The Blood of Seven

by Claire L. Fishback

  The water heater, the furnace kicking on, wind in the ducts, rats . . . She’d call an exterminator.

  Glass shattered in the front room. She spun toward the noise.

  No, the kitchen. She found a tipped glass in the sink. Nothing broken. She rinsed it under the tap.

  Mommy . . .

  She shut off the faucet and listened, holding her breath. Her hand went to the cross at her neck.

  The clock on the wall ticked off the seconds. Ten. Twenty.

  Mommy . . .

  From the front of the house. Teresa nearly shrieked. She took small, slow steps back down the hall. She stopped at the doorway and peeked into the front room.

  The frame with her and the baby lay on the hardwood floor surrounded by pieces of glass. The other pictures remained untouched in a circle around a now empty space where the portrait had been.

  There had to be an explanation. She just couldn’t think. Not with a mess on the floor. She knelt and picked up the larger pieces but needed a broom. She took one step toward the hallway and tripped over something soft and yielding.

  Teresa caught herself on the doorframe, turned, and gasped. The antique stuffed bear she’d had as a child stared up at her.

  Big Bear.

  She lifted him to eye level. What was he doing here? Derrick had put Big Bear in the garage. He’d wanted to throw the stuffed toy out, but she begged him not to. It had been hers when she was little. It hadn’t been in the house since . . .

  Since the baby died.

  “Mah-mee,” Big Bear said in the voice she’d heard.

  Teresa dropped him. He landed face down. The pull string on his back slid inside his body. She let out a relieved laugh and tucked Big Bear on the love seat and arranged the pillows around him.

  “Mommy.”

  The voice came from behind her. Not distorted. A child’s voice. Crisp and clear. Not from the bear’s old voice box.

  Teresa turned around and froze.

  A girl in a frilly white dress stood in the doorway. A black ribbon held her long pale hair away from her face. Dark eyes peered up from beneath a fringe of blunt-cut bangs.

  “Mommy,” the girl said in a sickly sweet voice. She cocked her head. “Why did you kill me?”

  Chapter 3

  The scent of a reptilian terrarium mixed with death filled Ann’s nostrils. Packaging peanuts hid the contents of the box. She had to find the source of the smell, but at the same time, she didn’t want to just plunge her hands into unknown depths. She pushed away the top layer of peanuts and uncovered a leather bomber jacket with a paper bag tucked inside the collar. The jacket was her dad’s. Part of the Bram Logan signature style. Ann pulled the paper bag from the jacket and unfolded the top flap. She opened it and peeked inside. Nothing dead and rotting. She dumped the contents onto the table. A passport and wallet.

  She pulled the jacket out of the box, and the smell of decay intensified. Ann reeled and covered her nose.

  Jeezus fuck. There’d better not be a head in here.

  Two parcels remained at the bottom. One, a plain brown package about six by six inches, tied shut with a piece of thick twine; the other five inches long, roughly cylindrical, wrapped in newsprint. She tugged the corner of the newspaper, and one of her mother’s angel figurines rolled out. They were usually lined up on the mantel at the house where she grew up.

  The angel held a little girl in a protective embrace. Ann set the figure on the couch next to her and lifted the other package, fumbled with the twine and unwrapped it. A blue velvet jewelry box and an incredible stench. Good Lord. Her stomach twisted.

  Ann opened the lid. Her mouth filled with saliva. She dropped the box, ran to the bathroom, and heaved into the bowl. She rested her head against the roll of toilet paper.

  Hallucinations, glowing veins, burn marks—now this. Cold sweat broke out under her eyes and across her upper lip. Ann wiped her forehead on the back of her arm. She got the first aid kit from under the sink, rifled through it, and found a jar of menthol rub. She dabbed some under each nostril and returned to the little box of horrors.

  One, two, three. She opened the lid.

  Even though Ann’s mother died thirty years ago, Bram Logan never took off his wedding ring. Not even now. Her dad’s ring finger, still wearing his custom-made band, had been crammed into the neck of a decapitated rattle snake. The snake’s body coiled around the inside of the box like a macabre necklace.

