Poe Read online

  She inhales deeply and glares. Even the guard looks a little leery, as if he’s half expecting her to throw a punch—I bet he has more than a few stories. He keeps one eye on her as he opens the cell door, which whines in protest.

  Lisa opens her mouth, as if she’s about to say something—something which I, in all likelihood, don’t want to hear—but then anything would be better than this frigid silence. She visibly struggles to find the words, then gives up and turns on her heel to leave.

  Shit, I haven’t told her about Daniel. “Lisa, wait…”

  She ignores me completely, briskly walking back down the hall. I start after her, but the guard grabs my shirt.

  “Gotta sign you out first.”

  “Lisa!”

  The door slams shut behind her.

  “Damn,” says the guard. “It might be safer for you to stay here.”

  “You don’t understand—” I say desperately.

  “She likes you enough,” says the guard, giving me a friendly thump on the shoulder. “They don’t get mad if they don’t like you.”

  There’s an agonizing wait in line—then the printer is out of ink, then they realize they’ve given me the wrong form and must call upstairs to get the right one. I plead with a cop to send a car to check on Lisa, that her brother is dangerous, schizophrenic—at least let me make one phone call—but he just ignores me until I annoy him to the point where he tells me to shut up or I’ll be arrested again for disorderly conduct. A teenager accompanied by his harried mother walks sullenly by. I saw him being booked earlier; there was a party, underage drinking.

  “If your father was here,” she says.

  “Well he’s not,” he replies bitterly.

  Something about the teenage angst resonates with me, or maybe it’s just the fact that he still has a mother to care. And without Lisa, who really gives a shit these days about Dimitri Petrov, errant obituary writer and college dropout? No one. Why the hell didn’t I pick up Lisa from work and keep her safe when I had the chance? What was I thinking?

  Finally after what seems like an eternity, my name is called—scratch of pen on paper—and they hand over a manila envelope with my phone, watch, notebook, keys, and wallet. The ring never left my hand, since no one could pry it off my finger. My cell phone is, of course, dead.

  “We’re holding the camera as evidence…” they start to say, but already I’m through the glass doors, running down icy steps.

  The jail is only two blocks from The Hurry Back Inn, where I left my car. The sky is dark as I sprint through the deserted streets, past empty storefronts, the cold air pumping through my lungs. It’s like an urban version of my dream in the snowy wood; I can almost feel Daniel watching me. Laughing.

  Race you.

  Oh God oh God, I hope I’m not too late.

  Every single blazing light inside the farmhouse is on, casting a warm radiant circle in the lonely field of desolate snow, and I catch a glimpse of Amelia through the curtains, happily drawing. Life—signs of life. I pull my Mustang into the frozen driveway, hydroplaning on a new layer of thin snow and knocking over a fence post before the car comes to a stop.

  I take a breath and lean my throbbing head against the front wheel for a moment. I hadn’t realized my heart could beat so fast without going into arrest. I sit up, run my hand through my hair so Elizabeth doesn’t think she’s got a complete lunatic on her front porch, and get out of the car.

  What’s immediately striking is the ethereal and nearly complete silence; I can hear my boots crunch the icy snow beneath my feet, a lonely sound that seems to echo across the field and into the frigid night sky. Not a single dog barks, even the chickens are eerily silent, and there is no wind to speak of—the trees stand like quiet sentinels. Like the calm before the storm.

  Just as I put my foot on the porch step a distant loud crack breaks the silence, like a tree limb has fallen in the woods, something that happens when the ice gets thick and heavy. But we haven’t had freezing rain for weeks.

  Little Amelia is waiting for me just on the other side of the door. “Dimitri’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” She pops open the door and immediately rushes for my legs, hugging them tightly, and almost causing me to tip over. Buddy grunts from the entry and gets to his feet, his stumpy tail wagging.

  “How’s your point of view coming?”

  She gives a heavy sigh. “Nana says I’m still too literal. What does literal mean?”

