“Good point. Let’s go!”
Complete with multiple towers and broken-out windows, the Haunted House was an abandoned dilapidated mansion on West Hill that had once belonged to one of the city’s pearl button barons.
Over the years, however, the mansion had fallen into such disrepair that no one could afford to buy it to sink a small fortune into fixing it up, so eventually the city claimed it for back taxes. Then the Junior Chamber of Commerce got the bright idea of renting the mansion each October and transforming it into a real moneymaker, incorporating high-tech animatronics, set design, music, and live actors in ghoulish makeup.
I had to park about a mile away—we should have just walked from our house!—but once Jake and I reached the rusted, iron-gate entrance to the old mansion, we were glad we’d made the trip.
First, I paid our admission (ten dollars each, so it had better be good) to an evil-looking clown who I’m pretty sure was Mr. Evans, the high school marching band director, who made us perform one time in one-hundred-degree heat, even though half the percussion section had fainted.
As Jake and I walked with the others up the winding drive, fog machines hidden in the bushes spewed out white smoke that stalked us, ghostly fingers grabbing for our ankles. Out on the front lawn, red-spattered white-faced zombies wandered among a makeshift graveyard, some coming alive and rising up out of the ground, while the organ music of Bach’s Toccata—punctuated by bloodcurdling screams—poured from loudspeakers positioned on the roof of the house.
At the front door, a mob was waiting to get in, and I stood in line behind a young girl with long red hair and glasses, who looked about Jake’s age. My son was ahead of me in line, pretending not to know his mother.
The girl seemed nervous, and we hadn’t gone inside yet, so I asked, “Are you here with anyone?”
“My older sister, but she ditched me.”
I knew how that felt. “Do you want to go through with me? My name is Brandy.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I’m Amanda.” She got a good grip on my arm, and we went in, as Jake disappeared ahead, wanting no motherly chaperone.
The JC Haunted House’s rep proved to be well earned.
The library featured a spiral staircase you had to go up, which swayed and wobbled as if it might break away at any moment (kind of like climbing any flight of stairs after three margaritas).
The dentist’s office was genuinely gross, with blown-up images of oral diseases playing on the wall, while a demented dentist—who actually was my dentist—worked on a screaming patient with a horrible old rusty drill (I’m gonna cancel my appointment for a cleaning next week).
The second-floor hallway had framed portraits of people who suddenly reached out for you (even though I saw that coming a mile away, I allowed a handsome Civil War soldier to grab me and hug me . . . can’t let the kids have all the fun).
But my favorite scare was in the first-floor bathroom. When I peered in the mirror, a half-eaten-away skull replaced my face in the glass (although it was kinda what I look like first thing every morning, anyway).
At the basement door leading to the torture chamber, Amanda ran into her sister, and I said good-bye to my new young friend. Opting to skip the chamber (I couldn’t imagine anything down there more torturous than my root canal), I headed to where I thought I might find Mother and her friends.
The three witches were in the main tower, and since they were on their feet, the amount of dry ice in the cauldron must have been correct. A crowd of fifteen to twenty people were gathered around them, listening to their oratory, and I waited until they had finished before butting in.
“Have you seen Jake?” I asked Mother.
Mother, stirring the pot with a long stick, cackled, “Round about the caldron go, in the poisoned entrails throw, is the boy with friend or foe, in a moment you shall know. . . .”
“Just tell me, already.”
“Brandy,” Mother said, sotto-Vivian-voce, “I have to speak in rhymes! Not doing so is the worst of crimes!”
I sighed. I knew Mother hated to break character, but this was ridiculous.
She cackled again: “Now about the caldron sing, like elves and fairies in a ring. The boy was here whom you do seek, and went to the portable potties to take a leak.”
I didn’t know who to feel more sorry for, Jake or Shakespeare.
I tried my hand at it. “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble, when Jake returns from near or far, tell him I’m going to wait in the goddamn car.”
“Brandy!” Mother gasped. “How randy!”
Anyway, I trouped to the Buick, got in, and leaned my seat back as far as it would go before closing my eyes.
Knuckles rapped on the car window, jolting me awake, and I turned my head to see Mother’s witchy face in the glass.
I powered down the window.
“Don’t tell me you’re still waiting for Jake,” she said.
“What time is it, anyway?” I yawned.
“After one, dear.”
I bolted upright. “What!”
God, had I conked out that long?
I put my seat up. “Where is Jake?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Mother said, shaking her head. “The boy never came back.... I just assumed you’d found each other and gone home.”
“I have to go back to that mansion!”
Mother shook her head harder, pointy hat flopping. “It’s locked up. . . . We were the last to go!”
By “we” she meant her two witch friends in the club car parked behind me, on the now otherwise deserted street. Mother signaled to them that she was staying with me, and they rumbled off as she came around and got in on the passenger side.
“Nothing to worry about,” Mother said. “Jake probably walked home when he couldn’t find you. He’s a big boy.”
“But . . . I was right here. . . .”
“Dear, I couldn’t see you with your seat back like that, not until I looked in the window. Come now, let’s go . . . Jake’s probably wondering where we are.”