  Ann’s brain worked to make sense of what she was looking at while desperately searching her memories.

  Is it really a finger?

  What was the last thing she said to her dad? She struggled to remember.

  It can’t be his finger.

  When was the last time they spoke cordially? It had to be the night before she graduated.

  Christ, it’s his finger.

  When was the last time she hugged him, saw his smile, heard his laugh, gave him the time of fucking day?

  Her rational mind forced its way to the forefront. She needed a print to be sure it was his finger. She snapped the box shut, and as her lungs took in short bursts of air and she worked to not break down completely, she dumped the rest of the Styrofoam out. There had to be an explanation. A ransom letter. A business card from the mob boss in Harmony.

  Harmony didn’t have a mob.

  She grabbed her cell phone, still tucked in the armband from her run.

  Call it in. Take everything to the station. Start a case. Find him now.

  Instead, she called her dad. His voicemail was full. She hovered her thumb over her Lieutenant’s number in her recent calls.

  Maintain control. No body, no murder.

  Not entirely true, but she had to tell herself something.

  The right thing to do was call the police, she knew this, but at the same time, she didn’t want someone like Anderson assigned to the case. That greasy-haired fucktard would screw everything up. Ann didn’t understand how someone so incompetent could be a cop.

  Who else could she call? Six months ago, she would have called Bruce.

  She took a deep breath. Maybe someone in Harmony had seen her dad. She sat up straighter. Sheriff McMichael, her dad’s best friend. She didn’t have his personal number, but she could easily call the Sheriff’s Department. She did. He wasn’t there. Too early. She left a message with the bored dispatcher and scrolled through the rest of her contacts.

  Joey Rigsby, professional hacker. Worked for the CIA for a while even and never let anyone forget it. Not a good secret-keeper, so it hadn’t worked out.

  She shook her head. No. She hadn’t left things great with him either.

  That’s your way, isn’t it? Burn your bridges until you have no one left.

  She examined the outside of the big box again. Someone packed it, someone delivered it. There had to be prints. She ran out to her truck and grabbed her kit. But the box and its contents were clean. She examined every packing peanut, every nook and cranny inside the box, every inch of each item for any clues. Nothing. It was like the box had been packed in a vacuum.

  She lifted the angel figurine. It was definitely one from the house in Harmony. When she was six, she thought the angels needed faces. This was the one she had started on. Her dad caught her before she could draw the second eye, but he’d let her finish it anyway.

  Summon your angel, Dad. I guess that really worked, didn’t it?

  It was his phrase. Summon your angel. All her life he had used it to remind her she had a guardian angel who would protect her.

  Ann scoffed. Angels, right. Protection, sure. She stared at the figurine, then focused on the passport.

  Her dad was a world traveler. He was in law enforcement. He was careful and smart and observant. She rubbed her thumb across the angel’s face. She had to go home.

  After nearly fifteen years of being away, she had to return to Harmony, Colorado.

  Chapter 4

  Teresa backed up until her legs hit the love seat. She sat down on Big Bear, and
he groaned something in his mechanical voice.

  The girl came closer.

  “Mommy,” she said. “Why. Did. You. Kill. Me?” She enunciated each word as if English wasn’t Teresa’s first language.

  “I–I don’t know what you’re talking about. How did you get in here? Who are you?”

  The girl put her small hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at Teresa, an expression Teresa had used many times with Maggie. Teresa’s mother made the same look throughout Teresa’s childhood and beyond. Disbelief, disappointment, and a healthy dose of are-you-completely-incompetent-or-just-stupid.

  “Once upon a time, Mommy,” the girl said, shaking a finger. She took a step toward Teresa, and Teresa pulled Big Bear onto her lap.

  “Don’t call me that,” she said. “I don’t know you.”

  The girl only laughed. “Once upon a time, you had a baby, and you were so sad.” She exaggerated the words, drew them out. “Then you killed me, and here I am as I would be if I hadn’t died. Aren’t I so cute?” The girl twirled around, skirt and hair flying outward.

