Come Little Children (41 page)

Peter nodded. They leaned over and kissed again, two, three times—each kiss deeper than the last—before he pulled away and zipped his coat to the top of its neck warmer. “I’ll see you again tonight. With pillows and blankets.”

“And carbs. Bring more carbs.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

They kissed again, then Peter left the crypt, ducking across the graveyard, and disappeared for the rest of the day.

The morning and afternoon stretched on and on, and never in Camilla’s life had she thought the sun moved so slowly across the sky. Finally Peter returned around midnight with food, blankets, and an even split of both good and bad news.

Laura wasn’t coping well. She had been admitted to the hospital after trying to burn some of Lucas’s possessions in the fireplace and almost setting the house on fire. A vote had been
unanimous: she should be put on watch before she hurt herself or anyone else, and as much as it pained the funeral directors to give a family member over to the public health system, none of them had enough time to look after her themselves.

On the bright side, the morgue had scheduled a pickup for the evening of the seventeenth at the same time when Moira would be taking Laura her dinner. So while Moira delivered the meal, Brutus, Jasper, and Peter were supposed to handle a collection of bodies with Sven, the hospital’s undertaker. If Peter acted sick, Maddock would have to fill in and the manor would be left empty for a good hour, possibly two.

The bad news was that the seventeenth was four days away.

Anything could happen in four days. Unfortunately, there was no alternative short of involving the rest of the Vincents, so with both hands tied, Camilla stayed in the crypt and watched the sun stretch along its slow course day after day after day. Peter continued smuggling her food and clothes and daily issues of the
Sun
every night, but by the time he showed up around one a.m., he was usually exhausted and could never talk long before drifting off to sleep.

The four days seemed like forty.

When seven o’clock finally rolled around on February the seventeenth, Camilla’s hands were already waiting on the door of the crypt.

She looked over her shoulder and scanned the burial vaults and the stone shelves. The urns were dusted and the floor of the sepulchre was freshly swept, as if some grave nanny had come through and tidied everything up.
Hopefully the spirits approve
. She couldn’t get rid of the blankets or pillows, so she had tucked them behind the one of the cement vaults and left them for the next unfortunate refugee. Lastly, she’d taken her gun and etched
Camilla Goodwynn: February 11–17
above the tiny peephole that faced the Vincents’ crypt.

“Thanks for having me,” she whispered.

The crypt was quiet, as always.

She patted her pockets like someone checking to make sure they had everything before stepping out of the house—
tissue in the left, gun in the right
—and then opened the door and dashed into the blackening horizon.

The Vincent manor was as tall and foreboding as the day Camilla came to Nolan. Stepping through the front gate, the fug of death in the air was thicker than factory smog—or the smoke of a crematorium.

Camilla looked both ways and hurried to the grand fountain in the middle of the yard, shimmying around it, and sprinted toward the porch. Her feet lunged up the unshoveled steps, then she slipped around the corner of the veranda and waited while her heart assaulted her rib cage. Barely three minutes later she heard an engine start in the distance, and before she knew it, the unmarked van came crawling around the other side of the house and down the driveway.

Camilla peeked around the wall and watched the van roll by. Brutus was driving and Moira was strapped in the passenger seat, balancing something—presumably Laura’s dinner—in her lap. If everything had gone according to plan, Jasper and Maddock would be riding in the back, leaving Peter and Camilla alone on the grounds with their darling serial-killer daughter.

The van disappeared through the gate, and Camilla waited until the sound of its tires faded down the road. She walked to the front door and grasped the knob, feeling a shiver chew into her vertebrae.

This was it. The timer was ticking, the sand was falling. In one hour it would all be over.

She pushed open the door and entered the place of her nightmares.

“Thank God.” Camilla sighed, peeking into the north parlor and seeing Peter by the window.

“That was the easy part,” he said with a look of dark determination. “We’ve got one hour. Let’s get to it.”

“Is she out back?”

“I think so. I watched the tree house through the attic all night and nothing moved.”

“She just stays there?”

“Sometimes. Some nights she comes down, but never before midnight. We should be good.”

