“Allison. Come here.”
But she wouldn’t. She knew he wanted to look inside her.
“I don’t want to play,” she said, her voice hoarse with disuse. “I don’t want to play anymore, Michael.” That’s what they were doing, and had been doing. It was a game, and she had other things to think about now. She was finished playing.
“But I’ll eat something if you want,” she said. “I just haven’t been hungry.” In fact, the idea of food repelled her. She had eaten one of the apples not too long ago, but it had made her sick and she’d vomited into the bucket. “Here, I’ll show you.”
She turned to the cooler—which hadn’t held anything cold since she’d tried to escape—and bent to take out a piece of bread. Surely she could eat a piece of bread, couldn’t she? Then he would stop asking questions, do whatever he wanted to do to her, and go away.
But he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him.
“I said I want the robe off, my love.”
She obeyed, and let him untie the flowered silk robe that the silent man had brought to her. Michael never mentioned him, but he had to know about him, didn’t he?
He pushed the robe off of her shoulders and it fell to the floor. She shivered, as she always did. The damp had entered her bones, had become a part of her very being. Turning her sideways, he put his hand on the place where the thing inside her was growing. There was the rise in the flesh, a taut mound that fit his hand as though it were a ball he might palm.
“Jesus Christ,” he said roughly. “You little shit.”
Now he knew. She didn’t say anything. That had been the second secret the thing had told her: that Michael wasn’t going to hurt her anymore. She’d become immune to him. The thing was there to protect her.
Inside, she felt it move and stretch and speak its soothing, special language.
All will be well, it told her. All manner of things will be well.
It was a long time before Michael came back again. But the other man came, wearing his balaclava. She never asked him to take it off. Sometimes she imagined that the man was really Michael, pretending to be someone else. What other reason could he have for covering his face? He wore different clothes from Michael, and was thinner at the waist. There was a bulge in the back of the balaclava that she thought might be a ponytail. Was there some weird magic in his mask? Was it part of the game? It made a strange kind of sense. Sometimes she suspected that there might not be any other men in the world anymore besides Michael and the other man.
When the other man next came to her, he brought a Thermos with a milky drink in it. The drink was like chalk in her mouth, and made her cough. He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her cheek.
As soon as she was calm, he spoke.
It wasn’t Michael’s voice. It was deeper than she expected, but just as kind as she’d thought it might be.
“Allison,” he said. “You know you’re going to have a baby, don’t you?”
She laughed. The candle on the bedside table flickered.
“You can’t stay here anymore,” he said. “We have to think about taking you somewhere else.”
At his words, the thing inside her spun like it had been cut loose from a rope at which it had been straining. It hit the wall of her gut, and she doubled over in pain.
“What is it?” he said, touching her arm gingerly.
When she looked up at him again, she saw that he had lifted the balaclava from the front of his face and pushed it up to his forehead. In the candlelight, he looked a lot like Michael.
She shook her head and pushed him away. “Go away,” she said. “Leave us alone.” She hadn’t wanted to speak to him, but this was important.
“This isn’t any kind of place for a baby. I shouldn’t have let this go on so long,” he said. “You’re sick, Allison.”
There was kindness in his voice, in his words. But there was no question of her leaving. The thing inside her, the thing that loved her, had told her not to worry. They would be together, but they could only be together in this place. If they were together, neither of them would ever, ever be alone again. All his talk about a baby was just made up. It wasn’t a baby. It was her other half. Maybe even her twin. It was her responsibility to take care of it. And she couldn’t do that out there, where she was before. There was only here!
She looked around the little room. Soon she wouldn’t even need Michael or this other man to come to her. She’d drunk whatever he’d brought her in a moment of weakness, but she knew she couldn’t be weak anymore.
“Allison. What are you thinking?”
She reached a hand out to stroke his face in the same way he had stroked hers that first time he had come to her room. Her castle.
