Author: Tim Meyer
Date: 2020-04-16 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Mystery; Thriller; Crime; Mystery Thriller
Description: Drew Lowery is living the American Dream. He has the perfect family, a stable job, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of central New Jersey. Things can't get much better. But what seems like the ideal life is suddenly upended when he receives a blank envelope in the mail. Inside lies a picture of his daughter, a photograph of her violent murder. Only it can't be her. He just tucked her in and kissed her goodnight ten minutes ago. But the mysterious Polaroid is only the beginning. There's the van following his daughter to school. The man she sees outside her window late at night. The fact some

Dead Daughters

“A dark, twisty-turny little ride meant to keep the reader's nose buried in its pages…”

– Sadie "Mother Horror" Hartmann

“Had me on the edge of my seat and then gutted me.”

– Hunter Shea, author of Misfits and Creature

“…suspenseful, twisted, and, and will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end.”

– Jeremy Hepler,
author of The Boulevard Monster and Cricket Hunters

“…a tension-fraught, white-knuckle thriller that’ll keep you guessing…”

– FanFiAddict.com

Dead Daughters
by

Tim Meyer

Copyright © 2020 Tim Meyer

Front Cover Design by Kealan Patrick Burke

Interior art by Bob Veon

Formatted by Kenneth W. Cain

Edited by Kenneth W. Cain

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors’ imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Wake up, a little voice tells me.

Wake up and be free.

It’s hard to concentrate. The world shifts like a kaleidoscope, separating and conjoining, tearing itself apart only to crawl back together like doomed lovers. Something wet trickles down my neck, pooling at the base of my spine. I know what it is, but I wish I didn’t. I can’t feel my fingers—wait, yes, I can. They’re tingling with numbness, coming back from a long lost journey of sensory overload, complete system failure. Funny thing when you experience severe trauma and lose consciousness and come back—it’s like your body temporarily forgets it is alive.

I’m en route to clarity, though, but I can’t get past these roadblocks of pain. It’s a moving pain, one that slinks and stretches, contorts and deceives. It fades with promise and returns with angst. I can’t get ahead of the agony, but I’m trying. Trying to live for the next moment because I want to live after all. We all want to live, don’t we?

I know I’m bleeding. A lot. Probably more than the average person should bleed, but there’s no point in worrying too much about it—not like I can do anything to stop it. My hands are bound with nautical rope, fastened to the arms of the chair I’m sitting in. My feet are also tied together. I can’t move. Shift a few inches, but that’s it. I think about trying to rock back and forth, knocking the chair over, but that’s dumb. I’d only end up in the same situation I’m in now, only on the floor.

The floor. Can we talk about the floor? It’s filthy. I’m pretty sure I see mice turds. The bar is unkempt too; bottles strewn across the top, open and bleeding, like the back of my head. The gun rack on the wall behind me mocks me.

The world around me shifts in shadows. There are no bright colors. Only grays and browns, variations of black. The basement is harboring a darkness, a master shadow, and it’s only a matter of time before it reveals itself.

I nod in and out of the gray, that space between light and dark.

Footsteps.

On the stairs.

I know I’m dead. It’s only a matter of time. I wish he wouldn’t prolong it. Drawing this thing out hurts. Not just physically. Mentally. It allows me time to think. About my family, the loved ones I’ll leave behind. There aren’t many; only two.

My thoughts escape me, as they’re prone to do to someone who is on the verge of meeting their murderer.

Footsteps on the stairs. He’s really dragging this out. More time to think.

To think about the past and how I ended up here.

It was quite a ride.

Thank God it’s almost over.

A Letter Home

(I)

Dear Marianne,

Do you want to know what it’s like in my brain today?

I’ll show you.

Here, come look:

Cotton-candy clouds, tufts of pink and orange. A candlestick, unlit. A blank slate clapper; they’re filming the movie of my life. Peach waffles. Dead stars floating through space. Dead children floating down a river. Dead daughters floating in utero. A library of dead books, a graveyard of knowledge. Indiana. Indiana Jones and the Temple of I’m-Doing-Awesome-and-Everything-Is-Fine. What are Hoosiers? Underwear with cartoon characters on them. Naked synchronized swimmers. Jamaica is pretty cool; we should visit sometime. Chevy Chase should make more movies. Nicolas Cage should make less. Airplanes are cool until they crash, then they’re not. Road rage. Middle fingers over hugs. Violent kisses instead of high-fives. We’re all dead like Bruce Willis at the end of that movie. Everything is dead, really, if you think about it. The world is a star, not a planet. God is a punk. Satan is my daddy. Life is a parade and someone put a bomb on my float, rigged it to blow confetti and shower us with death. I wish Lana Del Ray sang me to sleep every night for the rest of my life. I wish tacos tasted like burritos, though they kinda do. What’s nyctophobia mean? Because I have that. But love darkness. Light, too. They’re all my friends. I wish Care Bears would make a comeback. That was the shit back in the day. Why can’t we have nice things? Because alone I break everything.

That’s it for today. Pretty random, I know. But these are my thoughts and that’s all I have since I don’t have you.

How are you, Marianne?

I miss you.

Me? I’m doing fine. Fine and dandy, yes indeedy. Sure, things have been a little rough, a little less than ideal, but hey, at least I’m writing again. Couldn’t say that a year ago. Or even two. Three? Shit, I don’t know how long it’s been since they let me hold a pen. They say I’ve been here for five, but I barely remember that, either. Life crawls now; the world has no hustle. I’m slowly coming back. Remembering things. Things that happened. Moments in time. I can travel there if I put my mind to it. Sometimes I don’t want to. There is darkness behind us. But like the night, it will end. And day will come. And we will be happy. Won’t we? Yes, we will.

Remember us? We were so good. You and I. Just the best. The sweetest couple. Damned near perfect. We had everything, then we had nothing, then life played us like the miserable shits we were, knocked us through a gaping loop and handed us our asses. Am I right? Shit, man. We had so much love back then but we let it go, let it slip away, let the ether eat us up and spit us out, jam its fingers up our high, happy asses. Have its way with us. Tear us apart. Break us down. Fracture us. Pulverize what was left into powder. That’s all we were then. Powder. Fine bits of—

What? Say what now? Sorry. I got carried away. Cotton wouldn’t approve. He doesn’t approve of much these days, but that’s okay. I’m getting better. Coming back. Slowly coming back. Back on track, yes indeedy. Don’t you worry your pretty head none (heard that in a movie once). Sooner or later, we’ll get this thing fixed, this thing inside my head they say is broken. And I’ll be back in the saddle again, just like that song says.

I’m glad you’re better again, Marianne. I’m glad it all worked out. I’m glad you beat the devil into submission and forced that whiny bitch back to Hell. I’m working on it. My devil is tricky. My devil is persistent. My devil is lonely and it needs a friend and it’s selected me for BFF. I hate my devil. I want to burn it out. But you can’t beat a devil with fire, no sir, you cannot. Demons love fire. They live in fire. And boy, I’m blazing.

But I’ll beat him, though. I’ll get the devil off my porch before next summer, I guarantee it. Everyone says I can. They have confidence in me. Trust in me. Take their time with me, time my parents never gave me because they’re devils in their own right. So many devils among us, but I’m with angels now. And they all wear white, how funny is that?

It’s good to be writing again.

I’m back, Marianne! I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner. We live in the land of no pen no paper. Also, I was fucked up and disbarred from sharp objects, but good news—I’m no longer a danger to myself. I’ve never been a danger to myself, but that’s just MY OPINION. Suicide is not the answer. Revenge is not the answer (I know that now, duh). There are no answers, no true ones, only questions and opinions and opinions are like assholes: Everyone has one and they all stink except your own which smells like blueberry yogurt drinks.

Sorry, I’m getting off track again. Was I really just talking about smelly assholes? Yes, I think I was. I apologize. My mind wanders. Where was I?

Oh yes. I’m back. Back in the saddle and giddy up horses; we got riding to do.

I wanted to write sooner but Cotton wouldn’t let me with my head wrong and missing and in all the wrong places. He said I’d done things, Marianne, things I don’t exactly remember doing. I mean, I do. But they’re all fuzzy, like an old broken childhood dream. Could be real, but could also be a dream. Can you help me, Marianne? Help me find out what I did?

I know you can. You were always there for me. Every step of the way. But were you? I can’t remember. It’s fuzzy. You were there, and then you weren’t? I don’t know. Help me remember. Please write back.

Want one more second in my head?

Do you?

Of course you do.

Pistachio ice cream topped with dried earlobes.

LOVE,

Your Moon and Endless Sea of Stars

Part I

THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

Chapter One

“SURPRISE!”

My heart struck my chest like a kick drum pedal and I nearly stumbled backward through the front door, tripping over the aluminum threshold. I caught myself on the doorframe, preventing a spill down the stoop. A grin spread across my face, impossible to stop even if I wanted to.

The living-room lights flipped on and I found myself staring at about twenty-five faces, each flashing cherubic smiles. An ear-pounding applause erupted throughout the room, and my bowels nearly let go. A rainbow array of balloons covered the ceiling. Trays of catered food on tables lined the far wall, their combined smell causing my mouth to water. A stack of gifts sat in the corner, a waist-high pile you might expect to find at an eight-year-old’s birthday party, not someone who’d just turned thirty-eight.

Once I pulled myself up and stood straight, my blood beginning to circulate again, the numb pins-and-needle feeling abating, I padded into the living room and greet my guests, the close friends and neighbors my wife had secretly invited over.

She was the first to greet me, administering a hug and a wet smack on the lips.

“Happy birthday, baby,” Eve said, wiping her ruby-colored lipstick from my lips with a damp napkin. “I hope you were surprised.”

“Surprised?” My lungs labored, working hard to restock the lost air. “I think my left arm went numb. Can you check to see if I still have a pulse?”

She tapped me on the arm with her knuckles. “Stop. Don’t even joke about heart attacks. I have to hear enough of that nonsense at the hospital. Old people have the most morbid sense of humor.”

“Well, I guess when you’re on the brink of death, what choice do you have? Laugh or die. Isn’t that their motto?”

She shot me an icy glare but retained her smile. She leaned in and kissed me again, this time much less forceful, leaving no lipstick behind.

“Thanks for throwing this shindig together, Evelyn Lowery.”

“You’re welcome, Andrew Lowery,” she said, and addressing each other so properly brought giggling grins to both our faces.

“Seriously, though.” I wrapped my forearm around her neck and pulled her against my body. “This is really nice. I’ve always wanted a surprise party.”

“I know,” she said gently, nibbling at my earlobe. “I remember.”

“You have a great memory. That was, like, so long ago. Years.”

“I remember what else you said you wanted on your birthday,” she whispered so only I could hear. Her hot breath tickled my nerves and made my groin swell.

“Oh?”

“Oh.”

“Well, this is going to be the best birthday ever.”

“Damn right it is.”

She pulled back and I stared into her green eyes. Even after ten years of marriage, Eve continued to surprise me. Whether it be coming home with a classic movie I enjoy on Blu-ray or dropping by the gym where I work to bring me lunch, she was always giving. But she’d never gone out of her way to throw a party without me knowing. This level of generosity went beyond her average niceties, and I couldn’t adequately express my gratitude beyond a simple “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, running her nails down my chest. “I hope you enjoy your night.”

“I plan on it,” I said, sneaking a peek at the small mountain of gifts. “I can’t believe you arranged all this.”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. “You deserve it. You’ve been working so hard lately, and I know you haven’t been feeling so hot.”

“They’re just headaches, Eve,” I said. “Honestly, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I know, but…you deserve it,” she said with her trademarked dimpled smile.

She winked at me and my heart fluttered the same way it had when I first met her twelve years ago. She was finishing up nursing school and I was… Well, I was going through a rough patch. I’d just moved down the shore from a small North Jersey town, and I was looking to start fresh. New job. New friends. Brand new life. When we met, I was overweight, addicted to opiates, and penniless. She took me in, showed me hope, then showed me love. Because of her I shed the extra poundage, kicked the addiction, and scored a back-breaking job working construction, which I hated and eventually quit to make a career as a personal trainer, helping others shape themselves the way they wanted, much like what Eve did for me. I’d never be able to properly thank her for changing my life, but I strived to be the best husband I could each day.

“You’re an incredible woman, you know that?” I didn’t care if anyone else heard it; it was true. She was. Time and time again, she had proved it.

“I’m all right,” she said, slapping the air. “Go have fun. Your friends are waiting for you.”

Before I could kiss her again and tell her how much she meant to me, something as high as my hip crashed into my leg, pushing me aside.

“Daddy!” a screeching voice called into my gym shorts. I looked down and saw my seven-year-old clinging to my leg, looking up at me with those bright blue peepers. “Daddy, Happy Birthday! I missed you!”

“Thank you, my little love bug!” I said, dropping to one knee and throwing my arms around her tiny frame, squeezing her tight. “I missed you too.”

“We got you a cake!”

“You did?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Uh-huh. Ice cream. Your favorite.”

“That’s right.” I squinted and pressed my forehead against hers. “How’d you know that?” I asked, tickling her.

She giggled. “Mommy told me!”

I glanced over at Eve, who watched us with nothing but affection in her eyes. “Well, Mommy knows me better than anyone, so she’s an expert on such things.” I turned back to Dinah. “Which flavor is my favorite half? Do you know?”

“Chocolate! Duh…”

“Yeah, I guess that’s an easy one.”

“I know you can’t have much because you like to stay in shape, so can I have your slice if you don’t finish?”

I kissed her forehead. “Of course you can, sweetheart.”

After getting all the hugs in, the ones I’d probably beg for a few years from now, I put Dinah down and began to make my way around the room.

I said “hello” to everyone, shook hands, bullshitted accordingly, and even inspected the gifts. I told everyone they shouldn’t have, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious to tear into them. It was the kid in me, I guess. I came from a poor family and we didn’t have presents, let alone parties. If we got to eat that night, that had always been good enough.

After presents, Dale Armstead, my next-door neighbor of about three years, approached me with two beers, one in each hand. He extended the can in my direction and offered a broad smile.

“Know this will probably kill your calorie intake for the day,” he said, putting the ice-cold can in my hand, “but it’s your goddamn birthday, and a man always drinks beer on his birthday.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. Cracking open the can, I patted my neighbor on the back. “Thanks for coming by, Dale. It’s good to see you.”

Dale Armstead moved in three years ago, bought the place from the widow next door, Mrs. Avalon, at a pretty good bargain if I remember correctly. The woman had let the house go to hell since her husband died. I tried to help her out by cutting her lawn and doing small odd jobs, but eventually the work piled up and I couldn’t do it anymore, not with my own house to deal with. Dale, a widower himself, seized the opportunity and fixed the place up pretty nicely. I helped him hang some drywall and put flooring down before he moved in, and he thanked me in beer and Cuban cigars, both of which I enjoyed marginally. Though we’d never grown as close as some neighbors do, we’d gotten along pretty well over the years, even during the election when he littered his lawn with Trump signs and Eve decorated ours with Hillary ones.

“Good to see you too, youngster,” he said. He was only in his mid-fifties, not all that much older than me, but still referred to me as youngster from time to time. “Say, a few of us are going out on the deck to smoke stogies. Join us?”

Behind him, Paul McDowell, my oldest neighborhood friend of about ten years and Brennan Meadows, a friend I had met during my construction days, were rubbing their hands together like scheming super villains from the Golden Age of Marvel Comics.

“You know, I shouldn’t,” I said, sipping the crisp, somewhat refreshing beer that’d been brewed locally. Since I kicked my nasty habit from back in the day, I’d never really touched alcohol. I always felt guilty doing so, but I knew it was more of a social experience than anything else. I never desired to have more than one.

“Come on,” Dale urged. “Don’t be such a Nancy.”

Paul and Brennan waved me on, beckoning me outside.

Peer pressure was such a bitch.

“Okay,” I said. “But I’ll probably only take a few puffs. So if you want to waste one of those bad boys on me, so be it.”

Dale punched me in the shoulder, harder than I anticipated. “That’s the spirit. Gonna make a man out of you yet, Lowery.”

“Give me five minutes.”

The three of them walked toward the back deck, laughing (probably at me), and sipping their beers, proudly pinching their cigars between their teeth.

Before I made my way out onto the porch, I stopped in the kitchen and found my wife cleaning the dishes, scrubbing them in a sink full of soapy water. I snuck up behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and pressed my lips to the back of her neck.

“Hey, baby,” I breathed in her ear.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She spun and faced me. “Where you off to?”

“The boys have cigars.”

“Ahhhhh,” she said. “Cigars cause mouth cancer, you know. True story.”

“You know, I did know that actually. Thanks for reminding me.”

She leaned and sniffed the air. “Is that beer I smell on your breath?”

I snorted. “Yeah. Crazy, right?”

“First beer, now cigars?” She eyed me warily. “You’re not turning into the Drew Lowery before you met me, are you?”

“No. God, no.” I shrugged. “It’s just…it’s my birthday.”

She hesitated a moment as if she weren’t sure she believed me. Then a smile spilled across her face and she jetted forward to meet my lips with hers. “As long as that’s all it is,” she said in a motherly tone.

I didn’t mind.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And seriously, don’t drink too much.” She grabbed my crotch and squeezed. “I’m going to need this in prime condition tonight.”

“You got it,” I said, kissing her. I pulled away and stared into those emerald orbs. “I can’t tell you how much I love you and what you mean to me. You’re my everything.”

She stared at me as if she weren’t sure how to take that, then her lips split apart once again. “God I’m so lucky I met you.”

We kissed, this time, much longer than we both expected.

Out on the deck, Paul helped light our expensive cigars. He told us he’d found the boxes of Cubans during a local raid at some small-time drug dealer’s apartment a few weeks back. He made the story seem a lot more intense than it actually was; the papers said there were only two local scumbags inside and both were unarmed. Paul added two extra scumbags and pistols for each of them.

“You should have seen the place,” he said as the tip of his cigar glowed bright orange. “There were drugs and weapons piled to the ceiling. In-fucking-sane.”

I wanted to tell him about the paper’s contradiction, but I kept quiet, letting him have his moment of glory.

“You lead quite the life, my friend,” Brennan said, blowing out smoke rings, which were quickly swept away by the soft autumn winds. “Never a dull moment in your world. Always got a story to tell.”

Paul pretended to jab his friend in the gut. “What are you? Jealous, Meadows?” He stopped horsing around so he could take another pull on the cigar. “Yeah, well, what can I say? There are a lot of bad people out there who do stupid shit.” Paul tapped ash into the ceramic tray resting on the railing. “And thankfully so, as screwed up as that sounds, because otherwise my ass would be out of a job.”

“Hmm,” Brennan said, shrouding his face in a veil of more smoke. “True that.”

Unlike Paul, Brennan didn’t have a career per se. He skipped around jobs a lot, and over the past five years, he’d worked everything from overnight stock-boy at Walmart to beer truck delivery driver. He was still single and living life as a bachelor, a status he wasn’t eager to change anytime soon.

“Well, I love living vicariously through you, brother.” Brennan held out his beer can and Paul tapped his against it.

Dale laughed through his closed mouth. “You crazy kids,” he said, puffing away on his Cuban. “What I’d give to have your youth.”

Dale wasn’t old, or at least he didn’t look like it. The man kept in shape, and I’d seen him at the gym at least three times a week. He told everyone he was in his mid-sixties, but he could have easily passed for someone in their early fifties. He moved in next door about three years ago, about seven years after Eve and I got married and bought our place. Dale had worked in a hospital up North Jersey and retired early. He lost his wife and kid some time back, some tragedy he never talked about much. I’m not sure exactly what happened, what the details were, other than they were “taken.” I never asked him to elaborate; if he wanted me to know, he would have told me. But the few times it’d come up, his eyes had gotten weepy and his voice strained, and it broke my fucking heart to see him like that.

“Geez,” Dale said, “if only I could turn back the clock.”

Paul pumped his hands. “All right, old man. Settle down. We don’t need to get all sentimental tonight.”

Dale chuckled. “You’re right.” He raised his beer in the air while sucking in a mouthful of cigar smoke. “To Drew, my neighbor and friend. You have a beautiful family and the perfect life. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy.”

In the few seconds of silence that followed, I almost lost it. I felt my eyes sting as soon as the words left my neighbor’s mouth. Probably because it was true—I did have a beautiful family and the perfect life. Probably because I’d come so far. Probably because if it weren’t for them, I’d be face down in a ditch somewhere, not breathing, waiting for local law enforcement to show up and administer NARCAN.

“Thanks, Dale,” I said, raising my can.

We toasted.

To my beautiful family.

My perfect life.

It’s miraculous how quickly things can fall apart.

About two hours later, everyone left the party and drove home. Some walked, as their houses were close enough and because they didn’t want to risk a DUI over a few blocks. Eve and I offered to make a bed for those who had a farther drive or those who looked a little too sloshed, but everyone declined. On their way out, I thanked them all for showing up and the thoughtful gifts.

The last to leave was Paul McDowell, my oldest friend and local super cop. His wife, Carla, had to practically drag him out of the house; Paul wasn’t one to leave a party, even after it ended. It had been that way since we became friends, and like most of Paul’s bad habits, this one had yet to die.

“I’ll talk to you later, buddy,” he said sloppily, hugging me, his grasp lingering past the point of awkward.

“I’ll see you later, pal.”

Paul and Carla walked down the stone pathway, down the driveway, and reached their car, which was parked next to the mailbox. Swaying on his heels, Paul shouted, “Maybe I’ll come by the gym this week and we can get our pump on, like the old days!”

The old days were ten years ago when I first met Paul through Carla, one of Eve’s best friends.

“Yes!” I called to him from the front door. “Please do that.”

After watching them drive off, I remembered Eve had asked me to bring in the mail. I jogged across the lawn, went over to the mailbox, and retrieved the small pile of bills, coupon clippers, and local advertisements. A few birthday cards from some of Eve’s distant relatives were mixed in with the junk, and I organized the pile on my way to the front door. There was only one envelope that caught my eye—one without anything on it. Just a blank envelope. A white face of mystery. It was thick, and I could tell there was something inside that wasn’t paper. Wasn’t a note or a traditional letter. Definitely not a greeting card, not even a small one. It almost felt like a business card, but larger. Folded.

My curiosity was piqued, but it didn’t make its way to the top of the pile; the birthday cards were first. Even at thirty-eight, birthday mail still excited me the same way it did when I was eleven. Eve said that was because I was a child at heart, and I couldn’t really disagree with her logic.

I sat at the kitchen table, shredding open my birthday cards, stripping them of their gift cards and checks and setting them on the table in a separate pile, making sure to note on a separate paper who gave what so I could send proper “thank you” cards back. When I was done, only one envelope remained.

The blank one.

“Time to see who the mystery mailer is…” I said aloud, though I hadn’t meant to.

“What was that, hon?” Eve called from the sink. She was elbow-deep in dishwater, scrubbing vigorously. I had offered to help since she’d done so much already, but she told me I was forbidden to touch dishes on my birthday, that it was a sin in Casa de Lowery. And who was I to argue?

“Nothing, babe,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

I tore into the envelope and pulled free the small Polaroid photo, which had been creased and stuffed inside, packed tightly to fit. I unfolded it and flipped it over. As my eyes settled on the image, my stomach sunk, dropping on my toes. I hesitated. Tried to catch my breath, but it seemed to get stuck halfway up my windpipe. Time froze, or seemed to. The whole world slowed to a crawl, such an inert pace I could literally hear nothing, not even the sloshing water from the sink as Eve continued with the dishes. Not the ceiling fan, not the distant voices coming from the television in the next room. I heard nothing save for my own heartbeat, drumming in my ears like a marching band bass drum. But even that sounded muted, distant, barely there at all.

I tried to speak but my mouth was too dry and cottony. Felt like my jaw had been wired shut. No words sounded past my lips, just a small articulation, the faintest noise the world had ever produced.

“Did you say something, hon?” Eve asked, spinning her head toward me, her hands still working beneath the dishwater. “Hon?”

My mouth hung agape; I could feel the walls within and my tongue drying out like the desert sand. Words were being made there somewhere, but I had no voice behind it. No air. I felt like someone had clubbed me in the nuts and the sensation ascended to my throat like the counter on those carnival mallet-smashing-strength-tester games.

I must have had quite the look on my face because Eve dropped the dish in the sink and scurried over to the kitchen table, a look of shock and surprise hijacking her features. “Honey, what is it? What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a…”

Ghost was the word my wife was looking for. A ghost. I imagined it had looked like I’d seen one. And…in a strange way…I had.

We both looked down at the photograph, terrified, hearts racing in unison.

We looked down at the picture of our daughter, our only child, our entire world.

And she was dead.

Before the room began to spin, Eve screamed.

Chapter Two

The race upstairs wasn’t much of a contest and I beat Eve to our daughter’s door by about three strides. Bursting through the door shoulder first, I stumbled inside and flipped the lights on. Dinah bolted upright as if launching herself out of a bad dream. Her lungs seized and she let out a hindered scream, which sounded a lot like a printer paper jam. Immediately she began to hyperventilate. I couldn’t find the strength to cross the bedroom and rush to her side, but Eve was already there, rubbing her back and whispering words of encouragement into her ear.

Eve turned to me. “Get her inhaler. She’s having an attack.”

I nodded and scurried back out into the hall. Sprinting down the hallway, all I could think about was the picture depicting my daughter sitting there, blood pooling beneath her body and stone-cold dead. I was so lost in the image that I almost skipped past the bathroom. Ducking inside, I went for the cabinet above the sink. Quickly rummaging through the collection of medical supplies, I located one of my daughter’s inhalers, snatched it off the bottom shelf, and made my way back down the hall.

“Here,” I said, handing it to my wife.

She administered three puffs of air and told Dinah to breathe slowly and allow the miracle mist to open her up. Dinah did as her mother instructed, like she’d done thousands of times before.

Ten minutes later, she calmed down, resumed regular breathing patterns, and rested her head on my wife’s lap.

“What happened?” Dinah asked, her first words since our intrusion.

I looked to Eve. She shook her head.

“Nothing, sweetheart. We thought we heard a noise coming from your room.” It was the best lie I could come up with on the fly, albeit not a sound one. It didn’t explain why we busted in here like the DEA at a meth lab. But to a seven-year-old, it made little difference. She wouldn’t ask questions.

Would she?

“What kind of noise?” Her small frame trembled.

Eve ran her fingers across her scalp. “A bad noise, honey. We thought you fell out of bed or something.”

“But I’m fine.”

“Yes, you are.” Tears streamed down my wife’s face. “Yes, you are.”

We debated whether to call the cops. Bottom line: our daughter was safe. The photograph looked real enough—we both examined it closely, and for a good half hour—but there was some debate whether the girl in the picture was Dinah or not. It was a Polaroid, and we didn’t think the photo could be manipulated via Photoshop or other editing software. It looked like Dinah, sure, but it couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense. Our little girl was upstairs, tucked away safely in her bed. Not sitting on the basement floor of some killer’s cellar, her corpse resting in a pool of her own blood.

It’s not her, I told myself. Dinah is alive. Upstairs. She’s alive.

Though…

“The dress,” Eve said. Leaning over my shoulder, she pointed to the picture, tapping it several times. “The dress, Drew.”

“I know.”

“Goddammit,” she said. “That’s her dress. Her shoes.”

Holding the photo a few inches from my face, I looked closely. They were the same, all right. “The same pattern, sure.”

Eve shook her head. “No, Drew. I mean they’re the same exact ones. Hers. The ones we bought her.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked her closet. After she fell back asleep, I went through her closet and searched every square inch.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, two crystalline rivulets. “They’re missing. That dress. Those shoes.” I could see the outline of her jawline as the muscles in her face tightened. “That bow in the girl’s hair.”

I glanced down at the picture again. Even though I had a strong feeling the image was faked, setting my eyes on its brutal depiction made my stomach queasy, made me want to eject my birthday cake all over the goddamn kitchen. But I refrained from throwing up my dessert and continued staring at the dead girl in the photograph.

Eve was right. Though I wasn’t consciously aware of every article of clothing my daughter owned, I recognized the dress. It was the one she wore on her seventh birthday back in January. Canary yellow with white lacy trim. A thick black belt striped her midsection. The white bow in her hair matched the trim. Those shiny white shoes. The whole outfit recognizable.

My face burned with fear, horror, and absolute confusion.

“Drew…” my wife said, her voice strained with worry and subtle traces of anger. “Someone was in our house.”

I’d never felt so helpless, even during my years spent in and out of rehab centers.

Her lips trembled, and the next words she spoke cracked her voice. “Someone was in our daughter’s room.”

I wanted to tell Eve we didn’t know, not really. It could have been a replica or a knockoff, but clothes were missing from Dinah’s closet and that didn’t sit well. In fact, after I went upstairs and checked it out for myself, I felt downright terrified.

Someone was in my house. In my daughter’s room.

The notion enraged me. I’d never been much of a pro-gun person, but just then I wished I owned one small enough to tuck under my pillow like James fucking Bond. Dale had offered to take me shooting on numerous occasions, but I had declined because holding a gun just felt wrong to me. No one except the police should hold that much power in one hand.

But now I wished I had that power.

“Do we call the cops?” I asked Eve.

Sitting at the kitchen table, picking at her thumb with her other fingers, she shrugged. “It’s pretty late.”

I glanced at the clock. It was almost three.

“Or pretty early.”

I needed to open the gym at six, but something told me I should take one of those personal days I never used. I immediately sent a text to my boss, John Langford, the sole proprietor of Fit House, asking him if he could find another personal trainer to cover my shift. Langford shot me a response ten minutes later, telling me he had it covered and to enjoy my day off. I could tell he was sincere; Langford had always been the kind of boss every employee dreamed of working for. Amiable. Fair. And supportive. He’d throw himself in front of a train for any one of his employees, even the ones that slacked off daily. And if he was pissed about something, he’d let you know without making you feel like a piece of garbage.

“We should wait a few hours,” Eve said, chewing her nails. “Let Dinah sleep. I’m sure they’ll want to question her.”

“It’s not her, Eve,” I said, running my fingers over the photo.

I leaned in, grabbing a closer look. The hair color matched—dark brunette. The picture was taken from about ten feet away, and the girl’s hair dangled over her face, making it almost impossible to tell for sure if it was Dinah. Our daughter had a few distinguishable freckles that could have been the deciding factor, but the distance and the position of her loose hair hid her features well. We couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t Dinah, other than the fact she was upstairs sleeping, not a bruise or a mark on her whatsoever. I kept telling myself it wasn’t her—because it couldn’t be—that she lay asleep a few feet over my head, but still…something about it sent shivers down my spine, pricking my skin with gooseflesh. Regardless, someone’s daughter was dead.

Eve began to cry. I draped my arms over her shoulders and kissed the side of her neck, that sweet spot treasured by vampires.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered in her ear.

I didn’t know if it was true or not, but at the moment, it sounded great.

Chapter Three

At seven in the morning, I called Paul. He sounded half-asleep and still smashed, but at least he answered and was coherent enough to respond to my panicked voice.

I told him everything, which wasn’t much.

“I’ll be right over.”

Twenty minutes later, he showed up along with two other squad cars. I didn’t care what the neighbors might think with that many police vehicles out front. I knew they’d wonder and gossip, and by that afternoon my wife would probably be a victim of domestic abuse or something equally atrocious; that was the way things worked in the suburbs, especially around here. It was a good neighborhood with good people, but you know how it is: even good people talk.

Paul strode into the house in much better condition than he had left only a few hours earlier. It was amazing what a cup of coffee and a buttered bagel could do for the intoxicated soul.

Behind him, three other lawmen entered, two in uniform, one in street clothes. I assumed the gentleman in plain clothes was a detective, and as it turned out, I was right. He introduced himself as “Detective Jonathon Harper” but told me to call him “Jon.” We shook hands, and I invited the crew to have a seat at the kitchen table. Eve offered them coffee, which they all declined because they’d brought their own.

Jon was the only one to have a seat. Paul and the other two officers stood near the counter. Eve paced the kitchen while Jon placed the photograph on the table and examined it.

“Where’s the girl?” he asked, lifting his gaze from the photo and finding my eyes.

“Dinah? She’s upstairs. Sleeping.”

“And this is her?” he asked, pointing to the dead girl.

“No,” I said confidently. “It’s impossible, obviously. She’s upstairs. Like I said.”

“Those are her clothes,” my wife blurted out. She was still pacing the room anxiously, her hand cupping her chin. “Those are her exact clothes. They’re missing from her closet.”

“Are you sure?” the detective asked.

I nodded. “Yes. We double checked.”

“Any sign of forced entry?”

I looked to my wife who only stared on blankly. Subtly, she shook her head.

“No, none that we saw anyway,” I answered.

Reaching into his pocket and pulling out two plastic gloves, he returned to the photograph on the table. This time he touched it, held it with his hands, and brought it closer to his eyes.

“Polaroid, huh?” Jon said, almost laughing. “Shit, I haven’t seen one of these in years.”

I ignored his fascination with the old photo and cleared my throat. “So what do we do?”

“Well…your daughter is okay. That’s the important thing. We’re going to have a look around the house to see if we find anything interesting. See if we can spot any signs of forced entry. I’ll have Tommy here start the police report.”

“What about the girl in the photo?” I asked.

Jon’s brow arched. “That’s a good question, Mr. Lowery.” One, apparently, he didn’t have a direct response to. He hesitated, his eyes running over the filth before him. I took another glance at the horror as well. The young girl around Dinah’s age was shackled to what appeared to be a concrete block wall streaked with grime and black spots that could have been mold. A basement, I immediately thought. Blood streaked her arms and legs, covering almost every inch of her exposed flesh. She looked like Carrie at the end of the infamous prom night scene. I couldn’t tell how she died; there were no visible wounds that determined the cause. But behind the ropes of dark, wet hair dangling in front of her face, I saw the girl’s eyes. They were open. Staring. Into a world far beyond our own.

I never saw a dead body before but my gut told me the girl in the photo was gone, expired, hopefully enjoying a peaceful afterlife in return for the horrible way she’d met her demise.

“That’s a good question,” Jon repeated. “We’ll have to put the word out there of what we found. Someone who’s missing a daughter will step up and identify her. She has parents, after all.”

I never thought about it that way until the detective mentioned it. That girl had a father. A father who was probably ripping his hair out, wondering where the hell his daughter had gone. A father who’d do anything to get her back. A father who’d kill to protect her.

I counted myself lucky that father wasn’t me and slouched in my seat.

“Or hell,” Jon said, “for all we know this photo is from the eighties. The girl in this photograph could be thirty, forty years gone. Or, God-willing, this is a fake and this little girl grew up into a beautiful woman with a successful career in…whatever she wanted to be when she was eight years old.” He smiled.

“You think this is a fake?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Fact is, Mr. Lowery, we have no idea what this is. The point is—we should consider every angle, every possibility, and not leave anything at the door. Understand?”

I looked at Paul and he nodded, subtly telling me “this is just how it is, friend.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Good. Glad we’re all on the same page.”

A few minutes later, the police were investigating, checking every room in the house for “points of entry.”

Eve sat with Dinah on the bed while the police examined the room. It wasn’t clean like my wife usually helped keep it, but it was far from the mess it had been a little over a day ago. Dinah had yet to learn the fine art of keeping one’s room neat and organized. It was a slow process, but we were working on it and making tremendous strides.

One officer went through her wardrobe, looking for the matching outfit worn by the girl in the picture. “Do you have a picture of your daughter wearing them?” the young officer asked.

“Yes.” Eve pulled her phone out of her pocket. “She wore it for her birthday. I have pictures in an album on Facebook.”

She showed him.

The officer compared the two photos. “Looks the same to me,” he said, and his face immediately paled.

“Yes,” Eve said nervously. “That’s what we were trying to tell you.”

The officer shrugged. “I believe you, Mrs. Lowery, we just have to be thorough.”

Eve’s eyes found mine, and I could tell what she was thinking. After ten years of marriage and two years of dating before that, Eve and I had developed this special sort of ESP connection. It wasn’t true ESP, of course—we weren’t psychics or anything like that. Such things were impossible. We couldn’t read each other’s minds or thoughts exactly, or speak to each other telepathically. We couldn’t tell each other’s futures or predict each other’s fortunes. However, once in a while, when our eyes connected, we knew exactly what was running through each other’s mind. It was like we could see into each other’s heads, but only for a brief moment, quick, like a flash from the camera that had been used to photograph my (not my) daughter’s dead body.

I knew Eve was pissed. Upset. Terrified. Paul’s friends weren’t exactly taking this as seriously as we felt it was, and they were beginning to question our story, asking us to repeat certain aspects of what we had already told them. The officer searching the closet, who seemed almost a decade younger than us, gnawed through Eve’s last shred of composure. She wasn’t one to explode or fly off the handle, but I felt her getting close, approaching the brink of letting loose every single thought occupying her mind.

“Don’t you think you should be looking at how this guy found a way in?” Eve said through her teeth.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” Dinah asked, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Why are these policemen here with Uncle Paul?”

Eve turned and kissed her forehead. “They’re just making sure we’re safe, baby. No need to worry.”

“This could be the problem,” said Jon from the opposite end of the room. He lifted the lower sash on the window, pushing it open and letting a soft breeze into the room. “This window was unlocked.”

“Impossible,” Eve said. “We never open our windows. Even in spring and fall. We have central heating and air conditioning. There’s never any need.”

Jon frowned. “What about Dinah?” He turned his attention to my daughter, who lay across my wife’s lap like a blanket. “Sweetie, have you opened your bedroom window recently?”

Before she could answer, Eve said, “She doesn’t know how to. And she’s not tall enough.”

“Mrs. Lowery, with all due respect, she looks plenty tall enough. And I’d like Dinah to answer the question.”

Eve’s face reddened with absolute anger, and I had a feeling if Dinah weren’t present the f-bombs would drop freely. She was keeping her contempt caged, but I doubted the monster within could be contained for much longer. I tried to shoot Jon a look, warning him, but he ignored me and focused on my daughter.

Dinah hesitated, and then turned to her mother for permission to answer.

“It’s okay,” Eve said, swallowing hard. “Tell Detective Harper the truth.”

My daughter faced the detective and said, “I’ve never opened the window in all my life.”

“Good,” Jon said. “Good girl.”

“Satisfied?” Eve asked venomously.

Sensing her frustration, Paul stepped in. “Eve, Jon is only trying to help.”

Before my wife could respond (or explode), I told Paul, “Look, man. We’ve had a rough night and even a rougher morning. This is a lot to process, a lot to take in. We’re a little on edge. We just… I guess we just want some clarity on this whole situation.”

“I get it,” Jon said, holding the picture in front of him, glancing down at the horrors it held. “Before we leave, I want to get permission for one last thing.”

“What is it?” Eve asked sharply.

“I want to show the picture to Dinah.”

“Absolutely not.” Eve pursed her lips. I’d never seen her this worked up, not since we had an argument about a year back on how to handle a school bullying situation in Dinah’s class. “Absolutely not, and how dare you even suggest it. Are you nuts? Are you fu—” She stopped herself before the obscenities started. “No. No way.”

“I understand your position, Mrs. Lowery.” Jon smiled. “I was just hoping—in the event that this is her in the photograph—she might be able to shine a light on this mystery.”

“And what if it isn’t her?” Eve asked. “You’re going to traumatize her. For life.” Eve shook her head. “Besides. It’s not her. I know my daughter and I know what she looks like, and I know that girl in the photograph is not her.”

“It can’t be her,” I added. “She’s right here.”

“Mommy? Daddy? What is he talking about? What picture? I want to see.”

“No, sweetheart,” I said. “Why don’t you go downstairs and make yourself a waffle. You remember how to use the toaster?”

She nodded. “But I’m not hungry.”

“Please,” I said sternly. “Go downstairs?”

After a few seconds of deliberation, Dinah reluctantly jumped off the bed and marched toward the door. “No fair. I never get to hear the fun stuff.”

“Thank you, love.”

Once she was gone, Jon started in again. “I meant no disrespect. I’m only trying to help here.”

“By showing our daughter a picture of a dead girl, covered in blood, who looks exactly like her?” Eve asked. “How the fuck does that help? Seriously, I’d like to know.”

“I thought maybe it would jog her memory, in case it is her.”

“You have to admit,” Paul said, crossing his arms over his chest, “it kind of looks like her. Especially with her hand.”

Her hand.

I had noticed it too, though the shot doesn’t exactly lend itself to clarity in that regard. It was the blood, I thought, the amount of blood slicking the floor beneath her that made that specific part of the photo unclear. But now that Paul mentioned it—yeah, it seemed like the girl in the photograph was missing her left hand.

Just like our daughter.

Just like our Dinah.

We showed the officers out, and Jon apologized again before stepping foot on the front porch. “Gosh, I didn’t mean to rattle your guys’ cages. I know this has to be a hard thing to deal with. Fact is, I’m surprised you’re handling it as well as you have. I’m going to dig deep into this, you have my word. I’ll contact you if I find anything or need any more information.”

Eve only stared at him, but I thanked him and wished him luck on the case.

After the other officers drove off, Paul turned to me.

“This is fucked up,” Paul said. I could see the pallor of his face had lightened a few shades since his arrival, and I suspected it had nothing to do with the amount of drinks he had imbibed at my party. “God,” he said, looking down at the deck. “This is so fucked up.”

“Thanks, Paul,” I said. “I appreciate you coming out here so quickly.”

“Seriously, if there’s anything Carla and I can do, don’t hesitate to let us know.”

“What if he comes back?” Eve asked, panic clinging to her voice. She twisted her body and nibbled her nails, trying to shed her anxiety.

Silence reigned over the next few seconds.

“I’ll see what I can do to have a car patrol the neighborhood every couple of hours after sundown.”

“Can we get someone stationed out front?”

Paul winced. “There’s not usually enough people on nights to pull that off. And it would be expensive to pay another officer overtime. With the budget and all…I mean, you can pay—”

“We’re not paying the police,” Eve said. “Isn’t that your job? Protect and serve?”

“Yes, but Eve. You have to understand…”

The look on her face suggested she didn’t. Shaking her head, she turned away and disappeared around the bend near the open entryway to the kitchen.

“Sorry, man,” I said. “She’s just really shaken up. You know she’s not usually like this.”

Paul put his hands up. “I completely understand. But look, if that fucker is out there, we’ll find him. I guarantee it. Jon might not look like much and he comes off as a little quirky, but he’s the best detective in the county, hell, probably the whole state. He’ll make quick work of it.”

I knew he was lying to me, trying to make me feel better. But honestly, it had worked.

“Thanks, buddy.”

“Gym later?”

I winced. “I don’t know about that.” The gym was the furthest thing from my mind. The picture of the murdered girl was the only thing my brain projected.

Paul slapped me on the shoulder, a friendly shot that, surprisingly, warmed me. “Yeah, I get it. Hey, keep your head up. This shit will blow over before you know it. A week from now, this will all be a bad dream. I truly believe that, you know?”

I nodded, but something told me it wasn’t that simple.

And it wasn’t.

Not at all.

Chapter Four

Six months before Dinah was born, sometime between the first and second trimester, the team of doctors watching over Eve’s pregnancy noticed something wrong. Dinah had measured a few weeks behind and they couldn’t figure out why, but the consensus was that maybe the machine was slightly off and miscalculated, that their measuring tool needed to be re-calibrated perhaps, or maybe she would just be on the smaller side. “A little peanut,” the OB-GYN had said to us. “Nothing to worry about this early, but we’ll monitor everything just to be sure.”

A few weeks later, Dinah measured even further behind, by a few weeks this time, and they ran some tests to see what the issue was. Turned out, something with Eve’s placenta hadn’t formed right, and the transfer of nutrients wasn’t happening as it should. Our sweet unborn child wasn’t getting the proper nutrition to grow safely within the womb. They said they could sustain her growth for a month, maybe two if we were lucky, and they told us to prepare for the inevitable—Dinah would be born prematurely and then they threw an assortment of dreadful possibilities at us, everything from severe mental disabilities to a stillborn delivery.

My wife held out to thirty-two weeks before requiring an emergency C-section. Out came baby Dinah, all three-and-a-half pounds of her. At fifteen inches, she was almost small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, which couldn’t happen right away because the doctors whisked her away in an incubator where she remained for the next several weeks in the NICU.

An hour later, the doctors bustled into the recovery room and told us Dinah’s vitals were good, that she was marginally healthy but were regretful to inform us about her non-life-threatening deformity—her missing hand. They explained it to us like this: When not enough nutrients reach the fetus’s body, the fetus goes into self-preservation mode and sends nutrition to the most important organ in the body—the brain. Dinah’s body, thrust into survival mode, sent any and all dietary absorption to the upper part of her body, coating her brain with the nourishment she needed. Thus, in the process, depleting other parts of the body of the vital nutrition needed for proper growth. For some reason, her left hand stopped growing around twenty-three weeks and never matured past that stage.

The rest of her was fine.

With the assistance of early intervention programs offered by the state, she grew into a normal seven-year-old girl sans one operational left hand.

She was smart, highly intelligent, far beyond most kids her age, so they told us.

Normal, though, included her getting sick a lot in those first few years and developing asthma, which rears its ugly head more often than we’d like. But other than that…

She was well.

Perfect to us.

Our little miracle.

A perfect addition to our family.

“What are you thinking about, Daddy?” Dinah asked from the front seat of my Hyundai Elantra.

I was staring out the window, watching the other mothers and fathers drop off their children as the morning sun climbed over the horizon and spilled lavender shadows across the parking lot. I had wandered into the past and gotten lost, as I did when stressed. My mind worked in weird ways against me, digging up those trying times and slapping them in my face. It was better than craving a fix, though, and I’d take those scary, not-knowing-what-to-expect moments from my daughter’s first days of life over reliving the terrifying scenes of my addiction any day of the week.

“Nothing, sweetie.” I offered her a smile, but it was weak and she saw right through it. Couldn’t get much past this inquisitive seven-year-old. She knew something was up, and the visit from Uncle Paul and his police buddies only amplified her curiosity. We’d have to come clean to her at some point, but Eve thought it was best to ride it out as long as we could. No sense freaking her out unless it was necessary.

And I hoped to God that moment never came.

“Are you sure?” She squinted her eyes and crossed her arms, arching her left eyebrow. “Because you were staring into space. Again. For, like, the fourth time this morning.”

She was right. She’d caught me when I was making coffee, staring into the cabinet above the microwave for a good minute. Then again at the front door when putting my shoes on. Again down Market Street where I almost blew through a stop sign. And here now, in front of my daughter’s elementary school.

“Okay, Little Miss Nosy Face.” My smile broadened and became more genuine. “If you must know, I was thinking about you.”

“About me?” The idea tickled her. Just then, her hopeful face was extinguished by darker thoughts. “Was it the picture?”

My heart skipped. I wondered how much she truly knew, how much her intelligent brain pieced together. I knew she had learned more than she let on. Always had. We were the parents who had to watch what they said around their two-year-old because it only took one use of the f-word before it was instilled in her vocabulary.

“Dinah, I thought we told you not to worry about the picture. It’s nothing to concern yourself with. The police are doing their jobs, and this will all blow over.”

“I know…” she said, drawing the words out with defeat. “But I’m curious. I want to see it.”

