by A. J. Finn
My phone buzzes, crawling across the pillow next to me. I seize it.
Going 2 police
11:33 p.m. I drifted off.
I step from bed and snap the curtains to one side. Rain batters my windows, sharp as artillery fire, turning them to puddles.
Across the park, through the smear of the storm, the house is dark.
“There’s so much you don’t know, so much.”
Behind me, the film is still playing.
“You live in a dream,” sneers Uncle Charlie. “You’re a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you’d find swine? Use your wits. Learn something.”
I slope toward the bathroom, in the length of light falling through the window. Something to help me get back to sleep—melatonin, I think. I’ll need it tonight.
I swallow a pill. On-screen, the body falls, and the train shrieks, and the credits roll.
“Guess who.”
This time I can’t dismiss him, because I’m asleep, though aware of it. A lucid dream.
Still, I try. “Leave me alone, Ed.”
“Come on. Talk to me.”
“No.”
I don’t see him, don’t see anything. Wait—there’s a trace of him, just a shadow.
“I think we need to talk.”
“No. Go away.”
Darkness. Silence.
“Something’s wrong.”
“No.” But he’s right—something is wrong. That stirring in my gut.
“Man, that Alistair guy turned out to be a freak of the week, didn’t he?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I almost forgot. Livvy has a question for you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Just one.” A flash of teeth; a curving grin. “A simple question.”
“No.”
“Go on, pumpkin. Ask Mommy.”
“I said—”
But already her mouth is at my ear, piping her hot little words into my head, her voice that full-throated rasp she uses when she’s sharing a secret.
“How’s Punch’s paw?” she asks.
I’m awake, with instant clarity, as though I’ve been doused with water. My eyes spring wide. A spine of light runs across the ceiling above.
I roll from bed and pad to the curtains, throw them back. The room fades to gray around me; through the windows, through the rain, I see the Russells’ house shouldering an unholy sky. A jagged seam of lightning up above. A deep toll of thunder.
I return to bed. Punch whines quietly as I settle in.
How’s Punch’s paw?
That was it—the knot in my stomach.
When Ethan visited the day before yesterday, when he found the cat draped along the back of the sofa, Punch slid to the floor and wriggled underneath. I squint my eyes, replay the scene from every angle. No: Ethan didn’t see—couldn’t have seen—his lame leg.
Or could he? Feeling for Punch now, closing my fingers on his tail; he rustles against me. I check the time on the phone: 1:10 a.m.
The digital light spangles in my eyes. I squeeze them shut, then peer at the ceiling.
“How did he know about your paw?” I ask the cat in the dark.
“Because I visit you at night,” says Ethan.
Monday, November 15
95
My body bucks in shock. My head twists toward the door.
Lightning ignites the room, torches it white. He stands in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his head haloed with rainwater, scarf loose at his neck.
Words lurch off my tongue. “I thought—you went home.”
“I did.” His voice is low but clear. “Said good night. Waited for them to go to bed.” His mouth curls in a soft little smile. “Then I came back here. I’ve been coming here a lot,” he adds.
“What?” I don’t understand what’s happening.
“I have to tell you,” he says, “I’ve met a lot of psychologists, and you’re the first who hasn’t diagnosed me with a personality disorder.” His eyebrows lift. “I guess you’re not the world’s best shrink.”
My mouth clacks shut and creaks open, like a faulty door.
“You interest me, though,” he says. “You do. That’s why I kept coming back to you, even when I knew I shouldn’t. Older women interest me.” He frowns. “Sorry, is that insulting?”
I can’t move.
“Hope not.” A sigh. “My dad’s boss had a wife who interested me. Jennifer. I liked her. She liked me, kind of. Only . . .” He shifts his lanky body, angles himself against the other side of the frame. “There was . . . a misunderstanding. Right before we moved. I visited their house. At night. And she didn’t like that. Or she said she didn’t.” Now he glares. “She knew what she was doing.”
Then I see it in his fist. A bolt of silver, glinting.
It’s a blade. It’s a letter opener.
His eyes travel from my face to his hand and back again. My throat has closed up.
“This is what I used on Katie,” he explains brightly. “Because she wouldn’t leave me alone. I told her, and told her, so many times, and she just . . .” Shaking his head. “Wouldn’t stop.” He sniffs. “Kind of like you.”
“But,” I croak, “tonight—you . . .” My voice dries, dies.
“What?”
I lick my lips. “You told me—”
“I told you enough to—sorry, but to shut you up. I’m sorry to say it like that, because you’re really nice. But I needed to shut you up. Until I could take care of things.” He fidgets. “You wanted to call the police. I needed a little time to—you know. Get stuff ready.”
Motion in the corner of my eye: the cat, stretching himself along the length of the bed. He looks at Ethan, cries.
“That darn cat,” he says. “I loved that movie as a kid. That Darn Cat!” He smiles at Punch. “I think I broke its leg, by the way. I’m sorry.” The letter opener winks as he wags it at the bed. “It kept following me around the house at night and I kind of lost my temper a little. Plus I’m allergic, like I told you. I didn’t want to sneeze and wake you. I’m sorry you’re awake now.”
