by Bryn Donovan
Andi picked up the throw from the couch and wrapped it tightly around her naked body. “You were too rough.”
“What…” David’s breath came fast, either from their unfinished lovemaking or in response to this accusation. “Andi, I’m sorry. You told me you didn’t mind…you know…”
“No, this was different,” she insisted. “You were choking me!”
“What?” Mouth slack, he stared up at her as though she had lost her mind. “No, I wasn’t.”
“Yes! You were!”
“But I don’t remember…you mean, hard?”
She nodded, her hand going to her throat.
Horror washed over David’s face. “My God. Andi. I… Are you all right?” He stood and reached one gentle hand toward her neck then yanked it back before he touched her, as though his touch might burn her skin. “Let me see.”
Andi shook her head. “I’m okay, I just…” She didn’t know what to say.
Shame burned hot in his green eyes. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it happened…I guess I just got out of control.” His voice rasped on the last word. “It’ll never happen again.”
Andi took a deep breath and let it out.
Things like this happened, right? Passion took over, and next thing you knew, someone had crazy bite marks on their neck, bruises they didn’t remember getting. She remembered how one of her suitemates in college, after what she described as a thoroughly enjoyable evening at her new boyfriend’s apartment, had nasty rug burns that took weeks to heal.
Andi gave a shaky laugh. “You’ve just got to take it easy there. You could break me or something.”
“Jesus.” David pressed his hands to the sides of his head. After a moment, he went over to the couch, picked up his tee shirt and pulled it on. “Okay, let’s…let’s just take it easy, hang out for a while.”
“I think maybe you should go.” The words came out of her mouth before she considered them.
He looked genuinely scared. “You know it was an accident, right?”
“I’m just freaked out.” She started to assure him that she wasn’t breaking up with him, then stopped herself. She didn’t know what to think. “I want a little time alone.”
“That makes sense. Jesus, Andi, I’m so sorry…are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
David hung his head. “Okay. I’m going to go. I’ll call you later—is that okay?”
“Yeah.”
After she closed the door she just stood there for a moment, stunned. Her hand went up to her throat again, where the skin still felt tender, but that wasn’t the only place she hurt. She felt as though the whole inside of her body was sore and raw.
What had just happened?
Her thoughts swirled. David had become completely unstrung when he realized he’d accidentally hurt her. But how could you choke somebody without even knowing it?
From the first, David had warned her against him, telling her he couldn’t succeed at a relationship. His father had been abusive, and she knew Lissa was right: that kind of behavior could get passed down through generations.
But despite his occasional grim moods, he always seemed so, well, good. He was attuned to her feelings and concerned with whatever she needed. Until now, she would’ve said he was the last person in the world who would hurt her. He’d been enraged when Carlos had attacked her…
Oh, God. This was just like the episode with Carlos.
She should call Morty.
Andi picked up her phone then stopped. She hadn’t known the psychic for very long. Could she really tell him what happened? The intimate nature of the incident embarrassed her. And she could get David into trouble.
But maybe he should be in trouble.
The hell with it. She needed help. Taking a deep breath, she dialed. It rang five times and then she heard the terse voice mail: “Morton Silva, leave a message.”
Andi hung up. She couldn’t leave a message saying, Hi, it’s Andi. David and I were having sex and he throttled me—call me back!
The next moment, her phone rang and Morty’s number showed on the screen.
“Hello,” she answered.
“Hey, it’s Morty. I just missed your call. What’s up?”
“Do you have a couple of minutes?” Her strained voice shook a little.
“Sure I do, kid,” he said in a softer tone. “What’s going on?”
“Okay. You know how that contractor Carlos shoved me? But he was really sorry afterwards?”
“Yeah,” Morty replied, wary.
“Well, David was over here tonight—”
“Are you all right?” he demanded.
“Yeah.”
“Is he still there?”
“No. He’s gone.”
“Okay,” the psychic said. “So, what happened?”
“Well, we were, you know…we were starting to have sex, and the next thing I knew he was choking me. Really choking me.” She felt her throat closing up again now.
“Oh, poor baby,” he murmured. “Listen, you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I fought him off…and then he said he didn’t even know he was doing it! I don’t understand. Could it be the house? Even though we weren’t at the house? Or is he just, like, some kind of abuser?”
“Either one’s possible,” Morty said. “Or both. But yeah, I would say it’s the house.”
Strangely, this relieved Andi. She sniffled. “How do you know?”
“I don’t know. But the last time we were at the place, I had a very bad feeling about what was going on in your boyfriend’s head.”
“What? He didn’t say anything weird.” The meaning of Morty’s words sunk in. “You can read minds?”
“Not exactly. I get a sense of people. And when he was looking at you, I picked up on something bad.” She heard him let out a humorless laugh. “Usually he basically thinks you’re an angel walking around on earth. But all of a sudden there was something different. It was violent…cold.”
