The Ashes (The Rebecca Underhill Trilogy Book 2)

by Vincent Zandri

  When I come to, Sam is patting my forehead with a wet towel. It takes me a moment to collect myself. But when I finally get it together, I realize I’m lying on top of the harvest table. The reality of what I just witnessed in the drawings kicks in. I begin to weep uncontrollably.

  “He’s got them, Sam,” I say, the words like swallowed glass in my throat. “I feel it in my gut. He’s got them.”

  “Who has them, Rebecca?”

  “The Skinner.”

  “We don’t know that,” Sam says.

  “They are nowhere to be found. Where else can they be?”

  The pressure in my belly building. No sharp pains, but pains nonetheless. Like a dull bruising on the inside.

  “Listen, Rebecca,” Sam says. “I’m going to make a check on the whole place, including the art barn. We haven’t even thought to make a check out there.”

  I slide off the table, stand, a bit wobbly, but steady enough.

  “Sam,” I say. “Do you have your gun?”

  He pulls up his shirt tail. Shows me the semi-automatic. My father was a state trooper. I might be a lady, but I know my guns. Know the difference between a semi-automatic and a revolver, a 9mm vs. a .45 model 1911. What Sam is packing is a short-barreled 9mm. Easy to conceal, but powerful. Whoever or whatever he shot out there in the cornfield knows just how powerful the gun can be.

  “You stay here,” he says.

  “The hell I will,” I say.

  The room fills with a quiet that is not entirely quiet. There’s the sound of the fall wind blowing on the screen door, the old wood floor creaking under our boots, and something else. A tapping. Coming from below us. In the cellar, maybe.

  Pulse speeds up.

  “Sam,” I say, under my breath. “You hear that?”

  His eyes look one way then the other.

  “Hear what?”

  I shush him, even though I asked a question that deserves an answer. Then, a louder tap, and a squeal.

  “That?” I say.

  “Something’s out there,” he says, drawing his gun. “In the hallway.”

  “Oh Jesus,” I say, going for the counter, grabbing a French knife from out of the wood holder.

  Instinctually, I move in the direction of the basement door, and the closet beside it. Holding the knife at the ready, I go to open the closet.

  “Wait!” Sam barks. “Let me.”

  I step to the side, while he places his free hand on the opener, the 9mm gripped in his shooting hand, aimed for whatever might be hiding in the closet.

  “Do it, Sam,” I whisper, squeezing the knife’s wood grip. “Open it.”

  I see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down inside his throat when he swallows.

  He pulls the door open.

  What flies out at us is not big and scary but, instead, small, soft, and furry. Taco the dog. She’s crying, and judging by the matted locks on the face, she’s been crying for some time. Handing Sam the knife, I bend down and pick her up. She’s trembling.

  “Oh baby, Taco,” I say. “What happened to you?”

  I carry her into the kitchen. A kitchen that was always such a warm and inviting place for my whole family, but that now seems as cold and frightening as a basement morgue.

  “We need to call the police,” I say. “911.”

  Sam holds up both hands like he’s asking me to calm down. My immediate reaction is to slap him. How dare he tell me to calm down? But then, he’s absolutely right. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. Maybe the kids are outside enjoying the afternoon with Robyn. Maybe her phone is dead inside her pocket, and she doesn’t even know it.

  “Let me go check the barn,” Sam says. “I’ll also look around the grounds a little.” Peering at his wrist watch. “If say, five minutes go by, and there’s still no sign of the kids or Rob, then we’re going to place a direct call to Detective Miller. No fucking around with the Sheriff or the State Troopers or 911. We’ll go directly to the one man who knows the real danger that Skinner possesses, should the creep so happen to be living out here. Sound fair?”

  Breathing in slowly, deliberately. My heart is still beating in my throat, but at least I’m not about to hyperventilate again.

  “Agreed Sam,” I say. “In the meantime, I’m going upstairs to take my own look.”

  “What about the basement?” he says.

  Just the mere suggestion makes my skin tingle with goosebumps.

  “Nobody goes down there,” I say. “No one except Robyn.”