“No, sweetheart. It’s not for children.” I wanted to say it wasn’t for adults either, that it wasn’t for any human eyes to behold, but I’d already given her enough. No sense in feeding her curiosity.

“Is it about me?”

I clenched my eyes shut and counted to three. “Honey, it’s not about you.”

“Then why was everyone in my room? Why was everyone so concerned?” She tilted her chin down as if she were the parent, shooting me that what-did-you-do glare. “Why were the police there, Daddy?”

I gripped the steering wheel, squeezed the rubber until my knuckles whitened. “Please, Dinah. Stop asking questions.”

She paused, putting her right hand on the door handle. “Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s okay.” I let go of the wheel. “You didn’t upset me. Just…forget about the picture. It’s not important. When you’re a little bit older, I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

“Like when I’m allowed to watch all PG-13 movies?” she asked, sounding hopeful.

“Maybe a little bit older than that, but we’ll see.”

She wasn’t completely satisfied, but she knew this was a battle she wouldn’t win. There was no sense arguing further.

“Just forget it for now. Hey, how’s school going?” I tried changing the subject, hoping to get her mind off the goddamn photograph. “Those bullies still leaving you alone?”

She looked down at her missing hand pensively. Seeming to have no response, she quickly dug through her book bag and scrounged up her white cotton glove. She handed it to me.

“Can you put on my glove?” she asked with an innocence that made my eyes sting.

“Yeah, sure.” I took the glove, opened the base, and slipped it over her stunted appendage. The fingers dangled loosely a bit, but the rest of it fit pretty snug. Her hand wasn’t grotesque or glaringly obvious, nor did it really affect her daily routines, but ever since the bullying episodes last year she had become self-conscious about its appearance. Eve had bought her the glove, hoping it would help, and so far, it had. She only wore it on occasion, and I guess her putting it on now answered my question about her classmates and their behavior.

Frankenstein, they had called her. Freak. Retard. Those were just some of the things she had admitted; I couldn’t imagine what other creative phrases they had come up with, names she hadn’t told us out of embarrassment or fear. Shitty things. The kids had said shitty things to her—that was the bottom line. The school had intervened and there hadn’t been an incident since, at least none we’d heard about. Though, Dinah’s sudden desire to enter school with her glove on definitely sparked my curiosity. I didn’t push it. Now wasn’t the time.

“Look, Mommy will pick you up after school. I think we’re going out to eat for dinner, then ice cream. Sound good?”

She turned to me, most of the sorrow wiped free from her face. “Sounds great, Dad.”

Dad? I’d gotten so used to her calling me Daddy that Dad sounded like someone else. Like when someone calls me Andrew instead of Drew.

I winked. “Go get ’em, kiddo.”

She pushed open the door.

I grabbed her shoulder. “And Dinah?”

Her eyes drifted toward me. Waiting for me to finish, she stayed silent.

“You’d tell us if something was going on. Right? Like at school? Or home?”

She nodded. “Of course, Daddy.”

Daddy.

“Okay.”

She stepped out onto the sidewalk, slammed the door shut, waved to me the same way she had every other morning I dropped her off, then disappeared into the bustling crowd of children.

Before I drove out of the drop-off zone, a face appeared in my window. I turned my head and came face to face with a woman, the corners of her lips stretching from ear to ear. She waved with way too much enthusiasm for six a.m., and I wondered just how many cups of coffee she had downed before coming to work. I rolled down my window and said, “Hi.”

“Hi, Mr. Lowery. Janet Meadows, Cedar Hills Elementary Guidance Counselor. We met last year.” The chipper tone of her voice matched her wide smile.

“Yes, of course. I remember. The bullying thing.”

“Yes. I’m so glad that situation was resolved. You know we have a strict policy regarding bullying and since Dinah’s situation, the entire faculty have been much more attuned to it.”

“So glad to hear.”

I looked past her and stared into the parking lot where at least a half-dozen rows of cars were parked. The only vehicle that was occupied was a white van. The driver, a man almost twice my age wearing a flat cap, sat behind a newspaper. I’d gotten the sense his eyes took turns between skimming the headlines and peering at me, but I chalked that notion up to nerves, a slow creeping paranoia that was beginning to settle in. Since the photograph and the potential break-in, I was suddenly overly aware of my surroundings and everyone in it. I mean, when I wasn’t daydreaming, of course.

“And how is Mrs. Lowery?” asked Meadows.

“She’s well. Still working hard. As always.”

“Nurse, right?”

“Yes. You remember?”

She bounced her head from side to side and stretched her smile even farther, which I found to be almost impossible. Her narrow face barely contained her lips. “Of course!” she bubbled. “Meeting you two last year was actually one of my highlights. Not all parents are as understanding and calm as you two were. It made my job a lot easier. So thank you.”

I shrugged. “No problem.” In truth, I didn’t really remember the meeting. There were other faculty members there, not just Mrs. Meadows. Anyway, we had addressed our concerns and they had explained their policies and strategies; it all seemed very routine. And mundane. And entirely forgettable.

“Is that it?” I asked, squinting, hoping not to sound rude.

“Oh, no.” She laughed. “Actually, there was something else I wanted to discuss with you. If you have a minute?”

I checked the clock on the dash. “I have a few. I have work.”

“I’ll only take a minute of your time.”

“Then shoot.”

I was a little nervous about what she had to say. Not once in Dinah’s short school career had she ever exhibited behavioral problems, nor any trouble with her grades. As far as I knew, her teachers adored her and her participation was among the highest in class. To our knowledge, our baby was the same angel at school as she was at home. Save for the bullying situation last year, there had never been any need for a parent/teacher conference. I couldn’t imagine what Meadows wanted my ear for, but I also knew it couldn’t be good.

I looked out across the lot. The van was still there, the man in the cap still stationed behind the steering wheel.

“Everything is okay,” Meadows started. “It’s probably nothing, but…”

But. There it was. That soul-crushing word that rendered the first part of her sentence a basic lie.

“But?”

“But recently, last week in fact, Dinah admitted a small something to one of her teachers that raised concern. Even though it’s probably nothing, I still feel it’s necessary to pass the information along.”

I didn’t like the sound of it. I killed the Hyundai’s engine and turned in my seat, facing the guidance counselor as much as I could.

“Don’t be alarmed,” she said, noticing the grave look on my face.

“I’m not. Just wasn’t prepared for this.”

But wasn’t I? It had been a strange week around the house. I half-excepted the craziness to affect Dinah in some way, maybe tinker with her ability to concentrate on schoolwork, but…but last week? That was before the picture found its way into our mail.

The woman had my full attention. I’d completely lost interest in the guy in the van.

“I’m sorry,” Meadows said. “Didn’t mean to sneak attack you.”

“No, it’s fine. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, it seems last week Dinah told Mrs. Yavins, her social studies teacher, that she has been experiencing some strange dreams. Told her a shadow monster was after her. Said she saw the monster outside her window late at night after she woke up from the dream. Staring at her. Through her window.”

My veins flooded with ice.

Meadows’s eyes dropped to the ground. “She told her teacher that the monster was hunting her and it wouldn’t stop hunting her until it got her. And killed her.”

I swallowed what felt like my tongue. “Did she say what this monster looked like?”

Meadows eyed me curiously. “I believe it was just a dream.”

“Of course,” I said with a good-natured smile. “Just curious. I like details.”

She nodded, then shook her head. “No, Mrs. Yavins said Dinah told her it was just a shadow monster. No discernible qualities to it.”

“Hmm.”

“Has Dinah said anything to you or your wife about the dreams?”

I wondered if a lie here would benefit me, us. If I admitted Dinah hid her nightmare, what would that say about us? That our daughter didn’t feel comfortable confiding in her parents? Which wasn’t true; she had come to us about the bullying. And since that was true, why not come to us about this? It didn’t add up.

“No,” I said, opting to tell the truth. “No, she hasn’t.”

Understanding, Meadows nodded. “You know, normally we wouldn’t even mention something silly like this, but Mrs. Yavins was quite shaken after listening to Dinah’s story. She wanted me to check with you and make sure everything was all right.” She paused. “Is…everything all right?”

“As far as I know,” I lied.

“Good. I don’t mean to pry. I just wanted to make sure, you know, in case the bullying situation reared its ugly head again, or something like that.”

“I get it. Thank you so much for coming to me with this.”

My throat felt restricted, as if a snake had coiled around my windpipe and squeezed my breath away.

“Are you all right?” She bent her knees and dropped to my level. “You look a little…pale.”

“Fine. Just fine. Just…this is all news to me. I don’t like it when Dinah’s upset, you know?”

“Of course,” she said, her infectious smile returning. It didn’t work on me, however. Smiling was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to scream. “That’s a natural parent thing. We all want our kids to go through life unscathed and—”

I tuned her out and looked back at the parking lot. The man in the van was still there, flipping through the black and white pages. I swear he stole a glimpse of me while I was watching him. Our eyes met, even if it was for half a second.

Why is he watching me?

“Mr. Lowery?” Meadows asked.

“Mm?”

“I think I lost you.” Her smile started to fade.

“No, I’m listening.”

“So when a child has recurring nightmares—”

“I’m sorry? Recurring nightmares?”

“Yes. She’s admitted to having these bad dreams before.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Meadows—”

“Please, you can call me Janet.”

“Janet.” I shook my head, clearing all thoughts that Eve and I weren’t good parents. “I find it hard to believe that Dinah would mention this to a teacher, basically a stranger, rather than come to us about it. I mean, she came to us before. Last year. With, well, you know.”

“Yes, well. That was why I wanted to touch base with you. When Mrs. Yavins told Dinah to tell you and your wife about the dreams, she acted…skittish. Almost as if the thought made her uncomfortable.”

“That doesn’t sound like Dinah. Not at all.”

“I totally agree.” A half-smile, half-wince stuck to her face. “Which is why I’m here telling you about it.”

Not knowing what to say, I nodded. “Well, thank you for keeping me informed. I really appreciate it. Eve and I will sit her down tonight and see what’s going on. Things have been a little…” What? I thought. Nuts? Creepy? Horrifying? “…unusual around the house lately. We did have a…” I was careful not to tell the truth, the complete truth. Cedar Hills wasn’t exactly a huge community, and the last thing our family needed was news of the photograph spreading around town. After all, there was an investigation happening, and I’m sure Jon Harper wanted to keep the media out of it as long as he could. “…an attempted break-in recently.”

“Oh Lord.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. But I suppose it could be that.” Even though the timelines didn’t match up, Meadows didn’t need to know. I hoped the story was enough to ease her suspicions and keep the school faculty from prying into our situation.

“That sounds awful,” Meadows said. She showed me her palms. “I really wasn’t trying to pry. I just wanted to pass along the information, one parent to another.”

“Again, much appreciated. I can’t thank you and the school enough for all you’ve done for Dinah.”

“Oh,” she said, throwing her hand over her heart. Her eyes fluttered. “That means so much to hear you say that. We do our best.” She dropped her hand and her smile, and cleared her throat. “There is one more thing, though…”

Oh, God, I thought. Here we go.

“Hmm?”

She squinted as if the coming words were uncomfortable ones. “I’d recommend confronting Dinah in a roundabout way, if at all possible. Meaning, don’t tell her myself or Mrs. Yavins informed you about the nightmares. If she is reaching out to us for help, for whatever reason, I don’t want her to think we betrayed her trust. I want her to feel comfortable coming to us in the future.” She grimaced. “Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense.”

“Thank you for understanding. It’s a real breath of fresh air to deal with such easy-going parents.”

“I understand completely.”

I glanced to the side of her, into the parking lot. The van was still there. The man behind the steering wheel wasn’t.

“Mrs. Meadows?” I asked.

“Janet,” she reminded me.

“Janet.” I nodded past her. “That white van…”

She turned. “Which white van?”

I pointed to the crowded parking lot stocked with vehicles belonging to teachers and administrators. “That one.”

“Mr. Lowery, I don’t see a white van.”

“Right there.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah. What about it?”

“Does it belong to anyone? Anyone who works here? A teacher perhaps?”

“Um, I’m not sure. I don’t know what everyone drives.”

I nodded. “Gotcha.”

“Why? Is something wrong?”

“No. No, I don’t think so.”

But I was incorrect.

Something was wrong.

Very fucking wrong.

Chapter Five

That night, after dinner and ice cream, I drove us straight home. Dinah wanted to hit the mall and buy a new shirt for school, one she saw her friend Gwen wearing earlier that day. Eve and I told her it was getting late and that she had school in the morning, and Mommy and Daddy were super tired from working all day. A trip to the mall would have to wait ’til the weekend, but in the meantime her closet was full of clothes she could wear to school tomorrow.

She wasn’t happy with our response, but she didn’t fight us either. Dinah rarely fought us. She was obedient and did pretty much whatever we asked, having zero discipline problems. Some of my friends and co-workers could tell you nightmare stories about their kids and the hard times they give them, but that wasn’t the case in our family. That wasn’t our Dinah.

We pulled into the driveway at a quarter after eight. I parked in the garage and we sat in dead silence. Outside, crickets chirped and frogs croaked, but inside…inside the quiet lingered like a burning candle waiting to be snuffed out. I turned to Eve, and she turned to me. We stared at each other, neither knowing how to begin. We had agreed this conversation needed to happen, but we hadn’t put together a concrete plan. We had an outline. A vague, unspecific idea of what to say. But no jumping off point.

“Oh geez,” Dinah said, throwing her head back against the seat. “Are you guys going to make out? Gross.” She wrinkled her face like an old T-shirt.

Neither one of us laughed, though we both wanted to.

“Honey,” Eve began, turning to her. “Is there something you want to tell us? Something bothering you? At school? At home?”

Dinah gave her head a half-turn, peering at us cautiously from the corners of her eyes. “Ummmm…no?”

“Dinah,” I said, spinning toward her. “It’s okay. You can tell us anything.”

“Um, I know that. I tell you guys everything.”

“Then, there’s nothing going on? Nothing that has…maybe…scared you? Something that made you feel uncomfortable?”

Dinah shook her head slowly, her gaze fixed on us.

Eve cleared her throat. “Dinah, what did you tell your teacher, Mrs. Yavins?”

“Eve,” I said. “What the heck?”

“What? This could be serious. I’m not dancing around it, playing these little games.” She turned to the back seat, poking her head between the headrests and staring her daughter directly in her eyes. “Tell us, sweetheart. Tell us what you told Mrs. Yavins.”

Unmoving, Dinah gazed ahead, her eyes bouncing between us. “I can’t.”

My eyes met with Eve’s, only for a second before we both returned our penetrating stares back on our daughter, the waxen face in the backseat.

“What do you mean you can’t tell us?” Eve asked, the unsteadiness in her voice obvious. “Dinah, you have to.”

“Come on, sweetie,” I urged. “Tell us what happened.”

“No…” she said, her vision dropping to the floor. “He said he’d hurt me. Said he’d hurt me real bad.”

A chill ran through the car, causing the hairs on my arms and neck to stand on point.

“Wh-who?” asked Eve. She was trembling, her body quivering as if the temperature in the car dropped twenty below. “Dinah, who t-told you that?”

She glanced up, shooting her mother a sad, desperate look. The dim light from the garage door opener reflected off her glassy eyes. Loose tears swelled, threatening to fall. A shake ran through her muscles, her small frame twitching ever so lightly.

“The man outside my window,” she said. “The shadow man who says I’m his real daughter.”

The shadow man who says I’m his real daughter.

At first, there were no words. The three of us sat in silence for what seemed like a lifetime, Eve and Dinah choking back tears, trying to keep it together for the sake of one another, but neither doing a very good job. And me, sitting there, staring at my daughter’s anguished face, wishing whatever was happening to our family would go away, praying it was all a terrible dream, one I could wake up from any time I wanted.

But it wasn’t a dream. We sat in the dark garage and wondered how to carry on from here, which direction was next, because the next course of action would greatly impact our family and our future.

I spoke first. “Dinah, what do you mean? Like in a dream? This man came to you in a dream?”

Gradually, her head shifted back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch. “I thought it was a dream. At first. I thought it was all in my head.” Tears came forth, spilling down her tiny cheeks like raindrops on a windowpane. “But it wasn’t. He’s been there in real life.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eve breathed, her body shuddering at the thought of the intruder.

I immediately thought back to the window in Dinah’s room, how the detective found it unlocked. There was a tree outside her room, not easily climbable, but I supposed someone in shape wouldn’t have too much trouble shimmying up it. Hell, I could do it. I’ve done it; last fall when I trimmed the branches.

My face burned so hotly I thought my skin might melt. I pictured the son of a bitch, this shadowy outline of a man, perched in the tree, peeping through the window late at night, watching my daughter sleep, the white teeth of his mischievous grin glowing in the dark. My heart pumped with so much force it knocked the wind from my lungs. I found it hard to breathe, and I wondered if Dinah’s emergency inhaler located in the glovebox would provide me with some relief. A crown of sweat broke under my hairline.

I wanted to punch something.

The son of a bitch watches her sleep.

Someone. I wanted to punch someone.

Him.

“How do you know, Dinah?” I asked. “How do you know it wasn’t a dream?”

She looked at me, her eyes completely swollen with tears. “I just know.”

I could tell she truly believed it. I did too. I couldn’t explain why, but I trusted my daughter’s instincts. My own told me there was a man stalking my daughter. Judging from the picture he sent, the message he sent, he wanted to kill her.

But why?

If killing her was his intent, he could have done so by now. The sicko clearly had access to her bedroom. Clear, unbridled access. He could have nabbed her anytime he wanted. Why didn’t he? I couldn’t piece it together and then realized I wasn’t the detective. That was Jon Harper’s job, and I hoped to hell he was working on it. I wasn’t sure how many more episodes like this we could take.

I swallowed what felt like a dry potato. “Dinah…this man…”

“He’s not a man,” she said sharply. “He’s a shadow monster.”

“Shadow monster,” I corrected myself. “Does he…say anything else to you?”

She didn’t respond. Not right away. A second later she shook her head.

I nodded. “Does he…does he ever touch you?”

I felt Eve break. She tucked her head into the crook of her arm and sobbed.

Dinah looked from side to side, as if she expected someone there, then quickly shook her head.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “You can tell us, baby. We can help you.”

Her eyes fell. Either she wasn’t sure we could or she didn’t want our help, and I wasn’t sure which hurt more.

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Okay.” I rubbed my wife’s back. “We’ll get through this.” With confidence, I gave my family a reassuring nod. “We’ll all get through this.”

Eve lifted her head and faced Dinah. She lunged forward, stretching out her arms for her only daughter. Dinah met her halfway, putting her arms around her mother’s neck, pulling her close. The two embraced and sobbed into each other’s shoulders.

I rested my head against the window, fighting back the tears in my eyes and the scratchy burn in my throat.

Paul and Detective Jon Harper showed up around 10:15 p.m., about twenty minutes after Dinah cried herself to sleep on the couch. The four of us huddled at the kitchen table, each sitting behind an untouched cup of coffee, freshly brewed.

“Do you have family you can stay with?” Jon asked, stirring a spoonful of sugar into his drink.

We shook our heads. “My parents are out of the picture and Eve’s…” I deferred to her.

“I’m not in touch with my family anymore either,” she said, almost mournfully. “Haven’t been in a long time.”

Jon nodded in acknowledgment. “Okay then. Friends?”

We both shrugged.

I opened my mouth. “I guess we could—”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Eve stated. “This is our house. We won’t be run out of it like mice in a barn.”

“I get that sentiment, Mrs. Lowery,” Jon said, holding up his hand. “But this is a very serious situation. I advise you to err on the side of caution. Your daughter’s admission—while unverified—still escalates things. It raises some very harrowing concerns.”

“No shit.” She shook her head. “But I’m not leaving this house. I’m not going to hole up in some hotel room.” She stared the detective down. The muscles in her face flexed. “Station someone outside of our house throughout the night.” She pressed her forefinger against the table with such force the pinkish color of her skin fled. Tapping her finger, she added, “At least until we can figure this thing out.”

The detective sighed and looked to Paul for assistance. When Paul didn’t volunteer any, he swung his attention back to us and said, “Cost aside, we can’t be your personal bodyguards forever. Not a feasible long-term solution. You know that, Mrs. Lowery. You’re smarter than that. What we need to do is find this guy and find him quickly. He has the upper hand here. He knows us, mainly you, but we don’t know him. And finding someone when you don’t know who it is you’re looking for can be an extremely tough endeavor. Now, I’ve already partnered with neighboring jurisdictions and we have their full cooperation.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked. “And how are you going to find him? I mean, other than the ‘shadow man’ description, you really don’t have much else to go on?” It was true; Dinah’s details on the shadow monster weren’t something a sketch artist could work into a Picasso. They had nothing to really go on, nothing at all.

“Now you see my predicament. We’re looking for—essentially—a ghost in the fog. Now, we’re looking into those registered under Megan’s Law first, registered sex offenders in the neighborhood. It’s not much, but it’s a good place to start as any.” He didn’t sound confident, and Paul’s slumped-shoulder appearance made it seem like they had already lost the war. It didn’t help quell my wife’s concerns, nor mine. “I’ll talk to our lieutenant and see if we can get a body here at night, temporarily, at least for a few days.”

Eve breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. That would help us immensely. I just don’t know how we’d sleep without feeling completely safe.”

Jon nodded. “I understand. In the meantime, I know it sucks to hear it, but we wait. See if this guy shows his mug. I don’t think he wants to hurt your daughter; if he did, he would have done so already. He had the perfect opportunity when he stole her clothes.”

That sentence made me queasy, weak in the knees. My body went a little numb, tingly. I felt my dinner and ice cream dessert slosh around my stomach and threaten to rise.

“I’m not sleeping tonight,” I said. “No way.”

Eve grabbed my hand and caressed my knuckles with her fingers.

“I think you both need to take some personal time at work,” Jon said, grabbing his pocket-sized notebook off the table before tucking it into his inner jacket. “You should inform them about what’s going on without giving away too many details. I don’t think I need to explain Cedar Hills and its infamous rumor mill, do I?”

We shook our heads.

“Good. Anyway, take some time. Be with Dinah. Do family things. I know it’s impossible, but don’t think about it too much. It’ll drive you crazy. Let us do our jobs and I promise you we’ll find this dirtbag, and we’ll have him locked up on whatever charges we can throw at him.”

“And what charges would that be exactly?” I asked, though I hadn’t meant to. Not aloud.

Jon and Paul exchanged dubious glances.

“Well,” Jon said, pointing upward, “we have him for breaking and entering.” Then he shrugged, as if there were nothing else to say on the subject.

“That’s it?” Eve asked, perplexed. “I mean, what about child endangerment? Huh? What about… What about attempted murder?”

Jon’s brow rose, lips scrunched. “Well, we don’t even know what that photo is, exactly. Could be Dinah. But I think we can all agree it isn’t her. I know it looks like her, especially with her…well, her hand. I know it resembles Dinah, and at the very least, that’s a threat to harm.”

Eve snapped her fingers. “Threat to harm. Yes, that sounds good.”

Jon nodded. “If it sticks.”

“If it sticks?”

Jon cracked his knuckles. “Yes, Mrs. Lowery, this is a unique case, and I can’t guarantee anything in terms of putting away the guy responsible for a long period of time. He’ll only be charged for things he’s actually done, and right now—I hate to say it—he hasn’t done much other than threaten your family and break into your house, which would carry a sentence of…” He rolled his eyes while he dwelled on the answer. “…let’s say five years?”

“Five years?” Eve asked incredulously. “Five years?”

“That’s probably maximum. But…if this turns out to be something else. If the photograph is real, if it’s an actual body of a young girl he’s killed…then obviously we’re talking a first-degree murder charge.”

Eve nodded, understanding.

I rubbed sleep from my eyes.

Jon cleared his phlegmy throat. “Well, it’s getting late, and I’m sure you folks want to get some sleep.”

Eve nodded. “Sleep. Yes, that would be nice.”

“Again, I’ll see what I can do about getting you surveillance.”

“We’d appreciate that.”

Paul and Jon pushed themselves from the table and stood.

Jon tipped his cap. “You folks have a wonderful night and a better tomorrow.”

Chapter Six

For a few hours we stayed on the couch and watched Dinah sleep. Our bodies were exhausted, but our minds were busy, wondering why this was happening to us, why the universe tossed another wrench in the works. We both felt like we’d been through enough in our lives already, especially with Dinah and those first three months after her birth, traveling back and forth to the hospital every damned day. That experience alone was enough for a lifetime, and we thought we’d paid our dues. It was time for something good to happen, something nice and easy and delightful.

Something not so traumatizing.

We were good people. We donated to certain charities, helped out with local food drives. Eve baked cupcakes for the school’s annual fundraiser to raise awareness for whatever they were trying to raise awareness for that particular year. We paid our taxes and kept current on our bills. Sunk money into the house and kept it up to date. We were faithful to each other. Our neighbors liked us, not a single complaint over the years. Most of them, like Dale, had become our good friends. We were even involved with PTO for a while, but it took up way too much time and we had to drop out. We had no family in our lives, but we made plenty of friends in town and at work, built friendships that lasted ten years and beyond.

We were good people.

We never had a problem with anyone. No one would want to do things to us, definitely not the things that Dinah’s nightly stalker was doing. I couldn’t see why this was happening to us, why bad things happen to good people. It didn’t seem fair, and that made me partly angry, partly sad. Like every nightmare I had as a child, I wished this situation would just end. Enough was enough. Our family had suffered aplenty.

“Hey,” Eve said, crawling over to me.

I wrapped my arm around her neck and pulled her close, unable to take my eyes off Dinah. Her chest rose and fell. I wondered what dreams she was currently walking through, hoping they were more pleasant escapes.

“Hey,” Eve repeated, kissing my neck.

I finally tore my eyes away from my sleeping daughter and pressed my lips against Eve’s forehead.

“Why is this happening to us?” she asked, clearly reading my mind.

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Dropping my head on the couch’s armrest, I stared up at the ceiling.

“I figured,” she said.

“Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know. But I’m taking the rest of the week off from work.” She breathed into my neck. “I have a bunch of time saved up and the part-time nurses are always begging for extra shifts. Plus, if I don’t use my time by the end of the year, I lose it.”

“I wish I had that problem.”

She nuzzled against me.

“I’ll still have to work my shifts this week,” I told her.

“Are you sure? We can afford to have you take some time off.” She smooched my cheek and gently massaged the side of my head. “As your nurse and your wife, I recommend a few stress-free days away from the gym.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think work might actually be good for me. Help take my mind off things.”

She sighed, almost as if the news disappointed her. “If you say so.”

“Think about it. I mean, what is there to do? Sit around here? Mope? No, we’ll drive ourselves crazy.”

“I can think of things to do. I’ll take Dinah places. She needs to get her mind off things, too. She’s not dumb, Drew. She knows that we know things. Knows we’re hiding things from her.” She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “I hate lying to her, but we can’t show her the picture. It’ll warp her.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she’s stronger than we both give her credit for.”

Eve rose off me. “You want to show it to her?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t given it much thought, but now that it was out there…yeah, I kind of did. “It might shed some light on a few things.”

“We both agreed it wasn’t her in the picture. It can’t be her. It’s just not possible.”

“I know that. I know, but…what if she recognizes the girl in the picture. Or, you know, the background. Something.”

Eve shook her head. “Nothing good will come of it. I promise you.”

I threw my hands up. “Okay then. I won’t argue.”

Eve set her head down on my chest.

“Are we pulling her from school?” I asked.

“Do you think we should?”

Again, this wasn’t something I had considered. “I’m not sure. A part of me thinks we shouldn’t rearrange our lives over this. That in a few days it will all be over, and Jon Harper will have a suspect in custody. The other part of me thinks this is a nightmare that will never end, and we should move to Canada.”

“Canada, eh?” she said in a fake (and terrible) accent.

“Yeah, Canada. You never hear anything bad happening in Canada.”

“That’s actually true.” There was a pause. Another deep exhale. “We’ll always be together, right? You’ll never leave me? No matter what?”

The questions came as a surprise. This was information she already knew. “Of course.” I leaned forward and kissed the side of her head.

Within ten minutes she fell asleep.

Then there was a knock on the front door.

Eve shot up, gasping for breath. Dinah stirred in her sleep but didn’t wake. I jumped off the couch and rushed into the kitchen.

“Mr. and Mrs. Lowery, my name is Jacob Johnstone, I’m with the Cedar Hills Police Department.”

I scurried to the door, opened it, and greeted the tall officer who didn’t seem overly happy to be at my doorstep just after midnight.

“I drew the short straw,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the cruiser parked across the street. “I’ll be camping out until morning. Here’s my number if you need anything.”

He handed me his card.

Almost out of breath, I bent over and sighed. “Oh, thank you.”

“You okay? I didn’t scare you guys, did I?”

From the kitchen doorway, Eve shook her head. “No, we are just a little jumpy. That’s all.”

He nodded. “Yeah, Paul filled me in on the details. Sick people in this world, I tell you. Anyway, I’ll be outside, watching, so you can rest easy.”

“Thank you so much, officer,” I said. “You don’t know how much this means to us.”

“Get some sleep, you guys,” he said, turning, heading down the porch. “You both look like you could use it.”

Sleep would have been nice. Eve fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, and that’s not some overly-exaggerated expression. She was out like a lamp and snoring before I finished brushing my teeth and washing my face. I crawled next to her and closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come as easily for me. In fact, it didn’t come at all. Every time I closed my eyes, I pictured a shadow with yellow eyes, the outline of a half-man, half-beast, squatting outside my daughter’s window with nefarious intentions circumnavigating its primitive brain. When the figure smiled, I could see its teeth, white and gleaming, speckled with red, sharp, whittled to fine points. Perfect for tearing the meat and muscle from the bones of sleeping children.

Those visions lingered for hours. The alarm clock read 2:12 a.m., and I couldn’t stand lying there anymore, toggling between those awful thoughts and the dull white appearance of my popcorn ceiling. I felt trapped in my own skin suit, and I wanted to be free of my own flesh.

I climbed out of bed, took a quick leak, threw on the satin robe Eve bought me for my birthday last year, and traveled downstairs under the cover of night. I raided the fridge for snacks, but there wasn’t much save for a few pieces of fruit and one of those crackers-and-cheese-dip packages. I found the latter disgusting (the cheese never tasted like actual cheese) and opted for a shiny red apple. As I bit into the fruit, I padded across the tile and headed for the sliding back door. I flicked on the deck lights and peered out as far as the brightness traveled.

Opening the door, I stepped onto the deck and took a breath of fresh air. The house was stale in comparison to nature’s musk. I closed my eyes and breathed in the autumn air, eating my apple between breaths.

“Heck of a nice night,” a voice said to my right.

My stomach slumped, and for a second, I thought I messed myself.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, Drew,” the voice said. I turned and saw my neighbor Dale drinking a beer on his lounge chair, gazing up at the stars. “Sorry.”

I waved at him. “No worries. Didn’t expect anyone else to be up at this hour.”

He nodded and smiled, returning his eyes to the sky.

“Why are you up this late?” I asked, curious.

“On some October days you can look up at the sky and see the stars with perfect clarity.” He smiled as he admired the freckles in the cosmos. “I like it. It makes me feel good.” He lowered his head and shot me a wan smile. “Plus, I couldn’t fall asleep. Sometimes the nightmares are too much.”

I immediately thought of Dale’s family. He’d said they had died, but never how. Whatever happened to them clearly haunted him.

“Fall is my favorite season, don’t you know,” Dale added. “The nights are perfect.”

I shuddered and wished I’d brought a sweatshirt, though I hadn’t wandered downstairs with the intention of coming outside. “A little chilly for my tastes.”

I finished my snack and cast the apple core into the darkness.

“Nice throw,” Dale said.

“Thanks.”

“Want a beer?” He reached into the cooler next to him and withdrew a can.

I didn’t want one, but I couldn’t say no. Instead, I raised my hand in toss-one-over-here fashion and said, “Sure.”

He tossed the can, and I snatched it out of the darkness.

“Great catch, kid.” Dale chuckled. “Must’ve been a ballplayer back in your day.”

“Little League. Two years. But I was more into basketball. Enjoyed it more.”

“Is that why you never joined our softball team?”

“That…” I cracked open the can and sipped eagerly. “And it’s a beer league.”

“Figured you weren’t much of a beer drinker, being a health nut and all.”

I nodded. There were other reasons, of course, including the details of my past life, but I didn’t want to burden Dale with that information, not tonight. Maybe some other time, but not tonight. “Well, you know. Maybe I’m starting to develop a taste for it.”

He grinned. “Hey, is everything all right, Drew?”

“Uh, yeah. Great. Why do you ask?”

Dale pushed himself up from his lounge chair and neared the edge of his deck, resting his elbows on the railing. He poked his head into the alleyway between our houses, looking beyond our properties and across the street. “I couldn’t help but notice all the recent activity at your house.” He turned to me, facing away from the parked police cruiser. “Just wondering if everything was all right, or, if, as your neighbor and all, I should be aware of some criminal activity taking place in our neighborhood.”

I cocked my head back and took a long swig. I guessed it couldn’t hurt to tell him. In fact, I thought he should know about the attempted break-in, figuring he could keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. “Well, Dale, actually no. Things aren’t all right, not really at all.”

“What’s going on? Anything I can do to help?”

I stared at him. He looked older with the shadows draped over his features, the lines and wrinkles in his face accentuated by a trick of the dying light. Looked more like a man of his seventies than one a couple years short of his sixties. He offered a tired smile, friendly enough for the dismal occasion.

“Can I ask you a question, Dale?”

“Sure,” he said, scratching his forehead. “Anything you want, neighbor, you know that.”

“Have you seen anyone strange coming around the house lately?” I sipped more beer, filling my body with liquid courage. Talking about what happened wasn’t easy and didn’t come naturally. Something about the subject made me feel inferior, like I couldn’t protect my family from the dangers of the world. I hated how helpless the whole thing made me feel, and speaking about it soured my mood and twisted my guts in knots. “You know, anyone maybe looking through the windows or spying on the house? Anyone at all? Could be anyone, Dale—a jogger, or a car that drove by super slow.”

He squinted and turned his head. “No, I can’t say I’ve seen anything unusual. The neighborhood’s been really quiet lately. I haven’t noticed a thing out of the ordinary.” He took a deep breath. “Why, what’s this all about, Drew?”

“Think about it,” I said, ignoring his question. “It could be anyone. Anyone walking down the street you haven’t seen before. Maybe a car that drove by and lingered in front of our house for a bit too long. You know, stuff like that. A van, maybe?” I hurried and finished the rest of the beer, crushing the can as the last few drops shook out on my tongue. I tossed the empty in a small garbage pail in the corner of the deck. “Anything at all.”

Confused, Dale shook his head. “Like I said, I haven’t seen a thing outside of ordinary. What the hell is going on over there?” He nodded at my house. “Are you guys all right? Eve? Dinah?”

I expelled a heavy gust of air from my lungs. “There was a break-in the other night.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“Wish I was. But no, sir.”

“Huh.” He put his hands on his hips and peered down the alley. “I’ll be damned. What’d they take?”

I shook my head. “Not a damn thing.”

Dale scratched his head. “How nice of them.”

“They went into Dinah’s room. I don’t know what for. Not sure I want to.”

“And they took nothing?”

I shook my head, then remembered the clothes. “Wait. Yes, they took some of her clothes. A dress to be exact. The one she wore on her birthday.”

“Clothes? That’s a little strange.”

Strange? You ain’t seen nothing yet, I almost said. “Well, that’s not the strangest thing. I wish it was. But it wasn’t just the break-in that’s had the five-oh at my house every other day.”

“What else happened?”

“Someone thought it’d be cute to drop a letter in my mailbox. On my birthday. And it wasn’t a card with a gift certificate to Carrabba’s.”

“What was it?” Dale asked in a tone that suggested he might not want to know.

“A picture.”

“A picture?”

“A photograph. An old Polaroid. Remember those?”

He nodded. Of course he remembered Polaroid photos. He swallowed as if the tale had left a bad taste. “What was the picture of, Drew?” He bent over and rested his elbows on the deck rail.

I could tell how invested he immediately became in the story. And why wouldn’t he be? He was my neighbor after all. If our household was under some direct threat, then, by association and the closeness of our properties, he was too.

“The bastard sent us a picture of Dinah. In her birthday dress. Only it wasn’t Dinah.”

“It wasn’t Dinah?” Dale asked, squinting. “Sorry, kid, but I’m having a tough time following.”

I nodded, realizing how this all sounded out of context. In my head it was all there, every single detail that had happened. But relaying the story had become difficult. “The girl in the photo wasn’t Dinah. Just made to look like her. And the girl was…”

I zoned out. My eyes drifted deep into the darkness behind Dale, lost in the void of light captured by the small wooded area beyond where our properties ended.

“Yes?” Dale asked.

I snapped out of it, my attention leaving the dark behind. I couldn’t shake the feeling our mystery guest was out there somewhere, watching us from afar, reveling in the terror he caused me and my family.

“She was dead, Dale.”

“Dead?” Dale’s mouth dropped open and hung agape. He pushed himself off his elbows, throwing a hand over his forehead. “Dead? What in the world?”

“I don’t know, man. The police are looking into it. They got some hotshot detective on the case, but honestly, I’m not thrilled with their progress. I know there’s not much to go on, but there must be clues. Fingerprints or something. The only thing they’ve found is my daughter’s window unlocked. They think the guy has been inside my house more than once.”

“Holy shit, kid.”

“I know. Scary. But if you see cops outside my house, at least now you know why.”

“That’s just awful, Drew.” He shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe it. Who would do such a thing?”

Who would do such a thing?

For the next few days those words repeated themselves to me, over and over again like a cheap prayer.

“I guess this goes without saying, but if there’s anything my old ass can do for you or your family, my door is always open.” Dale held up another beer. “Another cold one?”

I raised my hand and he tossed the can in my direction. The wet, freezing metal hit my palm. I closed my fingers around it and was guzzling my second drink in no time.

“I appreciate it,” I said, pulling my lips from the mouth of the can. “For now, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what the police find. Let them sort it all out. Sucks waiting, not knowing, but there’s not much we can do.”

“Well, like Tom Petty said,” Dale said, cracking open another can, “The Waiting…”

“Yeah, I hear you. Tom Petty sure knew his shit.”

“Bet yer ass he did.”

“Fuck, Dale. I feel so violated. So…unprotected.”

Dale shrugged. “You got a gun?”

I shook my head. “No. Guns freak me out. You know that.”

He roared with laughter, so loud I thought the entire neighborhood would wake. “Yeah, I know. But seriously—you should consider getting one.”

“You have one?”

“One?” He bellowed with more laughter and brought his outburst to a sudden, snorting stop. “Hell, I have a small arsenal in here. If you don’t tell Paul, maybe I can let you borrow one.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know…the thought of holding one gives me more anxiety than I have now, unarmed. But thanks for the offer.”

“Suit yourself, kid.” He kicked his head back and drank. “But a man should be able to protect his family. Guns provide you with that protection. You can’t think of them anything more than that.”

“Hmm. I’ll consider my options, but thanks again.”

“Take it from someone who’s been there. Who’s learned that lesson.” His face changed then, any traces of happiness or positive energy now gone, replaced by a sudden expression of deep sorrow.

I swallowed. “Dale, I don’t mean to pry, but…”

“You want to know what happened to my family?” he asked, his face mostly still. His eyes grew swollen and became glossy, glistening in the dim light the porch provided. “You want to know how they died?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t—”

“They were murdered, Drew.”

My throat closed and for a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe. “What?” I managed in a hoarse, husky voice.

“They were murdered a little over twelve years ago.”

I put my hand up. “You don’t have to tell me if—”

“No, no. It’s all right,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve been polite enough not to ask a damned thing about my past since I’ve moved in here, and I appreciate the hell out of that.” He wiped his nose with his wrist. “But I think we’ve become good enough neighbors—good enough friends—that we can part with the niceties.” He studied my face. It was as if he expected me to protest. “I’ll tell you what happened to them.”

“Okay…”

“But not tonight. It’s a long story, and we don’t have nearly enough beer required.”

I smiled, sipped more from the can. “I get it.”

“But I promise, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything. The whole damned mess of it.” His stare penetrated me, filling my insides with a cold, icy feeling. “Then you’ll understand.”

“Understand what?” His voice sounded funny to my ears.

He paused for a beat, gazing down the mouth of his beer can. Then, he perked up, removing himself from his thoughts. “Nothing. Forget it. In due time, kid. I’ll tell you the whole mess of it. And when it’s done and the story is told, you’ll learn from my mistakes. You’ll hug your family every day. Kiss them. Tell them you love them. You’ll hold them and never want to let go.” He nodded at me, then over to my house. “Then you’ll want to get yourself a gun, at least a nice .22, and keep it under your goddamn pillow.”

Chapter Seven

I woke up the next morning with a killer headache. I guess it could have been the cheap beer, but I knew better. It was my migraines, the ones I sometimes awoke with, a powerful, crippling pain that crawled across my skull and squeezed my cranium like a vice. I dragged myself from the bed to the bathroom, and through the hazy blear the headache provided, I searched the medicine cabinet for my pills.

Couldn’t find them.

The pain grew worse as I concentrated, trying to remember where the hell I’d left them.

“You okay?” a voice asked from the doorway.

I turned around could barely make out my wife hanging from the doorjamb, her head tilted to the side with concern. She arched her brow, raising it high on her forehead.

“My head…”

“Oh, baby,” she said, letting go of the jamb. “They’re in the nightstand.” She hustled across the room, raided the nightstand in search of the bottle, located it, jogged back across the carpet, and stood in front of me.

I opened my hand, and she tapped a pill onto my waiting palm.

“Two,” I said. I only took two when the migraines were bad and that morning, they were awful.

She hesitated, keeping the mouth of the bottle a few inches from my hand. “That bad, huh?”

I nodded.

She did as I asked and shook another pill loose from the bottle. I popped the two football-shaped tablets into my mouth and swallowed them dry. I washed the chalky taste down with a cup of water.

“You gonna be okay?” She rubbed my forehead with her thumb. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the effort was futile, though her touch was somewhat comforting.

I squinted at her, barely able to make out certain details despite her standing a few feet away from me.

“Yeah,” I said, unsure. “I haven’t had one this bad since… I can’t remember.”

“I had a bad one the other night. I left the pills in my nightstand. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I told her. She discontinued her efforts, and I immediately replaced her touch with my own, rubbing the center of my forehead, trying to lessen the pain. The ache only intensified, flared with my touch. I left it alone after that. “Damn.”

“They suck, don’t they?”

I nodded, closed my eyes.

“Come lie down on the bed,” she told me, and I did as she said.

Eve suffered from migraines, too. She never got them as much as I did. Hers came in small waves, lasting over the course of a week, then disappearing for months. Years sometimes. Me, on the other hand—I got them every few months. And when they came, they came hard, usually knocking me on my ass, crippling me for a day. They forced me to use sick time and spend the day on the couch, unable to enjoy the most mindless television program because the light from the screen aggravated it. Those were the bad ones, the worst kind, the ones I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemy.

The one I had that morning was bad, but not nearly the worst. I never had these migraines when I was a kid, throughout young adulthood. Not even when I was getting high. Didn’t start until after the addiction years. A doctor had said these things can develop later in life, that your body chemistry can change and sometimes those changes can bring about unwanted defects. He’d also suggested I see an allergist, thinking maybe I’d grown allergic to some household item, but I never pursued it.

“I’ll drive Dinah to school,” Eve offered.

I shook my head. “No, I got it.”

“Drew,” she said, in that wife-knows-best tone.

“I’m fine. Seriously.” I wiped my face with a cool rag. “I just need a minute for the pills to kick in.” They usually work fast on a not-so-bad one. The harsher migraines were immune to their power. This one had already started to abate. I pressed the cloth to my forehead and kept it there, and turned to my wife. “I’ll be good to go in five minutes.”

“You’re so stubborn sometimes.”

“You know it.”

She eyed me, her smile starting to fade. “Where’d you go last night? I woke up and the bed was empty. Were you downstairs?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep. Went for a little walk.”

“You took a walk?” She ruffled her brow.

“To the back deck. Dale was up, too. We talked for a few.”

“You must be exhausted.” She shook her head in disapproval. “No wonder you have a headache. You’re sleep deprived.”

I ignored her second comment. We both knew there was no discernible cause for the migraines—the headaches were just part of life now. Doctors told me as much.

“Dale told me things, Eve,” I said. “He told me a little about what happened to his family.”

“Really?” she seemed excited. Eve was the kind of person who reveled in neighborhood gossip, unless, of course, she was the one involved. “What did he say?” Her face could hardly contain her smile, and she resorted to bouncing up and down on the bed.

“He told me how they died.”

Her eyes expanded.

“They were murdered.”

Her smile died off immediately and her jaw dropped open. “Murdered?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t go into details. Still, I was kind of shocked when he told me. Said he’d tell me the whole story sometime, but I have to admit—I’m not sure I want to know.”

“That’s awful. No wonder he never talked about it before. That must be a horrible thing to think about. To relive.”

I recalled Dale’s face when he divulged. He was somber, upset, clearly not in the mood to discuss what had happened. I guessed with the Internet and all, I could have Googled his family’s name and found out the information. I mean, there had to be at least one news site that wrote about it. But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to hear the story from Dale’s mouth. I wanted him to tell me. It felt right that way. The Internet felt like cheating.

“I could tell it hurt him to bring it up,” I said.

“Don’t make him do it.”

“Do what?”

“Make him tell you about it. I mean, if he looks that torn up about it. Don’t put the poor man through that.”

“I thought you loved gossip?”

“I do, but, you know. I like Dale. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

I rested my head, which pounded on, against the headboard. “I won’t. Hell, I might stop him before he gets started. I’d hate to see him hurt, too.” Dale’s eyes flashed before me, those hollow orbs caught in the web of time. Eyes that wandered into the past and got stuck there. “It scared me, the way he looked. Made me feel unsafe. Dale is a pretty jacked guy. I can’t imagine what he looked like ten years ago. Plus, you know him. Gun nut. Probably had a ton of weapons in the house and he still couldn’t protect his family. Do you know how unsafe that makes me feel?”

Eve shivered. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Maybe we should get a gun.” I didn’t mean to say those words; they kind of just fell out the way food does sometimes when you overstuff your mouth. My brain was overstuffed with thoughts, things to say, and they were all falling out.

Eve’s jaw dropped again, not as low as before. “A gun?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Drew, you hate guns.”

“I know. I know. But…” My eyes drifted across the room and settled on the window. “In case someone is out there, stalking our family—we need protection. And no one can protect us better than ourselves.”

I winced again.

Eve bit her lip. “Do you want a cold rag?”

“That would be spectacular.”

She jogged across the carpet, went into the bathroom, and grabbed a towel off the bar. She ran the cloth under freezing water for fifteen seconds, wrung it out, then marched back over to the bed. Handing me the new rag, she kissed me on the forehead.

I placed the new rag on my forehead and let the cold spread throughout my brain, effectively numbing everything down to my shoulders.

“The detective was right,” I said, eyes closed, staring into the nothingness my eyelids provided. “The police can’t protect us forever. Can’t guard us for the rest of our lives.”

I opened my eyes to gauge her reaction.

