Inside, Katie made sure to lock the front door behind her. She did it twice so there wouldn’t be any doubt in her mind that she had, in fact, locked it. There was a back door to the house as well but it only took a few seconds to double check it was locked with the deadbolt thrown in place. No one was going to get in to surprise them this time.
In the hallway, Katie gave a wide berth to the toolbox and Riley’s work belt. She’d have to take those out of here later. Hopefully by then the police would have arrested him.
Bastard.
The freezer door squeaked when she opened it and Katie added that fact to her list of things to fix before she could sell the house...
She grimaced at the thought, and mentally crumpled the whole list up and tossed it away. How could she go about fixing this place up and selling it now that she knew her mother had been killed here? The closure she had hoped to gain by getting rid of this house would forever be out of her grasp. The whole place was tainted in her mind. All of her memories had forever been altered. Those photographs in the hallway seemed to be showing her someone else’s happy life.
Mel was pushing on the door with her fingertips, examining it dubiously. “You sure this can’t close on us again?”
“Yes,” Katie answered. Then she changed her mind. “No. I mean, it shouldn’t. I tested it yesterday and it was fine.”
“You got locked inside,” Mel reminded her.
“Only because Riley showed up and closed me in. Look.” From her pocket she took out the card that Chief Aikens had given her. Turning it over to the blank side she wrote out a note, just like she had done last time for Riley.
We are in the freezer. Please open the door.
Katie showed Mel the card before placing it prominently on the kitchen counter. “There. See? Now if we get locked in--”
“They’ll know where to find our bodies,” Mel joked. “Wonderful.”
Katie stuck her tongue out at her friend. She was so glad Mel was here. First the business with Riley, and then Marlena’s body, and now sitting with her in a freezer to call on her mother’s ghost. She didn’t know how she would have done all this by herself.
They scouted around for something to prop the door open with until Katie rolled her eyes and went out into the hall. She came back with Riley’s toolbox. It was heavy enough that she had to carry it in two hands. It set nicely against the linoleum, right at the bottom edge of the door, keeping it open wide.
“Ooh,” Mel shivered. “It’s cold in here.”
“It is a freezer, Mel.” Katie settled herself on the cement floor, but she could feel the cold leeching through her jeans too. “Come on. Over here by the drain.”
Mel sat down with her and they positioned the Ouija board in between them so that they could both reach an edge of the planchette. The heart-shaped pointer sat there on its three rubber-tipped feet, its round window settled over the letter G in the middle of the board, waiting for them to begin.
Katie knew how much the Ouija board meant to Mel. It had belonged to her great-grandmother, or something, and Mel firmly believed that her maternal ancestor had a gift for talking to the other side. Katie was just hoping that her own mother was receptive to this sort of call.
Not that she understood the first thing about how this worked. She just knew it did.
They could have tried doing this at the graveyard, she supposed. She quickly discarded that idea. The thought of it sent a tingle up her spine. This was spooky enough, here in the house she had grown up in.
“All right,” Mel said, pressing her fingertips down a little harder on her side. “What are we asking...uh, what’s your Mom’s name?”
“Alayna.”
“Okay. What are we going to ask Alayna?”
“I think we need to keep it simple. This isn’t like text messaging, right? So let’s just ask her if she knows who killed her. Let’s start with that.”
“Sounds good.” Mel closed her eyes and cleared her throat. Her voice became very serious. “We are seeking the spirit of Alayna Pearson, mother of Katie Pearson. Is that spirit here in this house?”
Katie held her breath.
Nothing happened.
As if she could read Katie’s thoughts, Mel said, “Don’t give up. Just keep your eyes closed and concentrate. Sometimes it takes a while.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t work too, right?”
“Stop being negative. Negative energy affects the Ouija board...you know, negatively. Alayna Pearson,” Mel called again. “Are you here? Will you speak with us?”
Again, nothing. With her eyes squeezed tightly shut Katie repressed a sigh. Despite Mel’s reassurances it was hard to keep up hope when nothing at all was happening--
Then a quiet scraping noise caught their attention.
“Alayna?” Mel asked. “Is that you? Are you here to speak to us?”
Katie concentrated on the feel of the planchette under her fingers. She wasn’t going to open her eyes until it moved. This had to work. It had to work!
The scraping noise happened again...and again.
Mel raised her voice. “Alayna. Please talk to us. We need to know who killed you. Do you know who it was?”
Scrape...scrape...
“Alayna?”
Katie couldn’t help herself. She opened her eyes, looking around the room. “Mom?”
Sccrraaaappee...
The noise drew Katie’s attention slowly back to the freezer door. It was moving. It was closing, and as it closed it was pushing the heavy toolbox across the kitchen floor.
“No!” she shouted, pulling her hands away from the Ouija board as she scrambled up to her feet and lurched for the door to stop it from swinging shut.
When she took her hands away from the planchette, she felt a small snap against the pads of her finges, like an electric shock.
