J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House)

by J. A. Konrath

That’s when she noticed something in the mirror. Something behind her.

  The rocking chair in the corner of the room.

  A brittle-looking thing, made of old wood, so dark it was almost black.

  Had it just moved?

  Sara stared at its reflection.

  The chair remained still.

  I’m seeing things.

  Sara went back to finger-combing her bangs, wishing she’d packed some gel. Hindsight being 20/20, she should have also packed some make-up. A little lip gloss, and a little eyeliner would—

  The rocking chair moved.

  Sara watched, her breath caught in her throat, as it rocked all the way forward, held it there for a moment, and then rocked back.

  Just as if someone was sitting in it.

  Sara knew she needed to turn around, to look directly at it. But every muscle in her body had locked.

  What was the monster that didn’t cast a reflection? A vampire? Were there others that didn’t show up in mirrors?

  If I turn around and check, will I see some hideous creature in the chair, grinning at me?

  A ghost?

  A poltergeist?

  A demon?

  The chair rocked again, creaking as it did.

  Turn around and look.

  Just do it.

  Sara closed her eyes, and through brute force of will turned on her heels to face the chair.

  Now open your eyes.

  But she was too afraid.

  Do it!

  Open your eyes!

  Sara peeked.

  The chair was empty.

  Tom

  One of the suited guards showed Tom to his room after dinner, and it was both as opulent and as creepy as Tom expected.

  The bed was a large four-poster, with a crushed velvet bedcover. The dresser was heavy, Renaissance Revival, with a matching bureau. There was an iron, woodburning stove, an Oriental carpet on the wood floors, a rolltop desk, and portraits on the walls Tom recognized as Colton and Jebediah Butler. The light was dim, due to an antique lamp with a low wattage bulb and a very large tasseled shade. There were candles throughout the room, all unlit.

  The room’s sole window faced west, and Tom looked out into the waving fields of cattails. The sky had gotten darker, and had taken on a reddish tinge. He checked the window clasp, but it, like the sash, had been thickly painted over.

  Tom put his suitcase onto the bed and opened it up. First he checked his gun, a Sig Saur 9mm, and put in a fresh magazine. He holstered it, put on his holster, and then checked his fanny pack. Inside were three more mags, fifteen rounds each, twenty glow sticks, a tactical flashlight, a Zippo lighter, a Swiss Army Champion Plus knife, some handcuffs, and a Benchmade Mangus butterfly knife with sheath.

  He strapped the Mangus sheath to his ankle, and was inventorying the first aid kit he’d packed when someone knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” Tom said, facing the doorway.

  It was Moni Draper. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  She strutted in, and Tom admired her moxie. Especially after what she’d gone through. Tom knew Moni from her association with a serial killer named Luther Kite. He’d tied her up and tortured her using an antique medical device called an artificial leech. It was used by doctors in the 1800s for bloodletting, back when it was thought that bad blood caused ailments and bleeding cured people.

  Tom had encountered Kite in the past, and had done a lot of research on him. Moni has over two hundred scars on her body, where Kite had used the device on her. She’d been found nearly dead, but somehow had rebounded. And, judging by her general attitude, she’d moved on with her life.

  Tom had his share of nightmares, mostly due to what had happened at Senator Stang’s mansion in Springfield. But he’d never been at the total mercy of a maniac who was excited by causing pain. He didn’t know if he’d be able to adjust like Moni seemed to. And he hoped he’d never have to find out.

  “You smell bullshit,” Moni said.

  “If something seems too good to be true, it usually is.”

  “Stay with me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re going to try to scare us. Maybe the threat won’t be real. Maybe it will. Either way, I want to be with the strongest guy in the room, and that’s you.”

  Tom nodded.

  “We can…” Moni smiled slyly, “seal the deal if you like. I’ve done lots of cops.”

  Back when Kite had done that to her, Moni was a prostitute. Apparently the attack hadn’t scared her out of the profession.

  “Kind of you to offer, but I’m okay.”