Her eyes darted around the room nervously. “I think a gun would give me more anxiety than it would take away.”

I put my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. It was just a thought. Dale offered to take me shooting and teach me how to handle one.”

She rolled her eyes and nodded. “We can talk about it later. Let me get Dinah ready for school.”

I smiled. “I’m still driving her.”

Eve let out a small breath of laughter and pecked me on the cheek. Then she stood up and headed for the door.

The drive to school was mostly quiet. Dinah stared out the window, watching the trees blur past us. I turned the music up to fill in the silence, and Dinah immediately turned it down.

“Too loud,” she said, then returned to the window and the passing green smears.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

She didn’t answer at first, and I could tell something was eating her.

“Dinah?”

“I had another dream,” she said softly.

A chill danced up my arms. “The shadow monster?”

She didn’t answer, but I knew it was. I could tell by the unsteadiness in her voice, the slight quiver of her lips.

“It’s okay, honey,” I said. “It’s okay. Mommy and Daddy are here for you, and we’re not going to let anything bad happen.” I rubbed her shoulder. “Okay?”

She turned and hugged me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I threw one arm around her back and squeezed her shoulder while I steered with my free hand. We drove all the way to school in that position, Dinah stifling heavy sobs. When we pulled into the drop-off zone, she pulled back and wiped away some lingering tears with her knuckles. They dangled from her eyelashes, and I helped her with a spare napkin I’d found in my cupholder. Once her face was dry, she smiled. It was a forced smile, as if to show me she was brave and that the situation didn’t really bother her, but behind that false facade I saw just the opposite. She was terrified and with good reason.

“It’s okay to be scared,” I told her.

She nodded, keeping the tears at bay.

“Do you want to sit here a minute?” Outside, kids hustled toward the school’s front doors. Parents waved and sent their children airborne kisses. The sounds of the early morning hustle were faint but present. “You have another five minutes before the bell rings.”

“That’s okay.”

“What do you want for dinner tonight?” I asked. “I’ll make you whatever you want.”

Dinah smiled, more genuinely this time. “Mmm. How’s about roast beef?”

“Roast beef? Like a sandwich?”

“Sure. With extra horseradish.”

“One of my favorites. I’m game.”

“Yessss.”

We hugged, and I let her go.

“Can I have my glove?” she asked.

“Sure.” I reached into her bag and retrieved her glove, then helped put it on. Once the white cloth was snug and fitted, she embraced me again. We parted, and she climbed out the car, shut the door, and merged with the thinning horde of running children.

After she disappeared into the school, I turned to the road. Driving out, I spotted the man I had seen the other day in the van, parked in the lot and staring at the school. Well, staring at me too, though I wasn’t completely sure. Since the picture and the supposed break-in, I’d developed an intense bout of paranoia. The man who I thought was spying on me was walking his dog along the edge of the baseball field, peeking over his shoulder in the direction of the school. And me. His eyes were partially veiled, a fisherman’s hat pulled down over them. His thick glasses reflected sunlight, making his eyes look like shiny silver tokens. He walked slowly, alternating his attention between his fluffy poodle and the school’s last-minute surge of morning activity. I parked at the end of the drop-off lane and studied him for a few moments, seeing if he continued to peek back over his shoulder. Sure enough, every ten paces or so he’d glance in my direction, let his eyes linger, and return to the stretch of grass in front of him. He kept walking away from the school, a newspaper tucked underneath his arm.

I waited until the parent behind me ran out of patience and honked their horn. I glanced in the rearview and saw the dad waving his arms in the air, encouraging me to stop holding up traffic. Pulling onto the main drag, I kept my eyes on the man with the dog, watching to see if he’d turn back and spot me driving off. Which he did. And he stared. Directly in my eyes.

I couldn’t be positive, but I was willing to wager the old man was there for no other reason than to spy on me. The whole dog-walking thing was a charade. Maybe he was Dinah’s Shadow Monster. Maybe he was something else.

Something worse.

Or maybe he was just a curious old man.

I felt my blood run cold and my skin callous as the man’s eyes locked on mine. All I could think about was how my daughter felt when she stared out her window and glowing yellow eyes glimpsed back. I wondered what color the man’s eyes were at night, if they were yellow. If they glowed.

It was a dumb thought. The man appeared to be in his seventies, judging by his white beard, and definitely older than Dale. At least around the same age. The average male in his seventies wouldn’t be able to climb the tree outside Dinah’s room, and at the leisurely pace of which the old man took his walk, I assumed I could lump him in with the majority. It wasn’t impossible, no, but more likely the intruder was someone in decent shape and much younger.

A kid, maybe.

Not an old man.

But still. The man’s eerie presence worked my nerves.

I decided it couldn’t hurt to have a conversation.

I met up with the old man on the other side of the field, pulling the car over to the right side of the narrow access road. He continued walking, ignoring my presence, the very opposite of how he acted no less than ten minutes ago. As he strolled, I slowed down and matched his pace.

“Hi,” I said, smiling, showing this was a peaceful meeting and that I planned to cause no animosity. “How are you today?”

The old man glanced up from the freshly cut grass and shot me a nervous smile (more of a wince now that I think of it). “Hello to you,” he replied and then tugged gently on the poodle’s leash. The little white fluff ball barked and hopped on ahead, abandoning the small patch of grass he’d been so keen on sniffing.

“Do we know each other?” I asked, squinting against the daylight.

He took in a deep breath and furrowed his brow. “No, no. I don’t think so.”

“Hmm. Weren’t you in that van the other day? In the parking lot? I thought I saw you…”

“I’m sorry, a van?” he asked, confused. The second he delivered the question, I knew he was pretending. “Oh, right. The van. My van, you mean?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.” I kept my smile, but the act had become difficult to maintain.

“Yes, of course. Pardon me, but how do you know I own a van?” This time, he chuckled.

His little charade began to annoy me. “Because, like I said, I saw you parked in the school lot when I was dropping my daughter off. You were watching me.”

“Was I?”

I let my smile fall. “Yeah, I think you were.”

“You must be mistaken, friend.”

I wrinkled my face. “Hmm, no, I clearly remember seeing you. I’m almost positive I saw you staring at me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were spying on me.”

His pace slowly died, and I brought my car to almost a complete stop. When he abandoned his walk, his dog yapped in protest. He faced me. Beads of sweat bubbled on his forehead, near the brim of his hat.

“Oh my,” he said, gulping. He wore the face of a guilty man who’d been caught, irrefutable evidence and all. “You might have seen me dropping off my granddaughter. Her name is Nancy Hamel. She’s in fourth grade now.”

“Is she?” Lies, I thought. All lies.

“Yes,” he said, offering a weak smile. He turned his head in time to see his dog pissing on the chain-link fence that separated us. “I drop her off most mornings, as her parents work. It’s good being retired. I can help them out a lot with certain parental duties.”

“Hmm.”

He grinned.

“Nancy Hamel,” I said with sour disbelief.

“That’s right.” His voice grew chipper, the pitch rising with each word. Almost proud. “Can I ask you a question, stranger?”

“Shoot.”

“Why would you think I’d be interested in watching you?”

I didn’t have an answer readily available, so I went with, “Have a great day, sir.”

Then I drove off.

A Letter Home

(II)

Dear Marianne,

It’s been so long since we touched. Remember? We used to lie in the hammock for hours, tickling each other, making up pet names. Your name was Star, remember? Mine was moon. Moon and Star. It had such a lovely ring to it. Moon and Star.

Moon and Star.

Moon and Star.

Say it with me.

Moon and Star.

I cut a moon into my arm last year. I used a plastic spork. Now it’s just a misshapen circle, but when I first carved it, it was cool as fuck; it looks kind of lame now that it’s a lumpy scar, but oh well. I still like it. I want to cut me a star on my other arm, and the second I get the opportunity, I might just do that. But they don’t let me around sharp objects anymore. I guess that’s a good thing. You’ll never know what I’ll cut next.

Or who.

Moon and Star.

Us.

Forever.

That’s what we talked about.

Didn’t we?

But what was I talking about?

Oh yes. The hammock. We’d swing for hours, you and I. We made love in that hammock. Good love. Solid love. Leg-twitching orgasm love. Passionate love. Smooth love. Rough love, soft love. Love all the time. So much love we wanted to scream each other’s names from the mountaintop. 24/7 love. I remember your kisses, how they felt on my lips. Tender and tasty. Do you remember my kisses? I bet they weren’t as good as yours, but I bet they were all right. God, the love we had. Remember? The fun we had when we were young and stupid and crazy in love. I’d kill to go back. I’d kill for one more moment in that hammock with you.

I’d kill for a lot of things.

Here’s a list of the things I’d currently kill for:

Tacos. Werewolf night at the drive-in. One last ride in the Camaro. To listen to death metal one last time. Twix bars. No, fuck that—Snickers. Egg and bacon cheeseburgers. Fuck, I’m hungry now. Vacation to Florida. Not the Keys, just anywhere in Florida (What? I’ve never been). Boat rides. The new Brad Pitt movie. To live in a perpetual dream sequence. Not a nightmare. Enough of those. I’d kill for fresh laundry, just the smell of it. McDonald’s. Burger King. Video night courtesy of Blockbuster Video—rest in peace. The Eiffel Tower in my bedroom. To scrape the sky with a razor blade and see what color the world bleeds. Does God bleed? I’d kill to know. I’d kill to smoke some weed. Some Cali Kush. The good stuff. I’d kill for Legos. Lincoln Logs. One encore episode of Alf. I’d kill to see you again. To swing in the hammock with you next to me. To feel our tongues meet. To cup your breasts. To fuck. To stop time. To change it. To spend one more precious moment with her.

Our daughter.

I saw our daughter last night. In a dream. Not real life. That would be crazy, considering she’s not with us anymore, not in the physical sense. But I mean, she is with us. Isn’t she? I can feel her. Next to me when I’m sleeping. Do you feel her? I bet you do. Feel her inside you. Just like she was. So small. So precious. So perfect.

Anyway, the dream. We were on the Funtown Pier. Just holding hands. Walking past the Ferris wheel and skipping by the Mirror House. A fog rolled in from the east, enveloping the boardwalk in white smoke. Everyone disappeared. Gone. Poof! Like that. Miraculous and haunting and mesmerizing and chilling. Okay, it was horrifying. We were scared. We held each other. Tight. I almost peed. Not me. My dream-self. My dream-self is a little bitch. Anyway, the world was silent, eerily so, void of noise. Then she came.

Out of the fog.

Toward us.

She was older. Not our age then. Younger. I guess a little younger than what she’d be now, had she lived. Made it. Survived her battle with the blanket. Before she ever had a chance to live in this world, really live, live the way she was meant to.

I’m sorry. Back to the dream.

That girl.

Our daughter.

She was dead, of course. Deader than those zombies in the Romero flicks we enjoyed so much. She moved exactly like them, walking, stumbling, trying to keep her balance, moving as if both legs were broken. Her dead limbs worked against her, causing her to sway and trip. Patches of flesh were torn from her bones as if she’d been mangled by some meat-hungry animal, some carnivorous monster. Her eyes were white as the fog in which she traveled. Dried blood stiffened her hair, matted it to the sides of her face. She gnashed her teeth and snarled as the gap between us and her, our sweet daughter, lessened. She came for us, Marianne. Our daughter came for us, and she gazed at us with those sick, lifeless eyes. She came for our blood. Our blood. OUR RED. She came thirsty for our lives and she would not leave unquenched.

Then the dream ended.

I woke up cold and sweaty.

I never want to dream like that again. That was a bad one. Real bad. I discussed the details with Dr. Cotton, but he just thinks I’m a crazy person and I belong here. Treats me like I’m nuts. He won’t take me seriously, anything I say. I know the nature of the things he writes about me. All the terrible things that paint me as a psychopath.

Most of them are true, though, aren’t they? Probably. Right? Am I? Course I am. Always was, always will be. I’m sick, Marianne. You’re better and I’m sick, but together we’re both sick. And she…

She barely had a chance. To live. To breathe.

I miss you, Marianne.

Why did you leave me? We were supposed to be together. Forever.

TOGETHER.

Where did you go?

Love,

Your Moon.

Chapter Eight

I went to work to clear my head. I know I told myself I wouldn’t, that I’d spend the next few days hanging around the house and catching up on chores, but being home wasn’t great for me. Eve decided to take the week off, but she was busy running errands today.

In a lot of ways, the gym was my sanctuary. Sure, it was where I worked, but I never saw it as that. I saw it as a place to hang out and meet people, to help them build the bodies they’ve always dreamed of. I didn’t see it as work at all. And wasn’t that the secret to living? To do what you love? The gym didn’t pay all that great, but enough to help with bills and give us some extra spending money. I didn’t need medical benefits—Eve’s job had great health bennies that covered the entire family. I really didn’t need to work at all because of how much Eve made, but it felt weird not to. Plus, I knew I’d get bored. And Eve liked that I held down a job and didn’t waste my days lounging around the house in my underwear, playing video games and ordering Domino’s regularly, stuffing my face with cheese doodles and sour cream and onion potato chips. Like some of her fellow nurse friends’ significant others. I was known around the OR as the “Working Husband,” a moniker I didn’t really know how to feel about. I guess it would depend on the context, which she’d never really clarified.

Anyway, I strolled through the gym’s entrance at half past nine. Kate, the girl who worked the desk part-time, greeted me with a hanging smile. “Didn’t expect you in today, Mr. Lowery,” she said, despite numerous times correcting her, telling her it was okay to call me “Drew.” She always said she couldn’t help it; the last name thing was something her parents instilled in her when she was young. At nearly twenty years old, it’d become a habit she couldn’t break.

“Yeah,” I said, looking around at a surprisingly crowded Thursday floor, “well, I changed my mind. Decided to come in after all.”

“Mr. Langford is in his office if you want to poke your head in. Or should I tell him you’re here?”

“No, I’ll say hi. Thanks, Kate.”

I jogged down the hallways and stopped off at the boss’s office to let him know I was working. He was on the phone and waved me inside. He seemed happy to see me; an infectious smile spilled across his face. I let go of the door frame and leaned against the wall, folding my arms in front of me, patiently waiting for his phone conversation to end.

“Hold on a sec,” he said into the phone. He cupped his hand over the speaker and said, “Drew! What in the world are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you in all week.”

“Well, you know me. Can’t keep me away from this place.”

“You have personal time, you know. You didn’t have to come in.”

“I know.”

I looked around his office. The shelves were lined with trophies from weightlifting competitions and marathons, not to mention the one in the center—the Extreme Mud Race Champion, the blue ribbon, Langford’s finest achievement. The man was, simply put, an absolute beast. I was fit but Langford was jacked, his muscles bigger than my entire midsection. He’d once been an up-and-coming star in the professional wrestling game, even got a few bumps on national television, but was forced to retire early due to a slipped disk and more concussions than I could count on both hands. He managed to avoid the pitfalls of the post-professional wrestling life and used his earnings to open this gym, located just outside of his hometown. John Langford, known to some as his stage name, “The Grim Warrior,” was a great guy and the best boss I’d ever worked for.

He returned to his phone call and said, “Harry, let me call you back. We’ll work out the details later.” He hung up. “Sorry about that, broski. Business stuff.” He smirked and shrugged, a clear sign he enjoyed that aspect of his life.

“Anything important?”

“Nah. My agent wants me to do this big signing in New York. Some ringside crap. I don’t even know if I want to, but fuck—the money is so sweet.”

I nodded. “Then do it.”

“Ah, I got away from that life, man. I’m in no rush to return to it.”

“I hear you.” I squinted, unsure whether to follow Detective Jon’s advice and tell Langford about what happened in our house, leaving out specific details, of course. “Listen, John. I know this is going to sound weird, but some strange stuff has been happening in our home.”

“Oh?” he said with surprise, sounding genuinely concerned. “Is everyone all right?”

“Yeah.” I thought about it. Are they though? “At least I think so. Anyway, I can’t go into detail, but I want to let you know in advance that I might need a few days off here and there. I’ll make sure I have the personal time to cover it.”

He slapped the air with an open palm. “Don’t worry about it, man. Whatever it is, your family is more important. I mean, it will suck being without you since you’re the fucking anchor here—”

“I appreciate that, John.”

“—but you gotta do what you gotta do, and your family is the most important goddamn thing on this planet. You’re a standup guy, Lowery.” He was smiling and pointing at me, giving me the pep talk he knew I needed. John Langford was such a people person, not to mention an inspirational persona. “Don’t sacrifice who you are for this place, not for any fucking place.”

I smiled. “You’re the best, John.”

“No, you are.” And as his lips formed an infectious smile, he added, “Now get back to work, will ya?”

I headed to my locker so I could change into my work clothes. The men’s room housed two-hundred lockers, though less than half of them were in use. Some members bought their own personal lockers and some belonged to employees and freelance class instructors. Sometimes the locker room smelled like a collection of unbathed feet, sometimes it smelled like Axe Body Spray, but today the feet won out. The community shower was in the far corner, and I heard water raining down on the wet tile floor. Only a few guys were in the room, bullshitting, rubbing deodorant under their arms, and tying their shoelaces.

I spun the combination wheel on my locker, input my combo, and unlatched the lock. As soon as the door swung open, my heart thudded, smacking against the walls of my chest. It felt like someone used my heart as a hockey puck and unloaded a slap shot.

What I saw hanging in front of me caused my throat to constrict, a sensation I was getting awfully familiar with lately, and hating it.

Tied to a thin string dangling from the locker’s ceiling was a note. Eight words were written on it, scrawled in a child’s handwriting. I read them aloud, though my voice was nothing more than a breath:

I WATCH YOU

AND I AM EVERYWHERE,

MOTHERFUCKER

The guys a few lockers down, the ones who were chatting about last night’s basketball game, looked over at me, their brows arched as high as their facial muscles would allow. One of them leaned forward in my direction.

“You okay, man?” he asked.

I rotated away from the index card with the threat on it, the red smears on the bright white paper, the red that could have been lipstick or blood. I thought it was safe to assume the latter and immediately the picture of the murdered girl flashed in my mind’s eye. As I turned to the guys, I opened my mouth to speak, but no words fell out. My headache returned full-force, the awful migraine that started in the center had worked its way around my globe, conquering each quadrant with excessive, violent force. The impact was immediate, and I’d never experienced the onset of a migraine with such intensity so quickly. It was like someone had plunged a stake through my cranium, shattering the skull and penetrating the soft mush of my brain, repeating the process over and over again, until my head was nothing but a pile of chunky red floor stains.

“I…” I managed to croak. “I…” But that was the best I could do. Everything felt numb, including my lips, especially my tongue. My mouth seemed absent, my head a vacant expanse free of any intelligent thought.

“Are you having a heart attack?” another one of the men asked. “You look pale. Jesus,” he said, turning to his buddies. “I think this guy’s having a heart attack!”

Then the locker room spun. For a second, I thought I might actually be having a heart attack, which was ridiculous because I was in the best shape of my life. Yet, still, it can happen. Eve had told me stories of young men coming into the ER with severe heart attacks, some of them without an ounce of fat on them. A heart attack was a plausible self-diagnoses, but it still didn’t feel right. My ticker pumped laboriously, sure, like the kick drum of a speed metal song. The world tilted back and forth, spinning out of control. Faster and faster my world turned, until it was too much for my equilibrium to handle.

I went to the ground faster than I could comprehend, but I felt no pain. I caught the floor with my hands, spraining my wrists, though I continued to feel nothing.

Then I vomited.

Slipping beneath the surface of the hustling void, I heard whispers and muted cries for help all around me. “Call 911!” I heard someone shout.

The very next moment, I saw, heard, and felt nothing.

According to the clock on the locker room wall, I stayed in the black for at least twenty minutes. When I came to, I found myself surrounded by faces, most of them unfamiliar. Fresh out of the haze, the only one I recognized belonged to Jon Harper, our favorite detective. He was eyeballing me so hard I could almost read the suspicions as they populated in his mind. Just what the hell have you gotten yourself into now, Lowery? What have you done?

I tried to sit up but a few of the paramedics pushed me back to the floor, telling me not to move until they cleared me to do so. I complied. There were more of them than there was of me.

I saw Paul hanging out in the corner. He was talking to a few of his cop buddies. He glanced over at me and nodded, acknowledging that I wasn’t dead and that it was kinda-sorta good to see me, though, not under these bizarre circumstances.

“Has anyone notified my wife?” I asked. “Anyone talk to Eve?”

Jon nodded. “Just got off the phone with her not more than ten minutes ago. She’s on her way down.”

“Damn it.”

“You don’t want to see her?” he asked, sounding caught off-guard.

“No, I do. It’s just…with her being a doctor and all, anytime something medical comes up, she freaks out about it. I mean,” I turned to the EMTs, “this is nothing, right?”

“Your blood pressure is slightly elevated,” the one on my left said, a young woman with curly blonde hair. “You hit your head on the fall. Small cut on the back of your head. We’ll check you for concussion symptoms.”

The other EMT, a dude not more than a year out of high school, asked, “Do you feel nauseous?”

“Not really.” I spotted Langford lingering in the far corner. He was talking to a few of the gym’s frequenters, along with a couple of the part-time personal trainers. I hated them seeing me like this. “Can I please sit up?”

The EMTs shared a glance.

Then, the woman said, “Slowly.”

With their assistance, I sat up. The room exploded with applause, and I hadn’t been this embarrassed since I walked through my high school’s hallways with a face full of zits and the gut of a 13th-century king. My face reddened and the burn loitered until the applause died down and most of the onlookers returned to their daily activities. A few stayed behind, watching me from afar as the EMTs held fingers in front of my face and asked me to count. They quizzed me on things like who the president was, who his vice president was, and what day of the week it was. I got all but the day question right, though, honestly, I probably would have failed that one even if my head hadn’t ricocheted off the concrete floor.

They gave me one last question: what year was your daughter born? I nailed that down with precision and confidence, and Jon and Paul verified the information was correct. I expected Paul to know, but not Jon, and I suddenly realized that his knowing meant he was taking the case seriously, that he’d studied up on Dinah and her birth, and probably knew more details about it than I did.

Again, my face flushed, this time with a different kind of embarrassment.

After they cleared me through the concussion protocol, they stood me on my feet. I told them I felt fine and there was no need to check me into the hospital or anything like that. They agreed, told me to take it easy over the next few days, and then they were on their way, off to save whatever lives awaited.

“You sure know how to find trouble,” Detective Harper said, approaching me. “Or should I say…” He glanced over at the locker and the note inside dangling from an undone paperclip. “Trouble is best at finding you.”

I couldn’t have agreed more.

I went over the details with Jon, though there weren’t many to divulge. I had opened my locker, saw the note, and then things had faded to black. He asked if I saw any suspicious characters in the room, maybe someone watching me from the corner, or anyone skulking around the gym earlier that day. I told him, “No, no one. Everything was normal.”

I also wasn’t on the lookout for anyone suspicious, so there was that. I wasn’t expecting to find the note in my locker, nor was I expecting to pass the fuck out.

Clearly someone was after me. Me. Between the photograph and this threatening message, I had an enemy. But the two incidents didn’t add up, at least not to me. That got me thinking: what was this sicko’s endgame? Was it to harm Dinah or get to me? Did he want to kill my daughter to get some sort of revenge? Didn’t make sense. Had he wanted her dead, he could have done so the night he’d broken into her room and stolen her clothes. Was it to fuck with me? If that was his plan, he’d done a beautiful job so far. Because my mind was a battered bag of fucked.

“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Lowery?” Jon asked. “Anyone who might want to harm you, or your family?”

I shook my head. “No one. At least not to my knowledge.” I supposed I could have had some in my junkie days, some dealer I screwed over. Some friend who’d lent me money I never paid back. But that was so long ago I found it hard to believe whatever I did in those days carried over fifteen years’ worth of hatred and the need to exact revenge.

“Oh my God,” I heard my wife say from the locker room’s entrance. I turned in time to see her rushing toward me, the doors to the room swinging shut behind her. No one tried to stop her as she sped toward me, her arms spread wide open. “Drew,” she whispered, and I could see tears building in the corners of her eyes. “Are you okay? Did the EMTs clear you?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” I showed her a smile. “No big deal. Just passed out.”

Before hugging me or kissing me on the lips, she inspected my scalp. This was a very Eve thing to do. “You have a small cut on the back—”

“I know, babe. I’m fine.”

She stared directly into my eyes, scanning my thoughts, trying to read whether I was truly fine or saving face. Once her suspicions were satisfied, her lips formed a faint smile. “Okay, hot stuff. Okay.” She hugged me close and kissed my lips.

I kissed back. The smell of her perfume overpowered the collective force of sweaty man feet.

“Fill me in,” she said.

We did. There wasn’t much to pass along. Jon asked about her enemies, if she had any, which caused her to chortle behind her hand.

“No,” she said, her laugh fading. “No one comes to mind.”

Jon nodded. “Well, whoever is doing this to you is probably someone you know. That’s usually how these things end. So I want you to think long and hard about it. Who knows where you live, knows where your daughter’s room is located, and knows where—” his eyes turned on me, “—you work?”

I swallowed a lump, then gave it some thought. There were only a handful of people who knew all three, and those were all close friends and neighbors whom I wouldn’t suspect in a thousand years. “Just friends,” I told him. “Neighbors. Why?”

“I’d like a list,” Jon said gruffly. “Everyone who knows.”

“Like, now?”

“Soon. Tonight preferably, instead of watching America’s Got Talent, you and Eve make me a list of every single person who knows those three things. Don’t leave a single name off it. I don’t care if it’s a college roommate you haven’t seen in fifteen years or the kid who packs your groceries down at ShopRite. Hell, I don’t care if it’s your babysitter. His or her name goes down on the list.” Jon narrowed his eyes. “Understand?”

I nodded. “I do have one question, though.”

“And what’s that?”

I let my head fall back toward the locker. “Is that blood?”

Jon stole one quick at the note and the faded red smears that dabbed the corners.

“Without having it tested, I can’t be sure, but…” He sighed. “Yeah, that’d be my guess.”

“Whose?” Eve asked, her lips trembling ever so softly.

Jon turned. “That, my friends, is what I’m off to find out.”

Chapter Nine

After Dinah went to sleep, Eve and I ordered Chinese food, sat on the couch, and agreed on a movie. Normally we’d choose a horror movie or an edgy thriller, but considering we had enough thrills going on at home, we decided to choose a different escape—something funny. After the movie starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg ended, we stayed on the couch, drinking our evening coffees and finishing up the last of the popcorn. I had my own bowl with extra flavor on it. The late-night news telecast played in the background as we turned to each other.

“So…” she said.

“So?”

“Drew, what are we doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“With everything that’s happened. How do we sleep? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shut my eyes again.”

I knew she was being overdramatic, but I saw her point. Twice our privacy had been violated and there really was nothing to stop the son of a bitch from carrying out round three. I mean, he could literally kick in the front door if he wanted to. We didn’t have a dog. No gun. Not even a security system. Living in Cedar Hills, we never needed one.

Until now.

I shrugged. “We could get a security system.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“Okay, consider it done. I’ll make the phone calls tomorrow.”

“Okay, good.” She sighed and glanced up at the ceiling. “I’ve been thinking of an alternative plan. In case, you know, things get… I dunno. Worse.”

“Worse?”

“Yeah. Like, if the guy doesn’t stop.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking we should go.”

I started to laugh but her furrowed brow cut me short. “Go? You’re serious? Where would we go, Eve?”

Slumping forward, she hiked her shoulders. “I don’t know. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. Anywhere that isn’t here. This place.”

Incredulously, I shook my head. “We can’t leave. We’re not gonna let some psycho run us out of town. For all we know, someone is playing a stupid joke on us. A cruel, stupid joke.”

“A joke? Drew, I saw what was written on the note today. A joke?” Her eyes returned to me. “Someone is watching us. Someone is stalking our family for fuck’s sake.” She gritted her teeth. “There was blood on that note, Drew. Blood.”

“Calm down.” I placed a hand on her knee. “We don’t know everything yet. We need to let Harper do his job.”

Eve sneered, pulling her knee away from my touch. “Harper,” she said bitterly, like the word felt dirty on her tongue. “Now there’s a joke.”

“Oh, come on. Paul believes he’s the best the county has to offer and we trust Paul, don’t we?”

She paused, her eyes drifting upward again. “Yeah, I guess.”

“We do,” I assured her. “Paul’s been a friend since the beginning and he wouldn’t lie to us.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” she repeated, her lips pressing together.

I was pushing her past her breaking point, I knew that. Still, her suggesting we pick up and run didn’t sit particularly well with me. This was our house. We worked hard for this home, this environment, our life. We weren’t going to throw it away because some nutjob may or may not want to harm us. Like I kept reminding myself—if the guy wanted us dead, our funerals would have been last week.

“What the fuck do you think is the matter?” Her words hit me like a shotgun blast. “We are in danger here, Drew.”

“We don’t know that.”

“And how don’t we know that? Is it the notes with bloody smears on them? Does that clue us in?”

“Eve, the person has been inside our house. They took some clothes. If they had wanted to, they could’ve slit our throats while we slept. If they wanted us dead, we’d be dead.” I stared into her teary eyes. “Don’t you think?”

Lazily, she raised her shoulders. “I guess so.” Her voice cracked.

“I know so. So do the cops.” I nodded to the front door. “We have an officer stationed outside our door. I’ll get the security system installed ASAP. Between the two, we’ll be safe from our neighborhood-friendly night stalker.”

“That’s not funny.”

I tried to smile, but after looking at the serious nature of her face, I couldn’t.

“What if they don’t catch him?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“They will, babe.”

“But how do you know?”

I cracked my neck by letting my head fall back. Breathing out a considerable gust of air, I faced my wife again. “Eve, listen to me. Nothing will happen to us.”

Tears streaked down her face, two glistening streams of emotion.

“Come here.”

She shimmied over to me and let herself fall into my arms. I hugged her, squeezed her tight, gripping her like the bottom of the world fell out and we only had each other to cling onto. I kissed the crown of her head and whispered in her ear, telling her how much she meant to me and that everything would be all right, that come hell or high water, I’d do what was necessary to save our family, even if that meant running.

And I would. Totally.

Then the news suddenly became louder, controlling the room. Neither of us had cranked up the volume; the nature of the report captured our attention, the serious tone of the anchor’s voice.

On screen, the woman behind the desk handed the segment over to a local field reporter. Her voiceover began as the broadcast cut to a small ranch in some central Jersey suburbia: “The search continues this evening around the neighborhood of this loving, single-family home in central New Jersey. Marcy Branch, age seven, was abducted around 2:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, according to the local authorities. There are currently no leads in the investigation, says the county’s chief investigator, Jonathon Harper.”

“Oh. My. God.” Eve sat completely still with her mouth agape. Eventually her trembling hand found a way over her mouth.

“What town is this?” I asked, thinking it couldn’t have possibly happened in Cedar Hills because we would have heard about it earlier. Hearing Jon’s name attached to the investigation made me wonder.

“The community of Brownstone has been turned upside down since the tragic news hit, as the town was ranked among the safest places to live in the United States, according to a study conducted back in 2012.”

“Brownstone,” I said dreamily. “That’s only a half hour from here.”

“Is it related?” Eve asked, as if it was something I’d know. Surely someone must have thought so, otherwise why would Jonathon Harper be on the case? “To us, I mean. To our situation. God, I bet it’s related.”

“We don’t know that. Kids…children are taken all the time and we don’t hear about it. Right?”

Eve shook her head. “No, when a kid goes missing in your neighborhood, you hear about it. It’s either all over Facebook or the local news channels, everywhere. Everyone talks about it. We get Amber alerts on our phones.”

Eve was right. On the rare occasion a child—or an adult, for that matter—went missing, you always saw something about it on the big blue F-word, or the late-night news reports. People talked about missing children, missing people, because it was important that they were found. Right? Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw a missing persons report online, and I didn’t think that was because they never happened. I thought that was because no one really cared to share news about it or write about it in the first place.

I didn’t tell my wife these things.

The television showed a picture of the girl. It was a school photo taken last September, according to the caption beneath it. Marcy had dark hair, a pleasant smile that showed braces, and tiger-striped glasses. Sans the latter, she looked a lot like our Dinah.

My skin crawled. Suddenly I knew why Jonathon Harper was on the case.

“Eve…” I gripped her knee and squeezed.

“I know…” she said, almost breathless.

“It’s…”

“I know…” she said, the panic in her voice rising.

It was the girl from the photo I found stuffed in our mailbox.

Detective Jon Harper’s face wasn’t what I wanted to see when I opened my door at nine in the morning. He glanced up from his notepad, winked at me, and then waited for an invitation inside as if he was some kind of authoritative vampire.

I opened the door and stepped aside.

Hustling into the foyer, he said, “Thank you, kindly.”

I didn’t see any other police cars on the block, marked or otherwise. Jon had come alone. “Just you today?” I asked anyway.

“Just me,” he said, wiping his feet on the entry mat. “Kitchen table good?”

“Yeah, I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”

“Perfect.” He strolled into the kitchen and looked around. “Where’s Eve and Dinah?”

“Eve took Dinah to school this morning. Then she had a dentist appointment. She’ll be back soon. Do we need to wait for her?”

Harper shrugged. “Well, there’s not much to go over. I’m going to tell you what I can about Marcy Branch and her disappearance, and you’re going to tell me if anything I say sounds familiar. Or if there’s anything you’d like to contribute that might be of some help.”

“You think there’s a connection?” I asked excitedly. “That our stalker is the same guy who kidnapped Marcy Branch?”

He put up his palm, telling me to hold my horses. “We’re looking at all the angles. I just need you to tell me everything you know.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Not sure if there’s anything I can add, but…” His eyelids slimmed. “…if you think it’ll help.”

“I do.” He took his usual seat at the table and flipped to a fresh piece of paper.

I crossed the kitchen, grabbed the coffee pot, and poured two mugs. Setting the mugs down on the table, I took my seat across from him. Folding my hands in front of me, I watched him write some preliminary notes.

“Thank you for the coffee. Are you ready to start?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Marcy Branch was abducted at approximately 2:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon.” His gaze on me sharpened. “What were you doing around that time, Mr. Lowery?”

I felt gut-punched. Laughing under my breath, I said, “Where was I?”

“Yes, sir. 2:00 p.m. Tuesday.”

My face went flush. “Why are you asking me that?”

He shrugged as if it weren’t a big deal, as if the insinuation his question carried meant nothing. “It’s just a question, Mr. Lowery. We have to ask everyone who might have some connection to the case. It’s protocol. Nothing more.”

“You make it sound like you’re accusing me of something.”

He laughed heartily. “Of course not!” He barked with more laughter. “Good Lord! No, nothing like that. Not at all. I’m just covering every base. Plus, like I said, it’s standard procedure for any investigation. When we believe two cases such as this might be related, we need to know where everyone was at all times. It helps us paint a broader picture. Par for the course, really. Honestly. Think nothing of it.”

“So you do think they’re related.”

His good-natured face fell a little flat, his smile fading, his lips looking like two crooked worms dancing along. “There is evidence that the Branch girl’s disappearance and the break-in at this residence and the note in your locker are indeed linked. Yes.”

“Evidence?”

A slow nod. “Yes. The girl in the photo is believed to be Marcy Branch.”

“I knew it. The second we saw her photo on television, Eve and I knew it was her.”

“Yes,” he said, his eyes falling back to his notepad. “But that’s not all.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“It seems the bloody smears on the note matches the girl’s DNA.”

My heart stopped and was slow to start again. “Holy shit.”

“See what we’re dealing with now?”

“Yes.”

“No time to waste screwing around. A girl is missing, possibly dead. I take that very seriously, Mr. Lowery.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I don’t… How can I help?”

“For starters, you can tell me exactly where you were and what you were doing on Tuesday around two o’clock.”

“I was here. I was…relaxing. Waiting for Eve to pick up Dinah from school.”

He wrote everything down. “Do you have an alibi? Anyone who saw you?”

He must have seen the confusion wash over my face.

He cleared his throat. “If it comes down to it, Mr. Lowery.”

I thought about it. “I was home alone.”

“So…no alibis then?”

“I went outside to get the mail. I think I saw Dale—our next-door neighbor—near the garage, working on his truck. I can’t remember if he saw me or not.”

“I’ll ask.”

“You honestly don’t think that…”

He didn’t glance up from his notepad. “That you had anything to do with this? Like I said—no, I don’t. This is just routine. I question everyone. Think of how uncomfortable this conversation was with the girl’s parents, though, sadly, when a child disappears, nine times out of ten it’s usually a family member or a close friend who’s responsible. Sick world we live in, huh?”

I tried to say no, but my head felt like a bowling ball, one of those big black suckers.

“So you were here, your wife was picking up your daughter…”

“That’s correct.”

“…and everything else was normal that day? Nothing unusual? No strange phone calls? No one came by the house unannounced?”

“No. No one. Nothing. Just an average day.”

He tapped his pen on the pad. “Hmm. And you were here all day?”

I nodded. “Yes. I was here all day.”

“I know it’s aggravating, but, you know—my job.”

“I get it. I just feel your efforts would be better spent elsewhere instead of asking me the same questions over and over again.”

He sipped more coffee. Stared at his notes. Peeked up at me. “Yes, yes. You’re probably right. Probably right indeed.” He arched his back, craned his head, and looked around the house. “Say, you wouldn’t mind giving me another tour, would you? Much like the other night?”

“Sure.” I got up and grabbed my coffee, immediately raising it to my lips. “You probably want to see Dinah’s room again, see if there’s any DNA—”

“Actually, I was hoping to see your basement, Mr. Lowery.”

I cocked my head to the side. “I’m sorry, my basement?”

“Yes,” he said, his lips stretching, forming something that wasn’t necessarily a smile. “Basements are best for stowing away little girls. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Though he kept assuring me I wasn’t a suspect in the abduction of Marcy Branch, it sure didn’t seem that way. I was getting irritated, sure. I mean, who wouldn’t? But as I took a step back and thought about it—the man was just trying to do his job, the same way I’d wipe down the machines after some sweaty lumberjack-looking motherfucker got his “sick pump” on. It was protocol, standard operating procedure, and there was no way around it.

The basement was dim and dank, unfinished and in need of a good dusting to clear the many spiderwebs and cobwebs, the collections of dust and heaps of fuzz. In the corner, we strolled past a pile of pine boards that were once going to be used to build a nice sports bar, a passion project that never got off the ground because of… Well, I’m not sure why, exactly. It was just one of those things that never happened. Partially due to my laziness, I guess, and maybe my disdain for home improvement projects. I always liked the idea of doing them, not actually doing them. Even fun ones such as this.

Harper toured the entire basement, making several revolutions, checking every nook and cranny, and behind every trap door and storage area.

“Not that I really expected to find her,” Harper said coyly, almost as if a small, minute part of him actually did expect to find her, to discover her dead, or her rotting corpse, in the corner of my cellar. Her fragile little body, sans one hand. A dried lake of gelatinous red.

“Jon, if you say protocol one more time…” I said, falsely grinning.

I was over it. I knew I was innocent, that this was all a waste of precious time, protocol and mathematical probabilities aside. There was no sense getting angry with Harper. He’d leave with his mind at rest. There was nothing to see here.

“Yes, yes. I know. You should really think about doing something with this space, though.” He rotated, admiring the big empty area that could have been converted into a plethora of different rooms. An extra bedroom. An entertainment room. An in-home theater. Or, our original idea—a place where the guys could come over to watch sports and drink beers. “Think about it?”

Through my teeth, I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

We walked upstairs and into the kitchen.

Before I walked him to the door, Jon and I finished our morning coffee. We were standing around the kitchen table, Jon staring out into the backyard via the window over the sink, and me resting one hand on a chair, leaning heavily on the strength of my right arm. As he gazed listlessly, I wondered what kinds of ideas were rattling around that head of his. Did he really think I had something to do with the disappearance of Marcy Branch? Or was this a charade, like he had said—protocol and nothing more. I doubted if that was truly the case, but I didn’t bring it up. He had found nothing and no reason to further pursue me as a suspect, if that had been his intention all along. But the way he stared out the window made me wonder if he had expected to find something here, some answer or clue, and he was almost disappointed he hadn’t.

Or maybe that was my paranoia sneaking up on me. I’d had enough run-ins with the law back in my wild days to know what made them tick. Everyone was suspicious. All the time. Everyone was guilty until proven innocent.

“Do the parents of the missing girl know about Dinah and what happened to her?” I asked, finally breaking the silence. “About our break-in?”

“Yes,” he said, turning to me. “I asked them if their daughter ever mentioned anything about a man stalking her at night. Or terrible dreams. Anything that mirrored Dinah’s claims.”

“And?” Patches of dryness covered my tongue, as if someone had stuffed cotton in my mouth.

He scrunched his lips and shook his head. “No. Nothing. There was no inclination that she knew she was being hunted.”

“Hunted?”

“As good a word as any. There’s a hunter out there, Mr. Lowery, and children are his game of choice.”

I swallowed a huge lump, and for a second I thought it’d been my tongue. I hated the sound of his words, but he was right. The two girls—my daughter and Marcy Branch—were connected. Someone was playing a game. Hunting.

The thought made me shudder. I closed my eyes and all I could picture was Marcy Branch on the floor of some pervert’s basement, her hand gone, replaced by a bloody stump. All that blood. Gallons pooling underneath her.

“We’re very afraid for Dinah.”

His eyes twinkled with understanding. “Yes, I suppose that’s natural.”

“My wife wants to pick up and leave. Get out of there. Move to another state.”

His head fell to one side. “That wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I can’t blame her for thinking that, but give me a few days, will you? Just let me try to figure this out. Marcy Branch’s body hasn’t been found yet, and if I had to make an educated guess, I’d say she’ll turn up soon. Maybe that body can provide us with some answers. Maybe you won’t have to leave after all.”

I nodded. “I don’t really want to.”

“Leave?”

“Yeah.”

He eyes slimmed with concern. “Why not?”

Sighing, I set my coffee down on the table. In truth, the idea raised my interest. Pick up. Leave town. Never look back. Start a life somewhere new, away from this madness. Dinah could start at a new school, maybe where the kids weren’t name-calling little trash bags, where she wouldn’t be ridiculed for her birth defect. But the other part of me liked this town, enjoyed the life we had built for ourselves. Eve could find a new job at any old hospital, but where would I find a place as lax as Langford’s Fit House? I basically made my own hours and loved what I did. Not to mention, there weren’t many bosses out there like John Langford.

“I like our life here,” I told him.

A weary smile touched his lips. “I guess I should be going. I’ve inconvenienced you enough, yet again. Thanks for the coffee, Mr. Lowery. I do hope to bring good news on my next visit.”

I shook his hand, and then led him to the front door. “That would be amazing. You have no idea how much we want this nightmare to end.”

“That makes two of us.”

I closed the door behind him, watched him make his way down the drive, toward his car. I couldn’t help but think there was something off about the latter half of his visit. He’d arrived confident and full of questions, asking me the same ones over and over again, citing routine and his duties as his cause. But after he’d completed a sweep of the basement, his mood changed and he grew sullen. Like he had expected to find answers down there. Like he expected to find children.

There’s a hunter out there…

I still couldn’t shake the feeling I was a suspect in all of this, no matter what the detective assured me and what he’d found.

And children are the game…

I was innocent; I don’t know how much clearer that could have been. Hell, I was the victim. That note in my locker was meant for me, and me alone. No one else. Did he really think I was threatening myself?

I watch you, my stalker wrote.

He couldn’t believe in anything other than my innocence. Couldn’t possibly. I got the sense Harper was keeping things from me, withholding information or clues. I debated following him to his unmarked car and questioning him about it, begging him to tell me everything

Maybe I can help, I thought. With some pertinent information, maybe I can solve this thing.

But also, maybe there was a reason he was hiding stuff from me. Maybe a good reason.

The note: And I am everywhere, motherfucker.

A chill coursed through me. I didn’t think I’d sleep well that night. Or any night after.

I told myself Jon Harper was a good detective and that he’d put the case to rest soon. But if he did show up that morning with the expectations of finding the Branch girl chained in my basement, how good of a detective was he really?

Chapter Ten

After dinner, when Eve and Dinah were on the couch snuggling and watching Cartoon Network, I took a leftover six-pack from my birthday party, kissed my family goodnight, and told them I was heading over to Dale’s so I could “get out.” Eve had smiled and said no problem, commented on the beer and how I should “behave” considering my history with certain chemical dependency issues, then made sure I had locked up the house (checking every window, every sash lock). I double-checked my iPhone, ensuring it was on and at full charge.

After, I journeyed across my property, over onto Dale’s, hoping the old bastard wasn’t on his roof with a sniper rifle and mistook me for a burglar. His motion lights kicked on and by the time I reached the front door. He’d spotted me through the window.

I waved to him, and he motioned back. I held up the sixer, and he flashed me two thumbs up. Meeting me at the door, he gestured me inside.

“Who could turn down free beer on a night like this?” he asked, slapping me on the back as I stepped over the threshold and entered the foyer. “Glad you stopped by to visit, kid.”

“Kid?” I said, chuckling. Every now and then, Dale needed to be reminded I wasn’t all that young. “You’re not that much older than me.”

“Older enough.” He squinted and leaned in as if there was something of interest on my head. “Though, I’m starting to see a lot of grays.”

I ran my hand through my head turf. “Yeah, Eve’s been slacking on the dye department lately. Lot going on at home, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have noticed, actually.”

Like most of the block, I figured Dale must have seen Harper’s car parked in my driveway that morning. “Oh?”

“Yeah, saw you had another visit from the five-oh this morning.” He winked at me. “You know, the neighborhood is buzzing with gossip.”

I waved a lazy palm in the air. “They can eat me. They don’t know shit.”

“No, they don’t. And sooner or later they’ll start making up stories to feed their insatiable appetites for neighborhood gossip.” His shoulders bounced. “Sorry, but you know how it is around here.”

“Oh, yeah.” I surveyed the living room, looking for a reasonable place to park my ass. “Where are we drinking these?”

Dale nodded at the back patio door. “I still have a few stogies left. Want one?”

I quickly thought about the mouth cancer I might get, then shook my head. “I’ll watch you have one and dodge the second-hand smoke, if that’s okay.”

“Fine with me.” He led me to the slider. “We need ice?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

He stopped at the freezer, opened the door, and grabbed a bag.

Outside, he dumped the ice into an orange bucket from Home Depot, took my beers and tossed them in. “We’ll let them sit a minute. Get nice and cold.”

We planted ourselves on the plastic deck chairs. I stretched my exhausted body, feeling the tension in my muscles pull like elastic, and thought about how easily I could fall asleep if I shut my eyes only for a little while. I thought a single beer might do me in, push me toward unconsciousness. But then Eve would have to come peel me off the Adirondack chair, and inconveniencing her was enough motivation to keep me awake.

Dale sparked his lighter, putting the flickering flame to the tip of his cigar and rotating the brown cylinder stuffed with tobacco. A second later he was blowing out perfect smoke rings wide enough to fit my head through.

“Damn good cigar,” he said, staring at the mud-brown rod in his hand as if its flavor surprised him. “Sure you don’t want one?”