The toolbox twisted out of the way as the door continued moving and Katie was almost there, her hand lifted up to stop it from closing, to get out to the kitchen before they could be trapped--
Then something grabbed her by her ankles and yanked her back into the freezer. She fell to the floor, scraping her hands against the hard cement as she went down.
She looked down at her feet. There was nothing there. She could feel something wrapped around her legs, holding her fast, but there was nothing there.
Somehow, she had the feeling that whatever was holding her was doing it for her own good. To protect her from something...
It was Mel who ran past her to throw her shoulder at the door as it was almost closed. The echo of the impact was loud inside the freezer. Mel was thrown backward onto her ass.
The door bounced open. Katie breathed a sigh of relief.
The pressure on her legs disappeared.
They were okay.
Mel stood up, holding her left shoulder. “Ow. Oh, seriously ow. That hurts. That hurts a lot. I think I broke my shoulder, Katie.”
Well. Mostly okay.
“You saved us,” Katie told her. “A few seconds later and that door would have shut us in.”
Then they heard a voice. “Katie? Are you home?”
It was Riley Harris.
He’d found them.
Chapter 10
Katie held her breath. When Mel turned to her with a questioning look she held a finger up to her lips. “Shh.”
There was sweat on her friend’s face. The strain of not crying was showing in her eyes. She was really hurt. Katie’s hands ached where she had caught herself from falling.
What were they going to do? They were trapped inside the freezer even if the door was still open. They couldn’t go out there with Riley waiting for them, and the only thing they had to use as a weapon was the Ouija board.
More because it was in reach than for any other reason, Katie leaned over, lying flat on her stomach, to grab the planchette. At least it had a pointy end--
It moved, pulling her hand up to the corner so it could point at the word ‘No.’
Damn it,
Katie thought to herself, why now, Mom? Why couldn’t you have answered us two minutes ago when we asked you to!
What was the last question they’d asked? She thought back to what Mel had said, trying to remember...
“Katie?” Riley Harris called to her again. “Are you upstairs? Hey, I’m coming up, all right?”
Katie bit her lip. No, it was most certainly not all right that this man was in her house, and definitely not okay that he was going upstairs without being invited! Why was he toying with them. He had to know they were in here.
Still, if it got him up there and away from the front door so she and Mel could escape, then so be it.
What was the last question Mel had asked her mother?
Then she remembered. Mel had asked if Katie’s mother knew who killed her.
No.
The answer was no.
Fantastic. We went through all of this and put ourselves in danger again just to find out nothing!
Mel came over to kneel next to Katie, still holding her arm. “How did he get in?” she whispered. “We locked the doors.”
“Wait,” Katie said, still straining her ears to hear what Riley was doing out there. She didn’t know how he got inside. She didn’t care. She just wanted to get away from him.
“I’m coming up!” they heard him call. This time it was followed by the creaking sound of him on the stairs.
Katie counted the steps. One, two, four, eight...
“Now,” she whispered.
The two of them slipped out of the freezer and back into the kitchen. Practically on her tiptoes, Katie made a beeline for the hallway. The front door was to the right. They could get to the car, call the police, and then they’d be safe again.
The front door was there, and it was already open, and Katie felt a whimper of relief escape her throat. Her nerves were raw from everything that had happened since she’d returned to Fount Azure. This was too much.
She was in the house with a killer.
At least she and Mel were going to make it out.
At the door she looked back over her shoulder and saw that Mel wasn’t with her anymore.
“No. Oh no, no, no!”
She looked over at the stairs. No sign of Riley. Quickly she doubled back to the kitchen. Mel wasn’t there. This couldn’t be happening, she thought. She had to be here.
A noise drew her attention. It came from inside the freezer.
She stood there, immobilized with fear. She should run. She wanted to run. She needed to get away from here before Riley came downstairs and found her.
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t leave without Mel.
Slowly, like she was moving through a dream, Katie walked across the kitchen floor, back to the freezer.
The noise happened again. A clatter, and then a strangled sound that she recognized as Mel’s voice.
Mel!
Scared to death of what she was going to see, she peered around the edge of the freezer door.
Mel was there, on the floor, kneeling and trying to pick up the Ouija board and planchette with one hand.
“I couldn’t leave it,” she whispered, tears of pain and fear making lines down her cheeks. “I had to come back for it.”
“Give it here,” Katie offered. “We have to go. You need to get to a doctor.”
Mel nodded, her face pale, and handed the board to Katie. She kept the planchette. Katie couldn’t bring herself to step into the freezer. Every time she did--every single time--it tried to trap her. Tried to kill her...
It was like the freezer itself was alive. That was crazy. She knew it was crazy, and she couldn’t care less. That’s exactly what it felt like.
No. Riley was the killer here, and he was still upstairs.
They stepped quickly across the kitchen floor. Katie listened to the house. It was quiet. She didn’t know where Riley was but she hoped he was still upstairs.
She stepped into the hallway.
There he was, standing in the doorway like he’d been waiting for them.
In his hand was the police chief’s little white business card that Katie had left on the kitchen counter. He held it up. “Why’d you go to the police, Katie?”