  “You sure about that?” he says.

  The lights on in the cellar this morning . . .

  Pursing his lips, he turns, heads out the kitchen door and into the backyard.

  Skinner hides himself among the shadows and eyes the tall man with the gun in his hand. He thinks, you should have called the police when you had the chance, Sam. You would have saved yourself. Saved the children . . . the little kittens. Robyn was beyond saving, but you didn’t know that at the time. You wanted to play hero. To prove to my little kitten, Rebecca, that you are deserving of her love.

  Sam walks, the semi-automatic gripped in his right hand, the sweat building in his palm, his head growing dizzy from his too rapid breathing, his stomach cramped. He may be six feet tall, but he is in way over his head. Sam is a nice man. A Good Man. Born and bred in Manhattan to wealthy parents, both of whom are physicians. They sent him to the best private schools, the best summer camps. In turn, Sam made his first million on Wall Street before he was thirty. But not without taking time out as an Army volunteer for the First Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. Over the past two decades, he’s made almost ten million more. But he hasn’t kept it all to himself. Several hospitals have wings dedicated to his name, including one entire hall in the cancer wing at the Boston Children’s Hospital. Not even Rebecca knows that. Fact is, she doesn’t know a whole lot about Sam. He pretends to be merely a simple man who wants to live a simple life in the country. Now, he wants to share that life with Rebecca and her son.

  He steps slowly across the barn’s wood floor, the waning light of the late afternoon barely illuminating the big space in a dull, orange-like glow. It’s all the light required for The Skinner to strike at him from out of the darkness, flaying knife in hand.

  With Taco safe inside her crate in the kitchen, I head up the stairs, turn toward the bedrooms. The first one on my right is Robyn’s. The door is slightly ajar, so I slowly open it, as though half expecting her to be resting comfortably on the mattress, her feet up, reading glasses covering her eyes, a paperback novel gripped in her hands.

  But I find nothing of the sort. Instead, I find a bed that’s been slept in, but not made up after she arose earlier this morning. Leaving a bed unmade and a bedroom not picked up is entirely unlike the fastidious Robyn that I’ve known ever since art school.

  “Rob,” I find myself whispering. “Rob. Where have you gone?”

  I take a step backward, in the direction of the open bedroom door, my eyes still focused on the bed. That’s when I see something on the floor, by the bed. A little tube of Vaseline lip therapy. The tube is actually partly under the bed. Robyn must have dropped it and left it there. But why? It’s not like her to leave something on the floor like that. She uses the stuff like it’s as necessary as oxygen.

  Taking a step forward, I bend at the knees, pick the tube up. Raising myself back up, I feel something sticky and tacky on the tube’s exterior. Reaching down with my free hand, I turn on the bedroom lamp.

  There’s blood on the tube. The blood is sticking to my finger pads.

  I drop the tube and sprint out the door. I don’t bother with checking out the rest of the upstairs. I make for the stairs, descend them as fast as I can without tripping, falling, breaking my neck. When I come to the landing, I turn, run back into the kitchen.

  “Sam!” I scream.

  There on the floor, the answer to my question.

  A streak of blood.

  I reach out for the harvest table to balance my
self. There’s something else on the floor beside the blood. Something that takes my eyes some time to focus on, my brain to register. Another piece of eight inches by eleven and one-half inches of green construction paper. Sluggishly, as if caught up in a nightmare I cannot escape, I make my way to the paper, bend at the knees, pick it up.

  Over my shoulder, I make out the sound of Taco shuffling around in her crate. She’s clearly agitated. She’s also crying. Taco never cries.

  I try to focus on the drawing. The artwork and style are easily recognizable as belonging to my son. The body depicted in the very center of the paper is sitting in what looks to be a wood chair. The hands, arms, and legs are taped to the chair, as is the body’s torso. The body is naked, excepting the underwear, and there’s a black hood or a bag that’s been placed over the head. Streaks of red crayon stain the body. The red crayon can mean only one thing. There’s a light that shines down on it depicted by yellow crayon. The light comes from a bare bulb that hangs from a ceiling beam. On the floor is a puddle illustrated with more red crayon. Or, in this instance, red crayon streaked with black crayon.

