cold rain was dropping heavily from the sky now. It washed down my face as I stepped off the porch. It carried away my tears and momentarily cleared my head. All around me, in the black forest surrounding the house on every side, beams of light were slashing here and there through the dark and the rainfall as the tac team searched for Emory among the trees. Bursts of static and muttering voices joined the shouts still coming from inside the house. They could not find him.
Nauseous, feverish, weak as I was, I was still able to jog along the path back to my car. I pressed the button on the key to unlock the door, yanked the door open, and stuck my head in. Inside, I popped the glove compartment. I drew out my Glock 19.
When I stood up straight again, I swayed, dizzy and sick. I became aware of red and blue lights flashing—the first flashing lights I’d seen. An ambulance. It came quickly and quietly up the drive. I saw Monahan striding across the lawn to meet it, the child nearly lost in those massive arms.
I had to force my legs to move so I did, I forced them. I marched back up the path to the mansion’s front door. I paused there, leaning in the doorway, steadying myself with my hand against the jamb. Then I swung inside again.
The tac team had spread out through the house. I could see black armor and flashlights any way I looked. I could hear them shouting everywhere.
They could not find him.
I turned to the right, away from the living room archway, toward a smaller archway into a smaller den. I went through—across a prim, green sitting room—through the sickening and smothering mist that was gathered there, toward a closed door on the far wall. The room was dark and shadowy. As I went through it, I thought I caught a presence in the corner of my eye. I thought I saw a child, enthroned in an armchair, watching me pass, expressionless. The dead boy. I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t dare. I stumbled across the room to the far door, through the door, and into a narrow corridor beyond.
A flashlight beam hit me in the eyes as the officer searching the hall swung his gun my way. The beam lanced painfully into the core of my head, the mist exploding away from me, then swarming back around me even thicker and more nauseating than before. The cop nodded at me as we passed in the hall.
“Clear,” he said.
I was too woozy and confused to nod back or answer. I just kept stumbling forward. I charged down the narrow hall past more pictures of ruins or maybe the same picture again and again, I didn’t know, couldn’t tell. I came to a door at the end of the hall, yet another door in this puzzle box of a house. I pulled it open. A walk-in linen closet. I stepped inside. Turned the light on. Pulled the door shut behind me.
I was in a close little pantry. There were shelves on two of its walls. The third wall was empty. Nothing but wood paneling.
I had seen that light outside, that glow on the grass as I was driving up to the house. I had seen the glow go out as I approached. There was no place that light could have come from. There was no window there, not even a cellar door. I remembered that. It had been in the back of my mind from the moment Emory had opened the secret bedroom upstairs.
That light had come from somewhere near here.
I reached out to the wood paneling in the linen closet. I pressed my hand against it. Then I pressed my hand against it harder—much harder—and felt it give very slightly. I made the same curt upward motion I had seen Emory make—and yes, a section of the wall snapped away and swung toward me. Very gothic.
There was a stairway within, leading downward, becoming invisible in deep darkness. I went down. The open section of wall swung shut behind me. The dark closed in on me. It pressed tight. It seemed to seep into me and meld with the darkness already inside me. It was impossible to tell where the dark ended and I began. I went down and down.
I reached the bottom. I nearly
Nauseous, feverish, weak as I was, I was still able to jog along the path back to my car. I pressed the button on the key to unlock the door, yanked the door open, and stuck my head in. Inside, I popped the glove compartment. I drew out my Glock 19.
When I stood up straight again, I swayed, dizzy and sick. I became aware of red and blue lights flashing—the first flashing lights I’d seen. An ambulance. It came quickly and quietly up the drive. I saw Monahan striding across the lawn to meet it, the child nearly lost in those massive arms.
I had to force my legs to move so I did, I forced them. I marched back up the path to the mansion’s front door. I paused there, leaning in the doorway, steadying myself with my hand against the jamb. Then I swung inside again.
The tac team had spread out through the house. I could see black armor and flashlights any way I looked. I could hear them shouting everywhere.
They could not find him.
I turned to the right, away from the living room archway, toward a smaller archway into a smaller den. I went through—across a prim, green sitting room—through the sickening and smothering mist that was gathered there, toward a closed door on the far wall. The room was dark and shadowy. As I went through it, I thought I caught a presence in the corner of my eye. I thought I saw a child, enthroned in an armchair, watching me pass, expressionless. The dead boy. I didn’t turn to look. I didn’t dare. I stumbled across the room to the far door, through the door, and into a narrow corridor beyond.
A flashlight beam hit me in the eyes as the officer searching the hall swung his gun my way. The beam lanced painfully into the core of my head, the mist exploding away from me, then swarming back around me even thicker and more nauseating than before. The cop nodded at me as we passed in the hall.
“Clear,” he said.
I was too woozy and confused to nod back or answer. I just kept stumbling forward. I charged down the narrow hall past more pictures of ruins or maybe the same picture again and again, I didn’t know, couldn’t tell. I came to a door at the end of the hall, yet another door in this puzzle box of a house. I pulled it open. A walk-in linen closet. I stepped inside. Turned the light on. Pulled the door shut behind me.
I was in a close little pantry. There were shelves on two of its walls. The third wall was empty. Nothing but wood paneling.
I had seen that light outside, that glow on the grass as I was driving up to the house. I had seen the glow go out as I approached. There was no place that light could have come from. There was no window there, not even a cellar door. I remembered that. It had been in the back of my mind from the moment Emory had opened the secret bedroom upstairs.
That light had come from somewhere near here.
I reached out to the wood paneling in the linen closet. I pressed my hand against it. Then I pressed my hand against it harder—much harder—and felt it give very slightly. I made the same curt upward motion I had seen Emory make—and yes, a section of the wall snapped away and swung toward me. Very gothic.
There was a stairway within, leading downward, becoming invisible in deep darkness. I went down. The open section of wall swung shut behind me. The dark closed in on me. It pressed tight. It seemed to seep into me and meld with the darkness already inside me. It was impossible to tell where the dark ended and I began. I went down and down.
I reached the bottom. I nearly