That Saturday, Ted walked Georgia to the front door of her building, one of three women-only residence halls remaining at MSU. He kissed her with the customary desperate urgency and begged her to let him up to her room. She agreed after a slight and studied resistance. She enjoyed challenges and rule breaking. Sneaking her boyfriend into her room fit both bills. After a brief but intense encounter, Ted took off.
Back in his own dorm room, a shiver ran through his body. Something was wrong. The light in their tiny bathroom had been left on, the door was open…but the key detail was that Justin’s notebook lay open on his bed. He thought of Kurt’s body lying on the floor in his home. Ted leaned over the bed and saw two pages covered with a long, dense handwritten text. At first it didn’t look like a suicide note, mainly because it wasn’t addressed to anyone. A rapid scan revealed the word “Boddah” lower on the page, and Ted trembled. Cobain had addressed his suicide note to an imaginary childhood friend named Boddah. Ted reached the bathroom in two strides. He steeled himself to see his friend’s body in the bathtub or hanging from the overhead pipes. During that fraction of a second, his mind worked at top speed. Justin was depressive, but suicidal?
The bathroom was empty. Why had Justin left the light on?
He just forgot. It wouldn’t be the first time.
What about his notebook?
And what about Boddah?
Before undertaking a search of the entire Box, Ted needed to read those pages. He went back and, still standing, leaned over his roommate’s bed, supporting himself with his hands on either side of the notebook, as if he didn’t want to touch the paper. He finally did so to turn the page and read to the end of the passage. Though the text was long, he read it all in less than twenty seconds.
It seemed less like a suicide note than an unfinished short story. Its theme did nothing to calm Ted, though. The story was about a man who was on the verge of shooting himself; just before he went through with it, at the precise instant he was about to squeeze the trigger, a stranger named Boddah showed up at his door and said he had a proposal. He was very persuasive, and he seemed to know what the protagonist—whose name was never mentioned—was planning to do. He said he knew other people like him, and if they would work together they might not only help their families bear their grief but make the world a better place. Boddah began to explain to the protagonist that he would be asked to kill a despicable man. Then the story came to an abrupt end.
In a box at the top of the page, Justin had written the title of the story: “A Better World.” His handwriting was clumsy and chaotic, with additions and strike-throughs everywhere.
Ted stood thinking for a moment. It might be nothing but a short story—very well written, for that matter—that Justin was working on, inspired by recent events. Or it might be some sort of unfinished warning that Ted couldn’t quite understand. He ran from the room. In the corridor he bumped into Irving Prosser, a lumbering, taciturn kid who lived in the room next door. Ted asked him urgently if he had seen Justin. Irving took his time, scratching his head and looking at the ceiling, as if that would kick-start his brain, before answering.
“Have I seen him lately?” he asked.
“Of course!”
If he didn’t know Irving, Ted would have thought the guy was pulling his leg. But Prosser was simply dumb.
“Lemme think. I saw him leave his room about an hour ago. I was gonna…”
Ted left his neighbor with the sentence unfinished. He ran down the stairs two at a time, asking the same question of everyone he saw along the way. They all knew Justin—that was a definite advantage of having a roommate who was the reincarnation of James Dean. A student just walking into the Box told Ted he had seen Justin near the library. Ted went there next, jogging the whole way, amazed at how worried he felt about somebody he’d known for less than a year. He truly was worried; the emotion was so new to him that it made him feel distinctly different.
He found Justin on his usual bench behind the library, which appeared much less threatening in daylight under the greening trees of spring.
“Ted!” Justin was surprised to see him. He took off his headphones. “What are you doing here?”
Ted sat next to him.
“Did something happen?” Justin asked.
“Nah.” At that instant Ted decided that he wouldn’t tell Justin what he’d been thinking. Justin seemed to be in a pretty good mood. “I was planning to go up to the sixth floor later, and I wanted to ask you something.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Last night I played a couple of poker games with some idiots from Delta Tau. It was basically hostile terrain, but I managed to come out on top. Be that as it may, they’re having a frat party today and I’m invited.”
Justin looked at Ted as if he had just let off a putrid smell.
“A frat party? You?”
Ted laughed.
“I don’t have any idea who these Delta Tau guys are,” Justin went on. “Do they know you’re a freshman? And don’t they charge outsiders an arm and a leg to get in to their parties?”
“Look, in a way they’ll be paying for it themselves.” Ted rapped his knuckles against his pocket to indicate where their money had ended up. “And it’s true, I despise those guys. But there’ll be alcohol, girls, music—come on, let’s both go. We stay there awhile, drink all we want, clear out. What would college life be without crappy parties?”
“You’re right. Is that really all you came here for?” Justin paused and smiled. “Sorry, I should be thanking you. It’s just that you’re getting soft, McKay, worrying about your fellow man like this. Thanks. The party sounds like a great idea. I’ll have to go to one sooner or later.”