“You came here at night?”
He takes a step toward me, the blade liquid in the gray light. “I come here almost every night.”
I hear my breath catch. “How?”
He smiles again. “I took your key. When you were writing down your phone number that day. I saw it on the hook the first time I visited, and then I realized you wouldn’t even notice it was missing. It’s not like you use it. I made a copy and put it back.” Another smile. “Easy.”
Now he giggles, presses his free hand over his mouth. “Sorry. It’s just—I so thought you’d figured it out when you called me tonight. I was like—I didn’t know what to do. I actually had this in my pocket.” Waving the letter opener again. “Just in case. And I was stalling like crazy. But then you just lapped it all up. ‘My daddy has a bad temper.’ ‘Oh, I’m so scared.’ ‘Oh, they don’t let me have a phone.’ You were practically drooling. Like I said, you’re not the greatest shrink.
“Hey!” he exclaims. “I’ve got an idea: Analyze me. You want to know about my childhood, right? They all want to know about my childhood.”
I nod dumbly.
“You’ll love this. This is, like, a therapist’s dream. Katie”—he practically pushes the word over with disdain—“was a druggie. A crack whore, except for heroin. Heroin whore. She never even told me who my dad was. And, man, she should not have been a mother.”
He looks at the letter opener. “She started using when I was one. That’s what my parents told me. I can’t remember most of it, really. I mean, I was five when they took me away from her. But I remember being hungry a lot. I remember some stuff with needles. I remember her boyfriends kicking the shit out of me whenever they felt like it.”
Silence.
“I bet my real father wouldn’t have done that.”
I say nothing.
“I remember seeing one of her friends overdose. I saw her die right in front of me. That’s my first memory. I was four.”
More silence. He sighs faintly.
“I started misbehaving. She tried to help me, or stop me, but she was too strung out. And then I went into the foster system, and then Mom and Dad got me.” He shrugs. “They . . . Yeah. They gave me a lot.” Another sigh. “I cause trouble for them, I know. That’s why they took me out of school. And my dad lost his job because I wanted to get to know Jennifer. He was mad about that, but, you know . . .” His brow darkens. “Tough luck.”
The room goes lightning-bright again. Thunder rumbles.
“Anyway. Katie.” He’s looking out the window now, across the park. “Like I told you, she found us in Boston, but Mom wouldn’t let her talk to me. And then she found us in New York, just showed up one day when I was alone. She showed me that locket with my picture in it. And I talked to her, because I was interested. And especially because I wanted to know who my father was.”
Now he swings his eyes toward me. “Do you know what it’s like, wondering if your father is as screwed up as your mother? Hoping he isn’t? But she just said it didn’t matter. He wasn’t in her photos. She did have photos. All that was true, you know.
“Well . . .” He looks sheepish. “Not all of it. That day you heard her scream? I had my hands around her neck. Not even that hard, but I was sick of her by that point. I just wanted her to leave. She went crazy. She wouldn’t shut up. My dad didn’t even know she was there until then. He was like, ‘Get out of the house before he does something bad.’ And you called, and I had to pretend I was all scared, and then you called again, and my dad pretended it was all cool . . .” He shakes his head. “And the bitch still came back the next day.
“By that point I was bored with her. Seriously bored. I didn’t care about the photos. Didn’t care that she’d learned to sail or was taking sign-language classes or any of it. And like I said, she wouldn’t say anything about my father. Probably she couldn’t. Probably didn’t even know him.” He snorts.
“So, yeah. She came back. I was in my room and I heard her arguing with my dad. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted her gone, I didn’t care about her sob story, I hated her for what she did to me, I hated her for not telling me about my father, I wanted her out of my life. So I grabbed this from my desk”—he waves the letter opener—“and went downstairs, and ran in, and just . . .” He drives it downward. “It happened really fast. She didn’t even scream.”
I think of what he told me just a few hours ago: how Jane stabbed Katie. And I remember how his eyes darted left.
Now his eyes are bright. “It was kind of, like, exhilarating. Just pure luck you didn’t see what happened. Or not all of it.” He looks at me hard. “You saw enough, though.”
He steps toward the bed slowly. And again.
“My mom has no idea. About any of it. She wasn’t even there—she got back the next morning. My dad made me swear not to tell. He wants to protect her. I feel kind of bad for him. That’s a pretty big secret to keep from the person you’re married to.” He steps a third time. “She just thinks you’re insane.”
One more step, and now he’s standing beside me, the blade level with my throat.
“So?” he says.
I whine with terror.
Then he sits on the edge of the mattress, the base of his back against my knees. “Analyze me.” He cocks his head. “Fix me.”
I recoil. No. I can’t do this.
But you can, Mommy.
No. No. It’s over.
Come on, Anna.
He has a weapon.
You’ve got your mind.
All right. All right.
One, two, three, four.
“I know what I am,” says Ethan, soft, almost soothing. “Does that help?”
Psychopath. The superficial charm, the labile personality, the flat affect. The letter opener in his hand.
“You—grew up hurting animals,” I say, trying to steady my voice.
