The next time she blinks, the shadow has changed.
Replaced by a profile she knows.
The dying fire even lends this face a glimmer of color.
Paige Moreton says, “Why won’t you talk to me?”
Her eyes are shining, and she is smiling.
Chapter 33
Grant woke from a troubled sleep to the sound of someone whispering his name.
It was still night.
The fire had burned itself down to a bed of embers, and despite the blankets that covered him, he was shivering violently.
“Grant.”
It was Sophie.
He pulled the covers tighter around his neck.
“What’s up?” he whispered.
“Come here.”
“Something wrong?”
“Just come here.”
Grant kicked back the covers and swung his legs off the sofa.
The hardwood floor was ice under his feet.
He moved quietly over to Sophie’s chair which he’d positioned at the foot of Paige’s mattress.
Knelt down beside her.
“I had a dream,” she said.
“A nightmare?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I was sleeping in this chair, and there was this presence beside me. I could feel it so clearly. It’s like I was half-awake. I tried not to look, because I knew that’s what it wanted me to do, but I finally gave in. It was just a shadow and I couldn’t see its face. Then suddenly Paige was standing there instead.”
“Paige was in your dream?”
“And she was smiling. Something about it was off, though.”
Grant glanced back at his sister sleeping peacefully in the ember light.
Sophie said, “She asked why I wasn’t talking to her. Then I woke up. What do you think?”
“Honestly? Sounds about right considering the day we’ve had. My dreams sucked too.”
“It was more than a nightmare, Grant. I know what a dream feels like.”
“What was it then?”
“Communication.”
“Oh. You think our friend upstairs wants a word?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I promise you I’m not, but would we be having this conversation if it had told you to come up and crawl under the bed?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s what it wants.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I see in my dreams. It wants me in that room. Under the bed.”
“So it’s talking to you too.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m not going in there to find out.”
“We don’t have to. What if we just stay in the hall? Try to talk to it through the door.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?”
“What’s the alternative? Do nothing while our little world in here continues to fall apart?”
“We’re not doing nothing, Sophie. Tomorrow, we’re gonna track down Janice Williams and find out what happened to her. Maybe that blows everything open for us.”
“And maybe it doesn’t. The clock is ticking. It’s a matter of time before you and I are officially MIA. And what about Don? You know Rachel has already reported him missing.”
“Look, I’m aware of the stakes, okay? But I’m not ready to start chasing dreams. I say we stick to whatever shreds of reality we still have left. That’s where we’ll find our answers.”
“You don’t know the first thing about what’s going on here so don’t pretend you can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.”
“Fine,” he said. “What if it is trying to talk to us, and all it really wants to say is ‘I’m gonna torture and kill you assholes.’ Then what?”
“Then we confirm what we already know. And I’d rather know—good or bad—than remain in this state of total darkness we’re in right now.”
She had a point.
It wasn’t the first time.
Their options were exhausted, and the idea of waking up in this house, of spending another day in this prison, was more than he could face. A time would come when it would be too much. When it would break him. He could feel that moment fast-approaching.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll wake Paige.”
“No.” Sophie grabbed his arm.
“Why not?”
“Just let her sleep.”
“This is a big decision. She deserves to be involved.”
“Let’s just you and I go up.”
“Is it because of your dream? Because you think she’s playing some part in this?”
“I don’t know. Just a gut feeling that it should only be you and me.”
• • •
Grant unlocked the bracelet around Sophie’s ankle and gave her a hand up out of the chair.
“No cuffs?” she said.
“No cuffs.”
She lit a pair of candles while he went to the sofa and pulled the Glock out from between the cushions.
He waited until they’d reached the foyer before digging the magazine out of his pocket, driving it home, and jacking a round into the chamber.
Sophie went up first, the steps creaking under her bare feet.
It was ungodly cold and the chill intensified the higher they climbed.
By the time they reached the second floor, it was freezing, their exhalations pluming white in the candlelight.
They rounded the corner and stopped.
The door to Paige’s room stood shut at the far end of the corridor.
Grant could hear the rain drumming on the roof.
The elevated boom-boom-boom of his heart.
Nothing else.
He was wide awake now, operating on sensory overdrive—everything heightened but his diminished sense of sight.
Sophie headed down the hall and he followed.
They passed the small table at the midpoint and continued on until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the door looming three feet ahead.
Grant kept swallowing, trying to make his ears pop, but they wouldn’t.
Sophie whispered, “Go ahead.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know. What are you waiting for?”
“This is weird.”
“Aren’t you used to weird by now?”
“Should I knock?”
She shot him a look. “Take it seriously.”
Grant cleared his throat and took a step forward.