I squinted. “I’ll pass, but thanks again for the offer.” Not only were the potential health threats a concern, but I also thought cigars tasted much like they looked—like pieces of shit. To me, it was like puffing away on ashy garbage. Most of them smelled awful, and the ones Dale had brought to the party were hardly an exception, though, they were a little sweeter than most, and therefore tolerable. Still, it didn’t convince me to sacrifice my clean living, though lately, clean was hardly the word I’d use to describe my habits. I had a few cans of beer to thank for that.

“You look okay, considering,” Dale remarked.

“Eh, you know.” Trying to appear carefree, I shrugged. “There’s not a lot we can do at this point. A lot of it comes down to the cops.”

He directed his chin at my house. “Dinah and Eve okay? Are they safe?”

“Yeah, they’re fine. On the couch watching cartoons. Doors are locked. I have my phone handy. We’re getting a security system installed over the weekend so that’ll be fun.”

Dale nodded. “Very good. Glad to see you’re taking this seriously.” He reached over and plucked two beers from the cooler. Tossing me one, he winked. I snatched the beer out of the air. “Look, I want to apologize for the other night. I really want to tell you what happened to me and my family. I think it’s important.”

I waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s your business.”

“You’re a good neighbor, Drew. Hell, a good friend.” His lower lip hung between his teeth. “I want to tell you what happened to them, Christine and Ronny.”

“Dale, it’s really none of my business. I think, maybe, you shouldn’t tell me.”

“Nonsense.” He took a swig. “Fact is, I haven’t really told anyone about it and, well, I guess you’re about the best friend I got. So, I want to tell you. Hell, it might even be therapeutic. Shitload cheaper than a shrink. That’s for sure.”

Feeling oddly relaxed, I sat back in the chair and sipped from the beer can. “I hear you, Dale. I do. But honestly, I think hearing a thing like that might send me over the edge. Considering all that’s going on.” I nodded to my house. “Maybe once this all blows over, I’d give your story a listen. It sounds like you do need to get it off your chest, and I’d like to be there for you. But now…just not the right time.”

Studying me closely, he narrowed his eyes.

“You understand, don’t you?”

For a second, I thought he might not, that I’d insulted him by asking him to hold off on his story. Then, his lips moved and even through his beard I could tell he was smiling. “Sure thing, sissy. Probably too extreme for you, anyway.”

I forced a grin. “Yeah, probably.”

“I just miss them, that’s all.” His face went stone-still. Almost catatonic, he stared past me, into the trees that neighbored our property. “God, I miss them so much.”

I nodded. “I can’t imagine.”

“I feel haunted by them.”

Ice flooded the veins in my arms, causing my hair to stand up.

He sucked on his cigar and then exhaled a deep breath, pushing out a rolling fog of smoke. “Some days are harder than others. Birthdays. Holidays. Christmas—Christ, especially Christmas. Even though I have no pictures of them hanging around the house, I can still see their faces with perfect clarity around every corner, in every room. Moving helped some. Put some distance between me and their memories, but it wasn’t enough. They’re still with me, here.” He tapped his chest. “And here.” He tapped his temple. “Every step of the way. I don’t believe in ghosts, Drew, but goddamn if I don’t feel haunted.

“Haunted by their memories, maybe. But haunted all the same.”

My brow squirmed. “I don’t think it’s something you can just forget, Dale. You don’t quite get over a thing like that.”

His stare penetrated me. “No, I guess not. But it always helps to tell myself I am. To tell others. Makes me sound tougher, doesn’t it?”

“Dale, you are tough. Toughest son of a bitch I know.”

He swiped the air in front of him. “I ain’t that tough. You’d retract that statement if you knew how many weekly breakdowns I have. How much Xanax it takes to get through the day.”

“If my family was murdered, I don’t know if I could keep living.”

“I’d thought about offing myself, many times.”

“What keeps you going?”

Dale stared down at his beer, then brought the metal mouth to his lips. His sip seemed to last longer than usual.

“That’s a good question. Damn fine question.”

He never answered me.

I awoke the next morning to Dinah’s face filling up my vision. She’d been hovering over me like some friendly incubus, waiting to invade my dreams.

“You overslept,” she said, giving me the parental stare-down Eve had perfected throughout the years. Dinah’s imitation was spot on, and I suddenly feared for my future grandchildren. At seven-years-old, she had the look down pat. “You were supposed to take me to school.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” I flipped over in bed and checked my phone. According to the alarm app, I slept right through it. “Let me get dressed and I’ll take you.”

“Did you drink too much beer with Mr. Dale last night?”

I chuckled. “No, sweetheart. I just…slept through the alarm.” I burped and tasted every single sip from last night.

Dinah giggled. “Oh-kay,” she said in a high-pitched voice, which I knew meant she didn’t believe me. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Okay.”

I got dressed quickly, snatched the keys off the counter, and headed downstairs. Dinah was already waiting on the front porch, her book bag slung over her shoulder. She’d already dressed her hand with her glove. I followed her to the car.

“Everything all right?” I asked her. She seemed off from the second I opened my eyes and saw her face. I couldn’t put my finger on it. She was just…different.

She stopped just shy of the passenger’s door and glanced up at me. She was clearly not herself, a shell of the happy kid I’d always known.

“Dinah?” I asked, concerned. “You feel sick?”

“No.” She directed her line of sight to her feet, scraping the bottom of her shoe on the driveway.

“What’s the matter?”

She sighed. “I heard about that kid in Brownstone. The missing girl.”

“Oh?” I said, my throat constricting. “Get in the car. We’ll talk about it on the way to school.”

Dinah climbed in, and I plopped myself in the driver’s seat. Cranking the engine, I asked, “What did you hear?”

“Saw it on the news this morning.” She stared out the window, past Dale’s house and down the block. “She’s my age. Looks like me, too.”

“I know. It’s a very bizarre coincidence. You know what that means?”

She nodded. “Means by accident.”

“Sort of, yes. It means the two things don’t have anything to do with each other, even though they seem like they do.”

“Two things?”

“Yeah, you know. What’s going on with our family and what happened to the Brownstone girl.”

“What is going on with our family, Daddy?” she asked, turning to me. Looking me straight in the eyes. Peering into my head, scanning my thoughts, seeking out every single lie I was prepared to give her. “You guys aren’t telling me everything. I’m not stupid, you know.” Her gaze fell to the floor mat. “The kids at school…they talk…”

I knew it would come to this eventually. The kids at school. Their nosy parents filling their little heads with rumors and stories, and sooner or later their terrible judgments would result in my daughter getting information she wasn’t supposed to have, making our job as Dinah’s parents even harder.

I chewed on my tongue.

“We can talk about it later when Mom gets home.” It was the best I could come up with. “We can have a family pow-wow.”

“Pow-wow?”

“Meeting,” I said, finding my smile. “Like a town hall.”

“Daddy, I don’t know what a town hall is.” Her dubious glance almost made me laugh. “You’re not making sense this morning.”

“I know, look. Sweetheart. Love of my life. Will you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t listen to the other kids at school. Their parents tell them things they shouldn’t hear, and more than half the time they’re receiving false information. Okay? The other half of the time, they’re telling lies, things that are simply not true. So don’t listen to a word they say. If anyone asks, tell them we don’t know anything. Because, in reality, we really don’t. Not yet. The police are investigating a break-in and that’s it. We know nothing beyond that. And it might take a while before they find all the clues. So, please, hon—don’t listen to anything they try to tell you.”

She didn’t acknowledge much of what I said. Instead, she said, “The TV said if the missing aren’t found within seventy-two hours, they’re probably dead.”

My fist tightened on the steering wheel. “Maybe you shouldn’t listen to the news, either. You know, sometimes they tell lies, too. To sell things.”

The rest of the drive was quiet.

Most of the kids had gone inside, and the few who continued to linger near the student drop-off were being ushered inside by Janet Meadows, the all-star guidance counselor who informed me about Dinah’s shadow-man confession. The second I threw the car into gear, she saw me, raised her hand, and called my name.

“Mr. Lowery!”

“Shit,” I muttered. I contemplated ignoring her squeaky voice and stomping on the gas pedal, peeling out of there like a drag racer. However, the pleasant side of me prevailed and I gave in, shifting into park. “Hi, Mrs. Meadows!” I said with way more enthusiasm than I had intended.

“Hey there!” Her energy from the other day had carried over, and she practically skipped toward my car window. Bending over, she gave me a short wave and a smile, both of which made me want to run off. But I tempered that impulse and stayed, appearing interested in whatever she was about to tell me. “I was wondering if you had a minute to come to my office.”

“I…um…”

“It’s about Dinah.”

“Oh.” I didn’t like the way she used those three words; it was like speaking them made her dirty.

I gulped a sizable pocket of air. “Is she…all right?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so. She’s a tough little girl, going through some rough patches.” Meadows lowered her head. “I’ve heard some things about what’s happening at home. Just rumors, strictly speaking, but…well, you know. I imagine there’s a smidge of truth to them.”

“What have you heard?” My neck burned. I was getting overheated. A slow-building rage worked through my veins, pumping my body full of adrenaline. “What are people saying about us?”

“Oh, nothing bad, Mr. Lowery!” She grimaced or smiled—I couldn’t tell which. “Just things. Why don’t you park and the two of us can talk about it in my office over coffee.”

She drove a hard bargain.

“I have things I need to show you. Illustrations Dinah did. I think you might find them interesting.” She definitely wasn’t smiling anymore. Any traces of her bubbly persona had vanished. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have said she was terrified.

“Okay.” I slipped the car back into drive. “Let me park.”

Janet Meadows’s office was cozy. Framed photographs of her two boys were proudly displayed on her desk, along with a family shot that included her very tall, very muscular-looking husband. The kids seemed to get their smile from their mother; their father’s lips barely moved from what I figured to be their usual resting position.

“Cute family,” I said, pointing at the photograph.

“Thanks!” she bubbled. Lowering herself into the plush office chair, she sifted through some papers on her desk. “Sorry for the mess. I know being the school guidance counselor I should always be prepared for visitors, but cleanliness is definitely not my strength. Don’t tell Principal Weathers. My review is due next month.” She laughed at her own joke, and I played along.

“So…”

“Yeah, right, why I brought you in here then…”

She continued to push around paperwork, moving stacks of folders to the opposite side of her desk. Underneath it all, she located a large manilla folder. From it, she removed a small paper-clipped collection of what looked like watercolor paintings. Upon closer examination, I realized I was right.

“Dinah painted these in art class,” she said, and I heard a certain amount of dread in her voice.

I stared down at the top painting. Our house was depicted, quite accurately and surprisingly detailed for a seven-year-old with one functional hand.

“Dinah drew these?” I asked.

Meadows bobbed her head. “Yes! I know, right? So good. Even for a seven-year-old and given her physical limitation. I couldn’t believe it myself at first. So detailed for watercolors.”

In the first painting, next to our house, was the tree outside Dinah’s window. Curled along the branches rested the shadow creature, long and undulating like a snake. In its open mouth, several sharp teeth were scrawled in pen.

“She drew those teeth in later,” Meadows told me. “With a pen, Mrs. Tribiani says.”

In the window, a little girl was looking out. At the shadow monster. Her lips formed a tight O.

I flipped to the next one.

“They get darker, Mr. Lowery.”

“Call me, Drew.” I gazed down at the next work of art. This one was set inside her room, from her perspective, facing the closet. “Please.”

“Drew.” She reached out and placed her forefinger down on the painting. “Are you sure you want to continue? I mean, maybe Mrs. Lowery should be here, too. And maybe that detective who’s been working your break-in case?”

I picked my head up and shot her a how-the-hell-do-you-know-about-that glance that caused her to squirm.

She withdrew her finger. “Dinah told me.”

I nodded. It wasn’t like I expected her to keep everything that had happened a secret. Sooner or later, it was bound to come out.

Returning to the paintings, I shifted in my seat. I concentrated on the illustration before me, peeking into Dinah’s closet. It was slightly ajar, just enough for a shaded hand to squeeze through. A reaching arm, looking to grab at whatever walked by. On the floor, Dinah’s clothes rested in a heap. Dinah’s missing dress, the one that had been used to clothe the missing Brownstone girl, topped the pile.

Meadows must have seen a tear form in my eye because she asked if I was okay again. “We can do this some other time,” she added.

“No,” I said, flipping to the next one. This piece showed Dinah pulling the covers up over her face, peering over her comforter, a look of absolute terror penciled into her eyes.

“This is hard, I know.”

“I’m fine.” I tossed that picture away and grabbed the next one. More of the same. Her bedroom drenched in darkness. Something in her closet, some undefinable shape. The next one showed me outside, on Dale’s deck, the two of us drinking beers. My face flushed with embarrassment, but Meadows didn’t comment on it. Above Dale and I, a dark apparition floated, mingling with the cigar smoke.

There were two more left. One pictured her mother sleeping, seemingly stress-free, a jagged smile carved into her face. There were no monsters in that one, no shadowy creatures. Not a hint of gloom or the macabre the others so prominently displayed. Just Eve sleeping like the angel she was. The last one was a close up of Dinah’s shadow monster, particularly zoomed in on the beast’s mouth. It hung open, revealing endless rows of sharp teeth. So many that the back of the creature’s mouth, a small black circle, was no bigger than a dime. Most of the painting was teeth.

Too many teeth.

I slid the paintings across the desk and turned my head.

“I’d like to call in a child psychologist,” Meadows said, her voice stripped of its cheerfulness, “with your permission of course.”

“I’ll talk to my wife.”

In that moment, I felt defeated. Like no matter what course we took next, the person or thing stalking our family had won. We’d never be the same after today. Dinah would never be the same, no matter how this situation resolved itself, even if it ended right now. Even if Jon Harper paraded into the office just then, proclaiming victory, that he’d caught the bastard and had him chained up in a mental ward. No matter the outcome, our family was ruined, or at the very least, slightly fractured.

“I understand,” she said, reaching, asking for me to take her hand.

I declined.

She retracted her offer, taking her hand back. “I know it seems hard. Impossible even. Don’t get lost in those thoughts, Mr. Lowery. Whatever your daughter is going through, she needs you. She needs her parents, to remain strong.”

“Drew.”

“I’m sorry. Drew.” She smiled wanly. “You will get through this. So will Dinah. In a few years, this will all be in the past, just a bad dream. None of it will matter.”

But she was wrong. It would matter.

And some bad dreams last forever.

Nightmares can recur.

Chapter Eleven

In bed, Eve kissed me. The second our lips touched, she knew something was wrong. She pulled away as if our kiss was electric and had shocked her. Moonlight beamed through the bedroom window and showed me her widening eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, as if her breath had been stolen.

“Nothing,” I said, turning my eyes away from her, the tell-tale sign I was lying.

“Don’t lie to me.” She pinched my quad and turned the skin like a key.

“Ow!”

“Don’t lie to me.” Her nostrils flared. She wasn’t angry. Just direct. Any further bullshit from my end might have pushed her over the line. I always knew just how far to take it.

“Okay, okay. Jesus.” She let go, and I rubbed the irritated spot until the pain retreated. A red circle that looked similar to a mosquito bite stayed behind. “Something happened at Dinah’s school today.”

“Oh Christ. What now?”

“It’s nothing serious.” Wasn’t it, though? I recalled her art, those haunting depictions of her nighttime visitor. “Just, Dinah’s art teacher raised some concerns over her paintings.”

She sat back and slumped her shoulders, waiting for me to continue. “What kind of paintings?”

“Weird stuff, Eve.” The images Dinah painted came back to me, fresh, as if still wet and dripping, the watercolors blending together, muddying their vibrancy. “Mostly of the house. Her room. What’s been happening with…”

“Shadow monster stuff?”

I nodded.

“Goddammit.” She hung her head in defeat. I knew how she felt. I felt it too. If this had been a war, we had lost the first few battles. It was an uphill climb from here. It seemed as if we weren’t meant to win. “Details?”

“Oh, one showed the monster hanging outside her window.” I recalled the rest. The one that really disturbed me was the painting of all the teeth. It was so detailed and horrifying, it was like she couldn’t have recalled all that detail from only a dream. It was like she had copied something real. “It freaked me out.”

Eve turned her head, facing the window. “We should pull her from school. Homeschool her. Just for a short time, until this whole thing blows over.”

“What good’s that going to do? School’s not the problem.”

“If she continues to do stuff like this, it might become one. I’m just being proactive here. Plus, I don’t want her teachers and the other kids to know what’s been going on in our house. That’s personal. You agree?”

“I don’t really care. I just want it to be over.”

“Well, until your buddy Jon Harper figures this shit out—”

“Whoa, whoa. Who said he was my buddy?”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”

“He’s not my buddy. I think he thinks that I had something to do with the missing girl in Brownstone.”

“Now how do you know that?”

“Because he was here, inspecting our basement. Looking for the missing girl.”

Eve’s lips wriggled with surprise and her forehead folded into a series of wrinkles. “You never told me that.”

“I’m sorry. I forgot. Things have been so crazy lately. I feel like we haven’t had time to sit down and talk.”

Just then, my head pounded. Like someone had taken a hammer to my temple. I winced and immediately squeezed where the intense pain had been born.

“Are you okay?” Eve asked, lunging across the bed. She came to my side and held me. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough,” I somehow managed to respond. The pain traveled into my jaw. I tried to speak again, but the pain wouldn’t let go, kept my jaw locked in place.

“It’s okay,” she said, taking my head against her breast. She kept it there and stroked the back of my head. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure this whole thing out.”

Her touch comforted me, but her words did nothing.

I was beginning to feel hopeless. Like we were doomed. That this nightmare wouldn’t end. That before this thing was over, one of us might die.

That notion didn’t leave me and kept me awake for the rest of the night.

Dale was outside when Dinah and I left the next morning, tending to the bushes in front of his porch. He was quite aggressive with his garden shears, clipping the excess branches like a Viking warrior severing the heads of surrendering enemies. It wasn’t even seven yet on that cool October morning and the man had already broken a sweat. He spotted us and stopped at once, stood up rigidly and dropped the sheers to his side, almost as if he’d been caught doing something wrong.

“Morning neighbors,” he called with a wave.

Dinah waved back.

I nodded in acknowledgment.

Dale walked across the yard, bringing the shears with him. “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“It’s nice,” I said. “Fall is our favorite time of year.”

He smiled. “Drew, I want to apologize for the other night. I didn’t mean to… Well, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about not listening to my story.”

I gave him the doesn’t-much-matter salute. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”

“Now, now. I know I probably made you feel a little uncomfortable, and I want you to know I understand completely, about everything you’re dealing with.”

I turned to Dinah. “Honey, hop in the car. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“But—”

“Now. Please.”

She dropped her hand to her side, stomped her foot on the driveway, and scoffed. But she listened and climbed inside without further protest.

“It’s okay, Dale. Really. No big deal.”

“No, no. I probably filled your head with bad thoughts. Probably got you all types of scared.”

“We’re already plenty scared. Nothing you said made it any worse. I promise you.” I didn’t know if that was true, exactly. Dale’s family was murdered, right in front of him, and although I didn’t know all the details, I knew enough. Home invasion were the words that came to mind. I’d seen plenty of movies on the subject. Dale hadn’t elaborated, and I wouldn’t let him, but that was what happened. Made me think about our situation differently, for sure. Made me select the expensive security system for our house, complete with the twenty-four-seven/three-sixty-five monitoring service. “Think nothing of it. I’d love for you to tell me the rest of it sometime. Soon. I promise.”

He nodded, understanding.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night. I’ll ask Eve to make that bacon-wrapped chicken she’s always talking about. You rednecks like bacon, right?”

For a second his face went stiff, like I had punched him below the belt or something. His nose flared, cheeks flushed. I almost cowered in fear from the look alone, scared he was about to rip my head clean off my shoulders.

Then a smile tore across his face, so fast I thought his cheeks might split. “You son of a bitch,” he said, chuckling. “I’ll bring your skinny ass a salad. Will some dressing fatten you up?”

“Just might,” I said, grinning like a fool. Although, on the inside, I wasn’t so calm. Dale’s reaction to my redneck joke left me a little apprehensive. I immediately decided I’d never tease the man again.

He clapped me on the back, nearly knocking the air from my lungs. “Anyway, you better get the girly to school.”

“Yeah.” I turned to Dinah. She had her earbuds in, probably listening to Lady Gaga or some other pop icon I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure I wanted her idolizing just yet. Or ever. “Can I ask you something, though?”

“Sure thing.” He winked at me. “Shoot.”

“The person who killed your family…”

“Persons, you mean.”

Persons. There was more than one?

His smile faded. “What about them?”

“Would you… I mean, if ever given the chance…would you, you know…kill them, if you ever saw them again?”

His eyes bore into me and I could already see the answer twinkling in his pupils. So much rage behind them. “Like, for revenge?”

I nodded.

“Absolutely,” he said, almost growling the answer. “I’d do things to them that weren’t very Christian-like. Bet your sweet ass I would.”

“Yeah. Figured you might.”

His eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms over his chest, the shears dangling below his waist. “Why do you ask, Drew?”

I glanced over my shoulder, back at Dinah. She continued to nod her head along to the music, tapping her book bag to the beat. “Just wondering.”

I came back home to an empty house. Jogging up the stairs, the first thing that ran through my mind was a hot shower. Nothing soothed the soul better than that, except maybe sex, and I couldn’t remember the last time Eve and I had been intimate. Definitely sometime before this whole ordeal started, and maybe even a week before that. Too long, but our schedules clashed and current events had somewhat squandered our romantic feelings. So, a hot shower was the best cheap replacement.

I stripped off my clothes, turned on the shower, let the bathroom fill with steam, then jumped in. The hot water burned my skin at first, but I didn’t mind. A minute later I acclimated, letting the hot water pour over me, wash away my filth, taking with it my thoughts. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was able to clear my head. I thought of nothing—literally, nothing. I pictured a white square and imagined myself moving toward it, toward the light, toward the square whiteness that probably represented something heavenly or good, or just what I wanted it to be—nothing. As I let the white square encompass me, I felt something, some cosmic force, fill me with warmth. The sensation traveled through my bones, speeding across my internal highway. I hadn’t felt that good in quite some time. Pure. Unfiltered. Free of the world and atrocities it held near.

After a while, I began to prune. I had to force myself to turn off the water, escaping that bright light-world wasn’t easy. Going there kind of felt like getting high again, and I immediately wanted another hit, even though I knew the second journey wouldn’t be anywhere near as uplifting as the first.

Drugs were all around us and they didn’t always come in syringes and powders.

That place was a drug, an escape from reality, and I’d been down that road before, knew where it’d take me.

Nowhere.

I stepped out of the shower and faced the misty-hazed mirror. I wiped a clear streak on its surface, just long enough so I could see myself shave.

When my face was smooth as a baby’s bottom, I left the bathroom and headed for the closet, where I selected my outfit for the rest of the afternoon, which I knew would be spent food shopping and doing laundry, and half a dozen other chores Eve had left for me.

I didn’t mind.

My mind would benefit from some mindless chores.

I got dressed and headed downstairs, into the kitchen. I grabbed a snack, peanut butter and celery, and gnawed on the green stalk as I trekked across the kitchen, over to the fridge.

Nibbling on my snack, I went down the list:

1 – Food Shopping (list on the table)

2 – Laundry (Dinah’s clothes too!)

3 – Clean Bathrooms (Especially ours, you dirty man, you)

4 – Start Putting Up Halloween Decorations

(But not the lawn decorations, we do that together!)

5 – Pay Electric and Cable Bills

6 – Kill Your Fucking Daughter

After reading item number six, the world went quiet. A rush of fear-induced adrenaline spiked numbness up and down my arms and legs, causing me to go a little weak in the knees. I thought I was going down again, just like in the locker room. Backing away from the fridge as if it were a feral canine foaming at the mouth, I felt my back knock against the marble countertop of the island. I didn’t even realize I had dropped my celery until I averted my eyes and looked down at the floor, saw the splat of peanut butter and the tasty green treat a few inches next to it.

I struggled to breathe. My headache from the previous night came roaring back, a weakened version, but enough to bring someone who wasn’t accustomed to the pain to their knees. I persevered and stayed on my feet, fighting my way through the sharp jabs.

I returned my vision back to the note, immediately noticing how the handwriting on item number six differed from the other five.

My wife wrote that note less than two hours ago. That meant the bastard had broken in either sometime while I was dropping Dinah off at school or while I was in the shower.

Motherfucker, I thought. He was here. Again. In daylight this time.

I wanted to rush across the yard and knock on Dale’s door, ask him if he’d seen anyone out and about while I was gone or in the past half hour. He hadn’t been outside trimming the bushes when I got home from dropping off Dinah, so it was possible he missed our mystery guest while I was showering. But maybe…if he’d come earlier…when Dale was outside.

I knew I had to tell Eve. Immediately. She’d be pissed if I waited on a thing like this.

I took my phone and snapped a picture of the chore list.

I sent it to Eve and waited for her response.

(picture sending…)

(picture sent…)

(Eve typing…)

Eve: WTF

Me: I know.

Eve: Are you okay? Is Dinah all right?

Me: We’re fine. Dinah’s at school. Saw this when I came home.

Eve: Did you call the police?

Eve: Harper?

Me: Not yet.

Eve: Will you?

Me: We have to, don’t we?

Eve: idk

Me: Yes, we do.

Eve: Okay.

Me: Jesus, I can’t believe it.

Eve: CAN WE GET THAT SECURITY SYSTEM INSTALLED NOW PLEASE.

Eve: I don’t want to wait anymore.

Eve: Not another second.

Eve: I’m fucking petrified.

Me: Calling them now.

Eve: Good.

Eve: I’m scared.

Eve: I hate feeling like this.

Eve: I can’t even do my fucking job. I’m shaking.

Me: Calm down.

Eve: Can’t.

Eve: Breathe.

Me: Babe.

Eve: Ok.

Me: We’ll be okay. This guy is playing with us.

Me: He doesn’t want to hurt us.

Me: Just scare us.

Eve: He’s threatened us more than once. When is enough enough?

Me: They’ll find him. It’s only a matter of time.

Eve: Tell Harper to hurry.

Eve: TELL HIM TO TAKE THIS FUCKING SHIT SERIOUSLY.

Me: I’m sure he wants this over too.

Eve: yeah, sure.

Me: Seriously.

Eve: Okay. He’s doing a great job.

Me: Okay, I’ll talk to him.

Eve: Okay.

Eve: I have to go back to work. I have patients. Let me know what they say.

Me: Should I pull Dinah from school?

Eve: No, leave her. She’s probably safer there. She doesn’t need any more stress.

Me: K.

Me: Love you.

Me: Bye.

Eve: (heart emoji) (heart emoji) (heart emoji)

Jonathon Harper appeared on my doorstep, along with a team of men wearing windbreakers with the word “POLICE” ironed on the back of them, about an hour after I phoned in the newest event. He looked a little tired, droopy-eyed, like a sad puppy. He clearly hadn’t been sleeping, and the thirty-ounce thermos he carried, filled to the brim with coffee, was all the evidence I needed. The rest of his team didn’t seem interested in anything other than getting to work.

I stepped inside and let them in. They went into the kitchen without asking for directions, Harper leading the small parade.

I followed them into the kitchen with a hand over my mouth, my heart skipping like a stone across a shallow lake. I wasn’t sure how much stress the human body would allow before giving out completely, but I felt like I was rapidly approaching that threshold. My nerves twitched. Somewhere inside my skull a pain sat, waiting to explode, a bomb filled with excruciating agony. I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing.

Then again, how many people were?

“What time did you notice the note had been altered?” Harper asked, slipping on a pair of latex gloves.

“About fifteen minutes before I called you,” I said, leaning on the counter, folding my arms across my stomach.

“You waited fifteen minutes?” He winced as if my answer confused him.

“Yes, well, I talked to Eve first. Text messages.”

“Interesting.”

“Why do you keep using that word?” The four members of Harper’s squad were finished gloving their hands and ready to get work done. They reached into their bags of tricks and retrieved tools. One of them held what looked like an artist’s brush. He began stroking the note. “Interesting. Everything is very interesting.”

He grinned at me. “Yes, it is.”

“What’s so interesting?”

“That you would text your wife before notifying the police about this threatening letter.”

“What are you insinuating, man?”

Having no concrete answer, he shrugged. “Nothing, Mr. Lowery. Your story just doesn’t make a lot of sense. That’s all. I’m doing the best I can here, but I gotta be honest with you—we see no signs of forced entry, and all the doors were locked, right? The windows?”

“Yes.” I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached, igniting the tension in my temples. I wondered if I could break my teeth if I kept the pose, then decided to relax. Calm down. Control the rage lighting fires within my chest. “Yes, every door was locked and so was every window. We’re getting a security system installed tomorrow, and we’ve been very conscious about keeping things locked up. I promise you.”

“Which disturbs me. Greatly. That leaves only three people who had access to your house. You, your wife, and your daughter. Unless you have a neighbor or a friend that has a key?”

“We told you already—no one but me and my wife have keys to the house.”

As he watched the team collect all the evidence they needed, Harper chewed his gum like a cow. “So…you see where I’m going with this, don’t you?”

“Yes, I understand. But why would you think one of us would do this? It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re correct. It doesn’t. But that’s what’s so disturbing about this whole ordeal.” His mouth twitched and his brow bowed. “And so very interesting.”

The detective removed a piece of paper from his inner coat pocket. He marched across the room and set it down on the kitchen table. Glancing back over his shoulder, nodding to his team, he said, “Check the rest of the house. Double-check every window from the inside. The basement, the attic. Look for any possible entry points. Anything at all.”

The men dispersed, each going their separate way.

Harper turned back to me, his stare drilling directly into me. I met his eyes and matched his glare. If this were a game of who blinked first, I would have lost.

He handed me the pen in his left breast pocket. “Write down the phrase, ‘Kill your fucking daughter.’ If you’d be so kind.”

I accepted the pen. It felt dirty in my hand, something wrong. I couldn’t believe he was making me do this, insinuating—no, flat-out accusing me of doing something so heinous, so despicable as to threaten my own daughter. My own family. This went beyond Harper “doing his job.” He was actually telling me he considered me the top suspect in this shit-show of an investigation. It left a bad, bitter taste in my mouth, and all I wanted to do was scream in his face and kick his ass out the door.

Neither of which happened.

The pen wavered in my hand.

Slowly, I brought the top to the white surface in front of me. I scrawled his request down, my hand shaking wildly, so much so that it barely looked like my usual scribble.

“Jesus,” he said, picking up the paper. “Guess I know who doesn’t make the shopping lists around here.”

“Fuck you,” I said, though, I hadn’t meant to. Just sorta fell out of my mouth.

He glared at me, and for a second I thought we were about to have a war with words. Then his lips curved and he tittered, a nearly silent noise that never left his closed mouth.

“I’m going to need writing samples of your wife and kid,” he said as if asking for a common favor.

“I’m not having my daughter write that phrase,” I said, straightening my back, expanding my chest. I took a deep breath, tried to relax, but the situation and the detective’s arrogance were starting to break me down. I felt my composure crumbling.

I was eroding.

“Relax, buddy.” He chucked his thumb over his shoulder. “She can write something else. Make sure the word ‘daughter’ is in it, though.”

I blinked and nodded. “Okay, sure. I’ll make sure she does it when she gets home from school.”

He seemed content with my response but acted as though he wanted it now, right this second, and later was simply not good enough. “I know this is hard, whatever is happening here. I want you to know I’m only trying to do my job.”

“Spare me the bullshit.”

“Honestly,” he said, his voice low, nearly snarling. “I only want to resolve this mess, and I can only look at facts. The fact is only three people have access to this house when it is locked, two if you exclude your daughter who you claim doesn’t have a key. Is that information correct?”

“Yes.”

“No house keys have gone missing over the last six months? Year? Years? Ever?”

I thought about it. None came to mind. “No.”

“Okay, so again. I only deal in truths and the facts in front of me. Put yourself in my shoes. What do they tell you?”

I averted my eyes. I knew he was right—on the surface, the last item on the chore list could have only been put there by two people: me or my wife.

“I get it.”

“Do you?” he asked, mocking me. “Because I’m not so sure you do, Mr. Lowery. I’m not sure you get it at all.”

“You don’t have to patronize me, prick.”

“I’m getting you mad.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m getting you angry, am I?”

“What do you think?”

“I want to put this bullshit to rest just as badly as you do. I have a missing girl out there who’s—in all likelihood—dead by now. Alone. Rotting away in some cellar. That keeps me up all night, every night, Mr. Lowery. Your invisible intruder who likes to steal clothing and leave behind empty threats, he’s pretty low on my list of things to care about. The only reason I’m here is because of the photograph of Marcy Branch and the note in your locker with her DNA on it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t give a shit. Understand? This is about much more than you.”

“The person who is leaving us these notes is the same person who abducted Marcy Branch, and you think it’s either me or my wife.”

He grimaced, the muscles in his face pulling tightly together. “I only deal in facts, what I can see. And right now, all I see is you, Mr. Lowery. All I see is you.”

I understood what he was saying. Yes, it pissed me off. Yes, it didn’t make much sense to me. I had nothing to do with Marcy Branch, but the person (or shadow thing) responsible clearly had unobstructed access to our house, which left only two suspects—me or Eve. I knew it was impossible, but like the good detective said: put yourself in my shoes.

I sighed and hung my head. The last time I felt this defeated was when I awoke in the gutter after a hell of a bender, the needle still dangling from the pronounced vein in the crook of my right arm, my favorite shooting spot.

“Just tell me what I can do to help you,” I said, unable to find the courage to meet his judgmental eyes.

“You can start by getting me those writing samples.” He gripped my shoulder. “We’ll start there. Work our way down the line.”

Ten minutes later, Harper’s team finished their sweep of the house and left me with no more information than I had before they arrived.

Part II

The Monster in My Window

Chapter Twelve

Later that afternoon, I left the house to clear my head. I just drove. With no destination in mind, I put my foot on the pedal and guided the car wherever the road took me. After turning down streets I knew, and some I didn’t, I finally popped out on highway thirty-five and headed east, toward the coast. Toward the shore. It had been a while since I walked the boards and visited the arcades, candy stands, and bars that made up Seaside Heights. I had nothing better to do with my afternoon, so I decided to head back to my roots, a place my parents took me when I was a kid, before I became an adult and made every wrong choice possible. Before the debacle I currently faced. Before some psychopath threatened me and my family, with what exactly, we didn’t know.

We’d taken Dinah there a couple times, but it’d been a year or two.

I drove over the drawbridge and cracked my window. The aroma of salt filled my car, and I breathed it in, slowly, enjoying every second. I inhaled a second time, and though it wasn’t as good as the first, the raw nature of the ocean air still refreshed me like a hot shower on a chilly afternoon.

Off the bridge, I followed the road around a bend, into the seaside town I hadn’t been in some time. Nothing much had changed in the last few years except for new billboards with updated marketing materials. A few new stores. Some extra trash and recycling receptacles along the sidewalks. I passed a tennis court that hadn’t been there the last time we took Dinah, and I certainly didn’t remember it from my youth. I wondered when it had gone up. It looked fairly new.

I cruised through the heart of the town, passing apartment buildings that were recently renovated and those in need of some immediate repairs, some looking like they might fall down if the wind blew in the right direction. I zipped by nightclubs and hole-in-a-wall bars, places built on the nickels and dimes of the worst degenerates this small town had to offer. And I should know because I once frequented these establishments looking for a dealer so I could feed my own personal gremlin, shoot myself silly. These were the places I went when I was at the lowest of my lows, and watching their facades flash by brought back some of the worst memories, conjuring all those dirty days I spent strung out and craving my next stick.

I shook my head. Lowered my foot on the gas. I wanted to be on the shore, walking the boards, away from the filth that called to me like an old lover, begging me to come back for another spin between the sheets. I wouldn’t do it, though. I controlled myself. I’d learned to live with these thoughts, these temporary cravings. They’d pass once I hit the boardwalk, I was sure of it.

The second I pulled into the empty parking spot, directly in front of a boardwalk-fronted pizza joint, I felt better. Even more so once I got out and started feeding the meter every quarter in my pocket. Once I found myself striding down the boards, glancing up at the ever-long blue blanket that was the October sky, taking in the salty-sweet air, I thought nothing of the past and the dismal memories that lurked there.

I stopped at an arcade and played skee-ball. Played one of those shooter games, the ones with the interactive guns. I got to kill zombies and monsters, and when I was finished, the machine spat out tickets which I could have cashed in for some ridiculous plastic prize but opted to give it to an eight-year-old and her mother who were enjoying endless rounds of skee-ball.

After, I grabbed ice cream. Pistachio. My favorite.

Next, I approached the carousel located in the center of the boardwalk, a few hundred feet from where I had parked. I debated climbing on one of the rides, the sparkling unicorn looking like an attractive option, but opted to sit that one out and watch the next session, eating my ice cream cone from a safe distance.

The entire experience brought back fond memories and for the hour I was there, doing things I hadn’t done since I was a kid, I felt completely untethered from reality. Nothing else mattered. Not the problems at home. Not the detective and his extremely low opinion of me. Not my family being stalked. Not the picture of the dead girl. Not the note in my locker. Not a speck of anything mattered except those moments, those little treasures when I was away from it all.

I felt nothing but joy.

Pure. Unfiltered. Joy.

Then my phone rang.

I was leaning over a vinyl-coated chain-link fence, overlooking the small strip of beach and the Atlantic behind it. I snagged my phone and looked at the screen, my eyes immediately drawn to the name flashing up at me.

EVE.

“Hello?” I answered, sounding chipper and not very me.

“Where the hell are you?” she asked sharply. That no-nonsense tone told me immediately that she was pissed, and honestly, I hadn’t the slightest idea why.

“I’m out.”

“Where are you?” she repeated. I pictured her nostrils flaring and the muscles in her cheeks flexing. Never a good combination.

“I’m in Seaside,” I said, almost defensively. “Why?”

“Why?” she asked. “Fucking why? Are you kidding me?”

“Whoa, whoa. What’s going on?”

“Drew, it’s two-thirty.”

“Okay…”

“Where are you supposed to be?”

“I…uh…” I fumbled the words, and good thing. I didn’t need to make what I had coming worse on myself. I knew I didn’t have work. The only thing that sprung to mind was… “Oh shit, Eve. I totally forgot.”

“You were supposed to pick up Dinah today.” She huffed loudly and the static of her breath made my eardrum vibrate. “Good job.”

“I’m so sorry. I totally forgot it was my day. God, I’m…”

“I can’t believe you.”

“Baby, I’m really sorry. Honestly, I forgot. You know with everything going on, I’ve been finding it a little difficult to remember what day it is.”

“We’ve all got a lot going on, Drew. We all do. That’s no excuse. You need to think about your daughter. You need to put her first.”

If I’m being honest, those last two sentences hurt. Also, they kinda pissed me off. I’d always put Dinah first. Always. Never missed out on a school project or a parent-teacher conference—I was always there. Ever present. I was a good father.

“I do,” I said. Not sure how I sounded in the moment, but my forehead felt as if someone struck a match across it. “I fucked up and I’m sorry. One time, Eve. This is one time. I’m leaving now, be there in twenty, thirty minutes, tops.”

“Don’t bother,” she snipped. “I’m on my way there now. I had to leave work early, just to let you know.”

She knew how to twist me. “Why did you do that? You could have called me.”

“I did call you. Twice. You didn’t answer. Went straight to voicemail. Why do you think I’m so pissed?”

“My service must have dropped off. Reception is never good out here at the shore.”

I imagined her rolling her eyes. “What are you doing out there, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” Behind me, some kids ran past screaming and laughing, trying to tag each other.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I just drove out here.” I barely chuckled, nothing more than a few rapid breaths, but I knew she heard it because she clicked her tongue in disapproval. “I just got in my car and drove. Ended up here.”

“You just ended up there?” she asked indignantly.

“Yeah, Eve. I drove wherever the road took me, and that place was Seaside. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you ‘just drive’ to Seaside instead of picking up your daughter from school. That’s what the big deal is.”

“Besides that.”

She gusted more static in my ear and for a second I thought she hung up.

But she was still there; I heard the rush of wind through the open window in the background.

“Drew…” she said, calmly now. Her voice carried a tinge of sadness. Maybe even regret. Regret for what she was about to say. “Are…are you using again?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’m only asking because I’m concerned. And things haven’t been easy lately, like you said. I just wanted to make sure…”

“How dare you ask me that.” I spat into the wind and I didn’t care when my own mist came back at me. I was beyond pissed. My hands were shaking. I felt fire spreading down my legs. Warmth filled me all over and I wanted to hurl my phone into the ocean. “How dare you.”

“Don’t get mad at me for asking,” she said, as if accusing me of something as horrible as that was no big deal. She knew how hard I’d fought. How much I’d suffered. There was no going back to that life. That was not an option. She should have known better than to ask. “I’m only asking because things have been difficult and stressful and I want to make sure the events didn’t, like, trigger something.”

“It didn’t trigger anything,” I snapped.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry for asking. It’s just…”

“What?”

“Your headaches have been worse lately. You’ve been drinking a lot of beer…”

I put the phone in my mouth and bit down on it. I must have looked crazy to the occasional pedestrian that passed on by, or to any neighboring people-watchers. But I didn’t care. I returned the phone to my ear. “I drank a couple on my birthday and then a few with Dale the other night. Hardly what I’d consider a lot of beer.” I bit my lip. “Besides. I’m done with beer. Too many carbs. I feel terrible and all bloated afterward.”

“Okay, good. We’ve come way too far for you to pick up any new vices.”

“Agreed.”

“Okay.” She paused. Then she filled my ear with a sigh. “I’m sorry, Drew. Goddammit, I shouldn’t have asked you if you were back on the drugs.”

“Asked? More like accused.”

“No, I asked.”

“Semantics.”

“Whatever. Look. I love you, okay? I just want the best for you, for us. For our family. And our family needs you, whether you believe that or not.”

I knew what she meant: sometimes I got down on myself for not contributing more to the family. She made more money, handled a lot of the responsibilities around the house, took care of Dinah more than I ever had when she was little. I owed her a lot in that respect, and sometimes I told her I wasn’t worthy of her. Sometimes I told her the family didn’t really need me, that I didn’t really provide us with much. She always begged to differ and talked me down from whatever ledge I’d been threatening to jump from.

“I know,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you about not picking Dinah up. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

“It’s okay. I deserve it.” I scratched the back of my head. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me lately. Feel like I’m stuck in a whirlwind. Seems like every day it’s something different.” I stared out across the ocean, fixing my vision on the misty blue smear of the horizon. “Maybe you’re right, maybe we should get away.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said, though, I wasn’t sure I meant it. Something about running felt wrong.

“We’ll discuss it later. How did the meeting with Harper go?”

“Just fantastic. He thinks I wrote item number six.”

“Fucking asshole,” she said. “We should tell Paul to get us a new detective.”

“I don’t think it works like that, sweetheart. Not sure Paul has much pull with the county sheriff’s office either. He’s local. Remember?”

“Well, this guy sucks.”

I wanted to defend him, tell her, yeah, he’s an asshole, but he’s just doing his job. Instead, I bit my tongue. “Yeah, well, I guess I can’t argue there. He made me write item number six so he could compare handwriting samples.”

“And?”

“Well, obviously it didn’t match. My handwriting is in no way as legible as this whacko’s.”

“Yeah, well, that’s true. That’s why I have to pay the bills because no bank teller can ever make out your chicken scratch.”

“Hardy-har-har.”

We shared a short laugh. Things were already almost normal between us again.

“Also, the county’s finest detective requested you and Dinah also send him some samples.”

“I bet he did.” She clucked her tongue. “Does he really think our seven-year-old is orchestrating such an elaborate hoax?”

“I don’t know what he thinks, honestly, and I don’t care. This crackpot has about two days to find out who the fuck is watching us, breaking into our house undetected, or we’re getting the hell out of here.”

“I love it when you talk all manly-like.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m pulling up to Dinah’s school now. I see her out front.”

“Okay, I’ll let you go.” I closed my eyes. “I’m getting out of here in a few minutes. I’ll meet you home.”

“Okay.”

“Want me to make dinner tonight?”

“No, I’ll order a pizza for Dinah and I.”

“Tofu and vegetable stir fry it is.”

“Goodbye, you nut.”

“Bye, love.”

I hung up and stared at the ocean a moment longer, watching the slow-rolling waves collapse on the shore. They broke apart and became nothing but receding water, retreating back into the ocean, swallowed by the next one.

I wondered how many waves I’d survive before I broke apart.

Not many, I thought. Not many at all.

I turned and that was when I spotted him.

Him.

The man from Dinah’s school. The man who walked his dog across the street. The man in the van.

The man who watched.

The man who was keeping a close eye on me.

He was on a bench five down from me, no more than fifty feet away, reading the paper, skimming through the articles as if searching for something to catch his attention. He didn’t divert his eyes from the print, kept flipping through, pretending to be interested in current events or sports, or whatever edition he had grabbed to deceive me.

But I knew what he was doing. What he was truly doing.

He was watching.

Stalking.

Plotting his next move against my family.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I said into the phone while Eve prepared the vegetables. Dinah was at the table doing homework. The television played in the background, some local newscast. “But he was at my daughter’s school, more than once. Today I saw him on the boardwalk. Watching me.”

Harper exhaled and the line went crunchy with static. “Are you sure you’re not being paranoid, Mr. Lowery?”

“I know what I saw, dammit.”

“I believe you,” he said, but not sounding totally convinced. “But I think you should take a deep breath and consider the possibility that seeing this man was a coincidence.”

“It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”

“Well, pardon me, but it’s hard for me to rely on someone else’s feelings.”

I felt cheated. “Are you going to help me or not? Or are you going to continue to accuse me of terrorizing my own family? Is that it? Are you going to come over here and continue to search my house, look for things that aren’t there? Huh? Are you going to waste more time? Maybe you’ll even plant some evidence next time you’re here. Huh? Or maybe you already have?”

Eve shot me a glance and smirked. Dinah looked up from her homework, interested but also confused. I drifted into the dining room and lowered my voice.

“When are you going to stop dicking around and do something to help us instead of letting this drag on?”

There was silence on the other end, and at first, I thought he’d hung up. “That’s unfair, Lowery.” No Mr. this time, only Lowery. I must’ve struck a nerve. Good, I thought. Let him get pissed. Let him feel the way I’ve felt for the past few days. “That’s unfair and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know it. All I know is that I have a problem. My family has a problem. And I have a feeling the answer to that problem is this guy who’s been following me around for the past week. He’s the one threatening my family. I’m sure of it.”

Another deep breath. Prolonged static.

“Okay, Lowery,” Harper said. Paperwork shuffled in the background. “What does this guy look like?”

“Older,” I said. “Sixties, probably. Maybe seventies. He wears a fisherman’s cap mostly. Curly hair under it. A beard, neatly trimmed. Glasses, small. Too small for his face. He kind of reminds me of Mandy Patinkin, you know that actor from Homeland?”

“Huh?”

“You know. Homeland. That show.”

“I don’t have time to watch network television, Mr. Lowery.”

Back to Mr. now, are we? “Oh, well. Google him then. They look a lot alike. Kinda freaky.”

“I’ll do just that,” he said, though I got the sense he might not. “Anything else you want to add?”

“He walks his dog in the field across from Dinah’s school. I’ve seen him there twice. Once in the parking lot reading a newspaper. And then on the beach in Seaside. Your best bet is the school.”