They fell silent. The unmistakable guitarmanship of Nirvana could be heard through the speakers of the headphones dangling from Justin’s neck. He reached into his pocket and pressed stop on his Walkman.
“Hey,” Ted said. “You left your notebook open on your bed…”
Justin started, immediately grasping the possible implications of this.
“It’s really good, Justin,” Ted reassured him.
“Oh, God, how embarrassing. It’s just a work in progress.”
“It’s great.”
Justin nodded.
“Thanks, Ted.”
“I’m serious.”
“If you liked it so much, maybe I’ll give your name to the main character.”
Justin winked at him.
61
Present day
At nine in the morning on Saturday, a van left Lavender Memorial for Dover, Vermont. Lee Stillwell was driving, Laura rode in the front passenger seat, and Ted sat alone in the back. Lee, an ordinarily unsociable guard who seemed to spend his days at Lavender counting down to the moment of his planned retirement, now seemed to be in a great mood, even talkative. He had his own reason, of course: he was getting triple pay for working this trip. Besides, he liked to drive, not to mention the fact that Dr. Hill was plenty easy on the eyes when she wasn’t wrapped in that nasty hospital coat.
Ted kept quiet almost the whole way there. Trying to hold a conversation through the little window in the Plexiglas wall between the back compartment and the front of the van wasn’t exactly easy, even less so when it meant leaning forward and thereby tightening the chain binding him to the metal floor. For Ted the trip seemed endless, with no view of the landscape from his uncomfortable fixed bench. He decided he’d be better off thinking about what might happen when they got there, because it was clear that there would be nothing for him to do in the van except wait. The guard was monopolizing the conversation. Laura turned back several times to look at Ted through the Plexiglas, with both dismay and resignation in her eyes. There was nothing she could have done about the security measures, she seemed to be reminding him every time she looked his way.
They were taking Route 2 west across the state. Traffic was light and the wooded setting lent itself to contemplation and reflection. For any employee a
t Lavender, where bars, security doors, and security cameras were everywhere, the vast blue sky and the green of the trees were almost overwhelming this morning. Lee Stillwell felt especially entranced; keeping his eyes on the highway, he explained that his lifelong dream had been to buy a house in a hidden spot like this, where he could live out his last days. He’d always lived with that dream, and so had his wife. Now that he was nearing retirement, he could tell that he’d never really been in a position to realize it. The fact profoundly saddened him. He had rarely been able to sock away money, and he’d ultimately been forced to spend what little he had managed to save on one necessity or other. He’d spent the last thirty years sincerely believing he would achieve his dream, but he would never come close.
“Maybe that’s all that mattered,” he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. “Believing I’d make it someday.”
After this revelation, he fell silent. He almost seemed about to cry behind his mirrored sunglasses. It was probably the first time he’d said anything like that aloud.
“When you’re an old man like me, the truth is, it don’t really matter all that much.”
“Lee, you’re not an old man.”
He nodded.
“Old enough to know my dreams aren’t coming true, not old enough yet to forget them.”
They’d been driving for more than an hour, and for the first time Ted really spoke up.
“I got my dream, my weekend home, and here I am, locked up, because I had nothing better to do one day than go out of my mind.”
Lee didn’t respond.
“Do you love your wife?” Ted asked.
Lee did not seem very disposed to speaking with Ted. Or maybe he was just thinking about his broken dreams and how he’d failed his wife, Martha.
“Sure do,” he answered after a moment. And it was the truth.
“Then you’ve got everything.”
Ted stared at the toes of his shoes, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. One of his chains dangled in front of his face, swaying to the gentle motion of the van. The other chain was a cold-blooded serpent crouching at his feet. He said no more.
They exited onto I-91 shortly after eleven.
“At least I have my woodworking shop in back of the house.” Lee hadn’t given up.
“I’ve seen the chair you made for the director,” Laura said. “Very elegant.”
“Thanks. I love woodworking. Guess I’ll spend more time at that after I retire. Won’t be long now.”
Lee went on talking about his woodworking hobby, how he found a satisfaction in shaping wood that he couldn’t get from his job at the hospital. At that point he apologized to Laura for what he’d said, but immediately afterward said it wasn’t the fault of the team at Lavender. It was him; he’d ended up working a job he wasn’t excited about, but he hadn’t gotten out in time. He’d started working there by accident, planning only to save up a nest egg while looking for something better. Then the months turned into years, and the years into decades. “And then it gets harder and harder to leave. And almost before you know it you’re up against retirement, and you haven’t done any of the things you’d planned.”
Laura listened to him closely. She understood only too well the unhappiness of this man whose life had slipped through his fingers. Laura loved her job and didn’t feel as though she were wasting her time at Lavender, not at all, but she certainly recognized the feeling. In fact, something like it had happened to her after the divorce, when for some mysterious reason she had assumed that her love life was over. It was stupid for a woman who had only recently turned forty to think that way, but that’s how it was, at first. In the end she understood: time put things into perspective, opening up her heart to new possibilities. She thought of Marcus, whom she would be seeing that night.
