Return to the Dark House

by Laurie Stolarz

  Questions I wish I could ask you: Are you okay? The obvious: Where are you? Who’s with you? Frankie, Shayla, Garth, Natalie? Will you ever forgive me for leaving you at the park?

  Things I wish I could tell you: I miss you more than you know. I’ll never stop looking for you.

  Love always,

  Ivy

  IT’S BEEN NEARLY FIVE WEEKS since my release from the hospital, and a lot of things have changed. For starters, I didn’t go home to my foster parents. I moved into the basement apartment of Tillie, my foster aunt, just down the street. It’s better this way. More privacy for me. Less potential danger for them.

  For my entire life, no one around me has ever been safe.

  “Aunt Tillie has a security system,” Apple reminded me, zipping up my suitcase.

  Without any of my things, my room looked like it belonged in a hotel—like a place that one might inhabit for a limited amount of time, which, I suppose, is exactly what I did.

  “This will always be your home,” Core insisted, standing in the doorway.

  I thanked them, hugged them, and told them I felt the same way. But, all the while, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief. Things would be easier on my own.

  Another thing that’s changed: I’m working now, full-time at the 24-Hour Depot, Apple’s new restaurant in the center of town. I never did end up going to Paris for culinary school, as I’d been planning for the past three years.

  I’m at the Depot right now, working the overnight shift, since it’s not like I get any sleep anyway. One thing this job has taught me: I’m not alone in my insomnia. We have dozens of regulars who frequent this place, seeking camaraderie in their sleeplessness and solitude.

  I pick up my knife, feeling an instant jolt of power, relishing the fit of the handle inside my grip. Using a soup bowl as a guide, I point the tip of the blade into a rolled-out sheet of dough and cut out a series of disks.

  Gretchen, the hostess, pokes her head through the pass-through window, nearly knocking over a plate full of chicken-fried pickles. “Just a little FYI: there’s a heaping hunk of hotness sitting at table eleven.”

  “I’m busy,” I say, eyeing the trays full of pastry dough that I still need to cut.

  “Suit yourself.” She pops a pickle into her mouth. “Just trying to keep you in the know. Isn’t that what you said you wanted? Candy and I have dubbed him the sexy squatter, by the way, because he’s been nursing a cherry Coke and cheese fries for the past two hours.”

  I look up from my slicing. “Did you ask him if he wanted anything else?”

  “Well, of course, I’m not an amateur.” She rolls her big blue eyes. “But he says he’s happy just sitting.”

  “Is he working on a laptop? Or waiting for someone?”

  “No. And no. I already asked about that latter one.”

  “And you’re sure it’s been two hours?” Ticktock, ticktock.

  She nods and pops another pickle.

  The knife still gripped in my hand, I dart out of the kitchen. The dining area is sprinkled with customers—a mixture of regulars, some newbies, and a gaggle of college students pigging out after a party. “Where?”

  “There.” Gretchen nods.

  Sitting at the corner booth with his back facing us, Mr. Mystery has slick dark hair and a leather jacket.

  “A pretty fine specimen, wouldn’t you say? And that’s just from behind. Wait till you get the full-frontal view.” She gives me an exaggerated wink, revealing a bright red heart stamped to her shimmery gold eyelid.

  I slide the knife into my pocket, blade pointed downward, and then I make my way in his direction. “Can I help you?” I ask, standing at his booth.

  He gazes up at me with dark gray eyes and a knowing grin. He looks to be about twenty-something with a tan face covered in stubble. “Well, hey there, Sunshine. When did you get here? I thought I’d have to wait all night.”

  “Do I know you?” I ask, my nerves ignited.

  “Well, I’ve been coming in here at least once a week for the past few weeks, and you’ve been here each time, so I’d like to say that you’ve at least noticed me.”

  “I work in the kitchen.”

