by Tami Hoag
The man in the photograph Detective Liska had shown her, the one that kept popping up on the TV screen, was bearded and dirty-looking. When she studied his face, she saw an animal, something clever and hungry, and dangerous. Was that who Jeremy had become? If it was, how much of that was her fault?
“Earth to Evi. Earth to Evi. Come in, Evi!”
She snapped back into the moment, embarrassed. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You went away from me for a while there,” Eric said, looking into her eyes. “You had that ‘Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away’ look. Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she said again—an old habit that never died: apologizing for everything. “I just drifted away for a minute.”
“Stay with me,” he murmured, kissing her cheek. “This is a happier place.”
“Yes,” she said, finding a smile for him.
She nearly jumped out of her skin as the phone on the end table rang. Eric picked it up and answered.
“Burke residence.”
Evi’s heart was in her throat, beating so fast she thought it might burst.
Eric looked perplexed. “Hello? Who is this?”
What was he hearing? Could he see the guilt on her face for not having told him about the call last night? Would he know by looking at her that she was keeping something from him? What would she say when he ended the call?
“Hello?” he said again, then shrugged and put the phone back in its cradle. “Wrong number, I guess.”
“What did they say?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m going to make some tea,” Evi said, popping up from the sofa. “Would you like some?”
“No, thanks, sweetie. Do you want me to get it?” he asked. “You still look pale to me.”
“No, no. I want to stretch my legs,” she said too brightly, already heading for the kitchen.
She wasn’t sure her legs would carry her that far. They felt like limp noodles beneath her. She turned and went into the kitchen, immediately rushing to the sink and bending over, her head swimming, her stomach flipping. She thought she would vomit. She was shaking and sweating and cold all at once.
What if the caller had spoken? What if the voice had whispered, “It all worked out for you?” Would Eric have taken one look at her and known she’d heard it before?
Why couldn’t this all just go away? No one could change the past. The years had grown over those secrets like vines hiding a ruin from another lifetime.
“Ev?”
She bolted upright at the sound of her husband’s voice coming from the dining room. She fumbled to turn the faucet on, grabbed the kettle off the stove.
“Ev? Is everything okay in here?” Eric asked as he walked into the kitchen.
“Yeah, fine. It’s all fine.”
He took the teakettle from her and put it on the stove to heat, then turned back to her, his expression serious.
“What’s going on with you? You almost jumped out of your skin when the phone rang,” he said. “You’re a nervous wreck. What’s up?”
He put one gentle hand on her shoulder and tipped her chin up with the other. “You know there’s nothing you can’t tell me. You know that, right?”
She looked up at him, so handsome, so earnest, her knight in shining armor. What should she tell him? The lie that it was nothing? The lie that there was something going on at work? Should she tell him about the note that had come in the mail, or the shadow she might have seen in the backyard, or the call she had kept from him?
It all worked out for you . . .
Should she tell him she had knowledge of a murder and had kept that secret for most of her life?
“Evi . . .” He said her name on a sigh, like he was disappointed in her or frustrated with her. He had every reason to be. He had always been so patient with her, and still she didn’t trust him?
No. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. It was that he had trusted her, and she didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve him.
It all worked out for you . . . But it shouldn’t have. The mistakes that had been made all those years ago couldn’t be abandoned and forgotten. The effects of those mistakes continued to ripple forward through time and touch the lives of all concerned, and the lives of every person those people had touched, like Eric, like Mia . . .
Could she even stop it now with the truth?
She drew a shuddering breath to speak, still not knowing what she would say.
The teakettle screamed, startling her.
Eric turned and took it off the burner, turning off the flame.
“Let’s go sit down,” he said.
Evi felt like she had already missed her window of opportunity to do the right thing, that anything she said now would be viewed as the result of coercion, not something volunteered because she knew he had a right to hear it.
Something banged against the back door as she poured the steaming water into her mug, and she flinched and splashed water on the counter.
“What the hell?” Eric asked. He leaned over the sink and looked out the window, trying to see past his own reflection.
“It’s getting windy,” he murmured. “I meant to put that patio umbrella in the garage a week ago.”
“Just leave it,” Evi said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“No. We’ll hear that thing thumping all night,” he said, going into the laundry room/mud room. “It won’t take five minutes. I’ll just stick it in the garage and deal with it tomorrow.”
He grabbed a heavy jacket off a hook on the wall and threw it on, and stepped into a pair of work boots with the laces undone.
“I wish you’d just leave it,” Evi said.
“I’ll be right back. You won’t even have time to miss me,” he said, shooting her a wink as he opened the door.
But in the next instant, time went into slow motion, and what must have been only seconds seemed to last an eternity.
Eric didn’t see the monster coming. He was glancing back at her as he opened the door. Evi saw what rushed at them out of the darkness. The face was surreal: a horrific white mask with blood-red details and a demonic grimace twisting the black mouth into the shape of a horseshoe. Two black holes stared where the eyes should have been. A bristling black mustache sprouted sideways beneath the elaborately flared nostrils of the red nose.
