And still, the bodies begged to be discovered. And still, her body ached to answer them.
She took one cautious step forward, her self-control teetering on the edge as the toes of her wet shoes abutted the front step. She stood there, letting the coffee-grounds smell and the medley of shapes envelop her, letting them overshadow all else.
Even common sense.
And then she stepped again.
It was the third step that led her across the threshold—of both the house and of reason—and into the darkened entryway.
The first thing she was aware of was the air-conditioning. It was set entirely too high despite the outside temperatures. The second thing she noticed was the smell. A real one that pierced even the bitter coffee-grounds scent that had been suffocating her. She knew now, more than ever, that she was in the right place.
It was the scent of death. Of newly decaying flesh.
Bodies.
She strained toward it, like a ravenous predator. Her hand closed around the phone in her front pocket now as her heart raced and she bit back her breath, afraid it might disturb the air around her and give her away.
But if someone was in there with her, it was already too late. Her shoes were still wet, and they squeaked across the tiled entry, giving her away the moment she’d stepped inside. She slipped one foot out of her shoe, and then the other, leaving the shoes beside the front door as she crept inside on bare feet.
She wasn’t afraid. She should be, she knew. But she couldn’t find the fear to hang on to.
The entryway was dark, but only because the lights were out, and as she slipped past the wall, Violet could see the sunlight trying to strain through the narrow opening between the heavy curtains that were drawn in front of a large picture window.
She went there first, her fingers clutching the soft fabric as she began to peel them apart, pulling them back along the curtain rod. Light washed the living room in its golden glow.
It would have been a beautiful setting, if not for the blood. And if not for the victims.
Violet gasped, choking on her scream as she staggered backward, falling against the window. She hit the glass hard—too hard—and she held her breath as she waited, listening for the sound of breaking glass to fill her ears.
It won’t hold. She’d hit it too hard.
Any moment it would shatter beneath her and she would just keep falling, all the way through it to the lawns below. And then to the water. And even then, she’d keep falling.
Falling . . .
But the sounds never came, not even a crack, although she couldn’t help wondering if it wouldn’t have been preferable to what she now witnessed.
She’d known there would be bodies. Of course she’d known it, she told herself, as she shoved her palm against her mouth to keep from screaming out loud.
She stayed frozen like that, with her hand pressed to her lips as she leaned against the window for several long seconds . . . minutes . . . or possibly hours.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from them.
All three of them.
Her vision was nearly blocked now as the colors of the kaleidoscope echo swirled and whorled and erupted in front of her eyes, leaving only gaps through which she could see.
But it was enough.
She could make out their sightless eyes. And their gaping wounds. And exposed throats.
I have to get out of here
, Violet realized, coming to awareness only as her stomach recoiled violently. She eased away from the glass, testing her legs and her balance for only a second before she started running, scrambling to get to the front door again on feet that felt suddenly slippery beneath her.
Outside the door, she bent over one of the large potted plants that stood on either side of the entry and retched, clutching the sides of the ceramic planter and vomiting until her stomach was empty. Then she vomited some more, tasting the stomach acids that filled the back of her throat. And when her body had finally stopped convulsing, her head felt clearer.
Too clear
.
She was alone in a house with a dead family.
And that’s what they were, a family. A mother and a father and a boy—ten, maybe eleven, years old.
They’d been seated on the couch, although Violet couldn’t imagine that that was where they’d died. Their placement was too peaceful, the setting too serene. This whole thing looked . . .
planned
. Posed.
No, she was certain they’d been placed there.
Afterward.
She fumbled with her cell phone, her hands shaking so hard that she nearly dropped it. She had to try three times to get her Contacts list up, and even then she struggled to scroll through it. She searched for her uncle’s number, listed only under “Stephen.” He was the chief of police in Buckley, and although she might be outside his jurisdiction here on this side of the lake, she knew he’d be there in a flash. Less than a flash, if she called him for help.