  “I know. I’ve seen you.” He smiles and licks the salt off his fingers. “Through the kitchen window. Plus you’re always coming into the counter area for something or other—with fresh plates and silverware or to give out samples of whatever you’ve been whippin’ up back there. Am I right?”

  “Do you know me?”

  “I know your name. Does that count...Ivy?” He nods to my name tag, making my skin crawl.

  I peer over my shoulder at Gretchen. Spying on me from the front counter, she gives me another wink.

  “I wouldn’t mind getting to know you,” he continues.

  I focus back on him, irritated that I don’t recognize him from his past few visits. Has he been sitting with his back to the counter each time? Or maybe he’s come in with other people? Though I’m mostly in the kitchen, it’s true that I’m often in the counter area. I like to keep an eye on the people that come in, especially repeat customers.

  I gaze up at one of our surveillance cameras, suddenly eager to watch the footage. “Why would you want that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He rolls his eyes, still grinning. “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?”

  “The mirror?” I ask, growing more confused by the moment. Does this have something to do with Natalie’s nightmare essay? Her fear of her own reflection?

  “Maybe it’s because you’re a princess,” he says.

  I give the knife a hard twist, feeling the tip tear through the fabric. “What did you call me?”

  He looks around, as if someone could possibly help him now. “Did I say something wrong? I called you a princess.”

  “Who are you?” I demand. “How do you know me? Did someone send you here?”

  “Wait, whoa.” He leans back in his seat.

  “How do you know about princess?” I snap.

  “Seriously?” His mouth gapes open.

  “Did you read my essay?” I continue. “Is it online somewhere I don’t know about?”

  “Okay, um, reality check?” He holds up his hands, as if to stop my words. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Liar!” I shout.

  A moment later, someone tugs my arm from behind. I whip the knife out of my pocket, ready to fight.

  It’s Gretchen and Candy.

  “Holy shit,” Candy mutters, cupping her hand over her mouth.

  That’s when I notice.

  The attention I’ve drawn.

  The stir I’ve caused.

  A couple of the college boys stand nearby, ready to pounce. Mrs. Sterling, who lost her husband six months ago and hasn’t been able to get a full night’s sleep since, sits at the front counter, staring in my direction.

  I drop the knife. My face feels fiery.

  “What the hell just happened?” Gretchen asks.

  The boy who called me princess slides out from the booth. “Don’t ask me. Ask her.” He nods at me, tosses a ten-dollar bill onto the table, and heads for the door.

  “What happened?” Gretchen demands.

  I look out the window, into the parking lot, watching to see which car is his—a Ford pickup, dark blue, tinted windows, trailer hitch on the back. He opens the door, climbs inside, and starts the ignition.

  “I have to go,” I mutter.

  “Ivy?” Miko calls, poking his head through the kitchen window.

  I know he’s in the weeds right now, elbow-deep in night-owl specials, but I grab my coat from behind the counter. “I’m really sorry,” I tell him. My car keys clenched in my hand, I bolt out the door.

  BY THE TIME I MAKE it out to the parking lot, the pickup is already gone. I drive down the main road, searching the streets. It’s just after three in the morning and the glare from overhead streetlamps cuts across my eyes, making my head ache.
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br />   It’s raining out; the droplets beat against my windshield. The sound makes it hard to think. I turn down a narrow road, following a laundry truck, only to discover that the street is a dead end. The truck parks below a sign that reads SAL’S CLEANING.

  I look in my rearview mirror. There’s a Dumpster behind me on one side and a stack of milk crates on the other—too narrow for a three-point turn. I go to put the car in reverse, but then I come to a sudden halt.

  Someone’s standing in my headlights, staring straight at me.

  The laundry guy.

  His driver’s side door is open.

  He smiles when he sees I’ve noticed him, seemingly unaffected by the rain. It drips down over his glasses, pastes his hair against his forehead. He looks about fifty years old.

  I honk my horn, keeping my palm pressed against it. But he doesn’t move. He just keeps on smiling.