  Before I can answer, Elizabeth steps into the entry from the back kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Tonight she looks her age; there are dark, puffy circles under her eyes and her skin is sallow. “I’m actually cooking spaghetti tonight. It could be dangerous.”

  Amelia regards her seriously. “You remember when you cooked me french fries and they got all black, like coal? And the smoke alarm went off? And remember that time you were boiling an egg, and all the water burned away, and it exploded?”

  “Thanks for sharing, love,” says Elizabeth. “Good artists make bad chefs.”

  “Were you really in jail?” Amelia asks me with wide eyes.

  “I was. There were handcuffs and everything.”

  “That’s so cool,” says Amelia. “Did you do something bad?”

  “No. Just something incredibly stupid.”

  “I hope you took good notes,” adds Elizabeth seriously. “It’s not easy to get that kind of source material for art. You should write it all down while your memory is fresh.”

  Suddenly a wild, raucous noise erupts from the basement, causing the walls and floors to shake. Something in the kitchen crashes to the floor.

  “She’s going to get blisters and lose her hearing,” says Elizabeth, her eyebrows furrowed. “She’s been at it since she got home. We’ve had some—news.”

  She catches my eye and then looks pointedly at Daniel’s photo on the wall.

  Oh. They know.

  Amelia covers her ears. “I don’t like it when she drums like that. How come Aunt Lisa’s so mad?”

  Elizabeth ignores her question and instead gently takes her hand, leading her to the kitchen. “Go on down,” says Elizabeth to me over her shoulder. “Maybe you can convince her to give it a rest.”

  I enter the living room and press my hand to the dark oak paneling; it vibrates under my palm, like she’s trying to knock it all down. I get that. And when I open the basement door, an impossibly fierce wave of sound hits me, makes me take a step back. There’s no rhythm; it’s as if she’s just beating at her drums randomly, creating chaos. I inhale—deeply. Then head down the stairs.

  The room is a mess. Her bed isn’t made, the blankets twisted like she’s been wrestling with nightmares. Pillows, papers, and various items of clothing are strewn about the floor; a single beige Converse sneaker sits on top of a pile of thin, long-sleeved T-shirts. I make a note of the underwear, gray boy shorts with a red striped band (cute), and some work dresses that are jumbled in a heap, still on their hangers. The handwritten song lyrics I’d last seen on the corkboard have been torn into shreds, and on the white rug is a lone open suitcase stuffed with more clothes, piles of music sheets, and a few random photos.

  Lisa sits behind the drums, pounding them into submission. Her white T-shirt is wet with sweat, which under any other circumstance would be kind of sexy. I quietly approach, and as she raises one arm to beat the cymbal, I grab her gently but firmly by the wrist, hold it steady. She turns to me. Her skin is pale, so pale, and it takes a good moment for her to register who I am. Too long. I pry the drumstick from her right hand one finger at a time, and she lets me but says nothing.

  I don’t bother trying to get the drumstick from her other hand; instead I reach under her arms, lifting her up, and I carry her to the bed. She lets me, but her chest flutters in a way that’s troubling. She shivers, and I feel her forehead, which is cool and clammy. I find another blanket on the floor and gently cover her with it.

  “Daniel’s gone,” she whispers. “They don’t know where he
is.” Strands of wet hair have fallen out from her ponytail and they feverishly cling to her forehead. I smooth them back into place.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I slip under the blanket with her and wrap my arms around her waist. It’s like we’re back in the hospital, but this time I’m the strong one.

  She places one hand on my cheek. “I’m supposed to be your lifesaver. Not the other way around.”

  “We can take turns,” I say, rubbing the small of her back. It’s somewhat shocking to see her like this, vulnerable and small. She groans and leans into me.

  “I can’t stay here. I just can’t. Everything reminds me of him.”

  “You can come stay with me. I just have a ghost. It’s almost like having a roomie who doesn’t pay rent.”

  “Her? How do you know it’s a her?”

  “What, you jealous?”

  Lisa laughs, but it’s a little high, a little frantic. “So my choice is to either stay here and see if my schizophrenic brother comes back to kill me or go stay with my boyfriend in his haunted apartment.”