“Yeah, but that’s easy. I gave your cat a rat I cut up. I found it in our basement. This city is disgusting.” He looks at the blade. Looks back at me. “Anything else? Come on. You can do better than that.”
I draw a breath and guess again. “You enjoy manipulating others.”
“Well, yeah. I mean . . . yeah.” He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s fun. And easy. You’re really easy.” He winks at me.
A tap at my arm. I flick a glance to my side. My phone has slid down the pillow, lodged against my elbow.
“I came on too strong with Jennifer.” He looks thoughtful. “She got—it was too much. I should’ve gone slower.” He lays the blade flat on one thigh, strokes, as though whetting it. It zips against the denim. “So I didn’t want you to think I was a threat. That’s why I said I missed my friends. And I pretended I might be gay. And I cried all those fucking times. All so you’d feel sorry for me and think I was this . . .” Trailing off. “And because, like I said, I sort of can’t get enough of you.”
I close my eyes. I can see the phone in my head as though it’s illuminated.
“Hey—did you notice when I undressed in front of the window? I did that a couple of times. I know you saw me once.”
I swallow. Slowly I pull my elbow back into the pillow, the phone dragging along the flesh of my forearm.
“What else? Daddy issues, maybe?” He smirks again. “I know I’ve been talking about him some. My real father, not Alistair. Alistair’s just a sad little man.”
I feel the screen against my wrist, cool and slick. “You don’t . . .”
“What?”
“You don’t respect other people’s space.”
“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?”
I nod again. Brush the screen with my thumb.
“I told you: you interested me. That old bitch down the block told me about you. Well, not everything, obviously. I’ve learned a lot since. But that’s why I brought that candle over. My mom had no idea. She wouldn’t have let me.” He pauses, considers me. “I bet you used to be pretty.”
He moves the letter opener toward my face. Slips the blade beside a lick of hair on my cheek, flicks it away. I flinch, whimper.
“That lady just said that you stayed in your house all the time. And that was interesting to me. This weird woman who never went outside. This freak.”
I wrap my hand around the phone. I’ll swipe to the passcode screen and let my fingers walk out those four numbers. I’ve tapped them so many times. I can do it in the dark. I can do it with Ethan sitting next to me.
“I knew I had to get to know you.”
Now. I touch the button on the phone, press it. Cough to mask the click.
“My parents—” he begins, turning to the window. He stops.
My head turns with him. And I see what he sees: the glow of the phone, reflected in the glass.
He gasps. I gasp.
I snap my eyes to him. He stares at me.
Then he grins. “I’m kidding.” He points at the phone with the letter opener. “I already changed the code. Right before you woke up. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to leave a working phone right next to you.”
I can’t breathe.
“And I took out the batteries from the one in the library. In case you were wondering.”
My blood stops.
He gestures toward the door. “Anyway. I’ve been coming over at night for a couple of weeks, just walking around, watching you. I like it here. It’s quiet and dark.” He sounds thoughtful. “And it’s kind of interesting, the way you live. I feel like I’m doing research on you. Like a documentary. I even”—he smiles—“took your picture with your phone.” A grimace. “Was that too much? I feel like that was too much. Oh—but ask me how I unlocked your phone.”
I say nothing.
“Ask me.” Threatening.
“How did you unlock my phone?” I whisper.
He smiles broa
dly, like a child who knows he’s about to say something clever. “You told me how.”
I shake my head. “No.”
His eyes roll. “Well, okay—you didn’t tell me.” He leans toward me. “You told that ancient bitch in Montana.”
“Lizzie?”
He nods.
“You—were spying on us?”
He heaves a deep sigh. “God, you really are stupid. By the way, I don’t teach disabled kids how to swim. I’d rather kill myself. No, Anna: I am Lizzie.”
My mouth drops open.
“Or I was,” he says. “She’s been getting out of the house a lot lately. I think she’s all better. Thanks to her sons—what are their names?”
“Beau and William,” I answer, before I can stop myself.
He giggles again. “Holy shit. I can’t believe you remember that.” Laughing more now. “Beau. I swear I just made that up on the spot.”
I stare at him.
“That first day I came over. You had that freak website on your laptop. I created an account as soon as I got home. Got to know all sorts of lonely losers. DiscoMickey, or whatever.” He shakes his head. “It’s pathetic. But he put me in touch with you. I didn’t want to just write you out of the blue. Didn’t want you—you know. Wondering.
“Anyway. You told Lizzie how to code all her passwords. Switch out letters for numbers. That’s NASA shit right there.”
I try to swallow, can’t.
“Or use a birthday—that’s what you said. And you told me that your daughter was born on Valentine’s Day. Oh-two-one-four. That’s how I got into your phone and took that picture of you snoring. Then I changed the code, just to have fun with you.” He wags a finger at me.
“And I went downstairs and got into your desktop.” He leans toward me, speaks slowly. “Of course your password was Olivia’s name. For your desktop and for your email. And of course you just swapped out the letters. Just like you told Lizzie.” He shakes his head. “How fucking stupid are you?”
I say nothing.
He glares. “I asked you a question,” he says. “How fucking stupid—”
“Very,” I say.
“Very what?”
“Very stupid.”