“Is anyone in there?” he said.
They barely breathed.
Thirty seconds passed in silence.
“Guess we have our answer,” Grant said, turning to leave.
“Try it louder.”
“I feel like I’m just talking to a door.”
“Don’t you ever pray?”
“Not anymore.”
“Pretend there’s something on the other side that can hear you. Show it respect.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Get closer.”
He turned to her. “You want to do this?”
Grant stepped up to the door again, so close he could feel the icy draft issuing from the crack at the bottom. He braced himself on either side of the frame.
“This is Grant Moreton. I’m Paige’s brother. She’s the woman who lives here.”
He looked back at Sophie.
She nodded him on.
“Can you tell me what it is you want?”
He put his ear to the door.
Silence again.
No sound on the second floor but the rain striking the roof.
“This is Ouija board shit,” he said.
“Keep going.”
“What do you want?” Grant said, louder.
No answer.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
Grant felt Sophie’s hand touch his shoulder. He was beginning to churn with the first bubblings of rage, a mad impulse creeping in to kick the door in, Glock dr
awn. Shoot the room to pieces.
“Why won’t you let us leave?”
Nothing.
Yelling now—”Why are you here?”
Sophie grabbed his arm but he ripped free and beat his fist against the door.
She said, “Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Are you asleep? Are we disturbing you? ‘Cause you’re sure as hell disturbing us.” He punched the door. “Wake up and talk to me.”
He turned away and started back down the hallway.
When he reached the table, he glanced over his shoulder and stopped.
Sophie still stood facing the door which was bathed in the light of her candles.
“Hey,” Grant said. “You’re my light source. Come on. We’re done here.”
She didn’t move.
“Sophie?”
She looked at him, and then back at the door.
When she shouted, it startled him so much he flinched.
“What are you?”
Her voice raged through the second-floor corridors, and its echo had not quite faded into silence when every light in the hallway blazed on with a retina-burning intensity.
The building rumbled as the central heating kicked.
A ceiling fan above Grant’s head began to whir.
The phone in his pocket vibrated to life.
Sophie faced him, shielding her eyes and squinting against the sudden onslaught of light.
She had just opened her mouth to speak when a noise from below rushed up the staircase and drove a spear of terror through Grant’s heart.
A scream.
Paige.
The Glock was in his hand and he was running before he’d even thought to react, socks sliding across the carpet as he turned the corner, his shoulder crashing into the wall.
He righted himself and bolted for the stairs.
Took them two at a time, his footfalls pounding down the steps.
Five from the bottom, he jumped.
His sock-feet hit the hardwood floor of the foyer and he skidded to a stop under the archway that opened into the living room.
Paige stood beside the recliner holding Sophie’s purse.
She looked bleary-eyed and horror-stricken.
Grant said, “What happened?”
Sophie came tearing off the stairs into the foyer.
She stopped beside Grant, said, “What are you doing with my purse, Paige?”
“What is this, Sophie?”
Paige shook a scrap of paper in her right hand.
Grant walked over. “What is it?”
She handed him a badly-wrinkled receipt from The Whisky, brittle from water damage.
Paige said, “Other side.”
Grant flipped it.
“It was in her purse.”
Grant stared at Sophie.
“Why do you have this?”
“That’s the receipt I found in Seymour’s hand. I told you about it on the phone, remember?”
“Benjamin Seymour was holding this?”
“Yes, at the Japanese garden in the arboretum. What am I missing? Why is your sister going through my purse?”
“This is our father.”
“What does this mean, Grant?” Paige asked.
Grant stared at the portrait. “I don’t know.”
Sophie said, “I wasn’t trying to keep it from you. I had no idea.”
The cell in Grant’s pocket vibrated.
He jammed the Glock into the back of his waistband, grabbed the phone, swiped the screen.
A series of texts from Art Dobbs had just uploaded.
10:06 p.m.
diner closing, they’re leaving
10:13 p.m.
they went across street to bar
12:01 a.m.
still here, you so owe me
2:02 a.m.
last call, they’re leaving
Grant glanced at the current time—2:37 a.m.
Paige said, “Sophie, I can’t explain why I even opened your purse. When the power came on, I woke up and I was just standing here. The receipt was already in my hand. I wasn’t snooping, I swear. What were you guys doing upstairs?”
Grant said, “I heard something. We went up to check.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know. The power came on, you screamed, I ran back down.”
Sophie’s phone buzzed again.
Grant glanced down—Dobbs calling.
“Here.” He tossed Sophie her phone.
“He’s gonna be pissed,” she said. “Probably thinks I just bailed on him.”
“Blame me.”
Sophie answered on speakerphone: “Hey, superstar, what’s up?”
