She looks a little sheepish as she swallows. “I know. But someone had to eat it.”
“How would you like it if you spent an hour doing one of your paintings and your sister came along and tore it up before anyone got to see it?”
Bridget ducks her head. “Okay, I’m sorry, Gretchen.”
Gretchen says nothing but sits heavily on the stool and plucks another naked sugar cookie from the container. I reach across the island to hand her a fresh plastic knife.
Paris finally emerges from the bathroom. “Look, Mom! I found Mr. Kitty!”
The knife drops from my fingers, and as I swing around, my hand contacts one of the bowls, sweeping it from the counter. The ceramic shatters against the tile and splatters red icing across the floor.
Paris stands in front of me, holding up the black cat.
I freeze, my mouth falling open. “Where did you find that?”
“It was sitting in the bathroom—on a shelf.”
For some reason, I immediately whirl toward Annalen. “Did you bring that cat into this house?”
Her forehead creases. “No. Why would I?”
Gretchen and Bridget have already dipped to the floor to pick up the shards of the bowl. I should tell them to stop, be careful, let me do it, they might cut themselves. But I don’t. I stand there staring at the stuffed cat as Paris giggles and hugs it to her chest.
My mind rolls. The cat’s been missing since the night it disappeared from Mickey’s backpack. How can it be here? In this house?
My stomach churns. I have to get that cat away from Paris.
“Mom, are you okay?” Annalen holds a plastic knife above an unfinished turkey.
“Y-yeah. I’m fine.”
“You look pale.”
Paris twirls. Then she sets the stuffed animal down on the tabletop. “I’m going to put Mr. Kitty right here, so he can watch us decorate cookies.”
I glance over at the cat. It stares back at me with accusing plastic eyes.
“Ow!” Bridget suddenly cradles her hand against her chest.
Snapping back into mom mode, I squat beside her and grab her hand. “What happened? Did you cut yourself? Girls, stand back from the glass. I’ll clean it up.”
A half-inch gash on Bridget’s wrist under her palm oozes blood. I help Bridget to the sink and put her hand under the faucet.
“Ow!” she cries out again, holding up her other arm. A matching gash on her left wrist begins like a crescent moon and then waxes to a half-moon, gushing red.
I grasp her other hand and push it under the water as well. “Gretchen, run and grab bandages from my purse.”
Gretchen darts off, kicking a stray shard across the tile as she goes.
Annalen carries a broom from the garage and begins sweeping up the pieces. A minute later, Gretchen returns with gauze bandages and Neosporin. I use paper towels to pat Bridget’s forearms dry. I smear the cuts with ointment and then wrap gauze and medical tape around her wrists while listening to the swish of the broom and ceramic pieces scraping against the tile.
Bridget’s face is flushed, and she breathes hard as she steps back and holds her arms out in front of her. Within seconds, little spots of blood seep through the bandages.
“Okay,” I pant. “Everyone’s okay. We’ll just clean up the spilled icing, and then we’re good.”
Annalen looks up from her sweeping and stares at the white cuffs around Bridget’s wrists. “It looks like she tried to kill herself.”
“Annalen, stop it,” I growl.
Bridget bursts into tears.
LATER THAT NIGHT, I check my email messages on my laptop. A note from another paranormal investigator says they’re completely booked through November but could probably work me in before Christmas. What is this? Open season for hauntings? I call them back, leave a message, ask them to put me on the list, but I’ll keep looking for someone who can come sooner. My next possibility is contacting the Catholic church. However, Dawn tells me getting a priest to help is not probable since we’re not members. It was a last resort anyway.
I settle the girls in two guest rooms—Bridget and Paris in with me, Gretchen and Annalen in the other. Paris insists on sleeping with Mr. Kitty. I counted on that and having to wait around until she’s asleep.
I read her one of her favorite stories about animals that band together and save their forest. Paris’s eyes close before I get to the last page. Then I carefully extract the toy from her arms.