  I stroke her hair. “And who says life is boring?”

  “My mom bought a handgun. She said, ‘Just in case’…” The words trail off, and the empty look returns to her eyes.

  I’m stunned. I can’t imagine Elizabeth owning, let alone firing, a gun. “What does she say?”

  Lisa twists a bit of sheet with her finger. “That he might… well, the murders.”

  Apparently Elizabeth and I are completely on the same page.

  “Do you think she’d really shoot him?”

  “If he tried to hurt me,” Lisa says in a small voice. “Yes. She got a little paranoid… after. Bought a shotgun that we’d use for target practice. I think she felt guilty. But he’s not… Daniel is sick, but he’s not evil. If I thought for even a minute that he could be… Oh shit, Dimitri, I don’t think I could take it. I couldn’t.”

  It’s the way her voice shakes that makes me realize I can’t tell her about the numbers on the bodies, the handwriting that looks like Daniel’s—at least not now. But it’s a thick, weighty secret to carry alone.

  “So what happened?” I ask, reaching for safer ground. “I thought you checked, and he was at the institution.”

  Lisa puts one hand on her forehead, stares at the ceiling. “Apparently he had a seizure about a month ago and they called an ambulance to take him to a clinic. The ambulance dropped him off, but there was a fire nearby, so after they checked him in, they left. Daniel used the opportunity to rifle through the receptionist’s desk—he found transfer papers and forged a copy that stated he had been sent to the nearby hospital. He even managed to steal a lab coat and credentials. When a different ambulance came to pick up Daniel Bennet, he pretended he was a doctor and told them Daniel had been sent to the hospital, with complications. Then he handed them the transfer papers and walked back into the clinic. No one remembers seeing him after that.”

  “And no one at the institution checked on him?”

  “That’s what I asked. But they said they’d gotten a couple of calls from a physician at Mercy Hospital with a status update on Daniel’s ‘condition.’ That it was going to be a long recovery.”

  “But it was Daniel making those calls.”

  “I told you he was smart.” Again the small hint of pride in her voice.

  “Christ,” I say, wrapping my fingers in hers. If he’s so smart, why is he leaving such a large, obviously bloody trail? The answer immediately comes to me, turns my heart to stone. Because the trail isn’t obvious to anyone but me. Race you.

  As if she can hear my thoughts, tears start to stream down Lisa’s cheeks. Her voice is choked. “But he would never…”

  She can’t finish the sentence. I pull her closer. “I know,” I say, even though I don’t, but it’s what she wants to hear, what she needs to hear. “I know.”

  Elizabeth is not happy when she finds out that not only will we be missing dinner, but that Lisa is packing to come stay with me, at least for the night. After seeing the look in her eyes when Lisa told her our plan, I am now a believer that, yes, Elizabeth could shoot someone dead.

  “You,” she says, pointing at Lisa. “Downstairs. We need to talk.”

  “You,” she says, pointing at Amelia. “Go watch TV.”

  “Man,” retorts Amelia. “Nobody tells me anything.”

  “And you,” says Elizabeth, pointing a dagger-like finger in my direction. “You just—go keep Amelia company.”

  “Mom,” says Lisa, looking a bit more like her old self, a welcome edge of defiance in her voice, “I’m not a kid. I’m an adult—I can make my own decisions.”

  “Downstairs. Now.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” says Lisa, but she complies, stomping down the basement steps.

  “These kids are going to kill me,” mutters Elizabeth, following after.

  I head to the living room, where Amelia is sitting, glued to MTV. Before I can join her, I hear a creak from the upstairs hallway. Buddy looks up from the floor hopefully, his tail wagging.

  “My crotch and ass are off limits,” I tell him firmly.

  Then another sound from upstairs, like a piece of furniture is being pushed across the floor. Or a body.

  Great.

  For a moment I think about calling my new police friends, since they’re the ones paid by my measly tax dollars to protect and serve, but shit, by the time they arrive we could all be numbered and spleenless. Plus, if it is just my overactive imagination, then Elizabeth would have another reason in her arsenal of reasons why Lisa shouldn’t leave with me.