He took her hand and held it for a moment, then brought it to his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said.
His face was rough with whiskers in a way that Michael’s never was. She liked that. Inside her, the thing purred its happiness. It was comforted. Taking her hand away, she climbed onto the bed. She tugged on the man’s faded, hooded sweatshirt, wanting him to come to her. She was always happy to give him what Michael took from her each time he came to her.
He made a small move toward her, and the thing inside her was happy. She was happy.
But then he got up from the bed and turned away.
“Wait!” she said. Scrambling off the bed on the other side, she ducked beneath it and pulled out the blanket. Lifting it before her, she spread her arms so he could see the width of it, but it only hung down to her thighs. “It’s not finished. I’m not finished yet. We can’t leave!”
“What is that? Did you make it?”
She sighed. He would understand.
“It’s nice, Allison.”
For some reason, his praise embarrassed her. She hung her head shyly. Inside her, the thing sighed too.
“Listen. Drink all of that stuff I brought,” he said. “Not right away. Wait a little while. I don’t want it to make you sick.”
At the door—which was unlocked, as it always was while he was in the room—he turned back to her.
“I’m coming back,” he said.
But he didn’t come back for a long, long time.
Chapter 54
Lucas left a late morning meeting with his supervisor at the State Police post and headed back to Old Gate and the sheriff’s office. There were few things he disliked more than having to justify his running of an investigation. He’d met with a lot of skepticism about the Roberta Bliss assault being linked to the death of Karin Powell, but after he’d emphasized the fact that Roberta Bliss was a judge’s wife, he got a little more cooperation. His supervisor was no stranger to pressure. Judge Bliss had many friends in the police bureaucracy and among policy makers around the state. He was a UVA man as well, and that counted for a lot.
“This is starting to look like a clusterfuck candy bar and we’re the soft nougaty inside,” Lucas said.
“Sir?” Deputy Tim Hatcher looked up from his work.
Lucas laughed. “Wake up, Deputy. We’ve got to get our asses in gear on this case. What does Roberta Bliss have in common with Karin Powell?”
Tim furrowed his broad, freckled brow. “Rainey Adams? I don’t really see her whacking her cousin-by-marriage in the back of the head. No obvious motive.”
“Someone from the party? Or a complete stranger?” Lucas said. “Both the front and back doors of the judge’s house were unlocked. Word is that Roberta Bliss was known to be a soft touch for a handout.”
“But the judge didn’t say anything was stolen, did he?” Tim said.
“The kid said everything looked okay. I don’t think the judge has even been home since it happened,” Lucas said. “I wonder about him. Do you—or your grandmother, or whoever—know anything about what kind of guy he is? Is he a good family man? I know he’s not exactly a hanging judge.”
“After his mother died, he started giving away his parents’ money, and got to be everyo
ne’s favorite lawyer,” Tim said. “Creepy house. Creepy family. But I don’t know that I believe in that haunted stuff, though. Do you?”
Lucas took a moment to answer. When he’d first seen Bliss House five years ago, he’d believed it to be nothing more than a testament to some psycho Yankee’s vanity. But soon enough, he was standing on the cusp of the then-weedy driveway of Bliss House, watching as Peter Brodsky, the house’s last owner, was led outside, his wrists cuffed, his eyes shining with madness. He couldn’t forget the way Brodsky had laughed as his wife’s body was loaded into the ambulance. He’d laughed as the ambulance crunched slowly over the gravel, its flashing lights barely visible in the harsh morning sun. His laughter stopped for just a moment as he was pushed—with less than necessary care—into the back of the car that would take him to jail. Once the door was shut on him, he resumed laughing, louder this time, so that Lucas could hear him even as the car began pulling away.
Then, about a week after he was arrested and jailed without bond, Peter Brodsky changed. He was beyond remorseful about his wife’s death, refusing to eat, weeping loudly, crying out her name. Gone was the cocky, joking demeanor, the lewd comments about the female officers and—shockingly—his dead wife. He attempted suicide using a bed sheet.