Her thumb hovered for several long seconds before she changed her mind and called someone else instead.
When he answered, she whispered into the phone, her voice raw and her throat sore from throwing up. “I need you,” she pled almost silently. “Hurry.”
Even when she’d called him, Violet had known that calling Rafe meant she was inadvertently calling Sara too. Sara was the team’s leader after all. But more than that, she was also Rafe’s sister.
Violet hadn’t waited for them at the house, despite the nearly irresistible pull that continued to tug at her, trying to draw her back inside. Instead, she’d stumbled back around the stone fencing that surrounded the estate until she reached her car, where she huddled inside and shivered, even as the temperatures climbed to nearly ninety degrees. Sweltering for the Northwest.
This kind of heat kept the lake beyond busy and crowded, and Violet was forced to listen to that same constant drone of boats and jet skis out on the water, until finally she’d pulled out her iPod and turned up the volume. It took nearly an hour for Rafe and Sara to come all the way from Seattle, but the moment she saw Sara’s car, Violet felt something she hadn’t felt in ages.
She felt understood.
Rafe, more so than even her own uncle, knew what she was going through right now, since he too had an ability that allowed him to glimpse the world beyond their own. To see—and sense—things no one else could.
She’d been so annoyed to see him and Gemma at her school, in a place she’d tried to keep free from that part of her life, but now, today, she needed him.
And here he was.
Violet practically fell out of her car when she got her first glimpse of Sara, and it was Sara who rushed to Violet, gathering her in her arms as she assured herself that Violet was safe before either of them spoke. Violet had nearly forgotten how cold Sara’s touch could be and she shivered once more. Behind Sara, Violet noticed Rafe glancing at her, scrutinizing her with his curious blue gaze, and she wondered if she looked half as frazzled as she felt.
“What’s happened exactly?” Sara was asking, still holding her, hugging her. “Are you all right?” Steam gusted from Sara’s blue lips as she gripped Violet’s shoulders with fingers that were icy, despite the summer heat, and all thoughts that Sara wasn’t entirely on her side evaporated just like that.
Violet had grown accustomed to seeing Sara’s imprint, the one she’d earned when Violet had been attacked outside the Center—the day Sara had saved her life. But she’d never stop thinking that the imprint was probably the most fascinating one she’d ever seen.
A fine layer of frost coated every part of Sara’s skin, making Sara glisten like an icy sculpture, making her look as if she’d been carved from a glacier. Behind that chilly facade, she studied Violet with eyes that were eerily similar to her brother’s.
“I’m fine.” Violet turned her head and nodded toward the house. “They’re in there, three of them. All dead.”
Sara looked past the gate, at the stately house overlooking the glittering waters of Lake Tapps. Her hands fell away from Violet and Violet wrapped her arms around herself. “How did you—?” Sara started to ask, and then reformed her question. “Did you know them?”
Violet shook her head. “I was just driving by. . . .” She wiped the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger, realizing she hadn’t bothered cleaning up after she’d puked, and wondering if they could see just how affected she’d been. “I
felt
them.”
“Damn,” Rafe muttered, moving forward now, and Violet took a step back from him. She didn’t want to be comforted, not now. Not by him.
She glanced at him, nodding. “It’s bad,” she breathed.
“Who else did you call?” Sara asked, and Violet knew that what she really meant was had she called her uncle yet?
“No one. Just you.”
Sara reached for her cell phone. “I’ll call it in,” she said, breath gusting as she turned away from them. “You two wait here.”
The police arrived in far less time than Sara and Rafe had, her uncle among them. He greeted her like her uncle, hugging her so tight she felt like she’d get lost in his arms, whispering quiet questions that only she could hear as she nodded assurances against his chest.
Then, he transformed, slipping into his official role as chief of police, and Violet became an unintentional bystander, a witness to a crime. She watched as he interacted with the other officers, always fascinated by this no-nonsense side of him. Rigid, bordering on militant. So different from the carefree uncle she’d grown up with, the uncle who was always teasing and laughing and playing with her.