This was the second time I’d been worried about my son going through one of these stupid Halloween concessions, and I knew Mother was probably right—my paranoia at that maze had been unfounded—but, even so, the short drive home seemed interminable.
Then, when I wheeled into our drive, my panic eased when I could see that my son’s bedroom light was on.
Only when we got inside, Jake was not in his room . . .
. . . or anywhere else in the house.
“I’m going to call the police,” I said, pacing furiously, getting out my cell.
Mother, seated on the couch, said, “Perhaps you should.”
I stopped midpace, expecting her to have pooh-poohed the idea.
“Then you do think something’s wrong!” I said. “That something has happened to Jake!”
Still in witch’s drag, she smiled feebly. “Of course not, dear . . . but you’re obviously upset. And it is nearly two in the morning.... Perhaps you should call.”
Did Jake cause his father this kind of parental agony?
Roger!
I used my cell.
My ex’s sleepy voice answered. “Brandy,” he groaned. “Do you have any idea what time it—”
“It’s two in the morning, and time your son should be in bed but he isn’t because I can’t find him!”
A woman’s muffled voice in the background asked, “Who is it, Roger?”
“Nobody,” I heard my ex whisper. Then he said to me, “Okay, all right, now settle down . . . what happened?”
Quickly I told him about going to the Haunted House.
“Look,” Roger said, placatingly, “the boy’s just out having a little Halloween fun. . . . He’ll turn up pretty soon, full of apologies.”
“Roger! He’s only ten!”
“I stayed out all night once at that age.”
“That was thirty years ago! Times have changed. Why aren’t you upset?”
I was so furious I couldn’t speak, and flipped my phone shut, which is not nearly as effective as slamming down a receiver in someone’s ear.
Mother asked, “What did he say?”
“Basically, boys will be boys, and I’m just being an uptight mom. Also, I’m ‘nobody.’”
Mother said slowly, “I’m sure Roger is right about Jake. . . . Still . . .”
“What? You’re scaring me, Mother.”
“I don’t mean to, dear. It’s just that . . .”
“What?”
Mother took a deep breath. “I really do think there may be a connection between the federal auction, Mrs. Norton’s death, and Jake’s disappearance.”
I shook my head disbelievingly. “Mother, I’m in no mood to listen to any of your wild theories right now, your stupid, crazy mystery games. . . .”
As absurd as her witch’s outfit was, what she said next was credible: “Brandy, hear me out. What if one of the antiques we bought at the auction had something valuable hidden in it?”
“Like what?” I was frantically pacing. “The Hope Diamond? A map to the Flying Dutchman’s ghost mine?”
Mother said patiently, “It’s the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine . . . and if you’re going to be facetious, I won’t continue. Go ahead and call the police.”
I swallowed. “All right. All right, I’m listening.”
She sat forward. “What if someone broke into the antiques mall to get the . . . whatever it is, diamond, map, we don’t know . . . but that someone didn’t find it, and in the process of that failed search was surprised by the unfortunate appearance of Mrs. Norton, who he then had to silence?”
“But the dog . . .”
“Was framed. Never mind how, for the moment—our concern now is Jake.”
“It sure as hell is! But . . . how does he fit into this fanciful conjecture?”
Her witch’s face was grave. “He may have been taken for leverage, dear . . . to get back from us what that person believes we have.”
“But we don’t have it . . . whatever it is!”
My cell phone trilled.
Roger.
His voice was alert now. “Brandy, is there an airport in Serenity?”
“Yes . . . a small one used by corporate types and flying clubs. Why—”
“I want you to meet me there in an hour. I’ll call you as I’m coming in.”
That seemed a little extreme, and I said, “Roger, I’m just about to call the police about Jake. There’s no need for you to coming flying here in the middle of the night—”
“Yes, there is.” His voice quavered. “Brandy, stay calm . . . but I just received a text message from Jake on his BlackBerr y . . . and he says he’s been kidnapped.”
A Trash ’n’ Treasures Tip
Half the fun of buying antiques is discovering new ways to use them once their original purpose has gone out of fashion. A pair of “sad” irons make great bookends, and an antique scale can hold fruit or potted plants. Mother once took an old bedpan, filled it with water and floating candles, and used it as a centerpiece. But I think she went too far, because the guests had trouble eating.
Chapter Eleven
In the Kill of the Night
As I remembered it, the Serenity Municipal Airport—I hadn’t been there for years, not since taking a flying lesson on a whim and nearly hitting the white beacon tower—resided in a flat field about ten miles south of town, and consisted of a hangar, an airstrip, and a wind sock.
So I was surprised by how the tiny airport had expanded; even in the darkness I could make out a modern main building, four or five more hangars, a second landing strip, and a prominent new boldly red painted beacon tower that you couldn’t miss (or maybe the idea was a beginning flier like me couldn’t hit).
I squealed my car to a stop in the small empty parking lot right up by the one-story brick administration center. At this ungodly hour (3:00 AM), this main airport building—along with every other one—was locked up tight for the night. The airstrip landing lights, however, were on, as a courtesy to unexpected drop-in guests.