  I throw the car into reverse and start to back up, smashing into one of the milk crates. It crunches beneath my wheel.

  I stop. And turn to look forward.

  The laundry man is gone now. His driver’s side door remains open. There’s a bar across the rear door to the dry cleaner’s; he obviously didn’t go in.

  I go to back up again, stepping on the gas, but the car doesn’t move. The engine revs. My heart pounds.

  It takes me a second to realize that my gear’s in neutral. I shift to reverse. My tires screech as I back away, fighting to stay straight, rounding the corner, and returning to the main road.

  I drive to the police station, knowing that Detective Thomas isn’t in until six in the morning on Tuesdays. But I pull into the parking lot anyway and check my phone messages. I have three missed calls from Miko and a text from Apple.

  I peek in the rearview mirror. My skin looks pale. My eyes are red and veiny. And my hair’s in a messy heap of mousy-brown on top of my head. So far from princess-worthy.

  I push the mirror away, pop a couple of my meds (several hours late), and then wait for Thomas’s arrival.

  Hours later, I wake up with my cheek pressed against the steering wheel. My neck aches. My mouth is dry. My cell phone vibrates against the dashboard.

  The sun radiates through the glass, making everything feel magnified—the vibration, the brightness, my headache, the musty smell of my car.

  I grab the phone and check the screen. PRIVATE CALLER. “Hello?”

  “Ivy?” A female voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “Are you coming for us?” she whispers.

  “Natalie?” I sit up straighter.

  “Are you?”

  “Natalie?”

  The phone clicks. She hung up.

  I climb out of the car and hurry inside the police station. Seated behind the dark glass barrier is Officer Squires. “Is he here today?” I ask him.

  Squires lets out a sigh. He’s sick of my dropping by here. I’m sick of it too. Before I left the hospital, I’d promised myself that I was done with the police, but ever since my discharge, I haven’t been able to stop myself, clinging to my list of what-ifs: What if a clue I share helps find the killer? What if I don’t say anything and the others wind up dead? What if going to the station just one more time means that I’ll learn something new about the case? What if the police start seeing me as an integral part of the investigation?

  Officer Squires pages Thomas, and within minutes I’m allowed through the door, inside the station, where the desks are lined up in rows. Officers are on the phone, surfing the Net, and talking in hushed tones. Detective Dearborn—the token female here—ushers me to the back, where there’s a narrow hallway with interrogation rooms to the left and right. She leads me into the room at the very end, my least favorite; the window doesn’t open. The interior smells like a locker room. I go inside and take a seat.

  “Detective Thomas will be with you soon,” she says. Her face reminds me of a Chihuahua’s, with its beady eyes and pointed snout.

  Thomas comes in a few minutes later. “Ivy...” he says, in lieu of hello. He closes the door and sits down across from me with a notepad and pen.

  “She called me,” I tell him. “Just now. She asked if I was coming for them.”

  “Okay, hold on, who called you?”

  “Natalie.” Didn’t I mention that?

  “How do you know it was her?”

  “It was a private call, but it sounded like her.”

  He doesn’t write anything down. “Did this person say anything else?”

  “It was her,” I insist. “Don’t you think we should do something—tell someone?” Why is it so hot in here? I look around for a heat vent.

  “How long did the conversation last?”

  “A few seconds.”

  “A few seconds isn’t exactly long enough to prove anything.”

  I know. It isn’t. Ticktock, ticktock. I clench my teeth, feeling my skin begin to itch.

  “There’s more.”

  “Okay.” His forehead furrows.

  “There was a guy at the diner during my shift.”

  “And?”

  “And he called me Princess,” I say, proceeding to tell him how the guy had been hanging around the diner for more than two hours, and how it seemed he might’ve been waiting for me. “I’m pretty sure he was in his twenties. He had dark hair, hazel eyes, and he drove a Ford pick—”

  “And?” Thomas asks again.