  Tears fill my eyes. Knees weak.

  “The Boo always did have an excellent sense of color,” I whisper. “He was born with it.”

  Holy Christ, what am I saying? I’m staring at what can only be Robyn’s dead body tied or taped to a chair inside a room with no windows, and all I can come up with is my son’s uncanny artistic abilities?

  There’s writing directly below the image.

  No police, it reads in Michael’s handwriting. If you call the police, I will cut little Molly’s face off. I will wear her like a mask. I will eat her brains. Do you understand?

  I read the note again. The words and the image above it don't change.

  “What the fuck do you want?!” I scream.

  My phone rings. I pull the phone from my back pocket.

  A text from Sam. My hands trembling, I open it.

  Come to me, it says.

  I type, Where?

  A long beat passes. And another. Two beats that last an eternity.

  Then it arrives. Follow the blood babe. Just follow the blood.

  The scream erupts not from my voice box, but from something deep inside my stomach. The pain that has been festering there for days is finally released in one agonizing wail. The Skinner . . . He’s listening to me. Watching me. Maybe, he has been for a long, long time. But how?

  “He can see me,” I say aloud. “He can see me, hear me.”

  I pocket the phone, open the cabinets, pull out the dishes, toss them onto the floor, glass and porcelain smashing. Taco is barking from her crate. She’s afraid. But then, so am I. Afraid and angry and out of my mind. I’ve emptied three cabinets and haven’t found anything. But when I come to the fourth, I find a wire. I follow the wire with my fingers. It runs up to the top of the cabinet so that I am forced to climb up onto the counter. The wire extends out over the microwave. That’s where I find it. In the very narrow space between the unit and the cabinet space is a small microphone, and beside it, a camera, no larger than a pencil eraser.

  “Oh my God,” I say aloud. “The fucker has been watching and listening to us the entire time.”

  I pull the wires out of the wall, toss the mic and camera into the sink, then jump down from the counter. I’m forcing myself to inhale and exhale steadily. Trying my best not to panic. If only I could call in Detective Miller.

  Don’t do it, Michael says. Not yet. Not while Skinner’s got little Mike and little Molly. It’s too dangerous, Bec.

  I see him standing by the door. He’s wearing his favorite black turtleneck sweater, jeans, and boots. Everything about him looks younger than he was when Whalen killed him. But his face contains no skin or flesh. It’s just a skull.

  “Mol,” I say inside my head. “What the hell would you do?”

  Michael’s right, she says. She’s sitting on the harvest table, swinging her bare legs, her worn out Keds sneakers looking like they’re about to leave her feet and fly across the room. She’s a teenager, but her face is swelled and distorted, her hair having fallen out except for a couple of stray gray strands. For now, you need to find Sam. But then, you need to go back into the corn and find Skinner. You need to face him, Bec. You need to face your fear and kill it. Do you understand me? No other choice.

  She’s right, Rebecca, Michael adds. You know she’s right. Molly is a part of you. She owns half your heart, half your soul. You have no other choice but to be strong and face Skinner down. Kill him. Only then can you save the children.

  Tears, rolling down my cheeks. The salt water blurs my vision. I still see Molly and Michael, but their bodies have become blurred and distorted, and soon they disappear entirely, leaving me alone with a trashed kitchen, and a bloodied floor.

  Truth is, I’m stalling. Stalling during a situation when every minute . . . every second . . . counts. The longer I give in to my fear, the better chance Skinner has of killing the children. Of skinning them alive.

  “This isn’t happening, Michael.”

  But it is happening, Rebecca. You have to accept it . . .

  I wipe my eyes, once more focus on the floor, at the streaks and droplets of fresh blood. I begin to follow the blood trail across the kitchen floor. My body shaking, shuddering, mouth dry, stomach twisting inside out. Making my way across the floor, the shattered glass and ceramic crunching under my boot soles. The sound competes with Taco’s cries. It comes to me then that she shouldn’t be made to suffer. She’s just an innocent dog. Maybe Skinner has the upper hand with my family and me. But that doesn’t mean Taco can’t save herself.