The GPS guided them through the intricate final leg of the journey. Lee refused to ask Ted for directions. They left the interstate behind and finally reached a little-traveled dirt road. Two miles farther on they arrived at the lake house. Lee cut the engine and silence overwhelmed them. Nobody got out; Lee sat expressionless behind the wheel as he contemplated the imposing spread. The house obviously exceeded his most ambitious fantasies.
The guard stepped from the van. Instead of his uniform, he wore jeans and a light jacket. He carried his Beretta under his jacket and his Taser was holstered to his belt. He opened the van’s double door in back and undid the padlock so Ted could get out.
“What I said before was the truth,” Lee said. “I don’t love my job, but I’m good at it. Don’t get any closer than six feet to Dr. Hill. If you need anything, ask me. I’ll be right behind you and I’ll have my eyes on you the whole time. I’ve only had to unholster my Taser twice and I’ve never fired my gun at work, but I can assure you I practice every week and I can hit this chain at thirty feet. No surprises. Understood?”
Ted nodded. “There won’t be any problems,” he said.
At that point, Laura got out of the van.
Ted walked around the vehicle. The chains on his feet allowed him some freedom of movement—not enough to run a race, but plenty for walking at a reasonable pace. When he saw the house, he felt a strange sense of familiarity. It looked different from the way he remembered it—more neglected. Holly and the girls had obviously not come up here in all these months. Of course there wasn’t a trace of the Lamborghini convertible.
“Holly gave me the keys,” Laura said, displaying a ring. “I think it would be a good idea to look around inside, don’t you?”
Ted didn’t answer. He was staring at everything like a curious child. The trees, the ground covered in pine needles, the surface of the lake rippling under the breeze. The air smelled different. He took in one deep breath after another, feeling that the oxygen had the power to heal him, to bring back his forgotten memories. To turn the clock back.
He saw the pink castle from a distance, at the edge of the woods, and his eyes were glued to it.
Answers.
“Come on, Ted. I want us to take a look around inside the house first.”
He nodded and went to the front door. Lee stuck close behind.
Ted entered cautiously, measuring each step he took across the Indian rug. The rug where, according to his memories, Wendell had fallen after he shot him. The memory was so real, yet when he tried to focus on Wendell’s face, his mind produced a giant question mark. Ted walked around the first floor, pausing in front of the photographs. He had taken many of them. He went into the hallway leading to the kitchen, saw the calendar, and flipped through its pages to find the scuba diver on the coral reef. It wasn’t there—not on any of the months. Only landscapes.
“This is where I waited for him,” Ted said. Laura was watching with interest as he examined the calendar. “First I saw him pass by this…”
Ted fell silent.
“There was a window over there,” Ted said, pointing at the kitchen wall by the double-doored refrigerator and the counter. “I watched Wendell through the window when he was on the lake.”
Laura noticed the confusion on his face. It was as if part of him were still holding on to the possibility that it had all really happened. That Wendell wasn’t actually a creation of his own mind.
“Let’s go upstairs, Ted. There’s something I want you to see.”
“What is it, Laura?”
She didn’t answer.
He nodded.
They went back to the great room and over to the bottom of one of the staircases.
Unlike the first floor, where the wide picture windows bathed everything in natural light, the upstairs seemed to be plunged into darkness. Lee flipped the switch at the bottom of the stairs, but nothing happened.
“The electricity is shut off, Lee,” Laura noted. “I’ll go up and open some windows.”
She ran lightly up. Ted waited halfway up the stairs, with Lee right behind him.
A moment later, Laura looked down from above and signaled to them t
o head on up. Ted found himself in a hallway he had no memory of. He took a few steps forward and halted in front of the window Laura had opened. It offered a perfect view of the pink castle. Ted realized that if the castle had been built just a few yards farther off, the foliage would have hidden it entirely. From this window, therefore, it was possible to keep an eye on the girls. He stood there wondering how many times he must have looked out this window to make sure everything was okay.
“Open that door,” Laura said.
Ted turned to see. There, indeed, was a closed door across from the window. He opened it.
What he saw surprised but above all deeply saddened him. More evidence of how unreliable his memories were.
It was his study. The desk, the bookshelves, the Monet reproduction concealing the safe. He recognized all the objects in the room, which he didn’t even dare to enter.
Laura spoke to him from behind.
“Holly told me there’s no study at your home in the city.”
Ted took in the study. More than a minute passed.
“This is where I was going to do it, Laura. Sitting in that chair.”
“Do you want to go in?”
“Do you think it would do me any good?”
“I don’t know. Follow your feelings.”
Ted didn’t want to enter.
“I’d rather check out the path behind the castle.”
“Perfect. Let’s go there, then.”
They went downstairs, always under Lee’s watchful eye. They walked around back and continued in silence to the pink castle, now surrounded by a dense mat of dry leaves.
Kill the Next One Page 26