  “What do you mean and?” I balk. “He called me Princess...just like I wrote about in my nightmare essay for the contest, just like the Nightmare Elf called me when he re-created my nightmare. Do you really think it’s a coincidence?”

  “I don’t know. It could be.”

  “Would you call a complete stranger a princess?”

  “Maybe if I were a twenty-something-year-old guy looking to flirt with a girl.”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a warning. The killer’s coming back for me again. He wants me to be in his next movie.”

  “We’re not even sure there was a first movie—at least there wasn’t one discovered.”

  “It exists,” I snap. “I saw it. I lived it. The Nightmare Elf made us watch it.” Our experience during the Dark House weekend was recorded; the killer was using that footage to make a feature film.

  “Let’s just say that this guy at the diner...his calling you a princess wasn’t a coincidence....Maybe he found your essay online.”

  “It isn’t online,” I say, thinking how I wondered the same—how I asked the mystery boy if he’d found my essay on some site.

  “Not that you know of.” Thomas gives me a pointed look. “Maybe he’s some die-hard Justin Blake fan, wanting to meet the girl who got away.”

  “Or maybe he came as a messenger,” I say, “from the killer himself.”

  “Did he say anything else that might link him to the case?”

  I shake my head and look away, almost tempted to make something up.

  “Well, you don’t need me to tell you that people are interested in your story, Ivy. In some way, you’ve become famous. A lot of Justin Blake fans would go to great lengths—including frequenting your place of employment—to meet you. To them, you’re a real-life heroine.”

  “I’m hardly a heroine.” Heroes don’t leave others behind.

  “Sounds like someone’s being too hard on herself. Are you still taking care of yourself, getting the help you need?”

  “If you’re talking about outpatient therapy, then the answer is yes,” I lie, knowing he has a point about the story’s appeal. After the Dark House weekend, varied versions of the story spiraled out of control. Hard-core Justin Blake fans created videos depicting their own ideas of what happened. They posted them online, some even insisting that their films were the real deal. Last time I checked, there were more than two hundred phony films.

  Also after that weekend, I started receiving prank phone calls (people claiming to be Natalie, Parker, and the others), as well as lame-o invitations and admission tickets to see the scr
eening of numerous Nightmare Elf–inspired projects.

  “Why isn’t the FBI looking harder?” I ask him.

  “They are looking hard. This is a serious case. We have five missing people and a potential killer on the loose. In my book, that’s top priority.”

  “And in the FBI’s book?”

  “Would it make you feel any better if I had an undercover detective frequent your place of work? I already have cops staked out at your parents’ and aunt’s residences.”

  “It would make me feel better if we were on the same page—if you let me in on the investigation. I shouldn’t have to hear from my therapist that my real parents’ killer is a suspect.”

  “No one’s excluding you, Ivy. We’re just looking out for your best interest, as well as the best interest of the case.”

  “It’s in my best interest to find the killer and find the others.”

  Detective Thomas studies my face for several moments, tapping his pencil against the pad, as if calculating his next few words. “Does the name Houdini mean anything to you?”

  “Houdini, as in the magician?”

  “As in the serial killer. He hasn’t been active for a few years now. His crimes typically involve a magic-show theme. Like the Nightmare Elf suspect, he wears a costume and creates elaborate setups using lights, props, theater staging, video equipment. After he kills his victims, he moves the bodies; they don’t turn up until months later, and when they do, it’s in some showy, magical fashion.”

  “And the Feds think that he’s the same person who organized the Dark House weekend? Do they have a concrete reason? Fingerprints? DNA?”

  “It’s just one of the many theories right now.”

  “In other words, no.”

  “We can’t dismiss theories based on lack of evidence.”

  “Maybe you should take your own advice.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Nightmare Elf’s theme is horror, not magic,” I remind him.

  “Still, there are enough common threads to raise suspicion, especially since Houdini’s victims fit the profile of your group: an eclectic mix of college-age students looking for a good time. The victims are often tricked into going to see a magic show; there’s usually some element of winning a contest.”