She expected to be shuffled away shortly after giving her statement, taken home to face her parents, but instead she and Rafe had been left outside to wait for Sara and her uncle. They stood on the fringes of the scene, not really a part of the investigation but not forbidden from it either. Ignored was more like it.
Or forgotten.
She watched in silence as officers moved in and out of the house, unable to stop thinking about what was in there.
But not about the bodies so much, and not about the blood either. Although both were forever seared into her memory, permanently etched into her mind’s eye.
It was something else that bothered her, niggled at her.
Something wrong about what she’d seen.
Something was . . . off.
She chewed the inside of her cheek, replaying the scene in her head once more. She thought of the word
staged
, and realized it fit the scene. The father had been placed beside the mother who had been placed beside the son. The only thing missing was a family dog.
Violet’s head snapped up as she realized what was bothering her. Not the dog at all, but what was absent from the scene.
“Rafe,” she said urgently, reaching for his sleeve and pulling him from his own quiet reverie. She knew where he’d been, what he’d been thinking about. Rafe had his own skeletons, and dead families played right into his deepest fears. “Where’s Sara? Do you know where she went?”
Rafe looked at her, his eyes still glazed. “No.” He shook his head. “Inside, maybe . . .”
Violet sprinted toward the house, but Rafe caught up to her, grabbing her arm to stop her. “Jesus. What’s up with you?”
“Something’s wrong. I need to go in there.”
“There’s a lot wrong in there, V.” He frowned back at her.
“No. I mean, I know . . . but there’s something I need to see . . . feel . . .” She trailed off, unable to explain what she was thinking. And then she looked past him. “Uncle Stephen!” She waved at her uncle who had just emerged from the front door.
He was rubbing his eyes when he looked up at her, and his expression, that look of worry on his face, deepened. “What are you still doing here, Vi?” he asked, pulling her aside. “I thought you’d left—”
“Uncle Stephen, I need to go back inside,” she insisted, cutting him off.
But he was already shaking his head. “That’s not possible. You should go home. I’ll come by later and we can talk then.”
She stepped closer, clutching his hand in both of hers, her voice dropping all the way. “I don’t need to talk. I need to go back in there.” She met his eyes determinedly. “Please. Just for a minute. There’s something I have to know.”
For a moment she thought he would continue to deny her, and she tightened her grip. But then his shoulders sagged and she knew he was giving in. “Is it that important?” He didn’t ask her
why
she needed to go inside.
She nodded. “It is. At least . . . I think so.”
He sighed. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll take you in, but you can’t touch anything, Violet. I mean it. Stay right with me, and when I say it’s time to go, we go. Got it?”
Violet nodded again, and when her uncle started leading her toward the house, she saw Rafe, his forehead creasing as he watched her, behind the spectacle of flashing colors that crowded her periphery as she left him behind on the lawn.
Inside, there was that same over-air-conditioned feel, and that same smell of moldering coffee grounds.
Violet walked exactly where her uncle did, following in his footsteps as if she were walking on stepping-stones. They passed Sara, who had stopped talking to one of the officers—or maybe detectives, Violet didn’t know for sure—as she watched the two of them with thoughtful consideration, her icy brows raised inquisitively.
Violet was prepared this time for the explosion of colors that burst behind her eyes, and for the disturbing image of the family spread out before her on the couch, bloodied and gashed. They reminded her of flowers—fragile and delicate. Like death in bloom.
Her suspicions were confirmed as she focused on the colorful explosions and the smell of old coffee.
One of these bodies had no echo. At least none that she could discern.
She took minuscule steps, moving closer to the family, until she was standing near the end of the couch where the man had been propped up, set up to look as if nothing were out of place, as if he were spending an ordinary evening with his family.
Bending at the waist, Violet leaned in, keeping her gaze directed solely on him.