  “It was an accident,” Teresa whispered. “I only left for a second. I needed air. I needed . . .”

  “Why did you replace me? And on my birthday, too.” She crossed her arms and pouted.

  Maggie had arrived three months ago on what would’ve been the baby’s seventh birthday.

  “I didn’t . . . I never . . .” Teresa cringed behind the stuffed bear. “Daddy decided. Not me.”

  Partially true. When they couldn’t get pregnant again, Derrick brought up adopting a child. Perhaps he didn’t trust her to be around babies. He never believed her about what happened. He never said those words, but she could tell. She only said yes to please him. To make him happy. All she ever wanted was for him to be happy.

  To love me again.

  “Never mind that now,” the girl said. She pranced toward Teresa and shoved Big Bear off her lap. She placed her hands on Teresa’s. “Here I am, and maybe I forgive you.” The girl grinned.

  Teresa searched her face. The dark eyes—Derrick’s eyes. The pointed chin—her chin. The pale hair. The dress—white and lacy and frilly. It was a replica of the dress she’d buried the baby in.

  “T–Tiffany?” Teresa tested the name she hadn’t said in so long. The name she refused to even think. Saying the baby’s name in her thoughts made it hurt that much more.

  The girl nodded.

  “How is this possible?”

  “I have a friend who lives in the old house outside of town.”

  “The abandoned funeral home?” Teresa asked.

  Tiffany nodded. “He is glorious in all his power.” She grinned.

  Teresa pulled her left hand free and held the golden cross at her neck. Tiffany placed her hands on Teresa’s knees.

  “He will give us another chance to be together. We just need to help him.”

  A second chance? Teresa’s heart fluttered at the idea. “What do I have to do?”

  Tiffany stomped over to Big Bear.

  “If you love me, you’ll do anything to have me back.” She kicked the bear onto his side. “Say yes and we can be together again. Don’t you want to be with me?”

  Bring back the baby. Then what? Would it be like nothing ever happened? Would it repair the damage? Would Derrick love her again?

  Tiffany’s dark eyes gouged into Teresa’s soul. Teresa wanted to say yes. So often she said no. Back when she was naive and stupid and believed her life would be perfect if she just followed the rules. Graduate from high school, get married, buy a house, have a baby . . . No one ever told her the next step. Not even her mother, who ingrained the first four rules into her brain to such a degree she felt if she didn’t follow them she would be a failure. A complete failure.

  The baby died. Doesn’t that make you a failure?

  She looked at the girl standing before her. Seven-year-old Tiffany. Teresa cocked her head. “Why does your friend live in the abandoned funeral home?”

  Tiffany stomped her foot. “Mommy, say yes.” She clenched her little fists.

  Babies don’t come back from the dead as half grown children.

  “No.” It burst from her lips. “No. This is some joke, isn’t it? Some sick . . . joke.” She went to the doorway. “I don’t know how you got in here, or who put you up to this, but this is . . . disgusting.” She pointed into the hall toward the front door. “Get out of my house.”

  The girl shrugged. She stopped right next to Teresa, crowding her in the doorway with her chilly presence. Teresa pushed herself against the frame.

  “You’ll change your mind. He always gets what he wants, and . . . So. Do. I.” She stepped into the hall, into a beam of sunlight coming in through the slender window by the door, and faded to nothing.

  A trick of the light. That’s all.

  But Teresa knew better. The door never opened.

  And no one but she knew the truth behind the baby’s death.

  Chapter 5

  The Royal Peaks, a small mountain range in the Colorado Rockies, loomed in the distance as Ann pulled down the road to Harmony. King Mountain, the tallest peak in the trio of fourteeners, already had snow from its tree-line to craggy top.

  Ann parked in the driveway of the two-story “cabin” where she’d grown up and turned off the truck. She sprinted to the front door, turned the knob and pushed. Her shoulder rammed against it.

  No one locked their doors in Harmony—no one had a reason to.

  Okay, so Dad locked up before he went wherever he went to get his finger cut off.