Camilla looked down and saw Peter’s gun against his leg. “Ready?” She sunk her hand into her pocket and felt the trigger of her own handgun. They leaned forward to kiss, and as soon as their lips touched, a door slammed shut somewhere in the house. Footsteps were shuffling quickly toward them.

Peter peeked through the curtains. “Van’s back!” he whispered. “Get out!”

Camilla ducked through the north doorway just as Jasper stormed into the west entrance.

“Peter,” he lit up, huffing. “Have you seen the removals clipboard?”

“Clipboard?”

“Yes, yes. The one with the pickup slips and ankle bands.”

“I don’t think so…”

“Blast. I’ll have to check the office.” Jasper turned for the doorway, then turned back. “Why are you wearing a coat?”

Camilla cringed around the corner.
Busted
. But Peter didn’t drop a beat. “I was going to shovel the steps.”

“Shovel? Good Lord, you’re sick. Take that off and get some rest.”

Jasper was already crossing the parlor for the same door Camilla had gone through.

“Un-uncle,” Peter stammered. “C-can you…uh…” He reached out to stop Jasper, but his reflexes weren’t quick enough. The director glided through the doorway and sailed right past Camilla without noticing her; she was pressed into a dark alcove so hard that she thought she was going to break through the drywall.

“Then again…” Jasper mumbled, stopping. “What am I thinking?”

He turned around and Camilla was gone, having slipped out not a second too soon. He walked back in the north parlor where Peter was still standing, extremely tense, just as the heels of Camilla’s boots disappeared through the other doorway.

“What?” Peter croaked, undoing his coat button by button.

“We’ve got forms in the reception desk.”

Jasper moved for the door that Camilla had just gone through, but Peter successfully blocked him.

“Don’t you still need tags?”

“We can tag them when we get back.”

“But…” Peter fought for words. “We’re supposed to do it at the morgue. You stay here, I’ll get the board for you.”

“Really, Peter, it doesn’t matter. What’s important is getting there before your mother goes into hysterics. Now please, get some sleep.” Jasper pushed past Peter into the rotunda.

The oak reception desk was across the room, and Camilla was underneath it, clutching her knees and praying that her hiding spot would hold.

Jasper’s feet clacked across the marble floor, closer and closer. She saw his polished boots approaching, and there wasn’t even time to take a deep breath before he came around the back of the desk and pulled out the office chair.

Camilla was fully exposed, cowering like a trapped animal.

Jasper’s eyes registered her and bulged behind his spectacles. “You!”

Camilla kicked out her legs and felt a stab of remorse as she buckled the old man to the floor. She scrambled from under the desk, but her uncle-in-law’s gnarled fingers seized her arms and pulled her back down, yanking her beside him on the marble surface. Their arms and legs grappled as they fought for the upper hand, but the ground was slippery with melted snow and neither of them could find their footing.

Camilla was suddenly on her back. She leveraged her legs and propelled Jasper off to the side; he went spinning across the marble as she jumped to her feet.

“Stop!” Jasper cried. “Don’t move!” His hand was fumbling for something inside his vest. As he drew out an old pistol with a weak, trembling hand, a loud
thonk
echoed in the room, and the old director crumpled to the floor.

Peter was standing above Jasper’s body with the golden shovel from the parlor’s fireplace. “Sorry,” he panted. “Had to find something that wouldn’t kill him.”

Both of them looked at their unconscious relative sprawled across the floor, when suddenly there was a
honk! honk!
from outside.

“Shit,” Peter swore. “All right. OK. I have to go talk to them.”

He dropped the golden shovel with a loud clang and did up his coat again, rushing for the front door.

“Wait,” Camilla called. She flung open a reception drawer and pulled out a stack of blue forms. “Take these.” Peter grabbed the stack and darted outside.

Camilla stepped over Jasper and entered the south parlor, peeking through the window shades to see what was happening on the driveway. She watched Peter approach the passenger’s side and tap on the window. Moira rolled it down, a look of confusion creased in her face, and they exchanged a few words. He tried pushing the blue forms inside, but she refused to take them and kept pointing insistently at the house, mouthing
Jasper
at least four or five times. Peter shook his head and persisted with pushing the forms in the vehicle, and after a good minute of arguing, Moira snatched the papers—not pleased—and smacked Brutus on the head with them.
Drive!