  So as quietly as I can, I pad over to the kitchen, grabbing a large and hopefully very scary-looking kitchen knife. I also turn off the pot of spaghetti, which, as Amelia accurately predicted, is burning. Passing by the basement door, I overhear bits of a loud argument in progress.

  “You’re safer here…”

  “I just need to get out, can’t you understand that…”

  “… and what’s Dimitri going to do if Daniel shows up—hit him over the head with his novel?”

  Ouch. But my novel probably is the best weapon of choice in my apartment—I could bore someone to death with it. Which reminds me, I still need to write the article for the newspaper, if I haven’t been fired already.

  Christ, it’s going to be a long night.

  I step over Buddy and reach out for the banister with my spare hand. A riff from a Justin Timberlake video floats out of the living room, corrupting the next generation of youth with corporate-produced nonmusicians (my complete conversion to indie music, thanks to Lisa, is apparently imminent). My stomach flutters as I go up the stairs.

  Climbing to the top of the stairs of Lisa’s house, I experience a kind of déjà vu in reverse, because not too long ago I was doing something equally stupid in the opposite direction, namely going down the stairs to the Aspinwall basement. But the feeling of dread is eerily similar. When I reach the second floor I find that all the lights are on, and all the doors are open. Nothing looks strange in Amelia’s room, and the storage room seems untouched, as does Elizabeth’s room.

  Which leaves Daniel’s.

  His door is shut.

  I press my ear tentatively against the door—doesn’t sound like someone’s spleen is being eaten, but then what the hell would that sound like anyway? I grip the knife tightly in my hand and cautiously turn the knob until I hear the click of the lock. The door opens a crack—no one rushes out and stabs me, a good sign. I give it an extra few minutes for good measure, then push the door open all the way.

  The black light is on, and at first glance everything seems normal, exactly the way it was the last time I’d seen it. But the numbers are harder to read, probably because the warm light from the hallway is messing with the glowing effect of the highlighter scribbles. I approach them, squint. I thought they would probably match the numbers written on Celia’s body, and I’m not wrong. The first row is identical.

  A cold
draft of air wraps itself around my feet, and I see that one of Daniel’s windows is wide open. I cross the room to close it, registering the creak under my footstep—exactly what I heard downstairs, only louder. My heart stops and I pause for a moment, listening. There’s the drone of the television downstairs, the tap, tap, tap of a tree branch knocking against the house, the sound of my own labored breathing. Cautiously I step toward the window, holding my knife even tighter, and as I reach for the windowpane I notice the tree outside, so close I could reach out and touch it. It’s a sturdy tree, the one by Daniel’s window. I think even I could climb it.

  I poke my head out the window and look down. Several smaller branches are broken. And in the circle of light I can see bootprints in the snow, leading from the tree to the shadowy woods beyond.

  Fuck.

  I slam the window shut, lock it, my hands shaking, and barely register dropping the knife. But I hear it clatter against the floor, which makes me look down, and I notice something else. The mattress has been moved and is just slightly askew. Beneath it, barely, I can see that part of the floorboards, a neat rectangle, has been lifted and moved aside.

  Now the fluttery feeling turns into a jittery scream—Replace the floorboards, ignore it. I should walk back downstairs and sit next to Amelia, wait for Elizabeth and Lisa to return to the kitchen and find the spaghetti ruined.

  But I don’t do that, the sensible thing.

  Instead I look into the space under the floorboards, and find a well-worn crumpled black-and-white photograph—a man with scraggly hair and very unattractive beard sits in the middle of a gaggle of plump Victorian women. The way he stares manically at the camera, through the camera, almost makes me drop it, but then I recognize him—it’s my good friend Rasputin, subject of my ailing novel. It’s not a photo I’ve seen before though—he looks fiercer, or maybe a few steps further along in his madness. And on his right hand a glint of silver, some kind of ring with a symbol—impossible.