“Noted.”

“Thank you for taking this seriously.” I closed my eyes. Even though I knew Harper didn’t fully believe me, that some part of him was still convinced I had something to do with it, I had the feeling he’d at least look into it.

I mean, he had to. Right?

“You have no idea how much this means,” I told him.

“Think nothing of it. Now get some sleep.” I swore he wanted to add, You sound a little cranky.

“I apologize if I went overboard. I didn’t mean to question your ability to do your job.”

“There’s a lot of things I am, Mr. Lowery. A bad detective ain’t one of them.”

Though much had left to be seen on that front, I agreed and wished him a good night. He hung up, and I wandered back into the kitchen where Eve had most of my dinner prepared, the pizza she ordered sitting on the countertop.

We ate and discussed things, none of our conversation having anything to do with the events of the past few days.

Chapter Thirteen

The weekend passed without incident. No cryptic or not-so-cryptic messages, no threats of any kind. It was a good day when you didn’t have to wake up to a death threat. We had a security system put in. Two men came and installed cameras around the perimeter, ran the necessary wiring through the house, connecting everything to the central hub located in our computer room. Once finished, they showed us how to operate the cameras, switch our view between them via the computer program. We were able to monitor four at a time, and there were a grand total of eight. They also programmed the alarm system and ran through how to arm and disarm the control panel. We had to punch a code of our choice every time we came and went, but that was a small price to pay for not having any unwanted intruders. Any unknown breaches sent alerts directly to our cell phones. The company monitored everything twenty-four-seven, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days a year, including holidays. They alerted the police should anything be set off and not reset within thirty seconds.

And that meant windows.

Doors.

If anything tripped, the cops were notified.

Saturday night was the best sleep Eve and I ever got, at least it seemed that way. We didn’t worry about a goddamn thing.

Sunday, we did chores and watched football. Eve got us sub sandwiches from Jersey Mike’s. It was a good day. Perfect. Normal.

Monday, I drove Dinah to school.

I should have known karma was in full effect, what goes around comes around and all that; I had a lovely weekend, free of police activity and receiving threatening messages, and the first face I saw when I pulled into the drop-off zone was none other than our favorite neighborhood detective, Jon Harper.

“Daddy, what’s the detective doing here with Principal Weathers?” Dinah asked.

“I don’t know, sweet pea.” And honestly, I didn’t. I was expecting everything from “we had an incident at school” to “you’re under arrest for something you may or may not have done.” It was a toss-up, and I wasn’t eager to see which side the coin landed.

Then I realized it was probably in reference to the man who’d been stalking the premises, the one who’d also followed me to Seaside.

I rolled down my window.

“Detective,” I said. If I were wearing a hat, I would have tipped it. “Always a pleasure to see your face bright and early in the morning.”

He displayed a goofy, aren’t-you-fucking-cute grin. “I was wondering if you could park that beautiful vehicle of yours and come have a chat with me and Principal Weathers.”

“Am I in trouble again?”

“When were you in trouble to begin with?” he asked in jest.

Since you accused me of terrorizing my own family, I wanted to say but kept hush. Principal Weathers didn’t need to hear about our awkward history, and neither did Janet Meadows, who had kept herself next to the man in charge of Cedar Hills Elementary.

“I’ll park,” I said, then leaned over and gave my daughter a kiss. “I’ll see you later, sweet pea.”

She pecked my cheek and got out. “Daddy, are you really in trouble?”

“No, no. Not at all. They just want to talk.” I nodded at them. “We’re all friends, you see.”

She glowered at me as if she were the parent and me the child caught in a lie.

“It’s fine,” I assured her.

She turned and sauntered off.

Walking through the school halls gave me a strong bout of déjà vu, taking me back to last year when Eve and I had come here to discuss the bullying problem. Not much had changed over the past twelve months, and the four of us walked in the same formation we had then, sans my wife and adding one calm and collective police detective.

“My office is down here,” Weathers said, leading the way.

We made a right turn, and the principal’s office door stood on the left. He waved us on and we filed inside. There were enough chairs for all of us, but I preferred to stand. And apparently, if I wasn’t sitting, no one else was. Everyone gathered around. Only Weathers elected to sit, and he did so behind his massive, cherry mahogany desk.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” he asked, scratching his bald scalp. He was a little older than me, maybe mid-forties, and he’d already lost every single strand of hair. I thanked my parents, rest their souls, for their good genes. “Mr. Lowery, Detective Harper here tells me you’ve spotted a man on the premises who seems to be… following you?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s one way of putting it.” I didn’t know how much he and the guidance counselor knew or were allowed to know. I deferred to Harper to take the lead.

“I told them,” Harper confirmed, nodding. “They know everything.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I thought it’d feel weird having others, borderline strangers, knowing about our troubles, but honestly, it was refreshing. It had also made the following conversation much easier.

“Yeah, there’s this fucking weirdo who was hanging out in the parking lot last week,” I said, the words spilling out of my mouth before I could filter them.

“Mr. Lowery,” Weathers said, pumping an open palm at me, as if instructing me to settle down, “mind you we aren’t in the direct presence of children, I’m still asking you to refrain from using foul language.”

I caught Harper smirking.

“Okay, yeah,” I said, leaning back against the wall. “Sorry. Got a little carried away. Anyway, I saw the guy in a van. White. No markings on it, but it looked like a work van. Then I saw the creepy prick—er, um, guy, yes, guy walking his dog in the field across the street. Two times. I stopped and talked to him the second time.”

“What did he say?” Harper asked, suddenly interested. I guess I had forgotten to give him the details of that particular interaction.

“Nothing of interest. Claimed he was only dropping his granddaughter off, which didn’t really make a whole lot of sense, considering he was, in fact, parked. He said his granddaughter’s name, but I forgot. I was a little frazzled at the time. Not that it matters much. I’m sure he was lying.”

Harper jotted notes on his pad, notes I wasn’t sure he’d ever referred back to.

“What else did the man say?” Janet Meadows asked, the squeakiness in her voice lost, replaced by this scratchy, I-haven’t-had-my-first-cup-of-coffee-yet rendition.

“That was it. He said he wasn’t watching me. Swore to it.”

“But you saw him again the other day, in Seaside?” Harper asked, pointing his pen at me.

“Yeah, that’s what I told you.” I jerked my shoulders. “What is it with you? I feel like I’m repeating the same bullshit—sorry, sorry—the same garbage over and over again. And what’s with this little pow-wow? Is all this really necessary?”

Weathers looked to Meadows. Then to Harper. It was like he needed their permission to continue, which was bullshit because he didn’t. He was running this show. He was the ringleader of this circus, and I was beginning to feel like the carnival clown.

“Mr. Lowery,” he began, folding his hands on his expensive desk, “we believe we have video surveillance of a gentleman who matches the appearance you described to Detective Harper.”

“Oh?” I perked up. “Really?”

“Yes. We had our security team pull the tapes of the parking lot on the day you and Mrs. Meadows were speaking near the drop-off lane. Unfortunately, we don’t have cameras aimed at the field across the street, but we were able to get the white van on video. Will you take a look?”

“Love to,” I said, rubbing my hands together.

He spun his computer so it would face me. The video had already loaded and Weathers pressed play.

Sure enough, the van was parked right where I’d said it’d been. It was hard to make out, but the blurry shadow of the newspaper filled the front seat. Behind it, sat the man who’d been acting as my own personal shadow. Though I couldn’t make him out in the video, every fifteen seconds or so the space flickered; it was him leafing through the newspaper.

I nodded at the screen, then looked over my shoulder at Detective Harper.

“That’s him,” I said with certainty. “That’s the son of a bitch who’s after my fucking family.”

Outside the school, as soon as we journeyed twenty feet or so from the entrance, Jon Harper lighted a cigarette.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

“Didn’t know you said ‘fuck’ so much,” he said, sucking in a lungful.

“Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“You ain’t kiddin’.”

I decided to switch the topic to something more…well, topical. “You believe me now?”

“I never didn’t believe you, Mr. Lowery.”

I somehow doubted that, but arguing would send us into a downward spiral, one we probably wouldn’t recover from. “Will you talk to him then?”

“Well, I’ll run the van’s plates and see if I can track him down. Hopefully he’s local, but we’ll see. The Colorado plates aren’t too reassuring. My guess is the van is hot.”

“Hot?”

“Stolen.”

“Oh yeah, right. Duh.”

I thought of the Brownstone girl. Eve and I had been watching the local news almost nightly and checking local Facebook groups. No new news of Marcy Branch had surfaced. “Any news on the missing girl?”

Inhaling a deep puff, he shook his head. “Nothing. I’m worried for her. For her family, mostly.”

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

He winced. “You saw the picture. What do you think?”

“I can’t imagine what that girl’s parents are going through.”

“Let’s hope you never experience it for yourself.” With that, he cast his cigarette into the street and walked toward the parking lot. “Good day, Mr. Lowery. I’ll be in touch when I have some information of value to share with you.”

“Anyone ever tell you how weird you are?” I asked as he strolled farther and farther away.

He either didn’t hear me or didn’t want to.

The next time we talked, the detective had news.

Big news.

Chapter Fourteen

The body of the Branch girl had been discovered two days later in a ditch just outside of the county limits. The lead detectives from the neighboring jurisdiction determined the girl’s death had occurred elsewhere, hours before her body was wrapped in a plastic tarp, driven over the border, and carefully placed in the woods, not as hidden as one might have expected from someone trying to cover up a murder. It was hidden enough, however, and the body was discovered via pure luck, nearly a week after it’d been placed there.

A man hunting deer that morning, Allen Watts, stumbled over the body—literally stumbled—around seven-thirty, an hour and a half after he’d entered the woods with his rifle slung over his shoulder. He’d been searching for a good tree to climb with a decent vantage point for spotting white tails when his foot kicked an unexpected root and caused him to stumble forward onto his knees. He’d looked back and spotted the arm of the dead girl poking out of the small mound of fallen brown leaves. The rest of her had been rolled up in a dark brown tarp like a human burrito and then tucked under a fallen tree in the advanced stages of rot. Allen Watts said he’d never screamed in his entire life, but when his vision locked onto the dead, staring eyes of the girl through the opening of the tarp, he claimed he shrieked like a banshee. The sound, he had said, moved birds from their treetops. At first, Allen thought the girl was still alive, the way her eyes locked onto his. The situation and his eyes had teamed up to play tricks on him, causing him to hallucinate. The girl’s mouth had moved gently. Her dry, cracked lips spoke to him.

Help me.

But they hadn’t moved. Allen had moved when he realized the girl wasn’t alive. When he’d noticed she was as dead as the ten-pointer he’d intended to hunt, he screamed again, jerked his head to the side, and vomited the bacon and egg sandwich he’d eaten earlier that morning. Then, when his vision slowed and ceased spinning like a top, he’d phoned the local police.

In under an hour, the woods were crawling with law enforcement.

When the local news report concluded dumping all the news they had, which wasn’t a whole lot at the time, Eve went over to the computer as if in a trance and began fiddling around on Facebook, scrounging as much info as she could from people’s statuses and local news outlets’ pages. Nationally, the discovery trended in the eighth spot, which wasn’t bad for a morning where a heroic schoolteacher thwarted a high school shooting in Colorado, the president threatened a foreign leader via Twitter (again), and a major news outlet was under heavy fire for covering up a sexual assault scandal. Couple that with what happened in the World Series and the start of the new basketball season, number eight wasn’t bad at all.

The world was a wonderful place.

I switched off the television as Dinah entered the kitchen. Our eyes were immediately drawn to her and we continued to stare as if she were a train wreck we needed to witness. She took one glance at each of us and then her eyes darted rapidly, avoiding our gaze.

“What?” she asked nervously. “What’d I do?”

“Nothing,” I said first. Eve went back to surfing the web. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine.” She eyed us both again. “You guys are acting weird.”

“No, you’re acting weird,” I said, trying to sound funny and failing completely. She continued to give me those what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you eyes. “Honey, did you have bad dreams?”

She shook her head. “No. Why do you ask?”

I shrugged. “We haven’t talked about it in a while. Was wondering how you were sleeping.”

“Fine. No more bad dreams.”

“No more shadow monsters?”

She swallowed and moved her lips in a way that suggested she was chewing something. “No. No shadow monsters.”

“Okay.” I held my hands up in surrender. “Okay, I get it. I won’t ask again.”

She went to the freezer and grabbed herself a waffle.

“Do you want me to make that for you?” I asked.

“No, I got it.”

When Dinah turned her back to us, Eve rotated the computer toward me. There was a statement from Harper and she had highlighted it.

I skimmed through the first two paragraphs and saw it wasn’t anything enlightening, most of which we’d already seen on the news report. The last lines of his statement read, “We are working hard with our neighbors in Monmouth County to put the final pieces of this puzzle together, and we hope to establish a timetable and possible suspect with the information we receive. Thank you for your continued cooperation and if anyone from the public has any information on Marcy Branch, please contact our hotlines.”

Eve scrolled through the list of posted articles, some interviewing the detectives from the neighboring county, some with quotes from Allen Watts, and some with a statement from the Branch family, specifically the girl’s father, Thomas. A soul-crushing family shot of them standing behind a podium, the three of them—her mother, father, and older sister—not a dry eye among them. Staring at the photograph made me sick to my stomach, and bile crept into my esophagus. My heart broke for the entire Branch family, and I couldn’t imagine the circus they’d been dragged into. I considered myself lucky that what happened to us, the photograph that had mysteriously made its way into our mailbox, was kept out of the papers. We could have easily been bombarded with folks from the media and concerned citizens showing up at our door with vague tips and wild accusations. If Harper earned any credit, it was that—keeping the details of our break-in quiet.

“This is tragic,” Eve said, her eyes filling with tears.

I rubbed her shoulder. “I know.” I wondered how long before Harper called and gave us the big news. How long before he told me to keep a lookout because the killer might be coming for our daughter next. Or me. I kept reminding myself that if the son of a bitch wanted us dead, we’d be dead.

Then what did he want?

The possibilities were endless, and honestly, they freaked me out. It’d be one thing to deal with a potential murder. Someone who wanted me or my daughter or my wife dead. Fine. I could understand that. I could deal with that. But someone who had killed and was what—just messing with us? That I couldn’t understand. Not knowing the killer’s motives haunted me.

“Do you still want to go? Leave? Head out of town?”

She shrugged. “Do you think that’s a good idea right now?”

“It’s the best idea right now.” I pointed to the computer. “Whoever killed that girl might be after Dinah next.”

“We don’t know that. Number one, if he wanted Dinah dead, she’d be dead. Remember. The rat bastard was in her room. Digging through her closet. Two, Harper is suspicious of you, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, if we run, how is that gonna look?”

“Shit.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do.”

“It was your idea. Remember?”

“I know it was.” She held her head low. “I know.”

“Okay,” I said, rubbing her shoulder. “We’ll stay. We have the security system installed. We’ll be okay here. Just have to stay extra vigilant until they catch this nutter.”

“And how long will that be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could be forever. They might not ever catch him.”

We were so caught up in the conversation that we didn’t realize Dinah was watching us, listening to us while she ate her waffle.

“What the heck are you guys talking about?” she asked innocently.

I stood up straight, tearing my eyes away from the computer screen. “Nothing, sweetheart.”

“Nothing? Sounds like something. Who got killed? Who is after me?”

“Shit,” Eve gasped.

Even though we were in the next room, the living room and the kitchen had an open floor plan and sound carried, especially without the television on. Honestly, the both of us had forgotten she was there and that she needed to be driven to school in fifteen minutes. We were careless with our conversation, and now we’d pay the ultimate price by telling her the truth.

“Honey,” I said to my wife. “Might be better if we just tell her everything.”

“Yeah,” Dinah said, hands on her cheeks, the remains of her waffle swishing around her mouth. “Tell me everything.”

Eve shook her head, batting away tears. “Do we have to?”

I know this was difficult for her. Dinah was only seven and way too young to hear about gruesome murders, especially given the savageness and all. Plus, telling her someone might be after her—our family—was nightmare fuel. It wasn’t the ideal situation but it was better than having her ask us a thousand questions about what had happened, or worse—going to her teachers with the information she overheard. Also, odds were that her fellow students might find out about it, and I thought the information might have been better coming from us first.

I took a deep breath. “Better to come from us than someone at school.”

She nodded.

I walked over to my daughter, wrapped my arms around her and pulled her body close to mine. I started out with, “Honey, there are a lot of bad people out there in the world…” Then, I proceeded to tell her everything that had happened thus far.

I had left out the gory details; there was no use burdening her brain with the imagery of a girl her age bleeding to death in some sicko’s basement. That’d just be cruel. Eve nudged me when I was taking too dark a spin, when I needed to pump the brakes and realize I was talking to a seven-year-old.

When I had finished, Dinah only stared at us. She remained that way for almost a minute. Catatonic.

Fuck. Our decision to share was immediately showing its effect.

“So…” Eve said. “…honey?”

“Yes?” she replied, snapping free from whatever grotesque images her mind manufactured.

“Do you understand everything we just told you?”

“Yes.”

I massaged the back of her head. “It’s important to know we’re safe here. At least, now we are. We had a security system installed. No one is getting in here unless we let them in. And under no circumstances do you open the door for a stranger.”

“No strangers,” she said, repeating the lesson we’d taught her since she began to talk and understand things. “Got it.”

Eve and I exchanged glances. My wife said, “Not for anyone.”

Dinah nodded.

“Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief. What felt like a boulder had been lifted off my back. “That was good. Great talk. Um… I think we should all stay home today. You know? Maybe we need a little family time. We can stay here and play board games, make snacks, maybe bake a cake?”

For a second, the two of them stared at me. Eve cracked the first smile and Dinah followed.

“Can we play Chutes and Ladders?” my daughter asked, suddenly happy. It was as if the information she just received didn’t matter.

“We can play whatever you want, sweetheart.” I kissed the top of her head.

Eve hugged the both of us and burst into tears.

Chapter Fifteen

Two days later, on the day of Marcy Branch’s funeral, I went back to work. I’d given some thought about attending but then thought better of it. For one, I didn’t know the girl or her family, and I thought it’d be a little weird showing up. A stranger at a funeral, especially that of a murdered girl, wouldn’t look all that great. And considering I was still probably atop Harper’s list of suspicious characters, despite proving my innocence time and time again, no good could have come of it.

Why did I want to go? Honestly—for answers. I wanted to talk to the Branch family, get some advice. Maybe something they knew would spark some epiphany, helping me to know who or what was causing this chaos in our lives. I didn’t think I’d get them to speak to me, especially at their daughter’s funeral, but I had considered it. In the end, I’m glad I didn’t go.

Work seemed busy that morning, which was odd for a Thursday. Weekday mornings after nine were generally slow; the before-work rush left, leaving behind only a few local college students who’d had late-morning or afternoon classes. We had a pretty good crowd, and I headed to the locker room to get changed and prepare for a morning out on the floor.

I faced my locker and felt the same dread I experienced when I discovered the note with Marcy Branch’s blood on it. My heart pumped. I expected to open the door and see a dead squirrel with its torso splayed, revealing a gory assemblage of innards. But there was nothing so graphic. There was nothing there at all.

Except, there was.

I hadn’t seen it at first, but tucked underneath my stick of deodorant and the roll of singles I kept for the vending machines, was another note. Folded nicely. Written on thick paper, cream-colored, like the kind used by a lawyer’s office. Unlike the previous note, this one had been delivered with care.

My fingers trembled as I inched the paper to the end of the locker. I glanced around the room. There was only one other guy in there, a frequent patron who was a doctor at a local walk-in clinic. His name was Carl. I immediately felt better knowing he was there in case I had another episode and passed out. Carl was buttoning his shirt when I unfolded the letter and skimmed the short message written in cursive, the handwriting impeccably clear.

It was not written by the same man as the last one, that was for sure.

The note simply read:

Mr. Andrew Lowery,

Please meet me at Gifford Park in Cedar Hills at two-thirty this afternoon. Your life and the lives of your loved ones depend on it.

Thank you,

Alfred T. Cotton

P.S. No Police. Please. You’ll understand in due time.

I immediately tucked the note back under the bills and shut my locker. Adrenaline flooded my veins and in that moment, I felt as if I could leap over buildings and shoot lasers from my eyes. My heart punched in my chest, stumbling every few beats. I heard myself breathing heavily.

A hand clamped down on my shoulder, firmly.

I turned on my heels, hands up, ready to strike. The man, whom I hadn’t heard approach me, leaped away and put his hands up to protect his face.

“Relax!” Carl shouted.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said, chuckling, throwing myself against the locker and letting my fists fall.

“God, you scared me.” He put a hand over his heart and snorted with laughter. “I was just checking to see if you were okay. Heard about your episode last week and you were staring at your locker a little funny.”

“I’m okay.” I slapped the air with my hand. “Honestly.”

The lives of your loved ones depend on it.

I wasn’t okay, but I sold it.

“Okay, man. Just checking.” He jerked his thumb at the exit. “I’m outta here for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

At twenty after two, I took my lunch break. Gifford Park was only ten minutes from the gym and I made it there in seven. The parking lot was already crowded with soccer mom vans and other vehicles. On the playground, kids ran amok, laughing and screaming their heads off while their parents watched from the perimeter, chatting and sipping their afternoon lattes.

I parked with two minutes to spare.

Before getting out and locating my mystery guest, I reached for my phone and thought about who I should alert regarding my afternoon errand. On one hand, I wanted to call my wife and tell her everything. I knew what she’d say, of course, that I should wait and under no circumstances approach our possible stalker, alone and vulnerable. She would have persuaded me to call Harper or the local police and let them handle it. I played the conversation out exactly how I knew it’d go and decided I didn’t really need to call her at all.

On the other side of the coin was Harper. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell him about the note either for exactly the same reasons; there was no way he’d approve the meeting, even though we were among the public in a family setting.

So that left me with who did I want to call and why?

I chose Harper, hoping he had some information to relay, and depending on that, maybe I’d tell him about the note. I could’ve been vague, given him the incorrect meeting time or place and claim I misread the note when he grilled me later and requested what my stalker had written. Or I could’ve told him the truth, told him exactly why I was at Gifford Park, waiting for my date to arrive. It was nearing two-thirty and there was no way he’d get here in time to stop me unless he happened to be in the neighborhood. Odds were he wasn’t, but I couldn’t be sure.

I decided to play it by ear.

Harper picked up on the second ring.

“Mr. Lowery,” he answered, “so good to hear from you.” The tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t all that happy to hear from me.

“Oh really?” I asked with the same amount of enthusiasm. “And why is that?”

“Well, I missed your voice.”

“Did you now?”

“Kidding, Mr. Lowery. Just kidding. What’s the matter? You sound tightly wound. Everything all right? Are you calling to report another mysterious incident?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” I bit down on my lip and it made the lie at least feel better. “I was wondering if you had any information for me, maybe regarding my stalker? The old man in the van?”

“Ah. Well, actually I do. Though, I wanted to gather a little more data before phoning you, but I guess now that I have you, it can’t hurt to divulge what I found.”

I shifted in my seat. “What is it?”

“The van is registered to a company called Neurotronix, based in Colorado. They make medical supplies for neurosurgeons. Big company. Reported the van stolen a few years ago.”

“Shit,” I said. My hand trembled with excitement and angst. I was finally getting some answers, though, honestly, it wasn’t adding up to much. I couldn’t figure out what a medical supply company had to do with a dangerous child killer stalking my family, but maybe it was just coincidence. Maybe the two things weren’t related. I mean, the only medical problems we ever had involved Dinah’s birth and the moderate amount of follow-up appointments she required. But those issues were settled and so were the bills. As far as I knew, anyway. Did we forget to pay off our debt? I highly doubted it. Eve had always been conscious of our financial situation and I refused to believe the smallest bill slipped through the cracks. Even if so, stalking us was an extreme way to collect payment. I immediately pushed the unlikeliest of scenarios out of my head. “They have any idea who this guy is?”

“I e-mailed them the photographs the security cameras took, but no one recognized the driver of the vehicle, though, one can admit the pictures are far from crystal clear.”

It was true, they were about as clear as a Coke bottle. Besides having a newspaper veiling most of his face, the picture itself came out distorted.

“Dammit,” I muttered.

“I know. Sometimes these things don’t play out the way we want it, kid.” I heard him shuffling through some paperwork. “Not sure if you heard the big news, but—”

“Marcy Branch was found. Yeah, that was hard to miss.”

“I’ve been meaning to call you and let you know, but I’ve been swamped with paperwork like you wouldn’t believe. If your kid ever wants to be a county detective, do your best to talk her out of it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” An October breeze rushed through the park, shaking the branches of the tall oaks back and forth. “Should we be worried?”

“You got that nice new security system installed?”

“Yeah, over the weekend.”

“I wouldn’t worry about a thing, Mr. Lowery. But keep an eye out. Let me know if anything else pops up. I’m still working on your case, but I’m a little preoccupied with the aftermath of the Branch girl’s death. You understand. Right?”

“Yep. Sure do.”

“I thought you might.”

“Listen, Harper?”

He waited and sighed. “Yes?”

“Today when I went to work, I found another note in my locker.”

In the background, nothing stirred. It was so silent, I thought he’d hung up. “And what did it say?”

“Someone calling themselves Alfred T. Cotton wants me to meet them at a park at two-thirty this afternoon.”

I envisioned him peeking down at his wristwatch. “It’s two-thirty-two.”

“Yep, and I’m at the park.”

“Which park?”

“I’m not so sure I want to tell you.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you might try to stop me from meeting him.”

“Damn right I will.” He pounded his fist on the desk and the thunderous bang played as loud as his voice. “Dammit, Lowery! Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

“I already answered that question.”

“Not a smart move. This guy could be dangerous.”

“He could,” I said, not sounding convinced. “But he obviously knows where I work. Where I sleep. I think if he wanted me dead, I’d be six feet under, next to Marcy Branch right about now.”

“That’s dumb and you know it.”

“Maybe. I never claimed to be smart, though.”

Another fist landed on the desk with force. Admittedly, I jumped. “You need to tell me where you are right now, Lowery.”

Gazing out the window, my eyes locking onto a person of interest, I shrugged. “I don’t think so, detective.”

“Why not?”

“Because I see who left me that note in my locker.”

“Who? Who is it?”

I opened the door.

“It’s him.”

“Who?”

“The man with the white van,” I said, then hung up.

About ten feet from a chatty group of latte-sipping mothers, the bearded man in the fishing hat sat on a bench and opened the newspaper. He’d slung one leg over the other and relaxed his shoulders. He pushed his glasses up his nose when he tilted his head down to read.

I approached with my hands in my pockets. I wanted to appear casual and not at all edgy, the exact opposite of how I felt on the inside. If this was truly the man who’d been terrorizing my family, I didn’t know how I’d react. A part of me thought I’d beat the holy hell out of him in front of the children and their parents. Another part of me wondered if I had it in me, that much rage. I suspected I might under the certain duress.

Adrenaline rushed through me and for a second I thought about ripping my own skin off. It reminded me a lot of going through chemical withdrawals, that feeling of wanting to strip away layers of yourself until you reveal the source of what was crawling inside. Those invisible spiders and creepy-crawlers embedding themselves in you. It was a terrible feeling, and I almost wanted to beat the old man for making me experience it again.

Sensing my presence, the man glanced up from his daily read. He took a long, hard look at me and smiled. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Alfred Cotton?” I asked, not amused.

“Correct. And you are Andrew Lowery.”

“My friends call me Drew.”

“Drew,” he repeated like a child learning a new word.

“I said my friends call me Drew. Last time I checked, you weren’t one of them.”

“Not yet.” He shimmied down the bench, clearing a spot for me. “Come. Have a seat. We have a lot to go over and not much time.”

“I have the whole afternoon. Cleared my schedule and everything.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the same leisure.”

“Do you have to return the van you’ve stolen by a certain time?”

Coldly, he squinted at me. “You’ve gone to the police, I see. Told you not to do that.”

“Yeah, well, it was too late. They found out about you before today.”

He nodded. “Are they on the way here? Now?”

I debated whether lying to him would benefit me. If I told him that indeed they were, he might book, and I might not get the answers he’d come here to give me. “No. They don’t know where we are.”

“Good.” He patted the empty space next to him. “Come sit. It will look less suspicious.”

I did as he asked, but honestly, I didn’t want to. Something about listening to him, doing what he instructed, gave him power over me. Or at least, that was how I felt.

“I’ll get right down to it and not waste any time,” he said, picking up a small leather suitcase stationed next to him. He placed it on his lap, opened it, and started poking around inside. “My name is Alfred Cotton. Doctor Alfred Cotton.”

“Doctor,” I repeated, faking that I was impressed. “Of what exactly? Stalking people?”

“Neuroscience, actually. I study the human brain.”

“Oh, interesting. I get these headaches sometimes. Maybe you can tell me why—”

“We don’t have time for that.” His words were sharp. He jerked his hand like a fly buzzed near his ear. “Maybe later, but not now.”

I flinched as if he’d tried to smack me. Maybe later, but not now? Just what did that mean?

He cleared his throat and stole a look at the entire playground. “Have you ever heard of the Dead Daughter murders that took place about twelve years ago? Happened about fifty miles north of here, in Middlesex County.”

I shook my head. My skin had crawled at the mention of dead daughters, and stayed that way for a long while, throughout the entirety of our conversation. “No, never.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It was big news.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well, maybe that’s for the best.” He glanced back down at his paperwork. The stack was the thickness of two bibles. “But I feel I need to tell you now, as it relates to the situation taking place in Cedar Hills.” He wiped his forehead with a rag he’d pulled from his pocket, then continued. “Twelve years ago, a couple embarked on a homicidal killing spree, targeting the daughters of families in their neighborhood.”

“Jesus, that’s awful.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yes, it was. They killed seven girls. Seven daughters, ranging from age six to twenty-two.”

I felt a little sick. Out of breath. I wanted to puke. My head spun. A headache crept in, began to spread.

“Why’d they do it and what the hell does this have to do with my family?”

“I’m getting there, Mr. Lowery.” He flipped through his scrapbook, landing on an old newspaper article he’d clipped out and placed there. The headline read, “COUPLE LOSES CHILD, BABY FOUND DEAD IN CRIB.”

I skim-read the first few lines. “What is this?”

“This is a news article from twelve years ago. This started it all.”

I waited to see if he expected me to read the article, or if he’d explain everything and save me the trouble.

“Brian and Marianne Greenlee went out one night, left their three-month-old with a young girl from their neighborhood. A babysitter. When they came home, the infant was dead.” He flipped the page. More articles were preserved with a clear film, like an old photo album. Each article sported a similar headline to the one before it, reporting a dead infant and mourning parents. “On the surface, it seemed the baby had died of SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The kid had flipped himself over at some point throughout the night and suffocated on a blanket, a garment the parents had removed from the crib before they left, a garment the babysitter had later put back in. No one questioned the coroner’s report, the cause of death, except the parents. They believed—were convinced—the death of their child was no accident. They believed the babysitter had smothered their daughter in her sleep.”

“Tragic,” I said. “But I still don’t see how this relates to my daughter and why someone sent me a photograph of her murdered lookalike. Nor the threatening note in my locker.”

Cotton looked me straight in the eyes as if he had something to say but didn’t quite know where or how to begin. He drew in a deep breath, collecting his thoughts, and exhaled as if that were the last time he’d breathe so easily again. “What I’m about to tell you, Mr. Lowery… Well, let’s say it’s going to hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“You won’t believe it at first. But in time, you will. And how you handle the situation from this part forward is up to you.”

I don’t know why, but the man’s words needled my nerves, causing my skin to break out in gooseflesh. I had no reason to feel fear. For all I knew, the man was a loon. But something about it shredded me from within. Got to me. Got me wondering.

He flipped to the back of his album, landing on a page he’d bookmarked. It was a mugshot of a young woman, early twenties, her forehead greased with stripes of blood. She had long black hair, bangs that dangled just short of her eyes.

Her hairstyle was different but there was no denying the identity of the woman in the photograph.

The woman in the photo was my wife.

It was Eve.

Staring at the mugshot, my fingers lost their feeling. I felt the world turning, spinning out of control. My lungs hitched, stopped working the way they were supposed to. My vision blurred at the edges and it was difficult to make out the lettering on the placard beneath Eve’s bruised, bloodied face.

I thought I was slipping out of consciousness.

“What is this?” I managed to say between heavy gasps. “Is this a joke? Some kind of fucked-up gag?”

As Cotton shook his head, I turned to face him.

“Tell me this is a goddamn joke,” I said. My heart drummed so fast I felt the vibration in the bottom of my throat. My forehead felt like someone put a blowtorch to it.

“No joke, I’m afraid.” He shifted in his seat. His expression didn’t falter. If he was lying, he was hiding it well. “The woman in the photograph is your wife.”

“Impossible.”

“Is it?”

I gave it a quick thought. Of course it was. There was no way my wife was capable of such things. My wife was the sweetest, non-violent person I’ve ever met. She was the perfect wife. Perfect mother. She was a doctor for fuck’s sakes. She saved people. Not killed them.

“Yes, it’s impossible.” I wiped away the gossamer-like film from my eyes and peered down at the name on the placard. Marianne Greenlee. “That’s not my wife. That’s not my wife’s name.”

“That’s not her name now, no, but that was the name given to her at birth.”

“I don’t understand any of this.” I shook my head so furiously, I thought my neck might break. “None of this makes sense.”

Cotton agreed with a nod. “I know. But it will. In time, it will.” The bearded man checked his watch and frowned. “I’m afraid we’ve overstayed our welcome. The detective you phoned isn’t dumb—he’ll find our location soon enough and I cannot be here when he arrives. I’m sure you understand that I’m to remain incognito. My business must remain a private matter—I did warn you not to call the police.”

“Who do you work for?”

“I don’t have time to answer that. It’s a long story. But all in due time. Next time, might I suggest listening to me and keeping our meetings private.”

“I don’t understand—”

“In due time, Mr. Etheridge.”

I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. “Etheridge? No, I’m Lowery. Drew Lowery.”

He squinted at me, studied me. I felt like a chess piece and Cotton was assessing the board, trying to figure out where to move me. He blinked twice. Then smiled.

“I’m sorry. Lowery. Where is my head?”

With that, he collected his things and stood.

“You don’t have a granddaughter at Cedar Hills Elementary, do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You were watching me this whole time.”

“Yes. I was.”

I glared at him, hard. “You threaten my family? Did you break into our house? Did you kill Marcy Branch?” The words came out like machine gun fire.

He glared at me, and I could almost see the patience bleed out of him. “No. I didn’t.”

“You know who did?”

He stuffed some papers back into his briefcase. “I have my suspicions.”

“Who?”

“Maybe that’s a conversation you can have with your wife.”

I stared down at the mugshot again. It couldn’t be.

But it was.

It was her.

It was my wife.

“I’ve put together a small file for you,” he said, handing me a folder stuffed with papers. “Once you review it, and I wouldn’t wait long, I suggest you contact me. My number is on the last page.”

He stood up straight, correcting his hunched posture.

“Don’t go yet,” I said, a million questions flooding my mind.

“I must. For both our sakes. Do call me after you’ve gone through the articles. Your family may be in more danger than you think.” He turned and walked across the playground, toward the tree opposite the parking lot.

I glanced down at the folder and shuddered.

The world turned, taking me for another spin. I almost vomited. The nearby parents began to notice me, and I wondered how long it’d take them to realize I wasn’t there with my kid. I decided to book.

Standing up was difficult. My legs felt like jelly.

All the way the to the car, I felt eyes on me. But I didn’t care. My mind was elsewhere. Lost in the things Dr. Alfred Cotton had told me. I still thought it was impossible, that my wife couldn’t be Marianne Greenlee, that the whole story didn’t make much sense.

But then I thought: what if it’s true?

What if it’s all true?

A Letter Home

(III)

Marianne,

I’m glad you are okay, I really am. I hope to be there soon. To be okay. To be right. To be one with you again. We’re so far apart and that tears me up, grinds me down, makes me feel buried beneath the dirt; an extension of the soil. I’m stoked you’re doing fine and out and happy and have a new life and Dr. Cotton tells me all these wonderful stories about you and the progress you’ve made. God, I’m so happy. So friggin’ happy I should shout. Scream. Yell at the world.

But I’m also sad. Sad because you’re going to forget all about me. Forget about the things we’ve done. The greatness we’ve accomplished.

It wasn’t all bad. We made something together. We created.

I want to talk to you about creation.

Do you know what I’d like to create?

I’ll tell you.

Here’s a list of some things I’d like to create: Mummy pajamas. Stuffed cheeseburgers filled with jalapenos and bacon. Captain Crunch sans the crunch. A television show that was a sitcom of our time together (people will laugh). A proper live-action Ninja Turtles movie. A cane for the elderly with a spike on the end of it so they could fight off thieves. Portals. Sock puppets of people I know. A belt that looks like intestines. Ghost tissues (tissues designed to look like ghosts). Shopping carts that shop for you. Blueberry pizza. Televisions that can read your mind and play your favorite shows while you sleep and inject them into your dreams so you can watch while you sleep. Cars that run on garbage like in Back to the Future. Underwear with my face on them. A cure for cancer. A cure for herpes. A cure for death. A cure for dead daughters. A cure for my head, my fucking head, my stupid fucking goddamn head, my insanity, my—

Sorry. Got sidetracked. Enough about that. We’re done there.

I want to talk about us, our creation. What we did together. What we made, Marianne. What I put inside you, what you carried, what you delivered to this precious world of ours.

Our little twinkle, our sunlight. Our little moonbeam.

She was so precious, lying there in her crib. I remember looking at her face for the first time. Those soft, rosy cheeks. Those little wide eyes, so big and black and almost alien-like. Looking up at me, gazing at us, her parents, the two people in this world she was supposed to trust to protect her, to keep her safe, to keep her ALIVE.

How we failed her.

Sometimes I wonder how much is our fault, and how much it was hers. The babysitter. The one we butchered. The one we tore apart and scattered her limbs throughout the house. That was kind of fucked up, I’ll admit, but she deserved it, didn’t she? Of course she did. She killed our baby. SHE KILLED OUR CHILD.

Our creation.

That couldn’t go unpunished.

But we couldn’t stop there.

They all had to be punished.

They were all at fault. Every one of them. All the daughters.

Wow. I’m sorry. Cotton wouldn’t like me saying, thinking those things. Not like that. I’m supposed to know what we did was wrong, right? I’m supposed to feel remorse. Feel bad. Feel…something.

But honestly, between you and me, I don’t. Not really. I’m glad they’re dead. All the daughters. All the throats we cut, all the bitches we buried. They deserved it. We were doing the community a favor. I mean, weren’t for us, more children might have died. Right? That’s why we did it, Marianne. It’s all coming back to me with such clarity.

I love our little talks. It’s making me think more clearly.

We were protecting creation. We are heroes, Marianne. Goddamn heroes. And what did they do? They called us sick and locked us up. Medicated us. Tried to cure us. But there wasn’t anything to cure. We were the healthy ones. The sane ones. We are the ones who know—no one should be in charge of another person’s creation. We protect our own creations.

We protect.

Our daughter.

She’s dead now.

I’m glad we killed those fakers, those tramps, that tribe of babysitters. Killed them all.

There are more, Marianne. There are more fakers out there, pretenders who claim they’ll protect what is not theirs. But we can stop them. Before it’s too late. We can protect what others cannot. We can save the innocent, the ones like our precious moonbeam.

We can—

Chapter Sixteen

“What are you doing, hon?” Eve asked, stepping into the den.

Stealthily, I slipped the letter underneath the keyboard and reached for the cable bill that topped the pile of mail. “Nothing, babe. I’m just, uh, finishing up the bills.”

“Are you coming to bed soon?”

I turned and saw her hanging from the door jamb, swaying back and forth like a pole dancer. “Yeah, soon. Just want to get these paid.” I held up an envelope and shook it in the air to illustrate my point.

Her eyebrow arched. “Okay, well, I’ll be in bed. Waiting for you.”

“Just a few more minutes.”

She blew me a kiss and let go of the doorframe, walking backward into the kitchen. She turned, stepped to the fridge, opened it and grabbed herself a bottle of water.

“If you’re lucky,” she said, unscrewing the cap, “you might get laid tonight.”

I smiled, forced myself to. “Hmm. Hopefully I won’t be too tired.”

“Well hurry up then, mister.” A seductive smile curved her lips, and she disappeared through the doorway. A second later, I heard her bounding up the stairs.

I tossed the cable bill aside and pulled out the letter, read some more and chewed my nails ’til they bled. More ramblings from someone who was clearly insane. The stuff this guy had written was absolutely bonkers, bat-shit crazy. There were about twelve letters in all. Each one got more and more intense, more and more cuckoo. It was as if he’d regressed with time. Whatever this Dr. Cotton had been doing to rehabilitate him, clearly wasn’t working.

By the last letter, I could barely understand what he was talking about. Mostly, it dealt with his dreams, nightmares of his dead infant reanimating and coming to get him, eating him alive while he screamed and begged for God’s mercy. Sick, twisted stuff. Graphically detailed. I figured if this clown ever got his shit together and screwed his head on straight, he might have a shot at writing horror movies. He talked about invisible worms climbing inside his head and taking him over, causing him to say and do things that got him into trouble with Cotton and his orderlies. He mused about aliens and hypothesized about living under their control, that every single turning point in his life had been an extraterrestrial experiment, including the tragic death of his sweet infant. He wrote about how Cotton and his orderlies were overlords of the universe and he himself was a small god under their capture. Weird stuff.

But mostly he talked about Marianne and the memories they shared together.

Marianne.

My wife.

Supposedly.

I had a hard time believing the girl in the mugshot was the same girl I married a little over ten years ago. The woman who’d taken a recovering drug addict and turned his life around, rocked his fucking world. The woman who’d given birth to a beautiful daughter, slightly undersized and lacking a left hand, but perfect nonetheless. I found it hard to believe that my loving, gorgeous, sensitive, understanding wife was a cold-blooded murderer before we had met each other.

It was impossible, an equation that didn’t add up.

But when I looked down at the mugshot, stared at those soulless, seemingly black orbs that were her pupils, there she was. It was her, all right. It was Eve. In the flesh.

It can’t be, I thought. It just can’t be.

I refused to believe it was her. I conjured every possible way it couldn’t be her. I told myself it was the same sort of trickery used in the photograph of Marcy Branch, made to look like my daughter. I convinced myself it was a body double. Maybe a twin sister she never knew about. But in the end, I knew it was her.

Deep down, I knew.

I tucked the mugshot back in the folder along with the twelve letters. I debated what to do with them—burn them in a trash can when Eve was at work and Dinah was at school, or keep them, hoping they’d prove to be of some use down the road. I opted for the latter and concealed them in the back of the filing cabinet, hidden behind important things like birth certificates and social security cards. While I was there, I checked Eve’s. I half-expected the document to read Marianne Greenlee, but wasn’t surprised when I saw Evelyn Mortimer on there either. The social security card matched, too.

Still, I wondered.

Who was Evelyn Mortimer really? Was her real name Marianne Greenlee? Was this all a big misunderstanding, an insane mix-up? Was this some sort of elaborate hoax? Was I on a reality television show? Were there secret cameras recording my reactions? Was I the real-life version of Truman Burbank?

My mind scrambled to come up with a rational explanation, and the more brain juice I burned, the loonier the scenarios became.

What if it wasn’t all that complicated? What if this Cotton guy wasn’t mistaken? What if what he said was true: my wife, Evelyn Mortimer, now Evelyn Lowery, was once Marianne Greenlee, a psychotic murderer responsible for the deaths of at least six young women. What if she was rehabilitated like Brian’s letters suggested? What if…

What if she doesn’t even remember?

The thought sent icy chills down my spine. I shut the filing cabinet and stood up, stretching my bones.

I forced myself to head upstairs where my wife was waiting. In the bedroom where my wife slept.

If she was indeed my wife at all.

The next morning, breakfast was quiet. Eve made us eggs and bacon and sausage, coffee for us, orange juice for Dinah. I didn’t eat much of my egg whites. A few bites then I began swirling the food around my plate until the whites were nothing but shredded waste. My mind wandered, cycling through stray, hazardous thoughts. I felt stuck at a crossroads with a hundred different directions to choose from. Lost. Confused. I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin.

“Are you okay?” Eve asked. I had sensed her looking up at me between mouthfuls of bacon. Now that her plate was empty, all eyes were on me. “Is the food okay?”

“Fine,” I said, barely lifting my head to meet her gaze. I found her eyes difficult to face. I didn’t know what to make of Cotton’s story and the information he handed me, but I knew one thing for sure—it warped me and my perception of the past twelve years of my life. If it were all true, then everything I’d known about Eve and our relationship together was a lie. An act. Even though there was no proof other than what Cotton gave me, I felt different toward her.

Maybe I was scared. Scared that what he told me was true. Every last bit of it.

“You barely touched it.”

I scooped up some eggs and shoved a forkful into my mouth. “Sorry. Just not…feeling well.”

“Headaches?”

I shook my head, though, a headache could have served as the perfect excuse. Last night too, had I thought of it. Eve had forced herself on me before bed, kissing my neck and chest, all of my “hot spots.” I couldn’t turn down her offering, despite the wedge forced between us via Cotton’s informational packet. Last night, we fucked like never before. It was strange and had felt almost dangerous, exhilarating and terrifying all at once. I felt like I was losing control of my mind. Of my thoughts. And worst of all—my actions. I hadn’t wanted to be with her, but at the same time, I really did.

“No. Just not feeling that hot.”

“If you want to talk…” She looked at Dinah. “We’re here for you.” She squeezed my daughter’s good hand.

“I appreciate that.” I tried not to act off or like things had changed, but it was difficult. I’d never been good at hiding how I felt. This situation was no exception. “But I’ll be fine.”

I picked up my plate and padded over to the garbage. I threw half my breakfast out and dumped the dish in the sink, turned and faced the doorway. “Dinah, I’ll drive you to school.”

She looked to her mother for permission, and Eve nodded.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said, and finished off her orange juice.

Five minutes later, we were out the door and on our way to Cedar Hills Elementary.

When I pulled up to the drop-off, I spotted Jon Harper and Principal Weathers shooting the breeze on the sidewalk. Dinah noticed them too. She turned to me, her eyes already rolling.

“What is the detective doing at my school again?” she asked.

“He’s working, honey.”

“Mommy doesn’t like him.”

“I know.”

Mommy doesn’t like him.

Maybe because he’s going to figure out who Mommy really is? What she’s cost our family?

Even if Eve had committed those atrocities all those years ago, changed her name, and somehow procured a new life, that still left us with the question of who was terrorizing us. She couldn’t be doing this to us. Didn’t make sense. I didn’t know all the details about the case, but if she were in some witness protection program, then she wouldn’t want this getting out. And what motive did she have? Didn’t make sense. I could only come up with one plausible scenario—Brian. Her ex-lover. The psycho who wrote all those letters, the notes I hoped Eve never read. What the bastard’s endgame was, I had no idea. It certainly couldn’t be to kill us. If he’d wanted us dead, he could have achieved that easily when he’d broken into our house in the middle of the night. Or when I was showering and he slipped in and added to Eve’s chore list. No, the bastard was fucking with us, plain and simple. He wanted us scared. Maybe that would make the kill more satisfying. The build-up. The mounting terror.

