.”

She was already crying. “I’ve seen not pretty before.”

“But anyone you loved?”

She was shining the light all over the room.

“Where?” she asked.

“Bathroom.”

She dragged Grant toward the doorway.

He didn’t want to go through it again. Once in real life, once in a dream—that was all he had in him.

Sophie stopped.

Her shoulders sagged, and he heard the air go out of her, like she was deflating.

She leaned against the doorframe and put the light on Don.

She didn’t make a sound.

In twenty-four hours, the nose of the room had changed markedly, like a wine opening up. Not exactly fetid, but rich and dank—the intensity of a greenhouse with a disturbing note of sweetness creeping in.

“Oh, Don.”

“He broke the mirror and cut his own throat with a piece of glass,” Grant said.

Under the fading illumination of the flashlight, the blood on the checkerboard tile looked as black as oil. It had lost its lustrous sheen, now dulled, congealed, and spiderwebbed with cracks like the surface of a four-hundred-year-old oil painting.

Even in the bad light, the changes in Don were evident. The skin of his face looked loose and waxy and drained of color save for a few dark spots where the blood had pooled underneath.

Sophie still hadn’t taken her eyes off him.

She said, “He went into Paige’s room. Then he came in here and killed himself. That’s what you’re saying happened.”

“No, that’s what happened.”

“Have you called Rachel?”

“Not yet.”

Sophie glared at him. “You’ve let her just wonder where her husband is for the last twenty-four hours?”

“And what would you have done?”

“She must be out of her mind by now. We have to call her.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Are you?”

“And tell her what exactly? I still don’t understand what’s—”

“We have to bring some people in on this, Grant. Don’t you think it’s time for that? I mean, Jesus Christ, look at this.”

He stepped back out of the doorway, dragging Sophie along.

Said, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”

“All the more reason.”

“You don’t understand. When people set foot in this house, it changes them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seymour? He was a client of my sister’s. He came here just before he disappeared.”

“Seriously?”

“Something happened to him in Paige’s room. You obviously saw the effect it had.”

“Grant—”

“Barry Talbert too. He was here this week. And another man came last night. Went up with Paige into her bedroom, and then walked out like a goddamn zombie. Just like the man you saw twenty minutes ago.”

“This man last night … did he have wavy gray hair? Strong build? An inch or two over six feet?”

“Yeah, his name is Jude Grazer. He’s a doctor. How do you know about him?”

“When Stu called me, I was at this little diner in North Bend watching Grazer, Talbert, and Seymour having coffee in one of the booths.”

Grant felt a coldness move down the center of his back. He said, “These men were there together?”

“Yep.”

“Doing what?”

“No idea. But they were acting very strange.”

“What were they talking about?”

“Nothing that came close to making sense.”

“Why would they be together? There’s no connection between Seymour and Talbert.”

“Um … your sister?”

“And you just left them?”

“Only when I thought you might be in trouble. But Art took my place. He’s there now, won’t let them out of his sight.”

Grant sat down on the end of the bed.

“What do you think would happen, Sophie, if I called in the cavalry right now?”

“The cavalry would come.”

“And then what? When I told them this crazy story I just told you. When I showed them Don. When you told them how I’d disarmed you and cuffed you to a staircase, and then to me?” He held up their chained wrists. “How exactly would all of that go over?”

Sophie stared at the floor.

Grant said, “Interrogation. Psyche eval. Suspect. And what would happen to my sister?”

“I respect you, Grant. You know that. And so do a lot of other people. Sure. There’d be questions—”

“That I don’t have answers to. I can’t explain it. Not any of it. And on top of that, I can’t leave this house.”

“What do you mean you can’t leave?”

“I can’t physically leave this house. It has some kind of power over me. I tried last night after what happened to Don. When I got to the bottom of the front porch steps, this pain hit me. I threw up. My head felt like someone was beating me with a baseball bat. I would’ve died. The only relief was crawling back inside.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that, Grant.”

“You think I don’t get that? That I don’t fully understand that no one’s going to believe me? And does that give you some small insight into the choices I’ve made during the last twenty-four hours?”

Sophie let out a slow, trembling breath. “I want to believe you, Grant. I do.”

“I know. And I know it’s hard.”

“What exactly do you think is happening inside this house?”

“I have no idea.”

“But it’s focused in the vicinity of Paige’s room?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been in there?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because everyone who sets foot inside comes out massively fucked.”

“Except your sister.”

“Did you just talk to Stu on the phone, or did you actually meet up with him before you came here?”

“I swung by the coffee shop. Why?”

“Didn’t he have something for me?”

Sophie’s eyes lost their thoughtful intensity. “Yeah, actually. A manila folder with some papers inside.”

“Where is it?”

She hesitated. “In my car. What’s in the folder? I haven’t looked.”

“Background history on this building. Prior residents. Ownership. Information that could possibly help us.”

“Will you trust me to go out and get it and come right back?”

“Absolutely not. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I wouldn’t trust me either. It’s not really in my car. I left it in the basement.”

Chapter 26

The flashlight was practically worthless by the time Grant and Sophie reached the foyer. In the kitchen, Paige was flipping grilled cheese sandwiches at the stovetop. Grant swapped the flashlight for a pair of candles, and with his partner’s wrist still chained to his, he pulled open the door to the basement.

The darkness hovered as thick as water, and it seemed to push back against the candlelight with a palpable force, limiting the sphere of illumination to only three or four feet. Clearly, the brownstone’s recent renovation hadn’t laid a finger on this creaky set of stairs, each step bowing under Grant’s and Sophie’s weight.

The fifteenth step spit them out at the bottom and Grant held the candle above his head to get a better look.

Walls of crumbling brick climbed to pairs of windows—two near the top of the wall that faced the street, two along the back wall. One of these had been shattered. Shards of glass glinted on the rough stone floor.

A hot water boiler occupied one gloomy corner.