The psychiatrists said he had entered a guilt phase. Lucas had a different explanation.
Brodsky was away from Bliss House. He would never see it again, never stand inside it. The house had been inside his head. But when he got away from it, it let him go. It was finished with him.
Tim was watching Lucas, waiting for an answer.
Lucas didn’t want to get sucked into the memory of that investigation. Every time he entered or even passed the sheltered drive of Bliss House, he felt himself being sucked back in. Helpless. He didn’t do very well with feeling helpless.
“We’re covering all our bases. We’ve got someone researching for lawsuits and complaints on both Karin Powell and Mrs. Bliss. We’ve got the psychiatric files on Karin Powell. Maybe she was in denial about losing the baby and started feeling guilty about how it all happened. Do we have any information on whether she was the religious type?”
The deputy shrugged. Just then, Lucas thought that he probably should’ve asked to have another ranking detective put on the case days ago. His partner, Brandon, would be back in less than a week, but Lucas had little hope of getting more answers before then.
“Does a person have to be religious to have a conscience?” Tim said.
“Yeah, we’re not going to go there.” Lucas got up to pace. “So, we’ve got a missing phone, missing fingernails, a house full of people who said Karin Powell was her bright and cheerful self up until she had words with the contractor husband. Then we’ve got a woman from the same party being attacked in her own kitchen. And that woman’s son getting the shit beat out of him by one of the suspects, in front of the woman who owns the house where the first woman was killed.”
“Wow,” Tim said. “It’s a bad time to be a Bliss.”
“Looks more like it’s a bad day to be Gerard Powell,” he said. He had stopped in the doorway, where he had a view of the reception area. “The sister-in-law is here, and she doesn’t look happy.”
“What I don’t understand is why you let him go.”
Neither Molly nor her parents had heard about Gerard’s being taken into custody, and she was angry that she’d had to learn about it from Lucas.
“Mr. Cunetta, Mr. Powell’s lawyer, works fast, and the victim decided not to press charges,” Lucas said. “Certainly none of us expected he’d be out so quickly.” He was surprised to see her, and a little taken aback by her anger. Up to now, the family hadn’t even hinted that they thought Gerard Powell had killed his wife.
“My sister was pregnant with some other man’s baby,” Molly said. “Wouldn’t you want to kill your wife if she did that to you?”
Lucas let that one go. “Mr. Powell and your sister had a kind of understanding because of her addiction, yes?”
“That’s because he’s a creep. Why shouldn’t she get what she needed somewhere else?”
Lucas wondered at her ability to equate suffering an addiction with simple need. “Did she tell you whose child it was?” he asked.
Molly reddened. “She didn’t tell me about the baby,” she said.
“Was your sister afraid to tell you?” Lucas asked. “Had she spoken to you about being afraid?”
“She might have been afraid. I’m sure he only messes with people he thinks can’t fight back.”
“Like Jefferson Bliss?” Lucas said, unable to hide the incredulity from his voice. “I gather that the younger Mr. Bliss got in a punch or two.”
“There’s always an exception,” Molly said. “That’s not my fault.”
“But you said your sister could take care of herself. Did she ever say he threatened her? Or injured her? When I interviewed you with your parents, you specifically said that you didn’t think Gerard Powell had anything to do with her death. What happened to change your mind?”
“Didn’t someone say they were fighting the night of the party?” Molly said. “And you already know he didn’t care if she slept with other people.”
Lucas nodded. “That would speak to a certain degree of tolerance rather than a propensity to violence, wouldn’t it?” Her agitation and heightened color told him he was getting to her.
What in the hell is she here for?
“I think he wanted to punish her.” As she talked, she began to unbutton her cotton blouse. “I think he changed his mind when there was suddenly real evidence—the baby—that he couldn’t make Karin happy. I think he wants to punish all of us.”