Carrying the stuffed animal by the tail, I return to the kitchen, where Jax is stirring a cocktail in a highball glass.
He points at the toy. “Is that the same stuffed cat we saw in your house?”
“Yep. Any chance either of you knows how it ended up here—in this house?”
Both of them slowly shake their heads.
I drop it onto the island. “How did it get into the downstairs bathroom?”
Jax pokes at it with his stir stick. “That is really weird.”
I cross my arms. “I talked to your friend, Julie Havner.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad she called you.”
“Yeah, but she can’t help me. Not for a few weeks at the earliest.”
He grimaces. “Shit. But yeah, she’s really busy. She’s kind of f—”
“Famous,” I complete the sentence for him. “Yes, you’ve told me.” I drop my hands to my hips. “In the meantime, I need real help.”
Jax shifts on the stool, and his face takes on a pained expression. “I guess I could come by again, see if there’s anything else I can do.”
I hold up a hand. “No. Thanks, Jax. Not after what happened with Mickey. I’d feel like you should sign a waiver or something. How is Mickey, by the way?”
He gulps a mouthful of his cocktail, swallows. “He’s still pretty shaken up. We haven’t been out on an investigation since.”
The stuffed cat sits between us on the island. Any second, I expect it to move or disappear.
“Hey Jax, could you guys keep an eye on the girls for a few minutes?” I grasp the cat’s stiff tail. “I’m going to burn this sucker.”
SO FAR, MY PLAN IS going well. I drop the toy into a stone basin in my backyard, douse it with leftover kerosene from the camping gear Gunnar left behind in the garage, and then I throw a match on top of it. If the fire department shows up, so be it. At least the cat will be gone.
The kerosene-soaked fabric goes up like a torch. A shriek sends me reeling backward until I contact the railing of the deck. I look around, trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. Above me? Behind me?
Then, slowly, I approach the stone cistern, fearful that a flaming cat will jump out of it. I look down at the smoking mass. The flames cast a light on my overgrown yard.
Wet leaves cling like papier-mâché to the stone statues and cover the green and brown grass. I clutch at my stomach, assembling the words I will say to Paris tomorrow when she asks about her stuffed animal.
With a click, the exterior floodlights extinguish, plunging the yard into inky darkness. I stand at the cistern, hugging my arms around myself until the flames have burned out and the plush toy is nothing more than a few clumps of material and ash.
Cat’s gone. One problem solved.
Next door, the leg of a metal chair scrapes against the cement patio. Steel must be outside.
My yard lights flare again.
“Claire?”
I dart behind a row of bushes at the base of my deck and duck down. Through the branches, I can see Steel’s form moving toward the smoking cistern, carrying a spade with a long handle.
“Claire, I think we should talk about what happened the other morning.”
I hold my breath. What is he doing with that shovel? Images of him smacking me over the head with the blade flood my brain, fueling my heart rate. If he was so keen to talk, why didn’t he try to say something the other night when he was staring into the window of my car?
He stops in front of the container, lowers the spade’s
tip to the ground. His left hand raises to his hip.
“Come on, Claire. Let’s talk. Everyone has arguments and misunderstandings, right? We can work this out.”
He scans the yard, and for a moment, his gaze seems to rest on my hiding place.
No. Please don’t see me.
“What are you burning, Claire?” He circles, steps onto the shed’s frame, exits off the other side. He weaves in and out of the statues, caressing each of them and sending an icy ripple through me.
“I’m sorry about the other morning,” he says. “Like I told you, sometimes I get depressed. This weather, you know, it’s been messing with my head.”
My heart hammers in my temples. Go away, go away, go away.
He walks toward the bushes, coming closer and closer until he’s only a few steps from me. His upper body glows green from one of the spotlights, and a small smile tips his lips. The harsh light accentuates the planes and valleys of his face until it looks like a mask. Finally, he turns and walks away, shuffling through the grass and whistling.