  “Is it because of the scars?”

  “It’s because I’m in a committed relationship.”

  Moni pulled her shirt down, revealing her pock-marked cleavage. “So this doesn’t disgust you?”

  She jiggled a bit. Tom didn’t reply. Moni continued to pose for another five seconds before saying, “So are you disgusted or not?”

  “I’m still deciding,” Tom said. “Give me a minute.”

  Moni giggled, walked over, and gave Tom a friendly punch on the shoulder. “You’re okay for a pig, you know that?”

  Tom wasn’t offended by her use of the word pig. If anything, it amused him. “Thanks. And I promise I’ll do my best to protect you if things get crazy.”

  “I believe you. Who’s the special lady?”

  “Her name is Joan. She’s a Hollywood producer.”

  “She have any interest in the story of a plucky whore who survived multiple attacks by maniacs and then went on to become a millionaire?”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  “What’s that?” Moni pointed at a wrapped plastic disk in Tom’s kit.

  “A Bolin chest seal. For sucking chest wounds.”

  “Like getting stabbed in the lungs?”

  “Or shot.”

  She continued to point. “I know that’s a tourniquet, and that’s one of those airway breathers. What’s in that package? Celox?”

  “Clotting powder. Stops bleeding quickly.”

  “You came prepared. But I bet you don’t have one of these.”

  Moni reached for her purse, then stopped. “Where are you from?”

  “Chicago.”

  “A Chicago pig has no jurisdiction in South Carolina.”

  “True.”

  Moni pulled out a large syringe and held it up, triumphantly.

  “What is that?” Tom asked, feeling like he already knew.

  “Heroin. Enough to make a charging bull OD. I didn’t think I could get a gun through TSA because I’d get into trouble, so I brought this to protect myself.”

  “Instead of a gun you brought a lethal dose of heroin,” Tom said. “You don’t think if you got caught with that, you’d be in more trouble?”

  Moni’s eyebrows crinkled and her lips pursed. “When you say it like that, it sounds like a bad idea.”

  “Am I interrupting?”

  They looked at the open door and saw Mal, the sports reporter missing a hand.

  “The more the merrier,” Moni said, waving him in.

  “Forenzi wants us to line up for our physicals, but I just wanted a moment of your time, Detective. Are you both… busy?”

  “I’m just showing the pig my heroin,” Moni said.

  Mal frowned. “I could come back…”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Deiter?” Tom asked.

  “At dinner. You didn’t seem excited about Forenzi’s experiment. You seemed like you knew something no one else did.”

  Both Mal and Moni stared at Tom. He wondered what to do, but strangely he felt comfortable around them, in the same way he felt comfortable around Frank and Sara.

  In that moment, he decided the benefits of telling them outweighed keeping it a secret.

  “My partner, Roy Lewis, came to this house last week, supposedly doing the same thing we’re doing tonight. He never came back.”

  Tom watched Mal’s frown deepen. “Shit.”

/>   “You look so sad,” Moni told him. She offered the syringe. “Need a little pick me up?”

  “Moni,” Tom kept his voice even, “can you please put away the heroin? And Mal, I don’t know what happened to Roy, so I can’t cry foul play yet. Maybe Forenzi is legit, and this will all be smooth sailing.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  “No. I don’t.” Tom felt like he was telling a child there was no Santa Claus.

  Moni put her hand on Mal’s neck. “Buck up, little soldier. Would a little three-way action with me and your wife make you feel better?”

  Mal choked out a laugh. “You know, it probably would.”

  “Is she into chicks?”

  He lost his mirth again. “No.”

  “Too bad. Well, maybe some figging will take your mind off things.”

  “What’s figging?” Mal asked.

  “It’s when you take a—”

  “Mal?” His wife, Deb, stuck her head into the room. “Everything okay?”

  “He’s moody,” Moni explained, “so I offered him smack and a three way.”