  A strange sensation spread through her belly, and she almost laughed. At the same time her eyes filled.

  Keep it together, Logan.

  She went around to the back of the house and checked the rear entry. Locked, too.

  Back at the front of the house, she checked under the welcome mat, felt along the top of the door frame, and finally found the key in a fake stone by a pot of dead mums. She unlocked the door and went inside.

  Her training taught her to observe, orient, decide, and act. She scanned the living room, adjoining dining area, and kitchen.

  The furniture from her youth begged to be updated. Log framed couch and chairs. Log framed beds. Log framed logs. Even the bathroom carried on with the same motif. Thank goodness the toilet wasn’t made of wood. She took care of business and went back into the living room. Her dad would never change a thing her mom had had a hand in, even though she’d been gone for so many years.

  In the kitchen, a key with a yellow tag key chain sat on the counter under the family bulletin board. The tag advertised the local storage facility. It must have fallen off one of the push pins. She hung it back up, and it fell again, so she stuck it in the junk drawer at the end of the counter.

  She opened the fridge. Empty aside from the obligatory crusted condiment bottles lining the door and an unopened case of Fat Tire. Nice.

  The master bedroom was on the first floor with a direct line of sight to any intruders. Her grandpa had designed the house this way so he could protect his family. Grandpa and Dad always had that protector gene, which suited them well in their roles as Castle County Sheriff and the years they served in Harmony. She was supposed to follow in their footsteps, but she wanted bigger, better things. She wanted the hell out of this claustrophobic town.

  Ann crossed the living room to the master and flicked on the light. The bed was unmade, but everything else seemed in order. She opened the top dresser drawer. Empty save for a couple pairs of underwear. The other drawers didn’t appear to be missing anything, not that she had a full inventory of her dad’s clothing. She slid the closet open. A collection of empty hangers were interspersed throughout. She rifled through them and noted his favorite cargo pants were missing, as were the shirts he usually wore during his travels.

  “Where did you go, Dad?” A shirt clinging to a hanger for dear life dropped to the floor and startled her. Ann chastised herself for being so jumpy.

  She
went upstairs to search the rest of the house. Nothing was out of place. In fact, it all seemed like a time capsule from fifteen years ago. She wondered if her dad ever went to the upper floor. The place started to feel too small, so she ran outside and took in gulps of fresh mountain air. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She had a couple voicemails. Damn cell service was shit. She listened to the messages.

  The first one was from her therapist hoping she was okay. She said she was there if Ann needed to talk. The second was from Sheriff McMichael.

  “Hey, Annie!” He always sounded so cheerful. “Got your message. Damn, kid. Good to hear from ya. Give me a holler, yeah?” He didn’t leave a number. Back inside the house, she dialed him from the land line. The dispatcher said he was out responding to a call.

  Ann got her suitcase and the box of her dad’s stuff out of her truck. The box with the finger-snake was double bagged in a gallon-sized plastic bag. She put it in the freezer next to a bottle of spiced rum. Then she sat on the couch to fully investigate the remaining contents.

  She flipped open the passport to the identification page—her dad’s toothy grin smiled out at her. Most of the pages had stamps from Egypt, of course. His wallet contained his Colorado State driver’s license, a credit card, a handful of small bills, and a Miles & More frequent flyer membership card from Lufthansa Airlines. A crinkled snapshot of her mom was tucked into an interior pocket with a folded twenty. Her mom had been an Egyptian goddess. Ann inherited a lighter tone of her mom’s skin as well as her dark hair, but had her dad’s blue eyes. The interesting combination usually made people ask her about her origin.

  Colorado born and raised.

  Ann searched the remaining pockets. She wasn’t surprised to find zero pictures of herself even though she’d sent him one of her graduation from the Denver Police Academy. Her relationship with her dad was almost nonexistent the past few years, and completely nonexistent the past six months when she needed him the most. Numerous voicemails—at least one a day—pleading for him to call her all went unanswered. No calls, no texts, no emails. Nothing. No support in her first use of deadly force. He was MIA.