Evi screamed.
Eric turned toward it and threw his arms up to protect himself as something glinting silver swung down at him. Blood sprayed against the white wall and cupboards, and across the white washing machine. The momentum of the attacker pushed them backward, farther into the room as the monster slashed and hacked at Eric.
Her husband’s blood sprayed across Evi’s face and arms. She screamed again, but the sound seemed far in the distance, dulled by her pulse roaring in her ears.
She stumbled to the side, arms thrust up in front of her, watching in horror as Eric, his face a mask of blood, pushed forward at the assailant. The demon stepped back, letting Eric’s momentum carry him out the door. It struck Eric again, across the back, sending him sprawling face-first down the steps of the deck.
“Eric!”
And then the monster was rushing at her. For the first time, she realized what the weapon was, but immediately her brain tried to tell her it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
She had to run. She had to get to a phone. She had to get this thing out of her house, away from her daughter. If she ran out the front door, would it follow her? If she ran across the street, would a neighbor let her in?
But the demon was on her before she could even turn to run. It hit her hard in the sternum with the hilt of the weapon, and pain exploded through her body, shutting down every other signal. She fell backward, her head bouncing hard off the floor. Her vision dimmed as if someone had thrown black lace across her eyes.
Then the assailant was on top of her, staring down at her with its sightless eyes and toothless grimace. The demon’s whispered voice was one she had heard befo
re.
“I’m here for you, Evangeline. Aren’t you lucky now?”
It all worked out for you . . .
44
Nikki drove the Crosstown Highway for the second time that day, hoping she wasn’t making a big mistake. She felt so close to having an answer, just a piece or two away from finishing the puzzle and having the complete picture of the events that had led to Ted Duffy’s murder a quarter of a century past. Evi Burke held those pieces, the weight of them pulling on her, pressing down on her. The strain had been there in her eyes as she had looked out the window that morning.
The questionable alibis of the teenagers were the fine cracks in the time line of that day. Nikki wanted to put pressure there to see if the cracks would deepen and split apart. She had tried earlier to call Evi Burke on her cell phone. The call had gone straight to voice mail. That was fine. She didn’t want to speak to the woman on the telephone. She wanted to see her face-to-face. She wanted to do what she and Sam called “a Columbo”: Just one more question, ma’am. Just a little more pressure. Just another quarter turn of the screw that tightened the nerves . . .
And the second she thought it, she saw Jennifer Duffy in her head. She pictured Jennifer Duffy in a hospital bed with a heart monitor beeping.
Evi Burke wasn’t Jennifer Duffy. Evi Burke had fought her way through tougher times than most people could ever imagine in their worst nightmares. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t fragile in her own way. It was clear she didn’t want her past tainting the life she had now—a career she loved, a husband she loved, a beautiful little family.
It all worked out for you . . .
A faceless voice on the telephone had whispered those words, an allusion to the past. Why? It seemed everyone from the time of Ted Duffy’s death wanted those memories left in the shadows where they had been all these years. If the call was related to that part of Evi’s life, then who? Why? Why now?
Nikki turned off the highway and into the Burkes’ quiet neighborhood. With her husband home, Evi would have to feel safer than she had in the last couple of days. All the more reason for Nikki to drop by unannounced. She didn’t want the woman sleeping too soundly. She wanted her thinking about Jeremy Nilsen and the Duffy family, and whatever she knew about Ted Duffy that she had kept to herself all these years. Even if she wouldn’t answer the question tonight, the seed would be planted—but gently, just slipped under the surface; something to worry at, like a sliver just under the skin.
The lights were on in the Burkes’ living room. Softer lights illuminated the second story, glowing through the curtains. Nikki parked at the curb and went to the front door, knocking instead of ringing the doorbell. She expected Eric Burke to answer, as he had that morning. She would have to talk her way past him.
She was there to inform them personally that the suspect who had been at large was now in custody, and they had determined he was not in any way connected to Evi’s case at the Chrysalis Center. That was her in. That was her cover story. Lame, but it would get her in the door.
If anyone ever came to answer the door.
She knocked again, a little harder, and rose up on tiptoe to try to see in through the glass panes arranged in a fan shape at the top of the door. A futile effort. She could hear voices. The television, she decided as the volume rose with what sounded like a commercial: animated, rapid-fire staccato voices and a quick blast of music.
She knocked again.
They might have gone to the kitchen. They might have gone upstairs to check on their little girl.
She rang the bell and waited. She looked to see if they had a security camera pointed at the front steps. Were they ignoring her because they recognized her and simply didn’t want to deal with her?
She didn’t see a camera.
Unease began to scratch along her nerves. She’d made enough noise that she should have gotten a response of some kind by now. She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and called the house number. As the phone rang in her ear, she could hear it ringing in the living room a second later. Six rings, and the call went to voice mail.
Slowly Nikki moved off the steps and onto the grass. She tried to see through the partially open blinds and into the living room. She could see a lamp on an end table, a corner of the sofa, the television sitting on a console.