The van took off. Peter hopped back up the veranda and reentered the front hall as Camilla rushed to meet him.

“What’d you say?”

“Uncle got a phone call from the revenue agency and has to sort it out. Pretty weak.”

“Whatever,” she sighed. “They’re gone.”

“Yeah.” Peter stopped. Suddenly his eyes were zipping around the room.

“What?”

“They’re not the only ones who are gone.”

Camilla backed away and looked around the rotunda. At first, she didn’t know what he was talking about, but then it was glaringly obvious. Jasper was missing.

Peter picked up the golden ash shovel from the floor and motioned Camilla behind him. “If he comes at you again,” he whispered, “don’t be gentle.”

Peter gripped the bar in both hands and put his back against the north parlor frame, like a cop about to burst into a dangerous scene. He stopped and listened.

It was completely silent. Not a creak in the house.

He paused for another few breaths—swallowing some nervous spit—and then threw himself around the corner and plunged into the parlor.

Camilla stayed back, watching him vanish inside. Suddenly there was a loud
clank
of the shovel crashing to the floor.

“Peter!” she screamed. She bolted into the room—

And stopped dead in her tracks.

Peter was standing in the center of the parlor, but he didn’t turn as she ran up behind him. And she wasn’t looking at him either.

Both of them were staring straight ahead at Jasper’s body. It was splayed over the lid of the baby grand piano with a long carving knife protruding from his chest. His head was missing, and the blood from his neck was dripping down the black-and-white ivory keys, cascading to the plush piano bench, and pooling under the polished gold pedals of the 1892 Steinway. Behind the piano—above the mantelpiece—was a bloody message scrawled across the faces of the Vincents’ ancestors in their beloved family portrait.

To Mom and Dad, love Abigail

31

Divided

T
he gory tableau—Jasper’s headless body sprawled across the baby grand—curdled Camilla’s stomach fluid and sent tremors vibrating through her body. But the worst part wasn’t the pose. Or the blood. Or even the flaps of skin sagging around the stump where his head used to be.

It was the serrated knife sticking out of his rib cage.

Mom, do we own a long knife? Uncle Jasper needs a long, long knife; a long serrated knife. I need to saw his head off with a LONG, LONG KNIFE. And a rope. For you, mom. A rope for you…

Camilla’s hands went to cover her throat as her daughter’s voice gonged between her temples, louder and louder, overlapping in a deafening cycle until she felt a set of hands close around her waist and pull her out of the room.

“Look at me. Look!” Peter forced their faces so close that their noses were touching. His hand dived into Camilla’s pocket and pulled out the gun, forcing it into her palm. “Take it. Keep it up.”

But his voice sounded like it was fifty feet underwater. Camilla looked back at the north parlor and saw Jasper’s blood
oozing into the vestibule. Her hands drooped, but Peter grabbed them again and jostled them back to her chest. “Up! Keep it up!”

Camilla snapped out of her trance, tightening her grip on the gun. She was ghostly white and glistening with sweat, but she nodded, scared and alert.

They slunk through the arch beside the reception desk on the balls of their feet. She noticed the door on the gun cabinet was hanging askew, and as Peter rushed forward and filled his pockets with extra ammo and another pair of Glocks, she scanned the area outside the chapel. It was still. Silent.

BANG!

They whipped their necks at the hallway toward the dining room. The slam had come from one of the doors at the back of the house.

Peter rushed ahead, and Camilla jogged to keep up. The alcoves flashed by on either side. She tried her best to target her vision on Peter’s back, afraid of seeing the beady eyes and the swaying nooses from her nightmares in the spaces flashing by, but in every black corner Abigail was waiting for her. Waiting to pounce.

Show yourself, Abigail. Don’t hide or try to scare me with those fake, phantasmal pinpricks anymore
.

They emerged in the grand dining room and followed the wall to the door that separated the public half of the manor from the stark, surgical half.