Andi felt cold. Still naked except for the throw, she drew her knees up and hugged them. “Oh, God. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Morty grunted. “Would you have listened? Maybe I should have, anyway. But it didn’t fit with my other impressions of him. Like I said, usually he loves you like nobody’s business.”
Her heart jumped. Morty couldn’t mean it literally, though. Love was too strong a word.
“That’s why I’m guessing it’s not him,” he explained. “I think he’s getting infected.”
“What should I do?”
There was a pause on the other end. “You guys are coming over tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah,” Andi said. They had arranged this before. “To talk about the basement.”
“Okay. Give me time to think about this, okay, babe? Make sure you both get there. But listen, don’t drive with him.”
“All right.”
“And if he comes around to your place again tonight? Make some excuse. Whatever you can think of. But don’t let him in.”
* * *
David pulled up to the worn two-story brownstone on the South Side and parked on the street behind Andi’s truck. The night before, he’d left a phone message with Andi, apologizing again and offering to drive. She’d texted him back, saying she had some errands to run first and she would meet with him there.
Sleep eluded him the night before. Sometimes he battled insomnia by getting a late-night workout in, trying to wear out his body by lifting weights, but instead, he just stared at the television. Maybe he was too strong already.
He kept trying to remember what had happened. Kissing Andi on the couch, the blissful moment he thrust into her—and then Andi standing in front of him, angry and pale with fear. His memory blanked out in between.
Usually, he recalled every detail of their lovemaking. Her golden-brown hair spilled out across the pillow. Her lips on the side of his neck—everything about her was so soft, so sweet. The touches and care
sses she seemed to like best, because he always wanted to please her.
Instead, he had hurt her. Would she leave him? Should she? He tried to tell himself that with sex, anyone could get carried away…and Andi excited him like no other woman ever had. Things had just gotten out of hand, he told himself, but he wouldn’t let it happen again.
Meeting at Morty’s was a good idea. She would feel safe at the psychic’s place.
The carpeting in the hall of the building smelled like sour beer and dog. If the psychic made his living by lying to people, as David had originally thought, he sure as hell wasn’t very good at it.
David walked up two flights of stairs. When he found the door with Morty’s apartment number in cheap hardware-store metal numerals, he rapped on it twice with the heel of his fist.
Morty opened the door. “Come on in.”
The sour smell disappeared as he shut the door behind them, replaced by a faint, not unpleasant, odor of lemons and burnt matches. David looked with amazement around the man’s cramped living room.
Charts with symbols, Egyptian scrolls, a page from an illuminated Islamic manuscript and all kinds of papers and ephemera plastered every square inch of the walls. A lurid illustration of a half-naked woman partially obscured a certificate of graduation from Northwestern University—Theodore Morton Silva, Bachelor of Arts, Religion.
The bookshelves sagged under their weight. More books formed pillars from floor to ceiling. Candles, statuettes, brass bowls, bags of colored powders, what looked like a very old knife—almost black, as though made of iron—along with dried weeds, a mortar and pestle, and every other kind of arcane object imaginable crowded every surface in the living room and the kitchen table visible around the corner.
Surrounded by this profusion of the sacred, profane and arcane, Andi sat on the couch. She gave David a tight smile. Something twisted inside of him, and he couldn’t smile back.
“Sit down,” Morty told him.
David took a seat next to her but gave her a little room.
“So, you found a guy to dig out that basement?” Morty asked.
“Yeah.” David looked at Andi. “You didn’t tell him about it yet?”
“I just got here,” she said. Her hair hung loose rather than in its usual ponytail, obscuring her expression from him.
The psychic sat down in an armchair. “If we find bodies, how do you know he won’t tell anyone else?”
“He owes me,” David said. “He’s the guy we told you about before—the one who attacked Andi.”
“Really.”
“I know, it sounds nuts. But Andi has this theory. And we went and talked to him, and I think she may be right.”
Morty pursed his lips. “What theory?”
“We think…well, it’s going to sound crazy.”
“Mr. Girard, for something to sound crazy to me, it would have to be pretty goddamn crazy.”
“We think that the house, the bad vibes in the house, drove him to do it.”
“She’s right,” the psychic said.
David looked up at him, surprised. “Well, anyway…now he knows the house can have that effect on him, so he can take a break if he needs to. And I’m going to watch him.”
“You’re going to watch him,” Morty repeated. “Well that’s great, Slappy. Who’s going to watch you?”
David shifted. “What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
David looked over at Andi, but she fixed her gaze on the coffee table. She had told the psychic what happened? He didn’t blame her.
Morty said, “Whatever it is in that house—and I hope we get rid of it—it’s getting in your head. I could feel it. Your great-grandfather killed his wife. You father killed your mother. And now you want to kill Andi.”
David jumped to his feet, knocking a ceramic figure off the table to crash on the floor. Andi squeaked, and the psychic winced.
David didn’t care. “I do not want to hurt Andi. You, on the other hand—”
“Don’t feel too bad. It happened to your contractor, too.”