  Tom decided it was time to take some control of the situation. “I don’t know how this is all going to play out tonight, but I think we all need to stick together, and watch out for each other. Did anyone bring weapons?” He looked pointedly at Moni, who was waving her hand. “Weapons other than narcotics?”

  “I packed a .38 in our suitcase,” Mal said.

  “Extra rounds?”

  Mal shook his head. “Just the five in the cylinder.”

  “Are you a good shot?”

  “I’m so-so. Deb is better.”

  Tom took out his Sig, removed the magazine, and pulled back the slide to make sure the barrel was clear. Then he did a quick explanation of how to load, how to use the decocker, and what double action meant. As he was passing his gun around, one of the suited guards knocked on the door frame.

  “We’re ready for you.”

  Tom took his Sig back, tucked it into the holster, and followed the others into the hallway. They’d been given rooms on the second floor, all in a row, and there was an ornate wooden railing that overlooked the great room. As they headed for the stairs, they passed a marble statue of a cupid on a pedestal. Tom did a double-take, then went back for a closer look.

  In the baby’s mouth were sharp fangs.

  Moni, who was behind him, said, “Wouldn’t want to breastfeed that little bastard. And look at the wings.”

  At first glance, they seemed like typical, feathered cherub wings. But the individual feathers weren’t feathers—they were tiny daggers.

  “Dr. Madison is waiting.”

  Tom turned, startled, and was surprised to see yet another guard in a gray suit standing next to him. That made five he’d seen so far. Why did Forenzi need so many guards? To protect him from ghosts? And how had he managed to sneak up on Tom? Like the others, this guard was tall, muscular, and wearing military boots. But he hadn’t made a sound during his approach.

  “What branch of the military were you in?” Tom asked.

  The man’s face remained blank, and he didn’t answer.

  “Do you work for the government, or for Forenzi directly?”

  “Please move along,” the guard said.

  Tom shrugged, and he followed Moni and the others down the stairs, across the great room, and to a hallway lined with drab paintings depicting plantation life. They looked old, paint peeling and a decade’s worth of grime on them. Slaves in the field, picking tobacco. Blackjack Reedy astride a horse, whip in hand. An endless field of cattails, stretching off into the horizon. Everyone had stopped next to a closed door, and Tom assumed it was the queue for the examination room. But he quickly figured out the group had huddled around another painting, this one of Butler House.

  It was massive, perhaps a meter tall and twice as wide, in an ornate frame and protected behind some non-reflective glass. The picture depicted the house in the 1800s, when it was still new, and the fields were filled with cotton. Tom didn’t understand the interest until Frank pointed to a figure in one of the windows.

  It was a woman, her hair tied back, a pensive look on her face. Tom squinted at it, then turned to Sara, who had gone ashen.

  The woman in the painting was a dead-ringer for her.

  Tom moved in closer, checking the figures in the other windows.

  He saw Frank’s face peering out between half-closed shutters on the second floor.

  Deb, opening the front door to the house. Mal in the shadows behind her.

  Moni’s face, complete with her pock marks.

  Wellington, in the cotton field with a scythe.

  Two people in a horse-drawn buggy, approaching the house. Pang and Aabir.

  Tom looked for himself, dreading the search, holding his breath.

  “You’re here,” Belgium said, pointing to the side of the house.

  Tom didn’t understand what he was seeing. It was definitely his face, lying sideways on the ground, but his body was obscured by scrub brush.

  “And over here,” Belgium continued, moving his finger.

  Then Tom understood.

  His body wasn’t in the bushes. His body was sitting against the house, holding a knife, his shirt drenched with blood.

  Tom had apparently cut off his own head, and it had rolled away.

  Deb

  Mal was in much better spirits since Dr. Forenzi’s talk at supper, which was just in time for Deb’s mood to take a nose dive.

  They passed co-dependency back and forth like two hobos sharing a cigar. So it was Deb’s turn to feel awful, and Mal’s to buoy her up.

  But he’d gone out to ask the cop some questions, leaving Deb alone in her room.

  Which was when a painting in the bedroom fell off the wall.