I got out of the car onto shaky legs and took several big gulps of cool air, trying to calm my nerves—sometimes Prozac just wasn’t enough. Then I made my way over to the fence that cordoned off the two airstrips, stepped through the gate, and waited, eyes searching the inky sky.
Roger had celled me at home when he and the pilot were close to town, allowing me enough time to make it down to the airport before they arrived. And his calculation (as usual) was correct, for within minutes I could hear the faint drone of the plane’s single engine, and begin to see the lights of the aircraft as it dropped lower and lower in the night sky.
The pilot—considering the short notice, either a friend of Roger’s or someone from his company, I would guess—circled once, picked out an airstrip, then set the small plane down with ease.
I folded my arms across my chest as chill air from the propellers blasted my way. Then the plane taxied toward me, and the pilot—only a dark form behind the controls—cut the engine, and Roger hopped out holding the Louis Vuitton brown leather carry-on bag I had given him two Christmases ago (bought with his money).
Until I saw my ex, I had been doing okay, not great, but hanging on; but as Roger rushed toward me, my legs turned to jelly, and if it weren’t for his arms drawing around me, I would have crumbled.
I laid my head on his chest and blubbered.
“Shhh . . . shhh,” Roger said soothingly, stroking my hair. “We’ll find him.”
I pulled back. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I sniffled.
“Me too.”
The plane’s engine wheezed and coughed back to life, and as the pilot taxied for his return flight, Roger taxied me with an arm around my waist, toward the parking lot.
“You okay to drive?” he asked, holding me out in front of him with a hand on each of my arms.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Really, yes. You don’t know your way around Serenity.”
He couldn’t argue that point.
Calmed down enough to drive, I got behind the wheel, and as I pulled on to the highway, asked, “Any more text messages from Jake?”
“No. Just that one he sent from his BlackBerry.”
“But who in God’s name would kidnap our son? And why? It’s not like Mother and I have any money!”
“No.” He was looking out the window at the dark countryside gliding by. “But I do.”
Roger ran his own investment company in the prosperous Chicago suburb of Oakbrook.
In the empty backseat of my Buick sat the proverbial elephant neither one of us wanted to acknowledge: that Jake might have been abducted by a sexual predator. Our son was, after all, a very handsome boy, quite the spitting image of his father.
Roger said, “There is another possible answer to Jake’s disappearance.”
“What?”
“It’s a rather more . . . benign one.”
“What, Roger?”
“Our son may be trying to bring us back together.”
“By pulling a prank, you mean? Kind of extreme, don’t you think, even for Halloween?”
My voice had more of an edge to it than I intended.
Roger was shaking his head glumly. “Brandy, he’s been very unhappy lately. He doesn’t like my new . . . friend.”
Another pachyderm had joined us: that this was somehow all my fault....
I am guilty of my share of sins, but playing Jake off against his father, or even trying to undermine my new replacement, was not among them.
With a tinge of acid, I asked, “Is that why you keep buying him all those expensive toys?”
Roger stiffened. “That’s unfair.”
“Yes, it is unfair that I can’t compete with the things you give him,” I said.
“If he didn’t have that BlackBerry . . .”
“Let’s not.”
“Not what?”
“Waste time with the blame game.”
“. . . Okay.”
“We’ll get Jake back, and we’ll go from there. If he’s pulling something on us, we’ll deal with it.”
We’d be furious with our son as soon as we got over being ecstatic that it had been nothing worse. Please, God, make it be nothing worse....
We rode the rest of the way in strained silence. As I pulled into our driveway, I warned, “Mother has her own harebrained notions about Jake’s disappearance.”
“Now, there’s a shock.”
“Don’t be mean. You have my permission to ignore her. Just don’t . . . goad her.”
“She’s not that easy to ignore, Brandy.”
“Roger. Please? For Jake’s sake.”
He nodded, and a tightness around his eyes eased. “Sure. United front.”
“Thank you.”
Inside, we found Mother, still in her witch costume but with the makeup washed off and her thick-lensed glasses on, seated by the phone on its stand near the stairs.
Roger set down his bag. “Hello, Vivian . . . you’re looking lovely as ever.”
“Why, thank you, Roger,” Mother said, not rising from her chair, or to her ex-son-in-law’s bait. “Sorry about the unfortunate circumstances.” Whether she was being bigger than my ex, or just oblivious of her current attire, I have no idea.
I nodded toward the phone. “Anything?”
“No, dear, I would have called you on your cell, if there had been.... But I did take the liberty to call that nice young Officer Lawson of yours . . . at his home?”
Roger frowned just a little at that.
“And?” I asked anxiously.
“He said that we should sit tight, dear,” Mother said, “and that he would come over to hear the whole story, before deciding what should be done.”
“We’ll decide what should be done,” Roger said firmly.
I said, “Roger, Brian’s a friend. He’ll only help.”
Roger asked Mother, “When do you expect him?”
On cue came a sharp rap at the back door.
Antiques Maul Page 16