“Oh, not too much. Just doing your job at two thirty-seven in the morning when I should be home in bed with my wife. Hope I didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m at Grant’s. He’s having a real hard time. Major bender.”
The sarcasm vanished. “Sorry to hear that. I don’t mean to be an asshole. I’m just exhausted.”
“What’s the news?”
“You see my texts?”
“No.”
“Our boys are on the move. They left a bar in North Bend about thirty minutes ago after sitting at a table for four hours, drinking nothing but water and barely even speaking to each other. Grazer and the new guy arrived separately, but they all left together in a black GMC Savana. New model. In all my free time, I ran the plates. Car was rented yesterday morning in Bellevue on Talbert’s Visa.”
“Where are you right now?” Sophie asked.
“They just turned north onto the four-oh-five.”
Grant looked at Paige.
He could see it in her eyes. She’d made the connection too.
“Thanks, Art. Keep me posted.”
When Sophie had ended the call, Grant said, “I know where they’re going.”
“Where?” Sophie asked.
“Kirkland.”
“What’s in Kirkland?”
Grant held up the receipt.
“Our father,” Paige said.
Chapter 34
For ten seconds, no one spoke.
Sophie finally broke the silence, “Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent? No. But his hospital is in Kirkland.”
“Why would they be going to see your father?”
“I couldn’t begin to answer that.” Grant pulled out Sophie’s Glock, crossed the room, gave it to her. “He’s at Evergreen Psychiatric Hospital. His name is James Moreton. Call Art on your way, tell him what’s going on. Please stop whatever is about to happen, since there’s not a damn thing I can do, stuck in this house.”
Sophie went to the chair and pulled on her boots and jacket, took her purse back from Paige.
“Let me have your phone,” Grant said, the helplessness and frustration beginning to ferment into rage.
She handed it over, and he typed in a number.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Programming my sister’s number so you can reach us.”
At the front door, Grant unlocked the dead bolts and the chain.
It couldn’t have been more than a few degrees above freezing, their breath steaming as they stepped out onto the porch.
At the bottom of the steps, Grant felt something like a shiv slide in at the base of his skull.
Sophie said, “The pain’s back?”
“I’m not going to be able to leave. How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Then go while you can.”
She embraced him.
“I’ll call you. Be careful, Grant.”
“You too.”
She rushed off into the rain and turned left when she hit the sidewalk. Grant watched her cross the empty street and climb into her TrailBlazer.
The engine growled to life, the tires screeched against the wet pavement, and Sophie roared off down the street.
He force
d himself to take another step.
Pain ignited in the pit of his stomach and flashed through the rest of his body with the velocity of a shaped charge.
He doubled over.
Only when he staggered back did the agony wane.
In its place, that molten rage poured in.
By the time he reached the top of the steps, Grant had gone supernova.
He moved through the door, back into the house.
Paige stood in the foyer, arms crossed as if they were the only thing holding her together.
She was crying, trembling.
She said, “Now what?”
He went past her into the kitchen, liberated a knife from the cutlery block.
Rushed back down the hallway.
Up the stairs.
Paige calling after him.
He didn’t answer.
As he reached the top, he heard her footsteps climbing toward him.
He rounded the corner.
Turned down the hallway.
Wasn’t that he didn’t care or feel the fear. But as had happened a handful of times in his life, everything—absolutely everything—had been overridden by a pure and blinding need to break something. To destroy. There was something inside of him that had formed when his mother died and grown when his father was incapacitated, and had just kept festering and rotting through his orphaned childhood, while he struggled to provide for and raise Paige, into adolescence as he watched his sister derail, into adulthood when their estrangement solidified. It was the rage of a life frustrated, lonely, unfair, and devoid of anything approaching a single stroke of luck or good fortune.
It was why he got blackout drunk.
Why he went to bars in the sticks to get in fights.
Why he fucked prostitutes.
And why he was about to kick in the goddamn door to Paige’s room and once inside, tear whatever he found apart with his bare hands.
“Grant!”
He stopped halfway down the corridor, looked back at his sister.
She said, “Don’t do this.”
“Why? Because something bad might happen to me? That’d be a real change of pace, wouldn’t it?”
“Please. Come downstairs. We’ll talk this through. We’ll figure out our next step. I need you.”
Grant smiled. He felt electrified. Amped on methamphetamines. Like he could punch through brick.
He said, “I’m done talking.”
Then he turned and ran at Paige’s door, the pressure mounting in his head, a small voice asking if he was sure he wanted to do this but it was too late.
Inside of three feet, he raised his right leg and snapped his heel into the center of the door.
EERIE Page 16