“Riley, let us go.” She couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice. She couldn’t keep her hands from shaking where they gripped the edges of the Ouija board. “Please. Just let us go.”
“Katie, I’m not stopping you. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Mel, injured arm and all, stepped in between them. “You killed Marlena, that’s why! Don’t think you’re going to get away with this, you bastard!”
The look that crossed over Riley’s face was unreadable. His eyes narrowed. “Who the Hell are you?” he asked Mel.
Before Mel could answer, one of the framed photos from Katie’s childhood flew off the wall and streaked past them, spinning edge over edge, and struck the floor at Riley’s feet.
He jumped back a step, bringing his arms up defensively.
Another photo, and another, and then a third one streaked down the hallway to strike against the walls, showering Riley with glass and broken pieces of wood and plastic.
Mel stood there with her mouth gaping open. It was Katie who took her by the arm--her uninjured arm--and pulled her in the other direction, down the hallway toward the back of the house and the other door.
“Katie!” Riley called after her. “Wait! Don’t go!”
“Hell with that,” she muttered. The back door was in front of her then, and she slammed the deadbolt open as more crashes came from the front entryway. How many of those pictures were there?
She twisted open the lock on the door, and then her hand was on the knob and they were almost gone.
Riley’s strong hand settled over hers abruptly, stopping her. She squeaked, and tried to pull her hand back, dropping the Ouija board in the process. Falling back on the training from several self-defense classes she picked her foot up and swung it forward, connecting a solid kick to his shin.
With a grunt of pain he let go of her, and fell over onto his ass as he grabbed hold of his injured leg.
For good measure, Mel stepped up and delivered a kick to his side.
Katie was running again, back down the hall, back toward the front door. Her heart was racing a mile a minute and she was sure that she was already hyperventilating but hand in hand she and Mel made it to that door and she had never wanted out of a house as much as she did right now.
The front door slammed shut just as she got there.
It was too quick for Katie to stop. She ran full force into the door, her face bouncing off the solid wood, sending jolts of pain lancing up through her cheek and nose and instantly bringing stinging tears to her eyes.
She stopped, cupping her face in her hand, feeling the blood running out of her nostrils. This couldn’t be happening.
“Mother!” she shouted. “What are you doing? Why are you doing this to us?”
Behind them, a single photo dropped off the wall to the floor. As she watched, it slid up the hallway rug and bumped against her toes, face up.
Katie stared at it in disbelief. It was a picture of her mother, arms wrapped around the shoulders of her only daughter at age five. Katie had skinned her knee out in the driveway that day, and her mother had taken her into her arms and held her until the pain went away. To Katie, that picture had always been the very definition of feeling safe.
Why was her mother showing her this now?
Down the hallway, Riley was getting to his feet.
Frantically Katie turned back to the door, grabbing the handle and twisting it furiously. The door rattled in its frame, but it wouldn’t open.
“Mother, don’t do this! Open the door! Open the door!”
Riley shouted a string of obscenities at them.
Mel told him to stay back, using most of the same words.
Katie turned the lock. It snapped closed. She turned it and held it this time, pulling again and again on the door. It
wouldn’t budge. She kicked it. She threw her shoulder into it. She cried and she ground her teeth while feelings of betrayal and terror welled up inside of her.
“Mom,” she pleaded now, “please. Please! Open this door!”
And then it opened.
With a gasping shudder that seemed to come from the house itself, the door gave. It peeled away from the frame slowly, reluctantly, until it was wide open and Katie pulled Mel after her while Riley shouted for them to stop.
Katie ran instead.
Until she got outside.
Mel bumped up against her, and then she stared in disbelief as well.
Police cars were parked over the curb, angled toward her house, with officers swarming in their direction. In the middle of them stood Chief Bernard Aikens, his face just as stern as it had been earlier at Marlena Strohm’s house.
“Don’t worry,” he said to Katie. “We’ve got him.”
Chapter 11
Katie’s stomach growled.
When was the last time she’d eaten anything? Yesterday, she decided. Breakfast? Maybe. Not that anyone would blame her for skipping a few meals. After all, there had been a homicidal maniac chasing her. Not to mention her mother’s ghost trying to trap her in the house.
How was she supposed to find time to eat with all that going on?
Leaning her head back in the chair next to Mel’s hospital bed, she drew in a deep breath. “Hey, Mel?”
“Yeah?” Mel said, her words a little slurred from the pain medication the doctors had given her.
“You want to get a cheeseburger when we get out of here?”
“No,” she said, emphatically shaking her head. “Wine. I want wine. Lots and lots of really good wine.”
Katie couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. It’s a deal.”
They were in Mel’s hospital room. She was going to be spending the night for observation due to a possible concussion. Her arm, as it turned out, actually wasn’t that bad off. It wasn’t broken, anyway. A bad sprain could feel like a break, the doctor had explained as he set it in a soft cast. In this case, the bad sprain was going to lead to torn cartilage or worse if she didn’t let it heal. Mel had promised to be a good girl, and then she had winked at the doctor and said something about how she would try anything once.
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 32