Around the corner, she could see into the dining room, where a pair of small lamps glowed on an antique sideboard. The soft white under-cabinet lights were on in the kitchen.
Where were Evi and Eric Burke? Why weren’t they answering the phone? Why hadn’t one of them come to the door?
Maybe they were otherwise engaged, Nikki thought again as she made her way to the back of the house. Maybe she was thinking like a cop while the Burkes were thinking like a happily married couple on a Friday night. Eric Burke was a firefighter. He worked a twenty-four-hour shift and then had two days off. The night was young, and they could sleep in tomorrow.
What would I be doing if I had a hot fireman husband and no work tomorrow? she asked herself.
Yeah.
She almost turned to go back to her car, thinking she should just go home and have that hot bath she had promised herself. Tomorrow was another day.
She decided she would complete the circle around the house, and if she didn’t catch a glimpse of someone inside, she would leave.
The backyard was awash in moonlight that came and went as clouds sailed across the sky. The wind had picked up, brisk and cold. The temperature would drop below freezing tonight. The tree branches rattled like bags of bones. The swings on the little swing set were swaying, chains squeaking. At the back of the property sat a child’s playhouse.
A wooden deck that overlooked the backyard ran the length of the house. The hulking shape of a gas grill filled the near corner. The wind rattled a patio umbrella in its stand and bumped it against the house’s siding.
Nikki rounded the end of the deck and stopped cold at the sight of a body sprawled head-first down the steps.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket, turned on the flashlight, and pointed it as she crept closer, lighting up the bloody face of Eric Burke.
* * *
“WHO ARE YOU? Why are you doing this to us?”
The demon didn’t answer. He shoved her forward, up the stairs.
Evi’s heart was quivering like a frightened bird trapped at the base of her throat. Her legs were so weak with fear she could hardly lift her feet. She tripped going up the stairs, and had to catch hold of the railing or fall on her face. Her assailant shoved at her back with the hilt of the sword.
A sword. This had to be a nightmare. Had she passed out? Had she lost her mind? This couldn’t possibly be happening.
I’m here for you, Evangeline. Aren’t you lucky now?
It all worked out for you . . .
As she stumbled into the hall at the top of the stairs, she turned and hurried past Mia’s room, hoping and praying her daughter stayed asleep. Even as she hoped that, she heard Mia call out in a sleepy voice, “Mommy?” and her nightmare memories of childhood flashed through her mind: hiding in a closet, trying not to cry while she listened to the sounds of what men did to her mother for money, for drugs, for punishment, for fun.
The monster shoved her through the open door of her bedroom. She tripped and fell, and then scrambled to her feet, backing up until she ran into the wall.
Downstairs, someone was knocking at the front door.
Down the hall, Mia called again, “Mommy?”
Her assailant stepped close, the bloody sword held across its chest. The voice hissed behind the hideous mask. “I’ll cut your throat like I cut your husband’s. Then who protects the pretty little girl?”
Evi bit down on the urge to sob, the terror lodging in her throat like a fist. It was all she could do to keep from choking on it.
Was Eric dead? She had seen his blood spray across the laundry room. She had felt it hit her face and arm.
She touched a trembling hand to h
er face as the demon stepped back. Her fingers came away smeared with her husband’s blood. She pressed her hands to her mouth to keep from screaming.
“It doesn’t matter who it is,” her tormentor mumbled, taking a step back from her. “This is your destiny. You can’t escape who you are. You can’t escape what you’ve done.”
Evi wasn’t sure if the words were meant for her or for the monster, who began to pace in front of her. Dressed all in black from head to toe, with a wide cloth belt banding the waist, a long knife in a scabbard hung from the belt, this looked like a character from a movie, but it was all too real. She had seen her husband fall. Her throat was raw from screaming. Her child was crying down the hall.
The knocking came again.
Had someone heard her screams? Could Eric have gotten to a neighbor’s house?
The phone on the nightstand rang like a sudden alarm. Evi jumped and looked toward it. If she could pick it up, she could yell for help. But she couldn’t get to it. It was too far away. She would die trying, leaving her daughter at the mercy of a madman.
Somewhere there was a person on the other end of that call sitting in a comfortable chair waiting for her to pick up. Maybe a friend. Maybe a telemarketer. Whoever it was, it would never occur to them that she wasn’t answering because a masked assailant would hack her to death with a sword if she tried.
The ringing stopped as the call went to voice mail.
She couldn’t expect help. She couldn’t wait for help. She had no way of fighting, but she had to try something. Maybe if she could make her attacker see her as a person instead of a target, she could buy some time.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling. She needed to sound calm. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Please, tell me why you’re here. What did I do to you?”
If she was going to die, she wanted to know the reason.
The monster stepped closer until the grotesque mask was inches from her face. It tilted to one side and then the other. Deep inside the black-rimmed eyeholes, blue eyes burned bright with madness.