Tim had been silent up to this point, sitting motionless in his chair. Listening. Now, he gave a nervous cough. He glanced at Lucas for confirmation that what was happening was really happening, but Lucas was looking steadily at Molly. She stopped unbuttoning with two buttons left to go, and pushed the blouse back over one shoulder. Her peaches-and-cream breasts were bare. She wore no bra or jewelry.
“Ma’am,” Lucas said, “please don’t do that.”
Molly said, “Look at this. Look what he did to me.” She turned so they could see the four gray bruises on the back of her shoulder. “And here.” She turned back again and pointed to the dark oval of a fifth bruise at the front. Staring at them defiantly, she waited for some kind of response.
“Put your shirt back on, please. If you don’t I’ll be forced to write you up for indecent exposure,” Lucas said.
She re-buttoned it slowly, watching him.
“We’re not playing games here, Ms. Schroeter,” he said. “Are you making a charge against someone?”
“He attacked me. I think he was going to rape me.”
“Any assault is a very serious charge,” Lucas said. “But if someone attempted to rape you, that puts the assault at a whole different level. Maybe you’d be more comfortable with a female officer in the room?”
“You’re not taking me seriously. Gerard attacked me at his house. He hates us. He hates me!”
“We’ll need to have you checked out by a doctor and have some photos taken of your injuries. Before that, though, we’ll have one of the officers work on an incident report with you.”
Molly stood. “Why in the hell don’t you just get the son-of-a-bitch in here? He should be locked up. I don’t understand. I show you what he did to me and you’re going to blow me off? Make it seem like it’s no big deal? What is wrong with you people?”
Lucas stood as well, and the deputy copied him.
“I’m sorry for your distress, Ms. Schroeter. Let me get a female officer in here. We also have a counselor you can speak with at the hospital.”
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Molly said. “You think I’m lying, don’t you?”
“Ms. Schroeter, no one said that we don’t believe you. We just have a system for dealing with situations like this. If we don’t follow procedure, there can be problems
getting a conviction, or even getting charges brought. I promise that we’re taking this very seriously. Did you have an argument with Mr. Powell?”
“Of course I had an argument with him! Is this blame-the-victim time? Is that how you do it in this stupid little town? Karin told me the cops around here were morons.”
“Do you want to make a formal complaint?” Lucas was wearying of the woman’s game. Gerard Powell wasn’t any more a rapist than he was. Something had obviously occurred between the two of them, but he suspected that it hadn’t gone nearly as far as she was implying.
“Detective Chappell,” Tim said, his voice cautious. “Do you think maybe we should let Ms. Schroeter have a few minutes alone to collect her thoughts?”
Molly looked vaguely triumphant. Lucas didn’t look away from her, though he was sorely tempted to tell Tim to shut the hell up.
“Please sit back down, ma’am,” Lucas said to Molly. His voice had a sharp edge to it.
“I don’t think so,” Molly said.
“Fine. Don’t sit, then. Just stand there and listen.”
“I don’t have to listen to anything you have to say,” she said.
“I don’t know how you got those bruises, Ms. Schroeter. I suspect that you did get them from Mr. Powell, but I don’t think he attempted to rape you. I think you got into an argument and things got unpleasant. He’d just lost his wife and you’d lost your sister and neither of you was thinking clearly. Things got out of hand, you got angry with him, and then you decided to come to us and screw him over. You may even now believe that he’s responsible for your sister’s death. I can’t give you an answer on that one, but we’re working on it.”
Molly’s face darkened.
“Are you finished?”
“I believe that covers it. Shall I call an officer in to make a report?”
“You prick. The only report I want to make is about you and the way you’ve treated me today.”
“You could do that, ma’am,” Lucas said. “That’s your right.”
She left without saying another word, not following the arrow markers to the reception area but weaving her way through the desks and low cubicles, ignoring the stares of most of the station.
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