“No.” David felt as though he were standing on the edge of a shore with the sand slipping out from beneath his feet. “Okay, you’re good at reading people, I get that. And maybe I’ve had some negative thoughts in that house, but who wouldn’t? You hear about bad things, you think some bad things. People think all kinds of stuff all the time.”
Morty’s eyes drooped as though from boredom. “You’re not even fooling yourself, Mr. Girard. And you sure as hell aren’t fooling me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“It’s what I want you both to do.” Morty leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You need to break it off. You can’t see each other. At least until this house is clean. Or, considering your family history…maybe for good.”
“That’s crazy,” David objected.
“You know better.”
Andi looked from one of them to the other, her blue eyes clouded with misery.
“I would never hurt her,” David said. “I would stop myself. Jesus. Andi…” His heart ached as he turned to her. “I would die before I would hurt you.”
She lifted her chin, challenging him. “You already did.”
David saw faint red-purple bruises at her throat. Shame enveloped him like a heavy shroud. He’d tried to tell himself that whatever had happened, it hadn’t been that bad. It was worse than he thought.
I didn’t know what I was doing. The thought didn’t comfort him. It did exactly the opposite. All he’d wanted, all his life, was to be free, to be in charge of what happened to him.
Now Morty and Andi were saying he didn’t have control over himself at all. And he feared they were right.
He realized he was still standing in the middle of the living room, and he sat back down again, keeping his arms close at his sides.
“Andi told me, but it didn’t come as a surprise,” Morty said. “She doesn’t seem to read people, but I do, and I could feel something wrong the other day. It was coming off you in waves. This just confirmed it.”
David looked at Andi. “You told him to tell me to back off?” he asked without heat. He didn’t blame her, but it pained him. “You could have just told me yourself.”
“No! I didn’t know he was going to say this.” She turned to the psychic. “You know what? I don’t want to break it off with him either.”
“Oh, for the love of God.” Morty groaned, leaning back in his chair. “What’s with you two? You’ve been together, what, a few weeks?”
“Something like that,” David said.
Andi added, “It’s hard to believe it’s only been that long.”
God, David thought. I love her.
How could that be true, after such a short time? When he’d never meant to fall in love with any woman? He had no doubt about it. And it scared him.
“Look,” Morty said. “There are certain times when a person’s psychic defenses are down. When you’re asleep. When you’re daydreaming…oh, and you shouldn’t do yoga or meditate,” he added, more to Andi. “When your mind is empty like that, you’re at risk.”
Andi shrugged. “I suck at yoga anyway.”
“And you’re also susceptible when you’re having sex.” Morty fixed his gaze on David. “There’s a reason why that happened when it did. You lose control of your conscious mind, and this thing takes over.”
“You’re saying we can’t have sex,” David said. He suspected the psychic was right, but he hated being told what to do about something so private. “You know, this is just none of your damn business.”
“It is as long as I’m working with you. There’s been enough tragedy with that house already. I don’t want a front-row seat to more. You’ve got to hold off at least until we’ve cleaned house.”
David couldn’t stand thinking of himself as having so little restraint. “But now that I’m aware of it, maybe I can keep my guard up—”
“Mr. Girard,” Morty said i
n absolute seriousness. “You could kill her.”
Dread reverberated through David like a death knell.
“It’s just until we fix things,” Andi said.
She touched his arm, and he flinched at the touch, then closed his eyes briefly. “Yeah…I understand. Of course we can wait.”
“Good man,” Morty said. David felt like the opposite—a monster, a threat to someone he wanted to keep safe.
Something else occurred to him. “If this thing got to Carlos, and it got to me, who’s to say it’s not going to get to you? Or Andi?”
“Eh, it’s not impossible. But from what you’ve told me, there’s no history of women doing anything bad in that place. The only thing they did wrong is not get the hell out when they should have. Isn’t that right?”
David stiffened, thinking of his mother. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology, coming from the psychic, surprised him. “I mean no disrespect. But I don’t think Andi’s in danger of being manipulated. As much time as she’s spent in that house, and as sensitive as she is, she would have felt it by now.”
“There’s never been anything like that,” Andi said.
“As for me,” Morty went on, “let’s just say I have pretty strong psychic defenses, built up over years of doing this. And I know a few other tricks, too.”
“But you know what? Mr. Willingham worked there a long time, and nothing ever happened with him,” Andi pointed out. “Did it, David?”
“No. Nothing like that ever happened.”
“Did he spend a lot of time in the house itself?” Morty asked.
David frowned. “No. Hardly any.”
“Yeah,” the psychic said. “It seems like it gets under people’s skin.”
“And I grew up there,” David stated.
There was a small silence.
“I can’t wait to get rid of it,” Andi declared. “I feel like that whole house is just saturated in it. That evil.”
“I won’t lie, I’m glad I’ve got your help,” the psychic told her. “I wouldn’t want to be doing this thing on my own.”
David’s anger sparked. “Wait a minute. Why do you have to keep dragging her into this? She was really shaken up after that other night. How about you just take it from here on your own? Isn’t that what people pay you for?”