Mommy doesn’t like him, Dinah had said, and now I was beginning to think there were reasons other than his lack of progress.

“He’s a good guy, Dinah. Just doing his job.”

“I don’t like him either. He smells like cheese.”

“Yeah, well. I’ll talk to him about that.”

Dinah opened the door and instead of leaning back to kiss me goodbye, she grabbed her bag and stepped out.

“Don’t you want your glove?” I asked.

“Not today,” she said. “Bye, Dad.”

She closed the door and walked off into the flowing traffic of students.

I thought that was weird, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it; the principal and Detective Harper were rapidly approaching my car.

“Sirs,” I greeted them.

“Have a minute?” Harper asked.

“For you?” I flashed him a smile. “Think I can spare a couple.”

“Glad to hear it.” He produced an eight-by-ten photograph from his clipboard of notes.

My heart skipped when I saw the face printed on it.

“Is this the guy?” he asked.

I swallowed an egg. “Yes.”

He gave the face another look. The photograph displayed Dr. Albert Cotton. It was an administrative photo you might find in a medical group’s flyer or on their website. He was donning a tweed jacket, the same reading glasses, looking not much younger than he appeared on the park bench the day before. His beard was full and so was his smile. He looked much of the same sans the fishing cap. The name Alfred T. Cotton was printed beneath the headshot.

“Yes,” I said, with my tongue almost completely numb. “Yes, that’s him.”

Harper made a noise that sounded like hmm. Then he asked, “Did you meet with him yesterday at the park?”

“I’m sorry?” I asked, barely paying attention.

“The park. You said you were meeting an Alfred T. Cotton. Just figured this was the guy.”

“No. I didn’t.”

“But you said you were—”

“He didn’t show,” I lied. A searing burn ignited my forehead and I wondered how red I had turned, if my flesh betrayed me. I wondered how obvious the lie was. “I got there and waited but the bastard never showed.”

“Are you lying to me, Mr. Lowery?”

“No.” I felt awful lying to him, but I knew I had to. To protect Eve. For a little bit at least, until I figured everything out, how all the pieces fit into this clusterfuck of a puzzle. “No, I’m not. I swear it.”

He grumbled, then turned back to the principal, who only shrugged diffidently.

“Mind giving me a lift, Mr. Lowery?” Harper asked, turning to me.

“A lift?”

“Yeah, I know you’re on your way to work, and I have a meeting with your boss in about half hour. Was thinking we could carpool.”

I wasn’t expecting him to ask for a ride, and I found it difficult to answer, even though I knew I had to say “yes.” However, the only words I could put forth were, “What do you want to talk to Langford for?”

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that.” He flashed me a broad smile. “Thinking of joining the gym. The wife says I need to shed a few pounds. I’m getting a little doughy in the midsection. Plus, the gym at the station is too small and always crowded.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, not believing a word of it. Now I knew how he felt when I handed him the lie. “Yeah, sure, hop in.”

Declining would have made me look even more suspicious.

“Thank you kindly.” He turned and shook the principal’s hand. “We’ll talk later.”

As soon as Harper was seated and buckled in, I drove off toward the gym.

Harper popped a cigarette in his mouth when we were about halfway to the gym. He hadn’t said a word, but I saw him eyeing me in the rearview mirror, wanting to speak. He chewed on the end of his smoke for a minute before asking me if it was okay to light up.

“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”

He lighted his cancer stick, and I rolled down the windows. The rush of air sucked out the toxic fog, making the interior of my Hyundai somewhat breathable again.

“Found out some interesting facts earlier,” he said.

I didn’t need to look at him to tell he was smiling. “Oh?”

“Seems Marcy Branch was a patient of your wife’s, about a month before her disappearance.”

My stomach whirled. “You’re shittin’ me.”

“No, sir. I shit not.” Another plume of smoke billowed, from his nostrils this time. “Hell of a coincidence, huh?”

“What for?”

“Broken wrist.”

I immediately pictured Marcy Branch sitting in that basement, her hand hacked off just above the wrist, a pool of blood crawling from under it. I shivered. I wanted to vomit, as if doing so would purge not only the contents of my stomach but the thoughts inside my head.

Did she kill Marcy Branch? My wife?

I shook my head without realizing I was doing so.

“You all right, Mr. Lowery?” my passenger asked. “You look a little pale.”

“Fine.”

“Something you want to tell me?”

“No… I mean, what’s there to tell?”

“Your wife never mentioned seeing Marcy Branch before? That she came into her emergency with a broken arm on the fifth of September?”

“Never.”

“Do you think that’s odd?”

I debated driving into the nearest telephone pole just so I could escape this interrogation. “No. She sees dozens and dozens of cases a day. You think she remembers every single patient?”

He considered it a moment. “I suppose not.” He sucked in more smoke. “Still, hell of a coincidence.”

“Sure is.”

He moved directly onto the next topic. “I’m not sure why you’re covering for him.” We were about six minutes away from the gym. I only needed to hold on a little longer.

“Who?” I don’t know why, but immediately thought of Brian Greenlee.

“Cotton. Who else?”

I had no answer for him. None I wanted to give.

“You were all about tracking this guy down and having me question him. Now it seems you couldn’t give less a shit.”

I didn’t say anything. Silence, it turned out, was sometimes louder than words.

“I’d like to know what he said to you in the park, Mr. Lowery. Because whatever it is, I think it might just be the key to unlock all of this.”

“What makes you so sure?” My hands twitched and they moved up and down the steering wheel, finally settling at eight and four o’clock.

“Because you’re acting like cattle on the execution line. Jittery and such. Don’t you see it, Mr. Lowery?”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Just acting…normal.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll tell you what I see and maybe you can level with me. I see a man who’s got himself wrapped up in a bad situation. Whose family is being threatened by an outside force. Who was so adamant about having the police find a man who’d been following him. And now, he doesn’t want to talk about that man and dodges the subject when it comes up. That’s pretty odd behavior, Mr. Lowery, wouldn’t you agree?”

It was. I knew I couldn’t dodge Harper’s questions forever. This was a friendly setting, but all it took was for him to bring me in and I’d be answering these questions in front of other detectives and maybe a lawyer. I didn’t want it to come to that.

“What do you want to know?” I asked.

“Who is this Alfred T. Cotton and what does he want with you?” He paused briefly and then added, “I know you met with him in the park. I didn’t get there in time, but I interviewed the parents who were there for a few hours, and they pegged you there, right as rain. So no more lies, Mr. Lowery. If you want me to help you out of this thing, I need answers. And I need them now.”

I closed my eyes. The upcoming telephone poles looked more and more attractive. The other part of me wanted to tell Harper everything, every damn detail from what I learned about Cotton to what I learned about the Greenlees. But that would mean my wife’s secret would come to light and then the focus of the investigation would be on her. I didn’t know everything yet. How could I throw her to the wolves when I knew so little about her and what happened almost two decades ago? I couldn’t. I had to find out more before I told Harper anything.

I needed to lie. Again. But this time, I had to make it believable.

“Cotton is a doctor at some facility,” I said.

“Neurotronix?”

“Yeah, something like that.” I turned down the road the gym was on. “He said he did studies on a guy who killed some girls about twenty years ago.” Not a lie. Not at all, actually. “Some psycho. Said he thought the same guy was messing around with my family. Maybe he was the same person who killed Marcy Branch. I don’t know. I’m speculating. But Cotton seemed like such a loon, you know. He was talking kind of crazy. Out there.”

I made circles with my forefinger near my temple.

“Crazy how?”

“Just about the killer and what he’d done. A lot of unnecessary details.”

“He thinks the killer is the same man from twenty years ago?”

“That’s what he said. I honestly wasn’t paying that much attention. He was losing me with all the craziness. Turns out, he’s just a nutty old man.” Pulling into the parking lot, I shrugged. “That’s why I don’t care if you question him or not. It’s because I was wrong. Cotton isn’t part of this. He’s just… I don’t know. A nut job.”

“Still, it’s my job to explore every detail.” Harper whipped his phone out and punched a few keys.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not trying to sound nervous.

“Calling the station.” He perked up when someone answered. “Yes, Betty. Hey, Jon Harper here. I’m well. And you? That’s great. Hey, wondering if you could do me a favor and put a BOLO out on a white van, ‘97 Chevy. License plate number—”

He rattled off the numbers and thanked Betty. Seconds later, he was back to facing me. Tossing his cigarette out the window, he exhaled deeply, filling the interior of my car with smoke. We were parked now, sitting, facing each other. Staring. Like it was a contest of who blinked first.

“Is that it?” he asked. “That all you want to tell me?”

I nodded. “That’s all that happened, Detective Harper.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said, “because if I find out you’ve misled me, I’ll bring you up on every possible charge I can, and that would be a lot.”

Chapter Seventeen

I’m not exactly sure what Harper needed to talk to Langford about, but I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. I already had enough on my plate and didn’t need to take on any more problems or worries. This was becoming too complicated, and all I wanted to do was get in my car and drive away from the situation, away from everything. I’d never in my life thought I’d feel this way, like I was better off alone, without my family. Without Eve. Without Dinah. Just on my own, cruising down the highway, the worries and troubles lying somewhere beyond what I could see in my rearview mirror.

But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t a runner. I wasn’t someone who backed down from conflict. I had kicked drugs, man. Heroin. The bad stuff. I could take on anything, right? If I could kick the junk, surely I could conquer whatever else life would throw at me. No obstacle would keep me from plowing through it, keep me from heading down the long highway we all lived on, the path on which we all exist.

This notion of immortality, of having an impervious surface, was a fool’s notion, and I realized what a fool I had been. There were some things some people could handle, and there were some things they could not. I’d heard rumors the number one killer in America is stress, and right then I was taxed beyond my wits. Even hurling myself off a bridge seemed more appealing than dealing with the bullshit at hand. I didn’t want to deal with any of it.

But my family needed me. That kept me going. Whatever doubts I had about how hard the next few days or weeks would be, I kept them in my focus. In my thoughts. And yes, even in my prayers.

In rehab, the one thing they hammered into us was the belief in a higher power. That didn’t necessarily mean we had to believe in God, not in the traditional biblical sense, but we did have to accept that there was something greater out there, some cosmic force driving us all, steering us along. I never submitted to that notion, not completely, but sure—I can admit that there might possibly be something out there, even if it isn’t a person, but rather a floating cosmic force, invisible to the naked eye, responsible for all this madness, a force that can influence outcomes and keep us on the straight and narrow, guiding us along, but only when we really need it, when all other options are exhausted and there’s nothing left but to surrender to the all-knowing and omnipotent force that has gathered us all, collected us like bugs under a jar. I can sort of accept that.

Sort of.

But on the other side of the coin, we make our own luck. We influence our own future. We make decisions, and those decisions push the outcome one way or the other. We live or die by the choices we make.

Ultimately, we are the ones responsible for our own fate.

No one works against us.

That’s what I believed, anyway.

Now I’m not so sure.

I went to Dale because there was simply no one else. I couldn’t talk to Eve; in the event everything Cotton had told me was true, she was a cold-blooded murderer and who knew how she’d handle the fact I knew. I couldn’t risk her finding out, not now, not yet. I couldn’t go to Dinah; she was too young and too fragile, capable of having her mind twisted like a pretzel by this madness, to the point of not twisting back. This was her mother we were talking about. The less she learned the better, and she already knew too much. Couldn’t go to Harper for obvious reasons, and I couldn’t talk to Langford for two reasons: one, I wasn’t bringing my shit down on him or the gym, and two, Harper had gotten to him and I didn’t know what or how much he discovered. I’d already done enough damage at my workplace when I passed out after punching the clock. I supposed I could have gone to Paul, but he had an obligation to his job, a duty, and anything I confided in him would ultimately make its way back to Harper. I hadn’t seen Brennan since my birthday, and who knew what the crazy bastard was up to. Given his nomadic history, he could be in Japan or Ireland right now. No, I had no one except for my neighbor, Dale Armstead, whom, despite our many differences and conflicting viewpoints, I actually enjoyed talking to.

After dinner, I told Eve I needed to take a walk alone in order to clear my head. She didn’t ask questions and kissed me before I walked out the front door. I waited until she was inside and helping Dinah with her homework before heading across the lawn and showing up on Dale’s doorstep.

I knocked and he answered almost immediately, a beer in one hand and the TV remote in the other.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, pushing the storm door open. “Who shit in your cereal?”

“Mind if I come in?” If I sounded frantic, it was because I was.

He seemed to contemplate it for a second, then said, “Sure, sure. Not a problem. Everything all right?”

“Well,” I said, scratching the back of my head, “not really. Not at all, actually.”

He closed the door behind me. “Have a seat at the kitchen table.”

I went directly to the kitchen and sat in the chair closest to the back door. I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head. My nerves felt like a hive of busy bees, buzzing through their daily tasks. My thoughts were broken, snippets of what I’d discovered over the last day. I knew I needed to relax. Calm down. Think clearly. Rationally. But my thoughts were a whirlwind of everything. I couldn’t control where they went next; their paths were random.

“Jumpin’ Jesus,” Dale said, sitting across from me, his eyes keen on my somber expression. He slid a can of beer across the table. I shook my head. “Trust me. You need one.”

I looked at the can knowing damn well it would do nothing to slow my brain. Even if it did, alcohol was a temporary solution. I hadn’t thought about shooting up in a long time, but damn, at that moment I wanted nothing more than to fill my veins with junk and drift away. An itch attacked the crook of my arm and I had to scratch it away.

I shook my head again.

“Suit yourself,” he said, then took the can back. “More for me.”

“I’m a recovering drug addict,” I told him, finally.

He looked at me, his eyes expanding. “Shit, man. You never told me that.”

“I know. It’s not something you announce to the neighborhood.”

“Now I feel like an ass, offering you beer all the time.” He glanced down at the table with remorse. “I’m such an ass.”

“Don’t feel bad. You didn’t know. I should have told you about it. That’s on me, not you.”

“Still.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

“Forget about it.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Dale, I know you never told me about what happened to your family. How they were murdered. I know it’s none of my business…”

He nodded. “It’s not something you announce to the neighborhood, Drew.”

“Touché.” I wiped my forehead. I couldn’t believe I was about to ask him this, but the things I had thought about, the things that were happening…they all seemed connected. I felt like whatever was happening to me and my family had already happened to Dale and his. We were heading down the same long, dark road, and we needed to pull over, ask for directions. “I know I said I didn’t want to know anything, but… Dale, who killed your family?”

He squinted at me, wrinkling his face in a this-tastes-sour expression. “Why are you asking me that?”

I felt a pebble of regret in my throat and I swallowed it, hard. “Because…for some reason…I can’t shake the notion that it somehow ties into this. Into what’s happening in Cedar Mills.”

He glanced around the room. “Drew, my daughter was murdered twelve years ago. Almost seventy miles away. What could this possibly have to do with the person threatening your family?”

“I don’t know.” My daughter was murdered. He didn’t say “family” like he had before. He’d told me his daughter and his wife were murdered. “Wait, your daughter?”

His eyes bounced back and forth as if he’d grown suspicious of the walls. “Yes.”

“What about your wife? You told me she was murdered, too.”

This time, he shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, well, that is what I say.”

“So…she’s not dead?”

He stared at me as if the interrogation were reversed and he was waiting for an answer. The clock on the wall ticked on, breaking up the awkward silence. “Technically, no.”

“Technically?” I slapped the table, probably harder than I meant to. “Dale, she’s either dead or she isn’t.”

“She’s dead to me,” he snapped.

I recoiled as if he’d spit at me.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I just….” His voice was gruff, almost a growl. “After we lost our girl…my wife became a shell. Hollow inside. She stopped talking to me. Said every time she looked into my eyes, she saw her. Our little girl. Our precious baby.”

I turned my head. I felt for him, but he had misled me. No, fuck that. He straight up lied to me.

“She left me, Drew. Plain and simple. I have no idea where she went or even if she’s alive today. Or if the depression won her over and she took her own life.” He squeezed his beer can, crushing it. “Hell, technically we’re still married. Never saw a single legal document about a divorce.”

“Geez, man. I had no idea.”

“That’s right. And you still don’t.”

I leaned forward, my hands coming together as if in prayer, and rested my chin on the tips of my fingers. “Dale, I’m going to ask you a question and I’d like you to answer me. I know you don’t owe me shit and I know this is as personal as it gets, but I need to know.”

He didn’t respond, and I took his silence and his rigid expression as go ahead, asshole, but tread lightly.

“Was your daughter a victim of the Dead Daughter murders?”

His face barely moved after my question was out there, but I saw the recognition in his eyes. He didn’t need to bother with another lie. I saw the truth clear as day, buried behind his pupils. Present. Obvious.

She was. Dale’s daughter was murdered by Marianne and Brian Greenlee.

My wife and her former lover.

Dale slumped back in his seat and sighed like it were his knowing last breath. “Now, how would you come to know a thing about that?”

I didn’t enjoy lying to Dale, but he couldn’t know how I knew. If my wife had killed his daughter twelve years ago, I imagined that would make Dale very upset. Furthermore, if that were the case, I’m surprised Dale didn’t recognize her. Surely there was a trial. He had to have seen her up close. If not, there had to be pictures in the newspaper around the time it had happened. I had raided the Internet for more information since Cotton had told me about Marianne Greenlee and couldn’t find a single picture of her or her husband. I stumbled across a few articles, none of them detailed, all of them leaving out the victims’ names, rendering their value useless. There weren’t many either, which I found odd considering how the media usually eats that shit up. Murders are front page material; two serial killers working in tandem to take out as many peoples’ daughters as they can before their capture should have taken over the fucking world. It was as if the Dead Daughters Murders—titled that by the few articles I did uncover—weren’t newsworthy at all. As if the whole event and everything after it were as routine as a major traffic accident. Mentioned one day, gone and forgotten the next.

I was confounded.

Honestly, it felt like someone wanted it that way. Forgotten. Left as a cliff note in the past. I couldn’t shake the feeling something else was happening here. Cover-up wasn’t the right word; after all, the articles did exist. They were there for all inquiring minds to see. But the lack of details, the lack of names, the lack of sound journalism was what disturbed me. It was like they wanted the community to gloss over this terrible tragedy, forget the horrors they had experienced. Unlike every other murder, terrorist attack, and school shooting that gets crammed down our throats on a daily basis, every juicy, disgusting detail had been removed.

The Dead Daughter murders story was thin. Lacking. Not much of a story at all.

I wondered what their motive was, why things were kept quiet. I also wondered who they were, who was doing the quieting.

When I finished telling Dale that Harper thought the murder of Marcy Branch and the Dead Daughter murders were somehow linked, he only blinked and grunted.

“Yeah, so, I’m not sure where he’s going with the investigation, but that’s what he told me.” Nervously, I swallowed the dry patch in the back of my throat. “So…”

Arms folded across his chest, Dale leaned back in his seat. He glared at me. “Bullshit.”

“Come again?”

“You know more than you’re letting on.”

“Dale, honestly—”

“Spare me the bullshit. You wouldn’t have come here asking about my family, about how they died, if you didn’t know a thing or two. You’d need a reason to ask a thing like that.”

“I just…had a feeling.”

“Did you now?”

I returned his hard stare. “Yes,” I said through my teeth. “I did.”

“You’re a bad liar, Drew. One of the worst I’ve ever met.”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I came here because I wanted to talk. No, I needed to talk. To someone who gets it. To someone who’s been there.”

“You aren’t there, buddy-boy. Nowhere close.”

“I know that, but—” I scoffed, turned my head, and then focused on the ground. This was going sideways fast. “Dale, I’m here because I consider you a friend and I need some advice.”

“You want advice?” he asked, his penetrating eyes filling my veins with ice. “You should walk away.”

“What?” I felt my face tighten, constrict, pull together in confusion. “Walk away? Dale, what the hell—”

“Walk away,” he said again in the same dry tone. “Whatever you got yourself mixed up in here, it isn’t going to end well.”

“Dale, what—”

But just then, I knew. His eyes gave it away, along with his words. He knew. The bastard fucking knew. He knew about Marianne Greenlee. He knew the truth about his next-door neighbor. That she was a killer. His daughter’s killer. How long he had known, I had no idea. Since the day he moved in three years ago? Since before that? It was possible. More than possible. Likely.

Hell, maybe this had been his plan all along.

Then reality settled in. Clearer skies prevailed. Now I knew the truth: Dale Armstead was the one stalking my family.

The room spun a little and some acidic flavor leaked onto the tip of my tongue. I wiped my eyes hoping to clear my vision, but that did nothing except draw a blurry smear over my sight. That moment, Dale’s head looked warped, a colorless stroke on a dark canvas. I blinked a couple times and the blurriness subsided, but I still felt something there, patrolling the space under my eyelids.

“I don’t understand,” I said, feeling weightless. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so hollow. “Please, Dale. I don’t understand.”

“I think you do,” he said, smiling now. It wasn’t a welcoming, warming smile. It was an I’ve-got-you-right-where-I-want-you grin that prickled the hairs on my arm. “I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on.”

“Dale, there’s been a huge misunderstanding.”

“Has there?”

“Yes. Let me explain.”

“Please do. I’d love to hear it.”

“Someone has mistaken my wife for a woman named Marianne Greenlee.” I shook my head. “She’s the Dead Daughters murderer.”

“Yes. I know who she is.”

“It’s a misunderstanding. You see that now. Don’t you?” I was shivering, but it wasn’t that cold. The temperature was normal. My skin hardened as if someone had rubbed ice cubes on my flesh. “Don’t you?”

He sipped his beer can until it was empty, then squeezed the aluminum so it folded in half. He tossed the destroyed can over his shoulder, in the direction of the recycling bucket. It missed, landing a foot short.

“You know, Drew, I thought the same goddamn thing,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “I thought the same goddamn thing when I was down the shore some years back. I was on the boardwalk, looking out across the ocean, contemplating killing myself and musing about just how I’d do it. A knife down my wrists. Overdose on pills. Tie fucking cinderblocks to my ankles and jump into the bay. Or a good ol’ fashioned hanging. There were so many choices and applications, I just didn’t know what would be best. In the end I guess it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead, and that’s the result. How you get there is moot. Right?”

I stayed perfectly still. No sudden movements. I pictured him holding a gun under the table like in an old James Bond movie, targeting my testicles.

“Yeah, dead is dead all right,” said Dale. He examined me a moment and must have noticed I was about three seconds away from filling my pants with shit because his smile stretched just a little bit farther. “Anyway, I was there, on the boardwalk. I heard a couple and their young daughter pass by, laughing, having a grand ol’ time. You know, like I used to have with Christine and my family. Then I look at them. Really looked at them. Closely. And I noticed her. Not instantly. I did a double-take. Stared at her a while. The longer I looked, the more I was convinced. It was her. The woman who killed my daughter, and essentially, my entire family.”

“Dale, she couldn’t—”

“Shut up!” he snarled, pounding the table with both fists. Cords appeared on his neck, wires of veins pronounced on his forehead. I thought his head might explode. His forehead turned the color of watered-down merlot. “Shut up and let me finish.”

I did as he asked, picturing his finger curled around the trigger, toying with it gently. I waited for the bullet to rip through my groin. It didn’t happen, but I continued to brace for the explosion of pain, anyway.

“I followed you guys home that day. Stayed two cars behind to avoid suspicion. Followed you all the way through Cedar Hills. I sat outside your house that entire afternoon. Mostly crying. Mostly. The rest of the time I spent contemplating breaking down your door, cutting your wife’s throat open the same way she drew the blade against my daughter’s.”

“Dale. Please. You’re confused.”

“No, you are.” His lips quivered, and I knew better than to interrupt him again. “A few months later, what do you know—the house next door is up for sale. I bought it the same day it went up, full asking price. I wanted to be close. I wanted revenge, but I had to be sure, you know? I had to be sure Marianne Greenlee was free as a bird and not locked up in some high-security psychiatric hospital, like the lawyers and government representatives assured me she would be for the remainder of her sick, miserable, twisted life. See, Marianne Greenlee never spent a day in prison. You wanna know why?”

I didn’t respond.

“Because she’s crazy, that’s why. She’s fucking nuts. Pled insanity, sentenced to live out her life in some facility based in Colorado, or some such place, her and her whacko husband.”

Sadness washed over me, but not for me or the sake of my family. I was sad for Dale. How hurt he was. How broken he was.

But it wasn’t my fault. Nor was it Eve’s.

This was madness.

“Dale, I’m sorry about what happened to you, I really am.”

“Don’t say it, neighbor.”

“But you have to know Eve didn’t do this. She didn’t. You know her. Fuck, you’ve been over our house for dozens of parties and small gatherings. You’ve carried on whole conversations with her.” I wiped away a few tears that had started to form in the corners of my eyes. “Dale, you know her.”

He shook his head. “It’s the damnedest thing.” Scratching his scalp, he shut his eyes, as if meditating on everything that happened. “It’s her. But it isn’t. When I looked into your wife’s eyes, I see no recognition there. I see nothing of the malice, of the hatred, of the insanity I saw when I faced Marianne Greenlee before the courts. I see nothing of that in your wife.”

A wave of relief crashed into me, almost knocking me off the chair. “See, that’s what I’ve been telling you.”

He put up his hand, silencing me. “But it is her, Drew. It’s her. I swear it. I swear it on my dead daughter, may the Devil defile her if I’m wrong.”

I didn’t know what to believe, but I didn’t exactly believe him. I wanted to because I wanted answers. I wanted to know exactly what the hell was happening in my home, to my precious family. But there were things that didn’t add up. Things that made no sense. It didn’t explain who sent the picture of Marcy Branch disguised as my daughter, or the note left in my locker. It didn’t explain a lot. In the end, Dale knew almost as little as I did.

Unless he didn’t. Unless he knew more than he was letting on.

Unless he was the one terrorizing our home.

“Dale…” I said, my throat catching. “Are you the one who broke into my daughter’s room? Stole her clothes? Killed Marcy Branch? Sent me that picture?”

He glared at me, and I swore I saw something sinister shadow over his features.

I bit my lip, then said, “Is this revenge for what you think my wife did?”

He craned his neck until it cracked. “No, Drew. I’m not a monster.”

A heavy breath exploded from my lungs as if I’d forgotten how to expel air and suddenly remembered.

“But I think I know who did,” he said, his eyes glancing down at the table.

“Who?” I asked anxiously.

His eyes found mine again and locked on. “Brian Greenlee. Marianne’s husband.”

“What?”

“They told me he hadn’t survived, but they said a lot of things. I think, like Marianne, he’s out there somewhere. Free as a fuckin’ bird. And he’s coming back for her. For his love. To finish things off. Wrap this little thing up with a nice bow.”

It couldn’t be possible, but at the same time I couldn’t think of a better theory.

“And the first thing standing in his way, Drew…” His hand lifted up from the table and one finger extended in my direction. “…is you.”

A Letter Home

(IV)

Marianne,

We move like the current, you and I, free and in perfect rhythm. We pour over rocks and sand and the life that swims within us. We make our own rules but still have to abide by others’. That’s life, I guess. I’ve never been good at life. But I was always good at it with you.

Sometimes I think of the babysitters. All of them. The daughters, too. I close my eyes and see their faces, staring at me through the windows of my log cabin, the one I escape to when it all becomes too much, when reality comes crashing down on me like an anvil in those old cartoons. The log cabin in my mind, surrounded by endless woods. But sometimes the endless woods are populated by ghosts. My mother’s out there, stalking the trees, swinging from branch to branch. My father, too. They have no power over me, though, not anymore. I’ve beaten them, you see. The day I met you and ran away, they no longer mattered.

We had a great life, Marianne. So perfect.

Their faces fill up the glass, their dead white eyes peering into my soul, looking to see what they can take, and they can have it all as there’s not much left.

Our life was perfect. She was perfect. Our little bundle of joy.

I’ll give them pieces of me, but they can never have me complete.

She was precious, our daughter. I loved the way she looked up at us with those little buggy eyes, the ones we joked how alien-like they were. So precious and perfect and impossible to look away from.

I’ll cut pieces of myself like birthday cake, a slice for each ghost.

The babysitters are dead, their heads open and bleeding. Their parts scattered like a junkyard for useless cunts. No one will fuck them anymore. No one will ever leak their seed into them, fill them with life. Their bellies will never swell with existence. They can’t give birth when they’re dead and their parts are scattered, strewn about the houses of filth and gore. They do not deserve the right. They do not deserve such a beautiful, wonderful experience. They do not deserve the choice to become a parent of their own.

They lost it all when they killed our precious daughter, Marianne.

That’s why we did it.

That’s why we cut and mutilate.

And that’s why we must continue.

I know you’re out there and you’re better and you have a new life and a new name and probably have a new precious daughter who fills you with as much love as our sweet little one did, but you need to snap out of it. Realize that it isn’t her. Rise up. Take your life back. There’s no sense in living in the shadow of someone else. It’s bullshit. All of it. Whatever Cotton did to us, it isn’t right. It isn’t how we were meant to live. He can’t push us back. We need to take control. We need to breathe again. We need to live.

I know Cotton says you’re doing great and you’re okay with how things are, the situation he calls it, but I don’t believe him. I know you, Marianne. I know what drives you. We are the same, you and I, remember? We move in perfect rhythm. What drives you drives me. It’s not too late. You can break me out of this place, this catacomb that Cotton has sent me to. Only you can break me free, Marianne. No one else. You know this.

Be my other. Not hers.

It’s time for me to come home. I can only do it with you at my side, though.

Killing with me.

Living with me.

Living in me.

Loving with me.

The dead are starting to fill up my windows, Marianne.

Don’t be one of them.

Live in me.

Together, we can make things right. We can show them what we are. Not all monsters should have to hide in the shadows. We can show Cotton how wrong he was. We can prove his ways false. Wouldn’t that be great, Marianne? Yes, I think it would.

Live in me.

Breathe in me.

We can kill them all. Her and everyone else like her.

We can kill Evelyn Mortimer/Lowery.

But let’s have a little fun first.

Love,

Brian

Chapter Eighteen

I got back to the house well after dark and Dinah was already down for the count. I snuck inside quietly through the garage, maneuvering my way through the laundry room in the dark. I stopped dead when I heard Eve pacing around the kitchen, quickly, like she did when something was bothering her.

Then I heard voices.

At first, I thought there were two voices, a man and Eve’s, but I wasn’t sure. The dining room stood between the laundry room and the kitchen, plenty of distance to confuse my ears. Plus, I had closed the door at the same time and even though the metal smacked softly against the weatherstripping of the jamb, it still muffled out some of Eve’s conversation.

Even though we were a room apart, I distinctly heard my wife say, “I think my husband knows.”

I immediately went still, waiting to hear what came next. Blood froze in my veins, sending chills cascading down my arms and legs, lifting every hair on my body.

There was a stretch of silence where I stood there, my hand on the door frame, leaning into the dining room, turning one ear at the opening.

Did she hear me enter? Was she waiting for me to make my entrance into the kitchen?

I didn’t know. I thought I had been pretty quiet entering the house, but without any background noise, I assumed she’d heard something. Unless she was too wrapped up in her secret conversation and oblivious to the outside world around her. Anyway, I was too scared to find out, so I stayed there, leaning against the jamb, next to the small wall rack where we kept our keys.

“I have to go,” I heard her whisper.

There were no more words after that. At least not to our mystery guest.

Slowly, I pushed myself away from the doorjamb, putting one heavy foot in front of the other, feeling like my soles were made of concrete block. Somehow, I managed to make it through the dining room and into the kitchen without tripping or stumbling, without using the table for support. I felt a little sick to my stomach, as if I’d gone on a soda bender, and when I finally made it into the kitchen and settled my eyes on my wife, the urge to vomit became overwhelmingly strong.

“Hi,” she said, offering me her widest smile, my favorite of her smiles.

“Hi,” I said, probably looking terrible and sickly.

“Everything okay?”

I ignored her question and returned with one of my own. “Who were you talking to?”

She held up the cordless house phone. “Jen from around the block. She was checking in to see how we were doing. The neighborhood is rampant with all sorts of crazy rumors. She asked me if there was anything I could set straight. So I told her the truth.”

My eyes must have bugged because she immediately went into defense mode.

“Well, not all of it, of course. Just what she needed to set things straight, to temper the insane things people are saying about us.” She was acting nervous and speaking fast. Since I’d known her, she’d never spoken this fast. She was always careful with her words, articulate, her delivery always tranquil. This was not like her. Something had her frazzled and I was willing to bet it wasn’t the goddamn rumors floating around the neighborhood. “I only told her we had a break-in and that the police were dealing with it.” She paused to catch her breath. “Speaking of the police, have you heard from Harper? The detective? What about Paul? Any news?” She batted her eyelashes.

I shook my head with zero energy.

“Hmm. I wonder if they have any leads.”

“I don’t know.” I remembered what Harper had told me about Marcy Branch. “Actually, Harper did call.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, he wanted to ask you about Marcy Branch.”

Her eyes slid side to side.

“Said she’d been a patient of yours at the hospital. Broken arm or something.”

“Really?” She sounded genuinely surprised, but I got the sense she was faking it. “I…I don’t recall ever seeing her or hearing her name. Strange coincidence, huh?”

I nodded. “Yeah, totally strange.”

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked, changing the subject. “You look…out of it?”

“I’m fine,” I said with absolutely no enthusiasm.

“You sure? You look a little under the weather. Are you hungry? You want me to make you something? A sandwich? Oh, I know. Those vegan pizzas you love so much! I think I have one.”

I shook my head again. As I did, I contemplated asking her about Marianne Greenlee. I wondered what she’d say if I accused her of being a rehabilitated serial killer. I pictured her grabbing the knife closest to her—the big kitchen knife the size of a banana—and thrusting the blade into my gut. I imagined her slicing me open and letting my organs fall out, slopping onto the floor. In my mind, I saw Dinah discovering me gutted.

I fought off my imagination and tucked the images away in the back of my mind.

“No,” I told her before she could ask me if I was okay again. “I’m fine. Really. Just need some sleep. Been a long week.”

“Well…” she said, her smile fading. Eyes darting to the left and right, she said, “Okay, I’ll be up in a few minutes. I just have to take care of something.”

I didn’t have the heart to ask her what “things” needed to be taken care of, “things” that couldn’t wait until the morning. Part of it was because I was too terrified to know. I wondered how long I could do it, how long I could keep playing the part of the oblivious husband. Judging from my reaction tonight, I knew it wouldn’t be much longer.

Sooner or later, it’d all come to a head. Hell would break loose at Casa de Lowery, and I wasn’t fully prepared—mentally or physically—to handle what waited at the end of the road.

I plodded up the stairs and went directly to bed. I decided to sleep on a few things. I nodded off seconds after my head hit the pillow.

I dreamed of dead babysitters and dead daughters and their faces filling up the windows of my cabin in the woods.

The next morning came all too quickly. I awoke in the haze of the early morning sun beaming through the bedroom window. The space next to me was empty; the body that had created the divot had vanished. I checked my phone and realized I had forgotten to set my alarm, which meant that I had also forgotten to drive Dinah to school. A sticky note tacked to the lampshade on the nightstand informed me that Eve had my back, and that she had taken our daughter.

I pushed myself to a sitting position and swung my feet off the bed. Hanging my head, my thoughts continued to worm through me. My brain felt encased in a suffocating fog, cutting off the part of my mind where happiness originated, where the good thoughts cooked. All I could think about was chaos and madness, Marianne Greenlee and Brian Greenlee, and what they had done to some neighborhood babysitters. Daughters. Kids. Teenagers. Adults. How many lives they’d ruined. Last night, my dreams were filled with their faces. Their dead, pale faces, which floated between the windows of an old abandoned cabin in the woods on the outskirts of Hell.

My heart raced when my phone went off, blaring AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” the song I’d chosen as my ringer five years ago. If I’d had known then how apropos it’d end up being, I would have selected something else. I scooped it off the nightstand and looked down to see who was calling me so early, though, if I thought about it long enough, I could have narrowed it down to a few names.

A number with a Colorado area code flashed.

Cotton, I thought.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Mr. Lowery,” Dr. Cotton replied, his voice low and rushed. He sounded a bit out of breath, as if maybe he’d just finished a light jog. “I don’t have much time to explain and I couldn’t wait for you to contact me. Did you read the materials I provided you?”

“Yeah, I read them. Still processing everything. It’s…well, it’s a lot to absorb.”

“And you understand what’s happened here?”

“Yeah—I mean, no, not everything.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, as if he were thinking simultaneously. “We really need to meet again. I can explain better in person. The first thing I want you to know, Mr. Lowery, is that none of this is Evelyn’s fault.”

“Eve?”

“Don’t blame her.”

“But she’s… Isn’t she a killer?”

“No, not at all.” He paused. “Didn’t you read everything?”

“I skimmed it.”

I pictured him closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Eve is not the killer,” he finally said. “Marianne is.”

“But…the mugshot.”

“Yes, Mr. Lowery, I really do wish you’d listen.” He sighed, probably more theatrical than he needed to be. “Evelyn is innocent. Marianne is the killer.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that your wife is two people occupying one body.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Jesus can’t help you. Only I can.”

“Well, what do we do?”

“We need to meet. Soon. Today. Now, preferably. I can elaborate when we speak in person. Do you know where your wife is?”

“At work.”

“Good. I think it’s only a matter of time before Evelyn loses the war raging within her. I know you have questions—”

“Did you know that my neighbor’s daughter was killed by Marianne Greenlee?”

No hesitation on his end. “Yes, we did. We’ve been monitoring the situation very carefully, Mr. Lowery.”

“We? Who’s we? And what situation is that?”

“These are questions that we can explore in person. Please. I’m headed to another park. This one is on the edge of town. It borders the forest separating—”

“Castle Park,” I said, knowing the place well. We had taken Dinah there from time to time when the parks closer to our house had become “boring.” It got its name because the main playground was designed to resemble a thirteenth-century castle. “I know it.”

“Meet me there. Twenty minutes.”

“Okay, but tell me one thing. Tell me you know exactly where Brian Greenlee is.”

Another pause, and as the seconds ticked on, I didn’t think he’d answer. After about ten seconds, I thought he’d left the line.

“As a matter a fact, I do,” he said in a calming voice that soothed my nerves.

“Oh, thank God.”

“He’s buried in a cemetery about two miles from where he and your wife committed some very atrocious acts almost twelve years ago.”

I pulled into the Castle Park parking lot about twenty-five minutes later and parked on the east side, near the woods where Cotton had told me to meet him. The park itself was crowded, which surprised me considering it was a school day, and I had trouble finding a close spot. I got lucky and found a soccer mom van pulling out as I cruised down the third row from the front. The squealing laughter and genuine joy coming from the playing children filled the air, and I heard them with perfect clarity even with my windows up and the engine running.

Once parked, I got out and quickly scanned the area for Dr. Cotton, whom I expected to be there already.

But there wasn’t any sign of him.

I wandered around the edge of the park, surveying the area and spotting nothing but running kids and chatty parents, the waving of tree branches as the wind whistled through their leaves.

Then, I turned toward the lot, seeing if I could recognize the white van with Colorado plates. I went down each row and examined every car. It wasn’t until I turned down the fifth row that I saw it—Cotton’s van, the same one he’d parked in my daughter’s school’s lot.

I approached the van and as I neared, the hum of the engine grew louder. I expected to find him in the driver’s seat, perched behind his newspaper, engaged with some trivial local story, but that wasn’t the case. The seat was empty, however, the engine was still running. It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t think much of it. I thought maybe he’d run to the bathroom and left the van on; this was a nice park in a great neighborhood and this area seldom saw criminal activity, especially in broad daylight. There was really nothing to worry about in that department so I assumed he went to piss with the intention of coming right back.

As I waited, I examined the van’s interior décor, or what one would likely call—an absolute mess. Cotton must have been on the road awhile because fast food burger wrappers and empty twenty-ounce soda bottles littered the floor, causing the mats to remain unseen. There were papers on the front seat, carpeting the fabric as well. They were paperclipped together, stacks and stacks of folders and important-looking records. The official documents had the Neurotronix logo stamped in the top right-hand corner. I couldn’t read the small font through the window, and I didn’t want to open the door because with my luck Cotton would come back at that precise moment and see me breaking into his private property, or more accurately—the property belonging to the company calling itself Neurotronix. I didn’t want to get into an altercation with the man—after all, it seemed like I needed him. I needed him to tell me the truth. To set things straight. To help me deal with the situation my family had been dragged into.

To fix it.

I gave the man ten minutes and he still wasn’t back. I scanned the area again, starting with the location he said he’d be—right near the entrance into the woods. I saw the leafy opening and although it wasn’t designed for people to enter and travel the woods by, people still did so on occasion, impromptu walks through the quiet, tranquil forests that Castle Park offered. Those people were primarily gluttons for punishment and were apparently okay with contracting Lyme disease because those woods were heavily populated with ticks, especially this time of year in the months before winter.

I drifted across the parking lot, toward the small entrance into the woods. I guessed Cotton could have wandered inside; maybe the restroom was closed and he so badly needed to relieve his bladder that he bounced into the woods, got lost or turned around, and was now struggling to find his way back. I didn’t think it was all that likely, but I literally had nothing else to go on. Besides, me hanging around a parking lot next to a creepy, running white van with a bunch of children around didn’t exactly do well for my image. I wondered how many observant parents had already caught onto that and were probing me with concerned eyes. It probably wouldn’t be long before one of them put in a call to the local authorities, which I wouldn’t have minded all that much, considering the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Something bad was about to happen. I knew it. I felt the storm fast approaching; the smell of chaos was in the air and it was bold.

Despite this grave notion, I walked into the opening and took a peek inside the woods, anyway. The path was much wider than I expected, easily enough room to support at least one explorer—maybe two—without ever coming into contact with low-hanging foliage. I glanced down at the dirt path and saw a stamped boot print. Then another. Two next to that. There were two sets of feet, one of them possibly belonging to Dr. Alfred T. Cotton. There weren’t any signs of him ahead, but the path curved around a cluster of trees, hidden by tall oaks and pines, their leaves still holding onto a good amount of green, a surprising amount considering how deep into fall we were.

I followed the path around the bend, and ahead I could make out a small clearing, lit up by sunshine. The dirt beneath my feet had become harder with compact earth and brushed over with fallen leaves, ones that had browned and curled, making it more difficult to spot the prints, but it didn’t really matter—there was only one direction the explorers could have headed, unless they decided to take an ill-advised detour through tick country. I kept heading down the path, toward the illuminated opening.

My heart did some funny things in those next few moments, those precious seconds that caused adrenaline to flood my veins. That feeling of unknowing, that lingering dread, continued to sit at the bottom of my stomach like a heavy meal. The closer I got to the clearing, the worse I felt. Something told me to turn around, and a different something told me to keep going, press on, see this thing through.

I wish I had listened to that first something.

I heard the buzzing of flies before I reached the clearing. When the sunlight filled my eyes, I used my hand as a visor. The small shadow allowed me to see what had been left for me to find, and when my eyes locked onto the discovery, I felt those feelings in my stomach, the ones that had weighed me down, rush up my throat and exit my mouth. I turned my head and puked into a cluster of weeds and bushes. The next wave of vomit came quicker than I expected and I tossed whatever I had left in three quick episodes.

Once I was depleted, I turned back and faced the horror.

On a standalone tree in the center of the clearing, Dr. Alfred T. Cotton hung, his wrists bound to a branch approximately ten feet off the ground. His stomach had been slashed open and ropes of intestines spilled through the ragged incision, hanging out like a crowded nest of pink pythons. Whoever had done this also sliced open his neck, spilling a bucket’s worth of red down his shirt, drenching the rest of his clothes. His fisherman’s hat had fallen to the ground at some point during the altercation and landed next to the coil of intestines that reached the grassy surface. The man’s eyes were wide, peering into worlds unknown. The look on his face told me he felt the rush of pain swell up within him in the seconds before his demise. And it had hurt. God, it must have hurt.

On his forehead, the killer had carved two words: DEAD GOD.

I stumbled closer and forced myself to glance at the gory attraction. When I managed to drag myself within a few feet of the dead doctor, I noticed his mouth was open and something was poking out of it. Something small and white and crumpled.

A piece of paper.

A note.

I tugged on his leg hoping to pull him down. The thin rope around his wrists was the only thing keeping him up there and I figured it wouldn’t take any real strength to pull him down. But did I really want to? Of course not. After all, that’d be tampering with evidence and I’d get my fingerprints all over the crime scene. And I didn’t want to give Harper and his growing—albeit senseless—suspicion any more credence. Instead of bringing the dead man down from his invisible cross, I decided to climb the tree and go to him.

The climb was easy, and I probably exerted the same amount of energy if I had tugged Cotton down. I grabbed onto the branch and swung myself across, wrapping my legs around the trunk’s solid extension. I shimmied my way down the branch and over to the hanged man. Cautiously, I plucked the note out of his mouth, being extremely careful not to brush against his lips. I didn’t want my DNA anywhere near there.

But I had to know what the note said.

I had to.

I hopped to the ground and unfolded the note as greedily as a kid might open their favorite candy on Halloween. The words inside were simple and direct.

Etheridge,

Had my fun, now it’s over. I’m going to kill your daughter, motherfucker.

Brian

Gooseflesh rippled over my skin. My bones quivered. The trees rustled with the wind, and I felt the breeze blow through my veins.

A storm was coming indeed.

Then, something moved in the forest behind me.

Chapter Nineteen

I rushed back to the car without looking back over my shoulder. My heart beat so spastically I thought it’d give out. I felt lightheaded and on the verge of passing out. Either I heard footfalls behind me, crunching the scattered dead leaves, or I imagined them. Either way, they motivated me to keep my pace and drove me back to the car in record time.

The second I reached my car, I fiddled around for my cell phone. No one had emerged from the woods, so I figured I’d been alone and the anxiety that came with my gruesome discovery caused me to see shadows and hear footsteps. My fingers were trembling so much I had trouble punching the name HARPER into the keypad. I managed, and a few seconds later I heard the detective’s voice in my ear.

“Lowery,” he answered, sounding none too pleased. Like an irritated teacher who’d told his students to pay attention a thousand times over.

I opened my mouth but the words wouldn’t come.

“Lowery? You there?”

“I-I… I’m here.”

“You okay? Sound like you got your dick caught in a zipper.”

“H-he’s dead.”

A pause. A breath. Then, “Who’s dead?”

“C-Cotton.”

Another obligatory bout of silence as he allowed this to sink in. “The doctor. The guy in the van. You’re telling me he’s dead?”

“Y-yes.”

“How? Where are you?” And then, “Are you okay?”

“I s-saw him. Dead.”

“Where’re you at?”

I gave him the precise location.

“Okay, I’ll be right there. Don’t do anything, touch anything, and for Christ’s sakes, keep yourself together.” He hung up.

I did everything he said except that last part.

When Harper returned from the crime scene with a few friends, I told him everything I had learned up to that point. Everything Cotton had told me about my wife, about who she might be, about the Dead Daughter murders, Brian Greenlee, his letters to Marianne, and my next-door neighbor who happened to be linked to the entire clusterfuck. When I finished, Harper glared at me, a look I never wish to receive from anybody ever again in my entire life.