  Bending at the knees, I open her crate. She’s so frightened, she refuses to come out. But I reach in for her, pull her out, cradle her in my arms. Carrying her with me out into the corridor, I go to the front door, open it, bring her out onto the porch. Then, setting her down onto the first step, I tell her to run. As if understanding me entirely, the little dog barrels down the steps, makes her way across the driveway turn-around, and out across the front lawn. Crossing the empty road, she disappears into a field of tall grass.

  Turning, I head back into the house and into the kitchen where I once more grab hold of the French knife. Carrying the knife with me back out into the corridor, I take hold of the basement doorknob with my right hand, twist it. I pull the door open.

  Flicking on the wall-mounted light switch, I immediately make out the dull yellow light that illuminates the packed gravel floor. Inhaling a deep breath, I make my way down the old wood steps. A woman frightened beyond words.

  Most of the day shift has already left and gone home to their wives or partners, their kids, their beer and whiskey chasers. But even though Chief Homicide Detective Nick Miller has a home to go to, it’s as empty as a church and just as haunted by the memory of his late wife. She’s been gone more years than he cares to remember, but somehow, they only parted ways just this morning.

  He still smells her, feels her tender touch, sees the way she shakes out her long dark hair immediately after shampooing it in the shower, listens to her humming a soft, happy tune to herself. Mostly, he hears her warm, soft voice whispering in his ear. “I love you, Nick Miller. Don’t you ever forget that.”

  Did she really ever say that to him in quite that way? Sweet memories, nonetheless.

  But then you can’t recall the sweet without recalling the not so sweet. He sees her collapsing at a New Year’s Eve black tie banquet the New York State Council 82 Law Enforcement Union puts on every December 31st in downtown Albany, and then, the EMTs rushing in with a gurney, setting her on top of it, wheeling her quickly out to an awaiting ambulance. He still feels her lifeless hand in his and the way her deep brown almond shaped eyes rolled around in their sockets. The way her lips moved like she was trying to say something, but could no longer form the words.

  He recalls her hand separating from his as she was taken into surgery. A surgery that she did not survive. Not because the aneu
rysm in her brain was all that lethal, but because the surgeon who’d been attending his own New Year’s Eve party decided to have one too many while on call. In the end, the surgeon lost his license to practice surgery in New York State. But it was Nick’s wife who paid the price. The ultimate price.

  Nick paid the price, too. He pays it out every day in a loneliness so weighty it follows him like a shadow. Fact is, at this point, he wouldn’t know what it feels like not to be lonely. Not to be alone.

  He kills the overhead light by triggering the switch on the wall behind his desk, and turns on his desk lamp, the old device spilling an inverted arc of artificial light onto the desktop. Opening the bottom desk drawer, he pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a drinking glass. He sets them both on the table directly beside his laptop computer then closes the drawer back up.

  He pours a shot, drinks it down in one swift pull. He then pours another. This one he allows to sit while he thinks about Rebecca Underhill’s visit to his office today. She seemed truly panicked. Paranoid even. But then, after what she went through eight years ago, who wouldn’t be paranoid?

  He flips open the laptop, types in Lawrence Fredrick Hanover into the Google search, once more refreshes himself with the circumstances regarding his escape from the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric facility. The killing of the two staff members in the back of the van while transporting the killer to an upstate psychiatric center. His skinning their faces off, consuming pieces of their raw flesh, then dressing himself in their clothing while wearing one guard’s face like a mask, and simply walking away from the scene.

  “Beast like The Skinner makes me lose my faith in humanity,” he whispers inside the empty office. Something he often does since he’s so often alone.

  He recalls the All-Points Bulletin that went out on Hanover, aka The Skinner, aka Skinner, and how the combined efforts of Albany PD, New York State Troopers, and the Rensselaer Sheriff’s Department produced nothing. Nada. Not a trace of a lead as to the whereabouts of the serial killer. It was as if the beast disappeared from the world entirely. Not even the FBI have produced so much as a brief sighting, however false.