I peer through the branches again. Steel moves into the opening of the fence and turns in the direction of the construction site.
I let a few minutes pass, and then I follow him, staying several yards behind. Under the full light of the moon, the construction site’s shadowy skyline is eerie and strange—the derelict machinery like sleeping monsters. I crouch behind a tarp-covered vehicle and sink my fingers into the tire treads to anchor my position.
Steel’s box-shaped flashlight floods the high grasses as he whistles and moves toward the abandoned house, a hulking mass against the moonlit sky. He steps up onto the porch and disappears inside. Why would he need to enter a house that’s been vacant for years? One that’s rumored to have once housed a murderer?
I shouldn’t be here hiding on a construction lot, following some weirdo, and trying to solve a mystery that could get me killed. I should be at home with my kids.
Five, ten, maybe twenty minutes pass. No lights glow within the house. A raindrop splashes on the end of my nose. Another one stings my cheek. Steel does not emerge from the house. What is he doing in there?
Finally, ensuring the coast is clear, I slink out from behind the bulldozer and sprint back to Dawn’s, just as the sky opens and sends down a punishing rain.
39
The next morning, as rain continues to drizzle from the sky, I return to the construction site, trekking through mud puddles and waist-high weeds toward the deserted house. Once I’m standing in front of it, I stare up at the peeling greenish paint and remaining shudders, many of them missing more than a few slats.
As I step onto the front stoop, the boards creak under my feet as though they might give way any moment and allow me to sink through—to whatever lies below. But they hold me, and I take the next two, three steps to the door.
The screen has torn away from the metal and hangs open like gaping flesh, revealing a panel encrusted with dead bugs and grime. The tarnished doorknob is concave on one side and feels like a rock in my hand. The knob twists, but the door doesn’t open.
“Can I help you?”
I spin around and gaze up into a man’s face wizened from too many years baking in the sun. Splotches of red dot his cheeks, and a strip of adhesive covers a patch of skin on his forehead, another across the side of his bald head.
“Um, no. I was just taking a walk.” I shrink back a little and blink my eyes several times against the slanted downfall of rain.
He squints at me. “You always take walks when it’s raining?”
I glance over my shoulder. “No. I guess I was curious—about this house.”
The man coughs and runs the back of his hand across his mustache. “You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.” He laughs a croupy smoker’s chortle.
I would move forward, off the house’s porch, but he’s blocking me, his foot on the bottom step that’s so decayed it’s barely a step anymore. “Best not be milling around this place. It’s private property and dangerous. Lots of broken glass, rusty nails, and it’s a hibernating-snake haven. Been empty for a couple of years.”
I nod. Movement on the opposite end of the lot catches my eye. Maybe twenty yards away, along the fence line that separates this land from my property, an elderly woman places a wreath of red and blue flowers against an orange construction barrier. A teddy bear and a plastic heart adorn the marker. I’ve seen ones like it on the highway denoting a spot where a loved one has died in a car crash or motorcycle accident.
The man twists his head, following my gaze. “Hm. Sad, isn’t it? That woman comes here once a week, rain or shine. She always brings a wreath or flowers or stuffed animals or something.”
“Why?”
“Many years ago, her daughter died there.” He turns toward me. “I’m Eli Chewning, by the way. I own this lot—well, everything except for the property we’re standing on. Owner won’t sell it to me. At least not yet. I’m still working on it.”
“Hi. Claire Vogel.”
“You with the police?”
“Huh?” I laugh. “Uh, no, I live right back there.” I point toward my house. “But I used to come to this field a lot when I was a kid.”
“Ah.” He nods. “Well, I wouldn’t just stroll around here. Since we stopped construction a few weeks ago, we’ve had a lot of vagrants and vandals hanging out—especially around this house. Like I said, it’s got quite a history. That’s why I thought you might be a cop or something.” Eli points at the house. “This place used to belong to Silas Crouter. You may have heard of him.”
The name rings a bell. “Wasn’t he a murderer?”