  It scared the shit out of her, and when she went to look for him she found a convention of sorts in Tom’s room.

  Now, first in line to be examined, she still hadn’t had the chance to tell Mal what had happened. The painting—a ghastly picture of a brooding southern gentlemen standing calmly in the middle of a storm—had dropped off the wall just as she was wiping the sweat off her stumps.

  It could have been a coincidence. Or it could have been supernatural.

  What was behind it didn’t matter. What mattered was Mal hadn’t been there for her, when she’d been there for him since the airport in Pittsburgh.

  It wasn’t fair. So now she was coping with resentment as well as fear, and having to go in first made Deb even more on edge. Add in seeing herself on the hallway painting, and Deb wanted to either cry, rip all her hair out, or both.

  “Tom’s partner disappeared here last week,” Mal said, whispering over Deb’s shoulder.

  Deb sensed the worry in her husband’s voice. But she was worried, too. She needed him to be strong for a while. The fact that he wasn’t made her angry as well as scared.

  “Deb, did you hear me?”

  She turned around so fast that she lost her balance, which for Deb was about the most humiliating thing she could do. That Mal had to quickly reach out and steady her made it even worse.

  “Leave me alone,” she said, teeth clenched and trying to pull away.

  He recoiled like he’d just seen a snake. “Deb? What’s wrong?”

  “It isn’t all about you, Mal. I’m hurting, too. I need support just like you do.”

  “Deb, I—”

  “I don’t need this right now.”

  The door to the examination room opened, and a male voice from inside said, “Come in.”

  Deb began to enter, but Mal held her back.

  “Let go, Mal.”

  “Let’s talk about this. We can let someone else cut ahead.”

  “Let. Go.”

  “At least let me go first so I can tell you what to expect. I know you hate doctors. Let me—”

  Deb pulled away, wobbled into the room, and slammed the door behind her.

  She immediately regretted
her decision.

  The exam room looked like it jumped off a postcard from the 1800s. The examination table was made of wood, with a cracked leather cushion, and metal arm rests with buckled straps. A dusty apothecary shelf, filled with old glass bottles, took up most of the left wall. Along the right wall were a desk, a water basin, and a shelf of moldering, leather-bound books. On the desk was some sort kind of organ—a human lung maybe—floating in a specimen jar of gray liquid.

  “Take a seat.”

  The doctor still hadn’t turned around. Her husband had been right; she was afraid of going to the doctor. She’d seen too many in her lifetime, and they always hurt her in some way.

  Deb considered walking back out, letting Mal go first. But stubbornness won out over nerves and she went to the antique examination table and sat down.

  “Name?” the doctor asked. He was filling out something on a clip board.

  “Deborah Dieter.”

  Deb looked at the old medical cart next to the table. On it were filthy old medical tools. A bone saw with crusted brown flecks. Pointy forceps. A large, curved scalpel. A jagged pair of oversized snippers. A hand drill that seemed more suited to a woodworker than a doctor. Rusty trocars. A rough-edged metal speculum that was open wider that a human being could accommodate.

  Deb could feel her mouth go dry and her heart rate kick up. Getting an exam was bad enough. Getting an exam from some quack stuck in the nineteenth century was much worse.

  Of course it’s much worse.

  That’s the point.

  Deb closed her eyes and slowed down her breathing, controlling her fear. This had to be part of Forenzi’s experiment. To try and scare her. What could be scarier than a collection of barbaric surgical implements from the past?

  After ten seconds or so, Deb was able to reign in her panic. Then she opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with—

  Oh my god.

  She recognized this so-called doctor. He was the hotel clerk who sent her to the Rushmore Inn. The same pale, pasty face. The same crooked toupee.

  But he’s still in prison!

  Isn’t he?

  “I’m going to take some of your blood, Mrs. Dieter.” His breath smelled like sour milk.

  “I need to…” Deb said weakly. “Are… are you…?”

  “I’m Dr. Madison. I assist Dr. Forenzi.”