“You knew all this,” he said, grinding his teeth together, “and you didn’t say a goddamn word of it to me.”

Paul happened to be within earshot, must have heard the anger rising in his voice, and came jogging over. He stepped beside us.

“Easy there, Harper,” Paul said.

“He lied to me,” Harper told him, his upper lip twitching.

“I didn’t lie,” I said, my only real defense. And I didn’t, technically. Okay, so I omitted a few things, but I was only trying to protect my wife. My wife, who I had believed was truly innocent in all of this, had clearly been confused with someone else. A mix-up. A mistake. A simple misunderstanding.

I think my husband knows…

I didn’t exactly feel that way anymore.

“Oh no?” Harper stamped his foot on the blacktop. “What do you call hiding evidence? That’s lying, pal.”

Paul put a finger on his chest. “Calm down, Harper. Don’t cause a scene.”

I laughed because there was already a scene taking place at Castle Park. The parking lot was littered with cop cars from two separate jurisdictions, the park itself crawling with authority figures and plain-dressed officers alike. The entire area was being roped off by the authorities, the yellow tape unraveling around the entrance into the woods. I assumed they had already begun working on Cotton’s hanged body, getting him down from his cross.

(DEAD GOD)

Concerned parents and nosy onlookers remained a safe distance from the chaos, their faces stained with dread as they engaged in how-can-this-happen-in-our-neighborhood banter. Red and blue lights bounced off the trees, those gathered there, and the entire park.

I was still shaking.

“I’m sorry,” I said, hanging my head. “I should have told you.”

“Yes,” Harper growled. “You damn well should have.”

My apology seemed to have calmed him down, and Paul felt comfortable enough to walk away and attend to other matters.

Harper sat on the back of the ambulance next to me. “I get it.”

I turned to him, still shivering. “Y-you do?”

“Yes. You wanted to protect her.”

“Y-yes.”

Harper popped a smoke into his mouth and lit up. “There’s enough evidence in the van to support your story. At least, partially. There’s still a ton of questions I have for you—would have had a ton for Mr. Cotton, too, but, well, you know…” He sucked on his cancer stick, inhaled, then gusted smoke like fried machinery. “It appears Neurotronix is a neurological research company based in Colorado. Big place on acres of private property. Maximum security. Seems they even have government contracts. I saw official seals on some of the letterheads.”

“Cotton worked for the government?”

“Possibly. I don’t have all the background on him yet. I’m just going off what my men found in the van.”

“What were they doing?”

“Well…” He frowned as he took a drag from the cigarette. “Nearest I can see, some kind of experimental surgeries involving people with multiple personality disorders.”

“Multiple personality disorders?”

“Hm-mm.”

I didn’t understand, not right away. The information should have been a clue to open this whole thing up, but I still didn’t get it. It was right there, all the answers, yet I still felt clueless.

“Seems this Marianne Greenlee, who indeed looks oddly enough like your wife, visited this place. Same with her husband at the time, one Brian Greenlee.”

“I don’t get it.” My head pounded and I wished I had my pills with me. It was hard to concentrate. The lights from the cruisers were starting to have their effect on me. “They both had multiple personality disorders?”

“Not quite.” Drawing another lungful of the bad stuff, he gritted his teeth. “According to the documents, they weren’t just interested in multiple personalities, but schizophrenics, psychotics, whackadoodles of all shapes and sizes. You name it, they had it. This place was like a zoo for the mentally insane.”

I couldn’t believe it.

“The letters from Brian Greenlee. Were they in there?”

Harper nodded. “A few, yeah. Real charmer. How’d your wife get so lucky?”

I shot him a warning glance.

“Sorry. Poor time for humor, I suppose.”

A part of me wanted him to choke on his cigarette. He didn’t of course, and kept puffing away.

“So Brian Greenlee…he’s dead, right? I mean, Cotton told before…” I nodded to the woods. “…he told me Brian Greenlee was dead. That he was buried in a cemetery in North Jersey.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“What is it?” The way he spoke sliced and diced my nerves. “What?”

“It’s true, Brian Greenlee did die. When, I’m not so certain. But, according to the research conducted by one Doctor Alfred Thaddeus Cotton, Brian Greenlee’s body expired, but his mind did not.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I, not fully. But from what I gather…it seems like Marianne Greenlee and Brian Greenlee are two peas in the same pod, so to speak.”

“Huh?”

Harper wiped his face with his palm. “Jesus Christ, kid. You’re ‘bout as smart as a box of rocks. Let me spell it out for you—your wife isn’t just Marianne Greenlee.”

“She isn’t?” My head pounded. Flesh crawled with chills. Everything inside me felt increasingly numb.

“No, she ain’t. According to our dead friend at the tree back there, Marianne Greenlee and Brian Greenlee became the same fucking person.”

I skimmed the same documents Harper had only a few minutes prior. In them, Doctor Cotton and his team of neurological surgeons embarked on an experimental procedure, operating on the brain of known serial murderer Marianne Greenlee, who’d gotten off on the charges easily by successfully pleading insanity. Cotton and many of those employed by Neurotronix, as well as prominent members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Psychological Department of Research and Analytics, believed multiple personality disorder had a permanent cure, something that wouldn’t require the patient to exist solely on pills and medicines and injections. They believed there was a way to block the secondary personality from emerging. And the only way to do this was by open surgery, where they’d plant an electronic device the size of a deer tick in the frontal lobe. The device emitted a signal, a pulse, that, in theory, would block the alternate identity from coming forth and controlling the body and mind. It would even stop an identity from coming forth during times of stress or anxious situations, or trigger moments, when the mind was most vulnerable to possession.

Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it? Having your mind hijacked? It was a possession, plain and simple.

“But the surgery didn’t go according to plan,” Harper said, fiddling around his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. I almost asked him for one, though I hadn’t smoked since my bad days.

I kept reading. Harper was right. The surgery had been a rousing success, but the results weren’t what they expected. Yes, the little electronic device did exactly what it was designed to do and blocked Brian Greenlee from coming through, from controlling Marianne Greenlee’s head, but it also created another identity. A third person. Three people, three identities, sharing one brain, one body.

“There was a third…” I said aloud.

Harper flipped the pages for me. He pointed to the name of the third person.

I read it aloud. “Evelyn Mortimer.” The pages suddenly became bricks, and I almost let them fall to the ground.

“Evelyn Mortimer,” he echoed. “Your wife.”

“She’s…not even a real person.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that.” Lighting another smoke, he leaned back against the ambulance. “Keep reading,” he said.

So I did.

From the Desk of Dr. Alfred T. Cotton

To Whom it May Concern,

In light of recent events, recent successes and recent failures, I feel I must put our discoveries into words. Yes, for the need of further funding but also because our results warrant detailed documentation and for the information to come straight from the horse’s mouth—in short, I want to tell you a story. A story about a woman named Marianne Greenlee, convicted serial killer, and her husband, Brian Greenlee, who murdered twelve young women ranging from ages six to twenty-two. You may have heard about them, The Dead Daughter murders, but chances are, you did not. And there’s a good reason for that (which I will explain in this letter).

In short, I want to tell you about Marianne Greenlee. I want to tell you about Brian Greenlee. And I want to tell you about a bright young woman named Evelyn Mortimer.

But their stories are one, really, and it begins with several murders.

On the night of June 5th, 1996, Marianne and Brian Greenlee, a couple of troubled youths who’d turned out somewhat okay, who’d grown up and made decent lives for themselves, left their infant daughter with a neighborhood babysitter so they could spend a romantic evening out. When they returned home, their infant was dead. Needless to say, Marianne and Brian Greenlee didn’t handle the discovery well. No ordinary couple would but the Greenlees weren’t an ordinary couple. They were damaged people. Their history of mental illness was well documented, in fact, they had met each other during one of their many stints at a juvenile psychiatric center, only a few years prior to that insane night.

To say they “snapped” is an understatement. It remains unclear how planned their reaction to their daughter’s death was. Marianne claims Brian had discussed their revenge in great detail. She remembers not being in control much, going along with whatever he told her because, at that point, she was numb. Numb from the life that left her less than twenty-four hours before the killing began. They started with the girl who’d been tasked to watch their precious daughter that night, killing her in the living room of her parents’ house. Chopped her up into six pieces and left her parts strewn haphazardly on the carpet. Next, they went up the block to another known neighborhood babysitter. Stabbed her to death in her sleep. Killed her kid sister too. Parents never heard them enter. Woke up the next morning to bloody bedsheets and screams.

I’ll omit the gory details of their other atrocious acts.

Brian Greenlee had a list, so Marianne has told me. Brian doesn’t say much on the subject. According to Marianne’s account, they rode across town, picking houses with no lights, where the parents went to bed early. Brian had held down a job as the high school janitor, where ninety percent of the victims attended, so it’s my belief the kills were more calculated than everyone tends to believe. In other words, I believe Marianne when she says Brian did his research. I believe her when she says she was just along for the ride. That she was lost in the misery of what happened the night before. That the loss of her child cracked her open, letting out the evil within her. I don’t condone her actions, however, I do understand them.

The night ended with more bloodshed.

Police trapped the Greenlees in their apartment and sent in a small tactical team. Brian Greenlee was shot six times. Marianne did not incur any injuries as she claims she’d been huddled in the corner, screaming while it all went down.

When Brian was on the floor of their apartment, bleeding to death, struggling to hold onto his last breath, he looked at Marianne and smiled. She crawled over to him and kissed him on the lips.

“My brain went funny,” she told me. “Fuzzy. It went fuzzy. It was like a power surge. The lights flickered, not in the room, but inside my mind. I know that makes no sense.”

And it didn’t at the time, but now, knowing what I know, it makes perfect sense.

Here’s where things go off the rails, so to speak. I’ll ask you, good people of the board, to keep an open mind. There are a great many mysteries in the world, and the human brain and how it operates is still beyond what we can learn through science and technology. I’ll ask you to open yourself to new possibilities, however absolutely improbable—no, impossible—the events of which I’m about to relay may seem.

Now imagine this:

Imagine your thoughts as a virus. A virus can be transferred from one individual to another. Maybe through touch or the swapping of bodily or airborne particles which we can’t see with our naked eyes. But imagine your thoughts—everything you hold in your mind, your perception of yourself both physically and mentally—imagine them as something you could impose on another human being, like a common cold or herpes. A gift, and not necessarily a desirable one.

That’s what happened when Brian Greenlee kissed his wife right before he died.

Conscious transference. That’s our name for it.

You may be ready to crumple up this letter and toss it in the wastebasket, however, let me beg you. I know each one of you quite well, and I hope being proponents of science and advocates for advances in our field will prevent you from doing just that, from dismissing my claims. From dismissing my truth.

For me to come forward with this outlandish hypothesis, I’d need to have some proof. Right? After all, I’m a man of integrity and science, and like you, I have a duty to the scientific community, and making wild claims without proof is apt to have certain credentials and accolades revoked. So proof I have, and proof I will give you.

“I can’t always feel him in there,” Marianne Greenlee would say. “But sometimes I can. Just hanging out. In the back of my mind.”

But how did this happen? you wonder. I’d wondered the same thing. How did Brian Greenlee, seconds before drawing his last breath, transfer his entire consciousness to Marianne, merge their two consciousnesses together? The best way I can describe it is like comparing it to a computer’s hard drive. You can take an outside source, a thumb drive or a cloud, and copy the encryptions onto a whole new source. This was like that.

Conscious transference.

As far as my proof—when Marianne was claiming to be Brian, there were physical differences. Her face changed. She became more masculine. Her voice deepened, sounding eerily similar to the man she’d married, to the man who’d died from six gunshot wounds. Her eyes changed color too, from blue to brown. Her build altered—her shoulders broadened and her muscles swelled with strength. Her breasts deflated, dropped two cup sizes. We opted not to inspect other areas of her body, but if we had, I bet we’d find some interesting changes there as well. Anyway, those are just some of the things we witnessed. (You can check out the documented photographs in file B.)

The second thing was blood work. We drew several samples of both, when she was claiming to be Marianne and when she was claiming to be Brian. The results couldn’t have been more different. We noticed changes on a chemical level. When she was Marianne, her estrogen levels were where they should have been for a female. When she was claiming she was Brian, her testosterone had been through the roof, too high for the female body, even too high for the average male. Not only that—but there were significant changes in cholesterol, cell counts, and when we explored the blood work further, we even saw chromosomal irregularities.

Marianne Greenlee’s body could change sex like we’re able to change a pair of pants.

Remarkable, yes. And not completely unheard of. There are unique individuals out there with certain mutations in their genetic code who are born with both sexes, who have the ability to change on a whim, but Marianne Greenlee wasn’t born like this. She was, in a sense, possessed.

I know possessed conjures images of floating spirits and demonic activity, Hollywood-style exorcisms with priests dousing the victims with holy water and shouting “The Power of Christ Compels You!” But there’s nothing religious about what happened to Marianne Greenlee unless you consider Brian Greenlee a devil, and some may actually share that opinion depending what side of the spiritual coin they land on.

But this isn’t spiritual. Surely not supernatural. And I know what you’re asking right now as you comb through my words; how did this happen? Where is the science?

I wish I could tell you. Truly, I do. I have a theory, one that can’t be tested or scientifically hypothesized, but one that makes sense, at least to me and my colleagues, and it’s the one I’ll stick with and defend to the very end, whenever the time comes.

Is it true that two people can share a special connection with each other, more so than any other two human beings? I’m talking about love of course. Not in the way you love a mother, a father, or a sibling, son or daughter. I’m talking about romantic love. A love that’s different from all other semblances of the word. This kind of love creates a unique bond between two individuals, connecting them on the most basic level. And, on the most complex.

It’s been scientifically proven that these kinds of emotions can alter one’s hormones, change brain chemistry, increased dopamine levels (a trait common in my schizophrenic patients), and do things to the body that most good recreational hallucinogens are able to accomplish. They don’t call love a drug without good reason; it literally could be considered one if we had a way to bottle it or bake it into pills.

So, therefore, I believe the transference of Brian Greenlee’s conscious came as a result of their unique connection, of their unfiltered love. They’d killed people—girls, babysitters, daughters—and killing, as you good people of the board well know, orchestrates a change in one’s body chemistry, too. So what we have here is a unique love, a love built on loss. Many couples have lost children. Many couples have killed together. But not many have experienced the aforementioned losses on such a magnetic level, and not that many couples have done the former while sharing a physical connection the second before the great hand of death comes to sweep one of them away. I believe, in his final moments, Brian Greenlee’s consciousness was looking for an escape and his wife’s kiss acted as the conduit for his transference.

I know. I know. I get it. You’re skeptical, rejecting my theory before we even give it a chance to breathe. And I’m okay with that because Gregor Mendel’s ideas on hereditary genetics were also dismissed, as was Kepler’s heliocentric solar system. But please. Do read on. Perhaps the most interesting and most important discovery lies ahead. So allow me to present the real reason I’m writing this letter, relaying my discoveries to you.

I’ve talked enough about Brian Greenlee and his consciousness and how it now exists inside another. This anomaly got me thinking about traditional multiple personality cases, the handful I’ve studied here at Neurotronix. Studied, and tried to cure. After all, that’s what we do here; we try to cure the mentally sick, utilizing unconventional methods and procedures, employing cutting-edge technology, using certain medical strategies that may be deemed “controversial” or being found with “immoral principals.”

But I believe what we are doing here is right, just, and I never believed in the methods more so than I did when it came time to operate on Marianne Greenlee.

We’d been working on a device that specifically aimed to help people who suffered from dissociative identity disorders. We figured we’d start there and work our way down to more common issues like general cases of schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. Hell, what we really aimed to tackle was a permanent cure for people who suffered from chronic anxiety that didn’t come in pill form and produce a plethora of dangerous side effects—something that would crush the pharmaceutical industry. But, with the government’s help, we had taken in Marianne Greenlee, gotten her off on an insanity plea and covered up most of what happened in that North Jersey town, kept the details out of the paper and off of what would later become the Internet, and brought her here, to Neurotronix. She was to be our guinea pig. Our lab rat. If the device my team spent the last two decades working on was successful, if we were able to control the personalities, subdue the dangerous one, then the possibilities going forward would be endless. The future would be bright.

So we went for it. We implanted the chip, no bigger than a button off your favorite dress shirt, in the patient’s frontal lobe. The surgery was a rousing success.

Two things happened after we performed the surgery on Marianne’s brain. First, Brian Greenlee disappeared. Not once had he come forth and taken control of her body. And make no mistake—we prodded her, poked her, tried to awaken the demon within. But nothing worked. Even under the most intense moments of tremendous stress—shouting at Marianne, recalling the events of that fateful day, showing her the crime-scene photos, a photograph of her dead daughter lying still in her crib, discussing the sexual abuse suffered by the hands of her birth father—she never cracked. She never gave in. She never faded, never allowed the other one to come forth. Brian…he was gone. Just like that.

The other miraculous thing that happened when we interfered with Marianne’s brain was that a third personality, one that wasn’t there before but may have been there all along beneath the surface, waiting for the right time to show herself, was born.

Ladies and gentlemen of the board, let me introduce you to Eve Mortimer. Without writing down every specific detail, let me say that she was everything Marianne Greenlee was not. Eve’s background included growing up in a great family, in the best neighborhood, where she had lots and lots of close friends who treated her like she was their queen. She had ambition and a sharp moral compass. The opposite of Marianne, whose parents abused her until a neighbor finally uncovered the truth fourteen years after her birth, called social services, and sent her into the system which only contributed more to her stressors, put a tremendous strain on her over-taxed brain, sending her spiraling down this dark gauntlet of violent psychosis, pushing her closer and closer into the waiting arms of Brian Greenlee.

Months after the surgery, Eve became the dominant personality. We decided it was best to go back into her brain, insert a new device that would do the same for Marianne that it did for Brian Greenlee—suppress them both. Keep them at bay. Hopefully kill them. Keep Eve as the dominant personality.

Again, we had success. See, each identity has a pattern and gives off certain brainwaves when it tries to come through. We simply tailor each chip to recognize these changes in brain activity and allow the device to emit small electrical currents which halt the chemical changes and prevent the identity from coming forth. In essence, the chip is an impenetrable security system and the other identities are potential intruders who have no shot at breaking in. The only side effects were occasional headaches, migraines, and some were worse than others. Headaches were good because there are simple, benign pills for that. Other than that minor side effect…

Success. Big success.

Eve never knew Marianne Greenlee and Brian Greenlee existed until I told her. I had to, really. She had to know why she needed to remain here, at Neurotronix continuing to be monitored. She needed to know why we kept performing tests and experiments on her. She needed to know why she couldn’t go back home, to her house in New Jersey. Why she couldn’t visit her parents anymore. Why nothing was real. It took some convincing, but eventually, when I showed her the mugshot of Marianne Greenlee and a small newspaper clipping, she broke down and cried. She didn’t take the news well. It sent her into a spiraling depression. The ultimate stressor. The perfect scenario for the ghosts within her to rise from their graves and take control.

The greatest test.

But they never came forth.

For the past four years, Marianne and Brian Greenlee haven’t been present. And I firmly believe they never will again. I believe that with every fiber of my being, that Eve Mortimer is the sole possessor of her consciousness, and will remain that way until she finds peace in a grave of her own.

Which brings me to the point of this letter, this essay, this confession, this whatever you want to call it. This plea for further funding, although, this letter represents something much greater than that.

Here it goes.

We need to talk about Eve Mortimer and what she wants. What she needs. After all, she is a human being and not some lab rat (not anymore), not some toy we can poke and prod. She’s not someone who deserves to be here, locked up and shunned by society. After all, she didn’t commit those heinous crimes, the Dead Daughter murders. That was Marianne and Brian Greenlee and they are dead now. Eve Mortimer is alive and well and she needs to explore life, live her own and not in the shadows of the two monsters who lie dormant inside her.

Now, I say dormant because, after all, I am a scientist and I know all about Chaos Theory and what can go wrong will go wrong, and all those wonderful philosophical pearls of infinite wisdom we must remain wary about.

So here’s what I’m proposing, ladies and gentlemen of the board: we release Eve Mortimer to the public. We manufacture a social security card, birth records, hospital records—we make Evelyn Mortimer exist. Because she is real. And she can do good in this world. She’s twenty-seven and wants to become a doctor. Help people like I’ve helped her. I know she can do it. But she needs a chance. That’s what I’m really asking for here. A chance.

We start small. Send her to a small community college. Local. Hell, if we really want to test her, maybe we put her close to where the Dead Daughter murders took place, to see if the location stirs up any of the past, if it pokes the Greenlees. (Don’t worry about her being recognized; she already cut her hair much shorter and hates the dark color. She wants to bleach it the second she gets out of here.) It will be a test, one final experiment, and I will be watching closely to see how things are going, and of course, to protect the public should things go awry, though, I’m fairly confident they won’t. Scratch that. I’m one-hundred percent certain Eve will never—for the lack of a better term—relapse.

If the program is successful and the Greenlees never emerge, then it will confirm that we possess the ultimate power—the power to control a person’s identity. The power to create them. I know the case of Eve Mortimer may be an outlier, but with considerable funding, I believe we can mimic what we’ve done with her, replicate our positive results. And think of the future. Think of how we can rehabilitate dangerous sociopaths. Before they happen, before they bloom out of control. We can stop violent murders, maybe even school shootings and mass public killings. I have a lot of theories about that and I would love to discuss them in great detail, but I think first or foremost, we should make sure Evelyn Mortimer lives a happy, healthy life and with no interference from her others.

Agree?

I hope you will.

Budgets and funding aside, this is an innocent young woman’s life we’re dealing with here. Think of that.

I know you will.

And I have my next subject already lined up. He came to us a year ago. His name is Etheridge and he is going into surgery next Tuesday. He’s very disturbed. I hope we can rehabilitate him too.

Cheers,

Dr. Alfred T. Cotton

July 26th, 2004

Chapter Twenty

Beneath Cotton’s name and date, the doctor had penned his signature.

I tried to speak, but I struggled to find my voice. Harper looked at me over his cigarette, a cloud of smoke swirling before him like the birth of an evil specter.

“Jesus,” I finally said. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s a strange pill to swallow, that’s for sure,” he said, blowing out tunnels of smoke from both corners of his mouth. “I mean, this doesn’t seem possible. Like something that came from Hollywood.”

“This can’t be right. This…” I hunched over and put my hands on my knees, waited for the inevitable puking fit. It never came.

“I’ll agree it’s a bit on the stranger-than-fiction side of the fence, but…”

“But what?”

“I had my team run a background on the name in these documents. Especially those on the budget committee. Seems to check out. They’re real people, some of them working in the CIA and FBI.”

“This is government funded? The CIA and FBI know about this? If they know about this shit, then where the hell are they? Why haven’t they come?” I doubted anyone besides Cotton was keeping tabs on Eve. If someone had been, it never would have gotten this far. They would have stepped in by now and shut the whole thing down. No, Cotton had come alone. I was certain of it. “Where the fuck are they?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to put in some calls and find out. As of right now, it seems this Alfred Cotton character was acting alone. After all, his own company reported the van stolen. Months ago.”

“You think he went AWOL?”

Harper shrugged, sucked on more of his cigarette. I stepped away to avoid the plume of smoke heading in my direction.

“I think maybe he discovered a fault in his experiment,” Harper said confidently. “And came here to check it out.”

“You think he knew the other identities would emerge again?” I couldn’t believe the conversation I was having—alternate identities, secretive scientific experimentations, and rehabilitated serial killers integrating with society—Harper was right; this was so Hollywood. “You think he predicted Eve would turn?”

“I don’t know, and we may never know because the only guy who knows for sure is hanging from a fucking tree.” He shook his head, clearly disgusted with the whole situation. A second later, he fixed his eyes on me. “Here’s what needs to happen. You need to excuse your daughter from school. Right now. I want you to take her away to some motel a few towns over. Do not tell Eve where you’re going. It’s best if you can avoid her altogether. I’ll send some officers to the house. Bring her in. And we’ll start there. Maybe Eve can make further sense of this. In any case, she needs to be locked up and under constant surveillance.”

I was conflicted about having my wife locked up but going off Cotton’s notes and letters, we didn’t have much choice. She was dangerous. A killer. And apparently, she had been the one stalking our family.

Not her, I reminded myself.

The others.

Marianne Greenlee. Brian Greenlee.

I think my husband knows, she had said.

Now that I think about it, I think she’d said, I think the husband knows.

My eyes fell on the bottom of the letter. “Etheridge,” I said, repeating Cotton’s mentioned next patient.

“Name mean anything to you?” Harper asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

I remembered that was what Cotton called me when we met on the park bench. Etheridge?

No, I’m Drew, I told him. Drew Lowery.

I swallowed. “No, not a thing,” I told Harper, balling my fist, crushing the doctor’s note. “Nothing at all.”

I averaged about seventy-five miles per hour on the way to Dinah’s school. I called ahead to have her pulled from class. When the office secretary answered the phone, she sounded delighted to hear from me, but once she heard the panic in my voice, the fear that strained it, she changed her tune.

“Are you okay, sir?” she asked, sounding panicky now as well.

“Yes, fine.” My hands trembled on the steering wheel. The world around me blurred at the edges. “I need you to pull my daughter, Dinah Lowery, from class today. I will pick her up in about ten minutes.”

The car next to me beeped when I passed them on the shoulder. I was driving like a maniac, weaving in and out of traffic, crossing solid yellow lines, but I didn’t care. Now that I knew the truth, how potentially dangerous Eve was, all I wanted to do was hold my daughter again. I cursed myself for not going to Harper sooner, for not calling him immediately after ending the conversation with Dale. He could have stopped this a lot sooner. If I had made that call, maybe Cotton would still be alive. Fuck, I thought. In reality, Cotton’s death was mostly my fault. I had killed him. It might as well have been me who strung him up and slashed his throat.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lowery,” the secretary said, and the way she said it caused invisible ants to march under my skin. “But Dinah is absent today.”

“What are you talking about? My wife dropped her off this morning.”

“No, nope. She’s on the absentee sheet. I checked it twice, just now. Didn’t you receive an automated phone call or text message?”

The phone slipped out of my hand, which now felt numb and tingly, and landed on my lap. I heard the secretary say my name and ask if I was still there. I wasn’t there. Not at all. My mind was traveling between a thousand possibilities and none of them were comforting or serene or whisked me away to my happy place.

All of them were dark and dismal and ended in death.

I didn’t slow down. I drove faster. I didn’t know where Eve could have taken my daughter, but I sped toward the only place that made sense.

I went home.

The house was silent. I closed the door behind me, concentrating on keeping the silence. If Eve was home, I didn’t want her to know I was. I didn’t want to give her a chance to see me coming, although I didn’t know what I’d do if I were successful. Jump her? Hit her over the head with some blunt object? Knock her out?

Even though I knew what she was, or—to be more precise—who she was, I still struggled with the idea of hurting her. Causing her pain. Making her bleed. Something about it seemed wrong even now, knowing she’d killed a dozen young women in the grisliest of ways.

She was still my wife, after all.

If Cotton’s letter (confession) was real, and at this point, I had no reason to suspect otherwise, then Eve truly was innocent in all this. It was the other two identities who were responsible for the deaths of those babysitters and daughters, to blame for the death of Alfred T. Cotton.

In my head, I replayed the moments after Cotton’s death. He couldn’t have been dead long before I found him. The blood from his opened neck was still wet and glistening. Less than an hour was my best, uneducated guess. An hour gave her plenty of time to leave and go practically anywhere. Did she have Dinah with her? I shuddered at the thought. I wondered if she made our daughter watch while she ran a knife across the doctor’s belly, spilling his intestines. The image triggered my gag reflex.

I patrolled the house, dipping in and out of the rooms on the first floor. All were unoccupied, just as I had left them that morning. I moved toward the stairs, peering up the steps, listening for movement in the bedrooms. I didn’t hear anything but decided to check anyway.

I took to the stairs carefully, making sure my feet landed softly. The plush carpet helped soften the footfalls, but the old hardwood beneath it betrayed me. I managed to make it up the stairs somewhat quietly, but if Eve was up there with Dinah, there was no doubt she would have heard me.

I made my way down the hall, checking Dinah’s room first. Empty. Stuffed animals covered her comforter, leaving very little fabric visible. Some of her clothes lay on the floor outside of the closet, looking like they had been gone through. Recently. Rushed. Eve, or whoever had assumed control of her consciousness.

Conscious transference, I almost heard Cotton whisper in my ear.

I thought the mess could have been Eve cleaning—she usually took inventory of her clothes sometime before Christmas—but I sincerely doubted it.

Why would she go through her closet? Picking out clothes to go on a little excursion? I couldn’t help but think Eve had abducted our daughter, taken her somewhere to…

To what?

Kill her?

(I’m going to kill your daughter, motherfucker)

Then why the theatrics? Why not just kill her?

None of this made sense.

I decided to check the other two bedrooms, though I was one-hundred percent convinced that I wouldn’t find my wife or daughter in the house.

As I walked out of the room and started down the hall, I felt something rub against my leg, like a hand in my pocket.

I spun quickly and put my hands up, ready to throat-punch the intruder, whoever they were.

But there was no one there.

I still felt something in my pocket, and I was embarrassed to find it was only the vibration of my cell phone.

Someone was calling me.

I looked down at the name. It was Eve.

My hand trembled along with the vibration of the phone. I swiped ANSWER and slowly put the phone to my ear, dreading the following conversation.

“Hello?” I asked, my anxiety causing my voice to crack and strain.

“Drew,” Eve answered.

I exhaled. I wasn’t sure who (or what) I’d hear on the other end, but I was relieved to hear Eve’s voice.

“Drew, you there?”

I headed downstairs. “I’m here, baby.”

She was crying. “God, I’m so sorry.”

I stopped halfway down. Something about her voice sounded off.

“I should have told you. God, I should have told you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. I wanted to cry too, but that probably would have made things worse. I needed to be strong. Strong for her, strong for Dinah.

Strong for myself.

“No, it’s not.”

“Eve, I know what’s happening. I…I met with Cotton.”

A pause. As if she were processing the information.

“He told me everything.”

“Cotton…” she said, sounding confused.

“Cotton. Your doctor. In Colorado. At Neurotronix.”

“Yes, Doctor Cotton. I remember.” She sobbed into the phone. “God, Drew, it’s so weird. I remember everything, but it all feels surreal. Like it didn’t happen. Like a dream that you had when you were a child—a really bad dream. I know it happened and I know… I know everything, but it still doesn’t feel real. God, I should have told you. I should have told you everything, but I was scared. Scared you’d think I was crazy, or…or that you’d leave me.”

I wanted to ask her about Etheridge, another name that needled my mind, but now wasn’t the time.

She sounded like she was half asleep. Talking while dreaming.

I shook my head, continued down the stairs. “Look. It doesn’t matter. I just want to know if you and Dinah are safe.”

I stepped into the kitchen. I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice it before, but when I saw what had been left on the kitchen table, my heart plummeted. Of all the stress my body had endured over the last couple of weeks, this hit me the worst. Felt like someone drove a knife into my gut, buried it inside me down to the hilt.

“That’s what I called you about…” she said, stifling her sobs.

I walked over to the kitchen table, the soles of my shoes feeling like they were blanketed with chewed bubble gum. The muscles in my legs lost their feeling, and my knees wobbled and knocked together. I reached out and put both hands on the chair to keep myself from going down.

Dinah’s glove rested in the center of the table next to my gym card.

Both were bloodied.

“He took her,” my wife cried. “He took our Dinah.”

Chapter Twenty-One

I rushed out of the house and didn’t bother to shut the door behind me. I jumped down the small flight of deck stairs and hit the ground running. Sprinting across the lawn, I set my sights on my neighbor’s front door. I don’t know why I didn’t call Harper first; the idea didn’t even occur to me. The one guy who could probably help the most and he wasn’t even a passing thought in my brain.

That was because the only thing I could think about was a weapon, something I could use to defend myself.

And I knew there was a whole cache next door.

I jumped up Dale’s steps in one leap, streaked across the deck and tried the door handle, even though I knew it was locked. Breaking into Dale’s house was begging to receive a bullet in the chest, especially since I was no longer on his Christmas card list, but I didn’t care—it was still well worth the risk. Repeatedly hammering the doorbell with my thumb, I felt an intense rush of adrenaline funnel through me. I had harnessed enough anxiety and rage to kick in the door, I was sure of it. But I wasn’t ready to commit a crime in order to stop another just yet. Almost, though, and if I had waited three seconds longer, that door was going to meet my foot.

Dale answered the door on the third round of repetitive doorbell pushing, his face appearing in the six-inch gap between the jamb.

“What?” he asked, clearly irritated.

“I need a gun.”

“Excuse me?”

“There isn’t time to explain.”

“Oh, I beg to fucking differ.”

“Dale,” I said, wanting to cry. My eyes felt like they were actually on fire. “Please, I know you probably hate me right now and I know for sure you hate my wife, but Dinah’s in danger.” Emotion came pouring out of me, crystal streams spilling down my cheeks. “They have her. Dale, they have her.”

“What? Who has her?”

I stared him directly in the eyes, my lower lip trembling, and said, “Marianne and Brian Greenlee.”

Leading me to the basement door, he said, “I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us,” I lied.

I did understand. Somehow, the two identities in my wife’s head had beaten Cotton’s game and had found a way to hijack Eve’s mind. I didn’t have time to explain all of this to Dale—he didn’t need to know and he wouldn’t have believed me, anyway. If he did blame my wife for killing his daughter, driving his wife to leave him, ruining his family, then so be it. If he wanted to hate me for sticking by her even after this information came to light, then let him. But I knew he liked Dinah, cared for her, didn’t want to see anything bad happen to her. After all, she was innocent. Being born into this clusterfuck family situation wasn’t her fault. At one point I had considered Dale a possible suspect, maybe wanting to exact revenge on Marianne Greenlee by threatening her new family, maybe even kidnapping and killing someone else’s daughter to bring down the hammer of terror. Maybe devising a plot to mentally torture her (us) before killing her daughter and evening the score. But by looking at Dale’s face, I knew he didn’t have it in him.

He wasn’t a killer.

“So, Brian Greenlee is alive,” he said, grabbing the door handle.

“Yes, in a way.”

“It seems so impossible. They told me he was dead. I saw the death certificate in court.”

“I have my daughter’s glove and my gym card sitting on my kitchen table, both covered in blood. Feel free to check it out if you don’t believe me.”

“That’s okay,” he said, waving me off. “I believe you. This whole thing stunk like a farce from the beginning. I knew they were covering something up. There’s barely any documentation on the Internet, nothing but a bunch of half-assed articles.”

“Yeah, it’s a real dilly.”

He opened the door and motioned for me to take the lead.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get you armed. Though, I’m probably doing you more harm than good. Didn’t you say guns make you nervous?”

I started down the steps. “Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

I reached the bottom of the stairs. The lights came on, illuminating the decent-sized space Dale had utilized to build a bar, freshly stocked with fine whiskey and other high-end bottles of alcohol. The other side of the basement was unfinished. In the corner stood his gun rack, and on the wall next to it sat the cabinet for his compact firearms. But my eyes weren’t drawn there. They weren’t drawn to the bar either, at least no longer than a few seconds. No, my eyes were drawn to the center of the basement where a lone chair sat, a long piece of nautical rope snaked around it.

“What is—” were the only words I squeaked out before something heavy connected with the base of my skull, sending me forward into total darkness.

Footsteps.

On the stairs.

Come on, Dale. Show yourself, you bastard. Do what you baited me here to do. Kill me already. It’s what you want, isn’t it? To see me dead? To kill my family because my wife murdered yours. It’s not fair, but I get it. You’re not thinking clearly. You’re confused. Revenge will do that to you. It will muddy up your thoughts. Make you act foolishly. Do things, think things you wouldn’t normally do or think. They taught us junkies that in rehab. The second you arrive, you want revenge on the people who put you there. Everyone from the first person who got you high to the last face you kissed before checking in. You want to rip them apart. Each one of them. It’s their fault you fucked up. It’s their fault you ended up here. I know the feeling Dale. It’s everyone else’s fault but your own.

And in this case, you may be right. It’s not your fault your daughter was murdered by Brian Greenlee. It’s not your fault that tragic accident drove your wife mad, and it’s not your fault she left because she couldn’t wake up next to you anymore and look upon that chipper mug you’re always sporting.

Not your fault at all.

That leaves us in a pretty sticky situation, Dale.

You want to kill me. I want to live. I’d love for you to have revenge on Marianne Greenlee, but that can’t happen, not exactly the way you want it. Because Marianne Greenlee is my wife (well, no, not really, but we’ll get there) and I need her like these lungs need oxygen. Without her, I’m nothing. You see, the only reason I’m here, still clean, is because of her. Her love.

And Dinah’s.

Our family.

My heart breaks for you, Dale. It really does. But killing my family won’t bring yours back.

It won’t.

I promise you.

So put down the gun.

Put it down.

Let’s chat.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dale now stands before me, holding his 9mm at his side as if it were any ol’ thing. My head lolls back and forth as the shadows come and go past my line of sight. The light down here sucks and lacks enough luminosity to see through them, the shadows that live here. Or maybe my skull really is broken. Maybe that shot on the back of the noggin did some permanent damage.

I flash back to everything that happened up until this moment, mull it all over, experience every detail. And still, I wonder where I went wrong. I guess I could have been more honest with Harper, could have told him about Cotton and what Eve—sorry, Marianne—had done earlier, when I first found out about it. But what would you have done? Would you protect your loved one? Of course you would. You could lie and tell yourself otherwise, but I know the truth. I couldn’t have told Harper until I had all the facts. And even then, it would’ve been hard to turn in my own wife, the one person who’s been there for me through it all.

“You say something?” Dale asks, looking at me with his beady, murderous eyes.

“Huh?” My head is still a little hazy and the room still feels off, tilted.

“You were saying something about wanting to chat?” He raises his gun. “And not to kill you just yet.”

“I did?”

I don’t think I was talking out loud. Was I?

I’m confused, but that’s expected when you take a lump like I did.

Dale really did a number with that little love tap. Had me reliving the past two weeks of my life. Two weeks of total hell.

“What else did I say?” I ask, my vision becoming a little clearer, though the shadows still bustle around, filling me with waves of disorientation.

Dale gets to one knee like he’s going to propose. Also, his face is within kneeing range, but because of the way he tied me to the chair, I can’t lift my leg high enough. Also, he has a gun. I may be woozy and not one-hundred percent in tune with reality, but I know pissing off a crazy gun-nut holding a gun is a bad idea.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Nothing I—or anyone else on this planet—could certainly make sense of.”

“Why are you dragging this out?”

He sighs and lowers his head. For a second, I think he’s going to answer me.

“I like you, Drew. Always have. It’s one of the reasons I never…well, one of the reasons I never did anything.”

“What do you mean?”

He glances up, peering into my eyes. I see a sadness in them I’ve never seen in anyone’s eyes before, including that I-got-nothing-left-to-live-for eyes of the rehab junkies I’d roomed with.

“That first week,” he says, toying with the gun in his hand. “That first week I moved in, I almost killed her. Marianne Greenlee. I thought about how I could do it and how I could get away with it, make it so I could continue living with the satisfaction of sweet revenge. I went over the details almost every minute of every day. My best chance was to catch her going to work or coming home. Pop her right in the driveway. Right in the head. I imagined what her brains would look like exploding from her skull. So vivid, that image. Like chunky tomato soup.”

“That’s disgusting.”

His eyebrows jerk in agreement. “I know. I was grieving something awful. Even after all those years passed. I thought I had controlled it, you know. The feelings of missing her, of missing my dead daughter. And my wife. I thought I had ‘gotten past it,’ you know, like you said. But you never really do. Not a thing like that. And when I saw her that day on the boardwalk, it all came flooding back to me. Every painful emotion, every drop of sadness. That knot in the center of my chest, the one that makes it feel like you’re having a heart attack every minute of every day. You can’t possibly know how that feels.”

“No, I can’t.”

He stands up, shakes his gun as if that’s a way to check if it’s still loaded. “But the longer I waited, the harder it got. I remember when you came over to welcome me to the neighborhood. Eve wasn’t with you. Neither was Dinah. It was just you.”

“I remember.”

“We shared a few laughs. I invited you in for a beer, but you told me you didn’t drink. Didn’t know about the addiction stuff, but looking back on it, I guess it’s kinda obvious.”

I nod.

“But you were a heck of a nice guy, even if you were a soft little Nancy boy.”

Tears continue to stream down my face. My flesh is a waterfall. I feel fluids run off my skin, splash my collar, which is already wet with blood.

“After a while,” he says, hanging his head again. “After a while, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t do that to you. Or your family. Even though I came home to my college-aged daughter scattered across the living room like toys that suffered the wrath of a child’s tantrum, I still couldn’t do it.”

I swallow. A part of me thinks he’ll let me go, let the whole thing go, talk himself out of whatever he has planned. Had planned.

The other part of me waits for the bullet.

“But now things are different.”

“How are they different, Dale?” The room is still now, no longer wavering like a funhouse full of tricksy mirrors. I’m as calm and focused as someone who is about to die can be.

“You know the truth now. You know what Marianne did. You know what your wife did.”

“Eve didn’t kill those girls.”

“Yes, she did. You know it’s true. I can see it in your eyes.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“I don’t think so. I saw her in court, briefly, before the fucked-up system opted not to put her on trial and hauled her off to God knows where. Same woman. Same goddamn woman.”

“No, she’s not.” I’m crying but not enough to keep me from speaking clearly. “Marianne Greenlee suffers from some sort of dissociative identity disorder.” I don’t want to go into details, not now, not if I didn’t have to. He doesn’t need to hear about Brian Greenlee and how he’s a part of her now, the experiments at Neurotronix and the birth of Evelyn Mortimer. All he needs to know is enough for him to change his mind. To untie me and help me save my daughter.

Dale almost laughs. “Hmpf. That’s the best story you can come up with?”

I guess I’ll need to explain after all.

“It’s true. Talk to Detective Jon Harper. He can validate everything.” I shake my head. “You never knew because there was never a trial. It never came out. Not to the papers. She took the insanity plea and they told the public she was locked up in some psychiatric facility, which was true in a roundabout way. But what really happened—a company by the name of Neurotronix hid her away. Performed experiments on her. It was part of some government research project. They were testing devices that supposedly stopped unwanted identities from coming forward. It was supposed to help them understand how the brains of violent criminals work and eventually they wanted to find a way to cure them through brain surgery. I know how farfetched that sounds—”

“It sounds ludicrous.”

“And I agree. But it’s true.” My head feels heavy, so I lean to one side. “Think about it, though. Technology is insane nowadays. There’re all sorts of medical and scientific advances. I mean, twenty years ago if I told you we’d all carry around the Internet in our pockets, be able to connect with anyone on the planet inside of a few seconds, would you have believed me?” He has no answer for this. “Why can’t this be any different?”

Dale thinks about it, his eyes focusing on the exposed joists above. “It doesn’t really matter,” he says.

“But it does. She’s not Marianne Greenlee anymore.” I swallow back tears. “She’s Eve Mortimer, now Eve Lowery, my wife, mother of our child. Dale, if you do this, if you kill her, you’re killing an innocent woman.”

Dale is crying now. Wailing. The gun shakes in his hand. I keep waiting for him to line it up with my forehead and pull the trigger, but that moment hasn’t come. Still, I wait.

“I know it hurts and it sucks and it doesn’t seem fair. I’d give anything for you to have your daughter back, Dale, to un-live those tragic moments. I’d love for you to have your family back, your wife. You’re a great guy and it seems like you had a really great life.” I bite my lip and feel pain. My nerves are working again, just in time for a bullet to fracture my skull. “But killing Eve won’t bring them back. You know that.”

“No,” he says, lowering his head, looking at the instrument of death in his hand. “It won’t. But it will make me feel a whole helluva lot better.”

Bleariness conquers my vision. The tears are constant. “No, it won’t. You think it will, but it won’t. Hell, it might even feel good for a few minutes. Days. A week or two. But after that, the feeling will fade, and you’ll feel just as shitty as you do now. Maybe more so.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” He claps a hand on my knee. “Take care of yourself, Drew. I suspect we won’t be seeing each other again. Least not under these circumstances.”

“Don’t do this.”

He ignores me, walks over to the bar, and finds an old dish towel that should have been washed months ago. He stuffs it in my mouth, takes a roll of duct tape, rips off a decent piece, then claps it over the towel. He presses the tape against my skin, making sure it sticks. It’s duct tape; it sticks. The putrid smell of the old towel triggers my gag reflex and I throw up a little. I swallow the acidic flavor as quickly as it rushes up my esophagus.

He salutes me farewell and heads up the stairs.

I need to pee and I’m not waiting for the luxury of a toilet.

Those first few minutes alone, I went crazy and nearly exhausted every morsel of energy. I had tried to break the rope by using all my strength and lifting my arms. Did nothing but rub away the top layer of skin, revealing the painful pink rawness beneath. Now, my adrenaline has worn off and I feel everything and everything hurts.

I’m breathing heavily now, digging deep for more energy, more air. More inspiration. I need to get out of this basement. I need to escape, get to the gym before something terrible happens to Dinah or Eve, or to the both of them. They’re my entire world, the reason I exist and breathe. If anything happens to them, I don’t know how I’d carry on. How I’d live.

Thinking about it makes me feel for Dale. Still, what he plans to do won’t help. If he’s so depressed, if he can’t handle it, then he should put the bullet in his own head and not my wife’s. No sense of ruining two families. I know that’s a pretty shitty thing to say, but it’s the truth. Because let’s not forget the most important fact in this clusterfuck of a situation—technically, Eve is innocent. She’s done nothing wrong, unless you count her guilty by association, which apparently, Dale does. Hard to argue that fact. Two—well, three people in one brain, two of them cold-blooded killers. You can’t get more “associated” than that.

I have to get out of here. I need to get to the gym. My family needs me. Dale is probably halfway there, fully prepared to use my wife’s head as target practice. I have a feeling he’s a shoot-first-ask-questions-later kind of guy. (Actually, he’s probably more of a shoot and ask zero questions kind of guy.)

I try to stand but my legs are too weak, knees too wobbly. I can’t make it up the stairs anyway, not strapped to this chair. I need to shed the seat somehow. I start looking around the bar area for something I can use to cut through the rope, a knife or a saw Dale might have left out. There’s nothing on the bar top save for a couple of half-empty bottles. If I can somehow get to them and break the glass, I can maybe scoop up a shard and cut through the rope. It’s the best chance I’ve got. But I’m not coordinated enough to get there and even if I was, my hands are fastened to the chair—no way for me to get my hands up high enough to take down the bottle. I can’t stand up straight enough to get my chin over the bar, making it impossible to even nudge one over the edge and let it fall to the floor, smash into countless shards, each one containing the ability to spring me free. I can’t do any of the heroic scenarios I play out in my head.

I’m stuck.

I think it’s over, that this is how my life ends, stuck in this chair while my neighbor—friend—takes my family away from me.

But wait. I hear something.

Something above me.

Footsteps. Someone in the house.

I keep still and silent, thinking maybe it’s Dale, maybe he forgot something. But the noises are too slow, too far apart, the footfalls of someone who doesn’t know where they’re going.