His forehead creases. “Child molester and murderer.” He swipes raindrops from his forehead. “No one’s lived here in years though.”
Even so, it’s eerie to think we lived so close to the house of a sex offender and didn’t know it.
“You’d be amazed how many people I see sniffing around here all the time—teenagers mainly, trying to get a look at the house of horrors, daring their friends to go inside.”
I glance up at the windows. Some of them are boarded up. “Why don’t they just tear it down?”
“House is tied up in all kinds of court battles. Crouter was murdered in prison a couple of years ago. His family wanted the land, then they didn’t want the land. Someone else bought it for development purposes and never did nothing with it.” He motions to the house. “Place is practically falling down on its own.”
I shift my gaze toward the woman arranging the wreath. The wind catches the wire frame, blowing it forward. She rights it again.
Eli extends a shaky finger. “Eighteen years ago, that woman’s little girl was found buried right in that spot.”
“That’s horrible.” The clouds shift overhead and rain spatters against my face.
Eli crosses his arms. “Crouter’s doing. Raped and murdered her. He confessed to her death and more. His crimes took place over a couple of decades, from the nineties into the 2000s. He started out molesting children and went from there.”
Eli’s story definitely gives context as to why the house always gave me the creeps. As a young girl, I wouldn’t have had any idea about the danger lurking within. Now, the thought that I had played so close to destruction chills my blood.
“Is that why construction stopped? Because you found out about the murders?”
“Nah. We had to stop because we ran up against a big sinkhole. Right over there.” He points to an area cordoned off with orange barrels and caution tape. “And it’s been a bitch to repair. We keep filling it with soil and clay, and by the next day, it’s like we haven’t done nothing.” He looks toward the sky. “This rain sure as hell doesn’t help either. Anyway, until we get that sorted out, we’ve had to stop construction.” He points his finger at me. “And that’s another reason not to be walking around here.”
“But the murders? I mean, that doesn’t bother you? To develop on land that was a burial site for murder vict
ims?”
He shrugs. “I already put up a development right over there and didn’t even know about it.” His eyes shift toward my neighborhood. “I was the lead developer for Folly’s Crossing, and then Amber Mills right through those trees where you live.”
A damp gust billows through, blowing a heartier sheet of rain against my face. I yank the hood of my raincoat so it covers my forehead.
Eli backs away from the front steps and points toward the woman by the fence. “We’ll be pouring concrete over the ground there soon.”
“Over her little girl’s grave? Can’t you leave that section alone?”
“Not feasible. That’ll be the road people use to access the neighborhood. Anyway, her daughter is buried in a cemetery now. The body is long gone.” Eli turns and motions for me to follow him.
I step off the porch. “Do you have someone named Steel Nolan working for you? Doing construction here on the lot? He usually does home improvement projects.”
Eli gives a quick shake of his head. “Never heard of him. No homes are completed yet anyway. And like I said, right now, no one’s working for me over here.”
So, Steel lied about that too. Big surprise.
After a few yards, I turn and look once more at the house. How many times did I stare up at those windows as a kid, swaying back and forth on the swings? My gaze stops on one of the upper windows that’s not boarded. Someone is standing there. Looking right at me. A man wearing a hat. He raises a hand and waves.
I call out to Eli. “Hey, look!”
Eli backtracks to me, and I frantically point toward the window. He tracks my gaze and holds his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the rain.
“There’s someone in there—inside the house.”
As soon as I speak the words, the man in the hat backs away, disappearing from sight. Even so, the imprint of the vision is burned into my brain. I know him. It’s the man I saw in the parking garage.
“You saw someone? Up there?”
“Yes. Yes, it was a man.” I gesture at my head. “He was wearing a hat. Standing in that window.”
Eli chews at the inside of his mouth. “Eh, I’ll have to call the owner. Let him know he’s got squatters again.”
The Neighbor: A terrifying tale of supernatural suspense Page 19