I start to scream. Even though my mouth is stuffed with a dirty rag, I still get off a good one. It’s not loud enough to travel all the way upstairs, but if the raw burn in my throat means anything, whoever’s directly above me has to have heard something. In case not, I stomp my joined feet on the concrete floor. I rock back and forth vigorously, scratching the feet of the chair on the floor, creating a deep braying noise that reminds me of a happy donkey. I don’t know if the person can hear me or not, but I don’t stop. I keep going. And going. And going until I don’t hear footsteps anymore.

Fuck.

They’re gone.

Whoever was there didn’t stay long.

I sit still, breathing heavily, the fringes of my vision starting to fade. I think I might pass out again, from exhaustion this time instead of terror. It’s hard to catch my breath. I want to close my eyes; God, they feel so heavy, like miniature dumbbells.

The creak of a door opening is like a slap across my face—I’m instantly awake, my eyes as wide as the sockets allow. I hear a single footstep on the top step. I begin to scream, loud as I can, squealing like a pig on fire.

It works. Feet pound down the stairs. Within five seconds I’m looking my savior in the eyes.

It’s the good detective, Jon Harper.

He undoes the last of my ropey restraints. It feels weird being free. Blood begins to circulate and a tingling numbness travels around my internal plumbing. With one rip, he removes my gag. I spit the putrid cotton out of my mouth and I’m happy to be rid of the dead-body taste, even though the flavor lingers on my tongue. I breathe deeply, happy to suck in as much as my lungs will allow, even if it is musty basement air. With Harper’s help, I stand up. Without him, I might have fallen back into the chair immediately. He escorts me across the basement, over to the stairs.

“What the hell happened?” he asks. “Where is everyone?”

I tell him everything that happened. I tell him about Eve’s phone call, the threat in the form of my business card, which I found staged on the kitchen table, dipped in blood (which he says he already knows about it, saw it for himself), and how I decided to arm myself with a weapon.

“How’d you find me?” I ask.

He helps me up the stairs and it’s not easy. “Saw your car in the driveway. I arrived at your house as Dale was leaving in a hurry. He looked…disturbed. Plus, I’m pretty sure he was holding a gun under his jacket. The rest is detective’s intuition.”

“Bless your intuition.”

Harper chuckles as he lifts me over the top step and into the hallway. The front door is about fifteen feet away. I can see it’s after dark.

“What time is it?”

“After eight.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

I try to remember what day it is. “The gym. It’s not open.”

Harper squints and I realize he’s not following.

“Marianne took Dinah to the gym. She wants me to meet her there.”

“The gym. But why the gym?”

“I don’t know. But that’s why she left the card on the counter.”

“All right. Let’s go.” He reaches for his radio. “I’ll call for back up.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I hobble toward the front door. “Because if you do that, then everyone I love will die.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The gym parking lot is virtually empty save for a few leftover cars. The sun had long since dipped behind the horizon and the business closed about an hour ago. Harper pulls his cruiser up as close as he can and hops out of his car, almost simultaneously while putting the car in park. I push open the door and follow him toward the entrance. He already has his gun drawn, pointed at the ground but ready to raise it and open fire if the situation calls for it.

I hope it doesn’t. Not yet. I imagine my wife jumping out in front of him, spooking him, causing him to pull the trigger. I picture him blowing her away like I’ve seen in so many films.

I let the thoughts exit and concentrate on the task at hand. A cacophony of night critters provides us with background noise. As we creep past the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, my heartbeat grows faster and I can almost hear it pulsing in my ears.

Harper stops and puts up a single finger.

“What is it?” I whisper. He listens for something, exactly what—I’m not sure of.

We’re close enough to the building for him to put his ear against the building’s glass exterior and he does just that. He listens.

“What is it?” I ask again, louder this time, in case he didn’t hear me.

It takes him a second to respond. “Nothing. Silence.”

“Silence? Is silence good?”

“Not usually.”

Silence means dead, I almost hear him say as I try to scan his thoughts, the same way Eve and I sometimes do.

I wonder what we’d walked into.

Then I wonder if we should walk in at all. At least, together.

I don’t think Eve—I mean, Marianne or Brian—is expecting Harper’s presence. The note on the kitchen table was meant for my eyes and my eyes only. Not his.

Harper motions for me to follow. I grab his shoulder.

He turns and eyeballs me.

“Maybe I should go in alone?” I suggest.

“What the hell for?”

I glance down at the gun in his hand. “If she has hostages…” I think of Dinah. Our daughter. I imagine what she’s going through, if she understands what is happening. Does she think her mother has lost her mind? What does she know? Does she know her mother is not her mother—not right now, not at this moment? I can’t imagine how scared she must be, the terror she must be wading through. My only wish is that she isn’t hurt. That she isn’t dead.

But I don’t think she is.

I think Marianne and Brian Greenlee want me there while she’s still alive. If their plan involves killing her, my daughter, then I think they would want to do it in front of me. Maybe that was their play all along. To get all of us together in one place, watch us all suffer at once. It sort of explains the theatrics, why they stole clothes from Dinah’s closet to dress up a kidnapped girl from the next township over. I remember Harper saying that Marcy Branch had been a patient of Eve’s. What if the Greenlees saw Marcy and that triggered something in them, kicked this whole thing off. In Cotton’s reports, he talked in great detail about “stressors,” how sometimes the most simple brain stimuli can trigger the change of identities. What if that was it? What if that was the event that started it all? Little Marcy Branch and her broken arm.

“Let me go in alone,” I say. “You might… I don’t know. Make her act.”

“Make her act?”

“The gun. It might spook her.”

He looks down at his weapon, then back to me in disbelief as if he can’t believe I’d recommend such a thing. “You want to go in there, alone, with no weapon?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

“What if she’s armed?”

“I don’t know. I’ll deal with it when I’m in there.”

“What if your neighbor’s in there?”

“I expect he might be.”

“What if she’s dead, your wife?”

I close my eyes. The tears come almost immediately, born the second the grim realization that Harper’s question is a legit reality. “I dunno.”

“You’re not strong enough to go in alone.” He shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry.”

He turns back toward the entrance but I grab him by the wrist, and I’m not letting go until he lets me go. Inside. Alone.

“She’s my wife,” I say, as if that explains everything. As if that’s the most convincing three words in the entire English language.

Harper shoots me an are-you-friggin’-kiddin’-me look, but I give him one back that’s much more serious and unwavering.

“Listen to me,” I say, inching closer so our noses practically touch. “I know what’s going on better than anyone here, including you. I’m the only person who can talk her out of this.” I grit my teeth. My eyes are stinging like crazy but I ignore their burn. “Let me do this. Please. I… I have to.”

Harper glares at me, and for a second I think he might not respond, that he might release himself of my grasp, turn, and storm the gym with his gun pointed, ready to fire at anything that moves, including the shadows.

But he doesn’t.

He twists his lips into a snarl and shakes himself free from my grip.

“You have ten minutes,” he says. “Then I’m calling for backup and coming in myself. And if I don’t like what I see, some people might get hurt. You catch my meaning?”

I nod.

“And God help me, Lowery,” he says, jabbing his finger in my chest, “if anyone dies because of this, because of you, I’ll hit you with every goddamn charge I can. Get me?”

I get him, get him loud and clear.

Without responding, I advance on the front door. Alone.

With each step toward the front door, my heart pounds harder, like an oversized drum in some tribal ceremony. My legs feel weak and rubbery, and I no longer have Harper next to me to use as a crutch when I feel my strength might give out. I glance over my shoulder and find him watching me intently, urging me on with a subtle nod. I know he thinks this a bad idea, the worst idea, and every second I waste getting inside is a second he could potentially use to reverse his decision. I push ahead and concentrate on the door, ignoring the pain in the lower half of my body.

When I get there, the door is locked.

I press my face against the tinted glass. It’s hard to see inside. Langford chose an extremely dark tint for the windows and if the sun was out, this wouldn’t be much of a problem; but with the sun hidden behind the horizon and the lack of lights present within the gym, it makes seeing through the film almost impossible. All I see are shadows, clusters of dim statues.

Not knowing what else to do, I knock.

“Hey!” I say into the crack between the doors. Harper doesn’t stop me, though I fully expect him to. We’ve now lost the element of surprise but to be honest, I wasn’t expecting to find the gym doors open with an invitation that says WELCOME TO THE PARTY, BABY! My arms crawl with a cold sensation as I realize my daughter might be lying dead inside, only a few hundred feet from my current position. Maybe shorter. She might be on the other side of the door, lying there in a heap.

“Eve!” I shout. “Marianne… Brian… whoever you are. Please.”

I knock again. It seems like the right thing to do.

“Let me in.”

I don’t expect to hear a reply. A solid thirty seconds tick off Harper’s internal countdown and I think it’s over, that she has executed every single one of her hostages, including my daughter, and there is nothing left to do except let the SWAT team—whenever they arrive—bust down the door and do their job. I almost turn away but before I can, I hear the lock-latch pop.

Someone unlocked the door.

I spin back, wedge my fingers in the tight gap between the two doors, and spread them apart. I hear Harper shuffle his feet on the sidewalk. I glance up and shoot him a look that stops his advance. I silently ask him to back the fuck off and let me have my moment with the people inside. Alone. No interference. He doesn’t speak but I know he understands. He construes my silent message and takes a few steps back, the gun still at his side in case of emergency.

Then he points to his watch as if to say, Time is a-wastin’!

I head inside and a voice comes over the loudspeaker system Langford had installed two years ago but never uses. “Lock it,” the voice says. It’s not my wife’s voice. It’s deep. Guttural. Like someone who speaks with too much phlegm in their throat. It belongs to a man.

I do what the voice demands and step away from the door.

“Now come. To the main floor. I have a gift for you.”

The voice is calm and full of sinister intentions. I don’t like the confidence in it, the certainty it contains. Right now, I’m the voice’s puppet. It’s pulling me along. I feel like this is a dream and I am no longer in control of my body. I’m floating. The voice is the wind and it’s pushing me along whichever way it pleases. I am nothing. The failing strength in my body is the only thing that can allow me to be something. I reach for it, but it simply isn’t there.

I am back to being nothing.

As I walk, drift toward the weight room, I see the receptionist, Kate, behind the front desk. She’s leaning back in her chair, her neck bent at an awkward angle, forcing her to stare at the ceiling. There are two white pieces of paper on either side of her face. As I look closer, I see the pages have been stapled to her cheeks. There are little dots of blood but nothing compared to the sheet of crimson that stains her clothing. Her throat has been slashed, the gap the knife had created still glistening.

I turn away and my eyes are immediately drawn to a crumpled body in the corner of the hallway. It’s Langford, and his body sits in a pool of so-dark-it’s-black blood. I notice multiple stab wounds, at least twenty by my quick estimation, though it’s probably more. I ignore the expression on his face, those staring dead eyes.

I creep into the weight room, wondering at what point my knees will buckle, wondering how much more violence and malice my brain can handle. The dream-like nature of this reality still remains, and I feel a bit like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, sinking deeper and deeper into the darkest depths of Wonderland. I pinch myself to make sure that’s not the case, that this is indeed reality—silly, stupid, such a childish thing to do, but goddamn, I so desperately want to wake up to it being a few weeks ago when everything was perfect and my life wasn’t rife with chaos, murder, and deception.

I’d sell my soul for this to be a dream.

Please. Let it be a dream.

A nightmare.

Anything but reality.

The sharp pain between my fingers informs me this is real, that what my senses are experiencing isn’t false. I continue to float into the weight room as if sailing on a dark cloud pregnant with heavy rain.

The first thing I set my eyes on is Dale. Someone has tied him down to a weight bench with ratchet straps. He wiggles his body but the tight nature of the straps allows him little movement. His mouth is stuffed with a towel and duct tape, the same thing he’d done to me only a few hours earlier. I think it’s karma that has placed him here, but then I realize it is something else, something much more nefarious.

I walk forward, surveying the room, keeping my eye out for unwanted surprises. I don’t see anyone else, and I definitely don’t see Eve or Dinah. No other hostages. Eve must have arrived right when the gym was closing up shop, when only Langford and Kate were the last ones left to leave. Everyone else must have escaped.

So, it’s just me and Dale and the still shadows. For now.

“Dale,” I whisper, and his attention is immediately drawn to me. His eyes are bulging from their sockets, wide with absolute fear. I’ve never seen a grown man exude terror like that before. “I’m going to get you out of here,” I say, but it sounds (and feels) like a lie when the words hit my ears. I wonder if Dale thinks the same. I approach, and the closer I get, the more animated his facial expressions become. He thrashes around, as much as the ratchet straps allow, which isn’t much.

“What is it?”

He looks up at the ceiling, then back to me. The ceiling and then back to me. Several times he does this and I try to follow. It takes a second or two, but I realize what he’s alluding to.

A stack of weights dangles over him. I don’t count the total, not exactly, but I estimate the weight at around five-hundred pounds. If they drop, his skull will cave like a beer can beneath a boot stomp.

I take one step and Dale protests, shaking violently on the cushioned slab. I stop at his adamant request.

“What’s the matter?” I want to add, I’m trying to save you, you crazy asshole, but I don’t.

His eyes bulge in response, and I think if they grow any larger, they’ll pop out of their sockets.

“I don’t know what you’re—” I take one more step and something explodes to my right. A deafening roar nearly blows out my eardrums and I cower, throwing my hands over my head and crouching down as far as my legs will allow.

I glance up just in time to see the rope give. The barbell weights fall freely, speeding down, toward Dale’s face. He screams as he watches them plummet.

The impact sounds off with a crispy, wet crunch, like the world’s biggest bite of cereal. The initial contact doesn’t quite flatten his skull, but it turns his cranium into this messy, oblong shape. The majority of the weights fall to the side and scatter across the floor, clanging against neighboring equipment. His right eye bulges from the socket; it doesn’t pop out completely, not exactly, but there isn’t much holding it in place. Given some time or sudden movement, the orb might fall out on its own and dangle freely from its cavity, tethered by a ropey string of sinew, but for now—it’s safe where it is. The skin that makes up his face has split, and red, foamy liquid begins to seep out of the cracks, spilling across the bench and onto the floor.

He whimpers softly.

He’s not dead. Not yet.

I look around to see how this happened, rather than what I can do to help. I follow the rope along the top of the machinery, across the room, and down to another piece of equipment. From there, it snakes across the weight room floor and I find it tied to a piece of equipment on my right. There is a shotgun positioned next to it—Dale’s shotgun, the one he left the house with, the one he intended to shoot my wife with—and a thin, clear fishing wire I can barely make out in the lackluster light, pressed against the trigger. I follow the wire across and find it taught against my pant leg.

I tripped it. I set it off.

It was a setup.

The Greenlees had orchestrated this little death trap knowing I’d attempt to rescue my neighbor. I’m impressed and mortified all at once.

I look up at Dale and see his chest rising and falling in rapid bursts. I rush over to him and push off the remaining weights. He fights for every pocket of air, every breath, sucks what he can through his mouth—his nose has been rendered completely useless, the nasal passages flattened against his upper lip, the bones inside splintered. I reach out to help him but realize there isn’t much I can do. He’s fighting the inevitable. I watch him struggle for every ounce of air. Bending down, I look him in the eye, the one threatening to exit his skull. I force myself to look at him, and Christ, it isn’t easy.

“God, I’m sorry, Dale,” I say, and I want to end his misery. Give him the quick death he probably deserves. He’s already suffered enough, both physically and mentally. “God, I’m so fucking sorry.”

It’s as if hearing my apology gives him permission to stop fending off the alluring call of the other side. He stops breathing. His right eye goes cold, the life inside extinguished like a bucket of water over a small campfire.

Laughter echoes from somewhere close. The speakers. The voice.

The murderer.

“Everyone you know will die tonight,” the voice says. This time it’s not coming from the speakers. It’s behind me, near the entryway into the weight room.

I spin around, expecting to see a man, a tall and burly savage with the strength of ten Vikings. Instead, all I see is Eve, my wife, standing there with a devilish look in her eye and a knowing smile. Dinah stands at her side. Eve has a knife strategically positioned at our daughter’s throat.

“Eve…” I squeak.

She shakes her head. “Eve is dead. Long gone. Sayonara, sucker.” Her voice is not her voice. It’s a man’s voice, deep and throaty, but it’s coming from her mouth, past her lips. At first I think it’s Eve mimicking a voice, that her voice can’t possibly change that much, that anatomy-wise it makes no sense, but as the person who has hijacked her head continues to speak, I know it’s a completely different voice coming from a completely separate person. “What’s the matter? Didn’t think we’d ever meet face to face?”

I eye her dubiously, still thinking in the back of my mind that this is not real, that this entire thing is an elaborate hoax.

I can’t possibly be talking to someone else, someone who is using my wife as a sock puppet.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, and it’s the only thing that makes sense to ask.

The man within her laughs. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.”

“They tried to lock us up.” Brian Greenlee snarls, curling my wife’s lips. Her smile twitches with anger. “They tried to kill us.” That evil grin spreads. “But you can’t kill us. You can’t keep us down.”

“You’re not even a real person. Not anymore. You’re dead.”

That gets another laugh out of him. It sounds like thunder. “I’m as real as you are, buddy-boy. Didn’t Cotton tell you our story? About the conscious transference? I’m sure he did. He loves telling people about it. It’s his favorite story. He’s quite proud of his discoveries and coined phrases.” He grins at me, the Devil’s smile. “No, I’m real. I may live in the shadows, condemned to reside there, but I exist. I am the perennial one.”

“You’re…” I feel sick to my stomach. My eyes fall on my daughter, the terror etched across her features. Tears pour from her little eyes, run off her cheeks in great big drops. The blade against her neck glints, catching beams of light from the parking lot lamps. They throw their light through the windows, through the blinds, providing us with visible darkness, more dark shade than not.

“Yes?” Brian Greenlee asks. “You were saying?”

I’ve lost my train of thought. The woman standing in front of me, the woman who is my wife, looks more masculine than I remember. Her shoulders seem broader, her frame more muscular, and when she opens her mouth, the voice sounds different, all wrong and unnatural. I remember reading, while skimming through Cotton’s notes, that multiple personalities can also affect the body physically, induce chemical changes within the subject. It’s different to read something that comes off like fiction than it is to experience the information in person. As someone high on cheeky euphemisms might say, the proof is in the pudding.

“Eve…” I say, her name coming out in my breath.

“No Eve,” it says. The killer. The monster. The inhuman entity within. “I’m Brian. Brian Greenlee. Pleasure to meet you.”

“I know who you are.”

“Glad to hear it. I do hate introductions.”

“Let my daughter go.”

He clicks his tongue several times as if he’s about to hand me a valuable life lesson. “Afraid I can’t do that, pilgrim. See, this is my show and I only do what I want, and what I want to do is cut your daughter’s fucking throat from ear to ear. With you watching, of course. That’s what it was all about, after all. I want to see you watch, Etheridge.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s Lowery now. I almost forgot.”

I shake my head. He’s not making any sense. In the center of my brain, I feel a pinprick of pain growing intensely. “I don’t follow you.”

“Yes. You do. You know damn well. I’m sure Cotton told you everything before I tracked him down and strung him up from that tree and sliced his shit open.”

“He didn’t…”

I remember Cotton mentioning the name to me, once in person and once in the letter Harper had handed me. Etheridge. Is Greenlee implying that I’m this Etheridge person? Impossible. I’m Drew Lowery, always have been. I have long memories—of childhood, of my youth, growing up, adulthood, crystal clear memories, even during my “dope days”—and I refuse to believe these images in my head are falsities.

Something tugs at the center of my chest, but I ignore it. I concentrate on my daughter’s face, wet with tears, her small, frightened features. I glance at my wife who is not my wife, but this terrible monster hiding behind my wife’s eyes.

“I want to kill your daughter, but do you want to know what else I want to do now that I’m free?”

I want to tell him no, that I couldn’t give less a shit about him and what he wants. But the words are lodged in my throat and I’m shaking too much to fish them out.

“I’ll tell you what else I want. Here’s a list of things I plan to do.” He clears his throat and I know what’s coming. I’ve read his goddamn letters and I’m inside his head as much as he is. “I plan to eat tacos, beef and chicken. I plan to go see a movie, something new, something on opening night, something no one else has seen before. I plan to have sex, the way I want, exactly the way I want it—maybe from behind or from the side. I plan to raise a little hell, smash in the window of some street storefront or maybe set fire to a parked car. I plan to meet Robert De Niro because he was hilarious in Meet the Parents. I plan to have a cucumber salad. I plan to draw a bath, but instead of water I’ll use peanut oil. I plan to eat fish eggs for an entire day, nothing but fish eggs. I plan to hunt a bear. A big grizzly. With nothing but a bow and arrow. I plan to go to Greece. I plan to write a book about every murder I’ve committed, even the ones the police never knew about. A true tell-all. You’ll read it, right? Of course, you will. You’ll read it in Hell with your cunt wife and your—AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!”

He screams out in agony, and I look down to see Dinah’s mouth clamped on his wrist, my wife’s wrist, her mother’s wrist. Blood wells around her teeth as the muscles in her neck and face tighten. The knife drops to the floor mat.

Enraged, Brian instinctively lashes out with his forearm, flinging Dinah a good ten feet away. With a strip of skin dangling from her mouth, Dinah tumbles to the floor. Brian looks down at his ruined wrist, my wife’s ruined wrist.

“You little cunt,” he says, snarling like some rabid canine.

His face has so many wrinkles and lines etched in it that I can barely tell if he’s angry. But I know he is. Blood pumps between the cracks of the fingers belonging to the hand he uses as a makeshift bandage. Dinah crawls backward, crab-like, toward the far wall. There’s a window there and she looks over her shoulder, searching for a way to open it. They’re double-hung windows and the egress is wide enough for her to exit, if she manages to raise the lower sash before Greenlee barrels down on her.

Brian turns on her, opening his mouth to scream again. He looks like a dragon ready to huff fire on an innocent village. “I’m going to fucking tear you apart!”

Without thinking, I rush forward, heading him off before he can pounce on my daughter, finish the job he started a couple of weeks ago and probably could’ve finished had he not a taste for theatrics, when he was hijacking my wife’s head and stealing my daughter’s clothes and taking pictures of murdered girls and sending me the evidence of his evildoings.

I know I’m no match for him. He’s strong and I’m weak from Dale’s assault, barely able to hold up my own weight. Best-case scenario, I give Dinah a few extra minutes to get through the window, into the safe arms of the lawmen who are hopefully on their way. Worst-case scenario, Brian butchers me with ease, catches Dinah before she can figure out how to undo the sash locks, and delivers her a similar fate.

I dig deep for energy. I mean, I really dig, summoning every ounce of strength, motivating myself like never before. I’ve conquered drugs and controlled my weight issues during some of the most stressful times of my life—but that was all cake compared to this. Now, I harness every drop of adrenaline my body supplies me with, letting it fill me with power.

I crash into him and drive the bastard to the ground.

We land hard on the soft mat, and as luck would have it, I come out on top. The blade is a few feet away from me, just lying there, waiting for the stronger man to win out and claim the ultimate prize. Underneath me, he spins on his back, looks up at me, and spits in my eyes. I jam the length of my forearm under his chin and press down, almost using all my weight and remaining careful not to crush his esophagus. I want him to hurt but not die—after all, he’s carrying my wife in there with him; somewhere deep beneath the surface. But there all the same.

He smiles and growls and silently begs for his execution.

“Dinah,” I say, swinging my head toward her. She’s at the window, pushing up on the lift bar, but the thing is locked and won’t budge an inch. “You have to unlock the latches on top!”

She stands on her toes and reaches for the locks, coming up a few inches short. “Daddy, I can’t!”

Shit, I think as Brian Greenlee cackles in my ear.

“The door then!”

She turns and heads toward the door. Then, when she looks at me and her mother struggling on the gym floor mats, she freezes.

“Go, honey. Now. Go get Detective Harper.”

No movement. She’s as frozen as an ice sculpture.

“Dinah, please,” I say somehow through the tears and sadness closing off my throat.

My daughter, my alive daughter, only stares at the man beneath my arm. “Mommy…”

Brian Greenlee cackles with delight. I apply more pressure, ending his fun. His face grows tight, and the wrinkles return, creasing his face almost unnaturally.

I turn back and face him. “I want to speak to my wife.”

His eyes bulge. “Newsflash,” he says hoarsely. I let up so he can speak clearly, so I don’t have to decipher his gargles and rasps. “Your wife is dead, hombre. Down here with us. She’s gone. In Hell. Just like that cunt, Marcy Branch. I killed her, you know. Chopped off her goddamn hand to make it look like your little girl, your little cunt bitch daughter. Did it when your wife was at work. Hid her in the basement of the hospital. She was down there for a whole week and no one noticed.” He cackles again. “You’ll see them both real soon, gym boy. Marcy Branch and your cunt wife.”

I want to break his neck, but I refrain.

“I can’t die, you know. They tried to kill me, but I survived. Marianne took me in, sweet, sweet Marianne. She’s here too. She’s shyer than me. Not as vocal. But she’s enjoying our run. Enjoying it so much.”

His face suddenly changes. There are no more wrinkles. The skin is smooth and it’s as if all the extra flab in her cheeks has disappeared, been sucked into her mouth. She’s noticeably more feminine and a surge of hope rises within me.

“I just want to be free…” a woman’s voice calls out. It’s not Eve’s. It’s more high-pitched. As soon as I hear it, I know it belongs to Marianne Greenlee. She offers a faint smile. “That’s all I ever wanted. I didn’t ask for this. Any of it.” She tries to raise up off the floor as if she means to whisper in my ear. I don’t let her. She whispers anyway: “I never asked for any of this. I only loved him. I loved him and he did this to me. He made me kill, he made me murder those girls, he made me kill them all—”

“Shut up, you cow!” Brian Greenlee returns, his face twisted, cheeks swelling with excess weight. “Shut the fuck up! You loved me! You asked for this! You asked for me! We were supposed to do this together! Kill and torture and pay them all back for what was taken from us! Our sweet girl, our little princess, gone before she ever had a chance! We were robbed of our perfect life!”

“You’re both sick,” I mutter, and drive my forearm down, not as gently as I should have. But I’m starting to lose it, starting to get sucked into the madness the Greenlees have brought with them.

Brian says, “I’m going to kill your wife, your daughter, you, and I won’t stop there—I’ll kill every person I lay my eyes on, rip their throats out, cut off their cocks and dissect their cunts. I’m going to kill all—”

“Shut up!” I hear myself say, and the next thing I know my hand is cocked all the way back, far as it can go, and now I’m swinging downward, my palm open and ready to serve pain. I deliver a firm slap across his face and watch his head snap to the side with force.

Next, I wrap my hands around his throat. And squeeze. Hard. My intent is murder, a swift rage ablaze within me.

His eyes return to mine, only they aren’t his. They belong to someone else now, the third member of their exclusive group.

They belong to Eve.

“Drew…” she says, her voice small and barely audible. Distant. Rooms away. Houses away. Neighborhoods. “Drew…help…don’t…let them…”

I immediately abandon my chokehold. “Eve?” My eyes burn with new tears.

“Drew…”

“Yes, baby, I’m here.”

Her lips quiver. Her whole body shakes so violently I think she might be having a seizure.

“Drew…”

“Yes?”

She closes her eyes. “Kill me.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Nothing in life can prepare you for a situation like this. You can anticipate what you’d do, you can muse all you want, but when faced with an impossible choice, the results will vary and will always surprise you.

My current choices are this: kill my wife and terminate the only solid relationship I’ve ever had in my entire life, with the woman responsible for essentially bringing me back to life, ruining my family in the process and sending the future—mine and my daughter’s—down a long dark path of certain misery; or, spare Eve’s life, thus sparing the lives of the two murderous personalities within her, sending us down a different path, one filled with a not-so brighter future marked with just as many grim uncertainties and a potentially dangerous lifestyle, one where I’ll never know if today is my last.

I peer into Eve’s eyes and I see they belong to her, not the others who lurk within. Her request is sincere; kill me. She’s repeated the words a few times now, and a decision must be made. I glance over at Dinah, whom I’ve told to leave, and while I’m not happy with her decision to rebel, I’m glad she’s here. Her face offers no answer. She stares on almost catatonically, streaks of tears glistening on her soft, pale skin.

“I can’t,” I hear myself say, no longer giving it much thought. I shut my brain off, letting instincts take over. “Eve, I can’t do that.”

She sobs, her whole body quaking with a sadness that crushes my soul. “Please,” she barely gets out as tears squirt from her eyes.

“No…”

She looks around for the weapon Brian Greenlee held at our daughter’s throat. It’s about ten feet away and impossible to reach with me on top of her. She grasps desperately for it anyway, a weak attempt to corral the weapon and finish the job herself. I barely have to put up a fight; she’s as weak and defeated as I am. I’m able to match her energy level even in my reduced state.

She goes still. Her eyes close.

Then a spark of life jolts her awake. Suddenly her strength is back and she is moving beneath me, heaving herself off the ground like a beached sea creature struggling with the concept of air. The movement throws me, the sheer force of it. She’s able to create separation and in those moments where our bodies aren’t touching, she squirms away, inches at a time.

Her eyes open and they are blazing with hate and anger and bitter animosity. I’m not looking at Eve anymore. Before I can open my mouth to protest, a fist swings through the darkness. The knuckles connect with my jaw and the force throws me aside, allowing the body beneath me to wriggle free. Before I can react, Eve’s standing on her feet.

Not Eve.

Brian.

“Thought you could gain an edge on me,” Brian says, his lips forming a twisted grin on his face. “You can’t get an edge on me. I’ll get an edge on you.” He scans the room for the blade and it doesn’t take long for him to locate it.

“Dinah, run!” I shout, and that gets my daughter on the offensive. She scrambles toward the exit, her toothpick-like legs kicking faster than my eyes can follow. She’s able to manage about ten feet before a hand captures her around the throat.

“Where you going, cunt?” Brian asks her. He squeezes, hard, and I see her tiny eyeballs pop. I hear her choke on the lack of oxygen.

“Get the fuck away from her!” I scream, but I know the words mean nothing, as useful as silence.

Brian flashes an evil expression, full of malignant intent. Within seconds he’s throwing his head back and crowing at the ceiling. His laughter is filled with evil, hate, and menace. I endure chills as his outburst lingers.

“What do you want from me?” I ask. “I’ll give you anything.”

“What could I possibly want from you except death and misery?” he replies with a twisted grin.

“I don’t know. Freedom? Existence? We can work something out, like…like a system.”

“A system?” He stares at me incredulously as if I’m the one who’s gone fruit loops.

“Yeah, you know, we can, like, manage a life together. You and Eve and Marianne. We can make it work.”

His pupils circle his eyes. “Interesting offer, but I think I’ll pass.” He jerks his thumb toward the lobby where two dead bodies remain, drained of their bodily fluids. “I think we’re past the point of no return, past the point where we’re getting out of this thing alive. I mean…” He cups his ear and leans toward the direction of the window. Sure enough, in the distance, we hear sirens. “In about ten minutes, there will be all sorts of coppers out there, ready to fill my ass full of bullets. Ain’t no way we’re getting too far, thanks to you and your heroic efforts. Don’t worry. I’ll make you and your cunts pay dearly.”

“Just tell me why. Why go through all of this? You could have killed Dinah in her sleep. Instead you took her clothes. Why? Why go through the trouble?”

Another toothy smile occupies his face. “Because we wanted to have a little fun. We wanted to kill more, too. But Marcy Branch was tricky. With the other daughters it was quick and easy. All in one night. Took a while for the police to catch up. This time, with Marcy, it was different. We wanted to throw off our pattern, keep the authorities guessing. We did a good job, though. Didn’t we?”

I don’t answer. At this point, I want to keep him talking as long as I can. Wait for the police to get here, break in, and hopefully put him down without killing my wife.

Wishful thinking.

“Didn’t get caught. It was close. I really thought the police were gonna bring you in, Etheridge, and boy, would that’ve been sweet. To have you locked up for the murder of Marcy Branch. Meanwhile, I could continue on with my spree, bringing death to all the daughters of the world, all the potential babysitters and cunts.”

“You’re a psycho.”

He shrugs as if this is common knowledge. “I am what I am and I am proud of what I am. You call me a monster, a killer, a man with no moral compass, but I am just doing what’s right. The universe wronged me and my wife, and now I’m just taking things out on the universe.”

“It won’t bring your daughter back, no matter how many daughters you kill.”

“I know that,” he says, laughing it up. “I know that like I know how to count to ten. But you know what… It feels good. It feels right killin’ them. Opening up their bodies. Cutting them into pieces. Playing hide and go seek with their cunts. It’s all so much fun. It’s a hobby! Like your workout routine, right? Look, working out makes you feel good, right? Makes your body feel good, your mind. Well, so does making dead daughters. Killing’s a workout for my body and mind. Feels damn good. Energizing.”

I shake my head. I hate having him compare two things so dissimilar, but at the same time—I understand his point completely.

Brian says, “For years I’ve sat back and watched Evelyn Mortimer prosper, watched you prosper, Etheridge. Whatever Cotton did to us worked. It kept us suppressed. No matter what, we couldn’t surface. It was like wearing concrete shoes in shallow waters. You try to swim to the surface but can never break through. For years, it felt like we were drowning. Then one day, little Marcy Branch came into our lives. For some reason, her appearance shook Eve. It jogged something loose and those concrete shoes we were wearing suddenly broke apart and we were freed. It was an experience, that feeling. Never experienced bliss quite like it before. Akin to orgasms or killing but more intense.”

I pretend to know what he’s talking about. Keep talking, I think. Keep on talking. I try to think of questions to ask, but my pool of thoughts has dried up.

“Anyway,” he says, “that’s our story. You know the rest.”

Before I can open my mouth, before I can ask a question to further the conversation, the glass windows break, shatter into small granules. Two silver canisters fly through the egress and hit the floor, bouncing near us. Emitting fast-moving tendrils of smoke, the canisters hiss.

Smoke begins to fill up the room.

I don’t think.

I lunge.

I crash into Brian Greenlee, making sure to push my daughter away from his clutches. The smoke must have surprised him because he does little to resist my shove. They separate and Dinah tumbles to the floor, disappears beneath the swirling curls of fog.

Brian dips below the smoke and grabs something off the floor.

The knife.

I see it in his hand as he rises from the fog. The smoke is thinner near his face and I spot his diabolical grin. I can almost read his thoughts and picture the next few moments before they unfold; I imagine my daughter scrambling for the exit and Brian catching her, running the blade across her throat, ending her life prematurely. Her life had started prematurely and so it would end that way.

I want to cry, but before I can let my emotions get the best of me, a shadow enters the gym area where I’d entered no more than ten minutes ago.

“Drop the weapon!” the shadow shouts, and I recognize the voice immediately. It’s Harper. His gun is drawn and he’s aiming at Brian Greenlee.

Aiming at Eve Lowery.

Brian winks at me before he turns around, knife still in his hand.

“I’m warning you, put the knife down,” Harper says, steadying his aim. From thirty feet away, he’s a sure shot. “Eve, if you’re in there—please.”

“Fuck you, pig,” I hear Brian say.

Smoke begins to overtake the whole room.

Brian moves suddenly, ducking into the unseen region near the floor.

Gunshots sound off. I hear two. The reports temporarily deafen me. Tinnitus causes the ring to linger. I stave off the dizzy, disorientating feeling that almost overcomes me, and search for Dinah amongst the smoke. About fifteen feet away, I see her shadow behind the veil of silvery mist, and I immediately sprint toward her, my arms open, eagerly awaiting our embrace. We collide into each other and hold each other like we never want to let go.

I’m the first to break contact.

“I have to check on Mom, okay?”

She nods, tears filling up her eyes.

“Okay.” I turn and sprint toward the smoke, which, surprisingly, has already begun to clear. I spot Harper leaning against the far wall, next to the entryway separating the gym from the lobby. He’s lowering his gun, his facial features wiped clean, an expressionless sheet of skin. He looks on at his handiwork.

More smoke clears away and I see the body on the floor, motionless. It’s Eve, of course, but she’s not dead. Her chest has a red hole in it but it’s moving, rising and falling, meaning her lungs are working but for how long, I have no idea. If Harper’s grave expression is any indication, then maybe not too long.

I rush over and slide on my knees and end up kneeling over Brian. I survey the damage to Eve’s body and only see one entry wound in her chest. My eyes migrate up and I spot where the other bullet went in, just above her left eyebrow. As the smoke becomes thinner and fully transparent, I see the dark puddle beneath her head. The blood pools outward, the creeping edge reaching my knees. Her eyes are bouncing around their domain as her eyelids flutter; she’s grasping for consciousness, clinging to the light. There’s still life in her eyes; a fading life, a life that won’t be there come tomorrow, that will be gone in a few short moments. I grip her head, smearing red on her flesh, and then I break down and cry. I cry because I know this is the last moment I’ll have with her, my wife, my savior, my heart and soul.

Her motor functions are diminishing and I see her try to smile, but her lips only twitch, a spastic moment that signifies the end is near.

“Eve, I’m so sorry,” I say, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to say. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. God, I love you so much.” I shudder with sadness.

Dinah is hanging over my shoulder. I don’t want her to see this, I don’t want this to be the last memory of her mother, but also, it’s important that she has it. It’s important for her to say goodbye.

“Mommy!” she cries out.

I take my daughter’s head and press it against my chest. Her eyes soak my shirt in a matter of seconds. She wails with pain, the internal kind of suffering and anguish, the kind of pain that can last forever.

Eve looks up at us, her eyes no longer darting in all directions, expanding with recognition. Her features become soft as she stares fondly at us. Her mouth moves ever so slightly.

“Love…” she rasps. Her lungs are filled with fluids. Somehow, she’s able to choke the words out. “You…guys…”

I want to ask her if she knew about Brian and Marianne, if she knew what was happening, or if she experienced blackouts over the last few weeks, if there were any signs, if there’d been some way to stop this.

But I can’t.

I know these are my last few moments with my wife, and they will not be tarnished with what if questions, accusations of any kind.

Instead, the three of us embrace. More accurately, we embrace her. I feel her head leaking on my hands and I don’t care. I press my lips against her cheek and then her lips. Her skin already feels cold, impossibly cold. I remember the story of Brian and Marianne Greenlee, and how, in Brian’s final moments of life, the two of them kissed and how he was able to transfer his consciousness into hers. I think how glad I’d be to accept her into me, in fact—I wish for it. Even if the other two come with her, I’d let her exist inside me. But there’s no electric charge that pulses through me. No spark. I feel no different, and she looks no different. She’s losing blood and life and I know we have no time. No time to answer the thousands of questions roaming my mind.

Then, it’s over.

Her body relaxes, relieving the tension. Heaves. There’s one last shudder and then she goes completely rigid. Her eyes stare into some world beyond me, beyond this earthly place.

I hope—wherever it is—the world is better than ours.

And I hope she’s alone. At peace.

Outside, we sit on the back of an ambulance, Dinah clinging to me like we’re about to fall off the side of a steep cliff. The pressure of her embrace hurts my neck but I don’t care. I hold her like I never want to let go either. And I think I never will.

Jon Harper greets us after he clears up a few things with the higher-ups. He’s told them everything that’s happened over the last few weeks, and the events of tonight. He’s told them everything so we don’t have to.

When he appears before me, he looks like he wants to cry. I get the impression he doesn’t cry much, and maybe he’s a person who’s never cried a day in his life. But now, standing before me, he looks like tears would come easily if the wrong thing is said.

He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I guess I’m a little lost for words. I’m so sorry, Mr. Lowery. I’m so sorry about how things went down.”

I picture my wife’s head exploding, a fine crimson spray misting into the air, merging with the smoke from the grenades. I’m angry, sure (who wouldn’t be), but I can’t blame him. If it weren’t for his actions, Dinah and I would be dead too. He may have shot Eve and killed her, but he saved us. And though I can’t bring myself to thank him, I don’t stick it to him either.

“I know that probably does nothing to comfort you,” he says. “But I’m truly sorry for how things unfolded.”

I want to tell him not to worry, but my wife is gone.

Eve is gone.

Dead.

She’s never coming back.

In the moments after Harper leaves to do whatever a cop does after they kill another human being, I think a lot about Eve, a lot about our life, a lot about how I’m going to be solely responsible for caring for Dinah, about how I’m going to be responsible for nearly goddamn everything. I think about my salary and how it won’t be enough to pay for the things we are used to having. I won’t be able to afford the house, that’s for sure. The realization that she’s gone is real and it hits hard. But the hits keep coming as I realize more and more what she’s done for our family and what she won’t be doing any longer.

I hug Dinah close to me. She kisses me on the cheek. I know she’s hurting too; after all, she’ll never see her mother again. Her mother will never tuck her in at night or wake her up for school in the morning. She’ll never cook her breakfast, make her sandwiches for lunch, or make dinner for the family. She’ll never order her a pizza when she’s too lazy or too tired to cook. She’ll never take her food shopping or pick her up from after-school activities. She’ll never buy her another cotton glove for her disfigured hand.

As the red and blue lights bounce off us, we hold each other close, tight, never wanting to let go.

And we cry as we think of Eve, my wife, her mother, and all the things we’ll never do as a family again, and the things we never got to.

Epilogue

It’s Saturday, November 18th, and time for our annual trip to the Cedar Hills Cemetery to visit Eve’s grave. It’s been five years since her death and it’s rare a day goes by that we don’t think about her, talk about her, mention some little thing throughout the day that reminds us of her, of her legacy. She’s very much on our minds daily, and we have pictures scattered throughout the apartment to ensure we’ll never forget what she meant to our family.

Life hasn’t been easy without her. I’d be lying if I said it was. Between the bills and the food shopping and the after-school activities and holding down a regular nine-to-five, life itself has become quite the chore. We were forced to sell the house in Cedar Hills—which was fine with us, too many memories there anyway and it felt wrong to stay—and move to an apartment a few towns over. We were able to afford it and live more comfortably than if we had stayed.

Eve didn’t have life insurance. I sort of expected her to considering the hospital provided us with top-notch benefits, however, it seemed she opted out of the life insurance policy. It didn’t make sense, but it’s not like I could ask her to clarify. Anyway, we were able to get on financially. Money never was an issue, though, in the beginning, it was scary. There were some days we were eating off the dollar menu at Dinah’s favorite fast food joint. I even had to let my gym membership lapse and sacrifice some of my special diet just so we could get by. But once things got a little more comfortable and after I received a few raises at my new job at the county clerk’s office, things became much more manageable and I was able to return to my active and fit lifestyle.

I don’t know why, but I felt like we would hear something from Neurotronix, the company that had performed experimental surgeries on my wife, hoping to cure her of her complex dissociative identity disorder. Although the experiment proved successful, the results didn’t last. I thought they’d issue an apology or take some responsibility for what had happened, but no. In fact, they disappeared altogether.

Jon Harper came over to “wrap a few things up” a few weeks after Eve’s funeral. He told us Neurotronix had fallen off the face of the Earth and were no longer operating in a small Colorado town outside the city of Denver.

“Weirdest damn thing,” he’d said, sipping coffee at our kitchen table. “They seem to have folded overnight. Just packed up everything and left. I didn’t believe it at first, so I asked the local department to send me pictures. I got back a slew of photos of an empty building with no name on the front of it. The whole building had been repainted, unrecognizable. Not a single one of those white vans were parked in the lot.”

“Where’d they go?” I had asked.

He only shrugged. “It’ll be a mystery ’til the day we die, I suppose. We already know they were government funded, so my guess is that once they found out about Marianne Greenlee and what she’d done, well, I guess they decided to burn the whole project to the ground. Figuratively, of course.” He sighed as if this had been a great stress to him and he was relieved it was finally over. “Anyway, it’d be mighty hard to track them down. Impossible at this point. Plus, we’d be going after the government. You understand that, don’t you?”

I’d told him I understood just fine. I was angry for what had happened—still am—but honestly, I wasn’t seeking to hold any one person—or a whole entity for that matter—responsible for my wife’s untimely death. It was a wild story, one no one would believe even with hard evidence laid out before them. I didn’t need the aggravation of going on a witch hunt and making a public spectacle of the past. Nothing like that. All I wanted was to move on—still do—and after five years, I’ve found a little peace. I know the life my wife lived as Evelyn Lowery was a good life, and nothing Marianne and Brian Greenlee did to her could take that away. She was happy here, with us, and I think if she were alive today, she’d hold no regrets. She’d lived her life. Not a full one, but a happy one.

One more thing Harper presented me with: a packet with the name “Etheridge” stamped on a manilla envelope.

He told me: “You might find this information particularly…interesting.”

I took the packet from him and held it in my hands, almost dropping it at first. I felt as if the assembled information had been formed with stone. I wanted to shred it open and read every word inside, run my eyes over every photograph. I felt as if my history was inside, everything I was before I became Drew Lowery.

But then I decided, almost in the same moment of receiving it from Harper, that it didn’t matter who I was, who I had been. I was me now, and that was all that mattered. That is what matters.

I handed back the envelope. “Nah,” I said. “Burn it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

And that was that.

So now we’re at Eve’s grave, where Dinah and I go every year in November on my wife’s birthday. Occasionally, we visit if we’re in the area, but that’s not too often. November 18th is our staple. Our constant. We’ve committed to coming here on this day as long as we both live, a promise that was shaken on, pinky-sweared on, and crossed-our-hearts-hoped-to-die on.

Dinah is doing well, by the way (The Dead Daughter That Lived, the headlines had read). The change of school districts really did her some good. At her new school, no one pokes fun at her disfigurement. The hand is a non-issue and she rarely wears her glove. Once in a while, she’ll slip it on if we’re at a nice restaurant, but that’s about it. She’s made so many friends over here it’s quite astonishing. Unexpectedly, she’s become a social butterfly. She’s even asked about having a boyfriend. What’s the right age for that? I told her never, laughed, and then reminded her she’s only twelve and we can revisit the topic in a couple years. But probably longer. (Much longer.)

I wonder how Eve would respond. Probably something similar. We were always on the same page about parenting. Until the gruesome picture landed in our mailbox, we hardly ever disagreed about how to raise Dinah.

“I miss her,” Dinah says, looking down on her headstone. “I miss her a lot.”

“Me too,” I say, and I feel the comforting sting of tears in the corners of my eyes. “Me too.”

She holds my hand and squeezes. I squeeze back. We stay a little while longer, until the sun begins to fall behind the horizon and twilight casts its giant shadow.

Then we head back to the car.

Back home.

To our quiet, almost perfect lives.

And as we leave, I feel something in the back of my head, and it almost feels like one of those terrible headaches, the ones I sometimes get, the ones no pills can erase.

About the Author

Tim Meyer dwells in a dark cave near the Jersey Shore. He's an author, husband, father, podcast host, blogger, coffee connoisseur, beer enthusiast, and explorer of worlds. He writes horror, mysteries, science fiction, and thrillers, although he prefers to blur genres and let the stories fall where they may.

Table of Contents

- (Untitled)
- A Letter Home
- (Untitled)
- Part I
- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- A Letter Home
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- (Untitled)
- Part II
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- A Letter Home
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- A Letter Home
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- From the Desk of Dr. Alfred T. Cotton
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Epilogue
- About the Author