Authors: Blake Crouch Jordan Crouch
“I would assume.”
“So maybe she has some info on the house.”
“I’ll find out. I’m going to tell her everything, Paige.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because maybe she believes me, and then it’s three of us against whatever’s upstairs.”
“You didn’t believe me until you saw your friend cut his neck open with a piece of glass.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe she won’t believe me. But she will listen.”
• • •
Grant sat down a foot outside of Sophie’s reach.
She glared at him, dark eyes ablaze with equal parts sadness, anger, and fear. In the thousands of hours they’d spent together, he’d never seen this look before. A new level of intimacy reached under the worst possible conditions. It felt unnatural, impossible that he might be the object of that intensity. That
he
had hurt her. In the back of his mind, he’d always thought it would be the other way around.
“I need you to do something, Sophie.”
With her free hand, she pushed her straight black hair out of her face. “What?”
“Try and remember what it felt like to trust me.”
“Are you joking?”
“Three months ago, when you had your biopsy—”
“Don’t do that.”
“Hear me out. You know I would have been sitting in that waiting room when you came out, whether you asked me to be there or not.”
Grant thought he saw the hardness in her eyes give just a little.
He went on, “Now imagine the kind of situation the guy sitting in that doctor’s office would have to be in to physically disarm you and chain you to a banister. Imagine how scared out of his mind he’d have to be.”
“I can’t if you don’t tell me.”
“I’m going to. And I hope you think about all the things you love, or used to love, about me. I hope you’ll give me the benefit of all the doubts you have.”
“Why should I?”
“Because no one in their right mind would believe what I’m about to tell you.”
It was raining again. Grant could hear it pattering on the windows. A good, rich smell wafted in from the kitchen. The soft crackle of browning butter. Paige making grilled cheese sandwiches, he hoped.
The modest heat of the day had fled and a damp, merciless chill had begun to overtake the brownstone.
“Those Facebook profiles you sent me last night?”
“Yeah?”
“One of them was just a pair of eyes, but I recognized them. They were my sister’s. What I said about the concierge was true. He told me about this place. I showed up last night, and sure enough, Paige was living here.”
“Your sister, the one you hadn’t seen in years, is living in Queen Anne and working as a prostitute?”
Grant nodded. “Maybe you can understand why I came here alone.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“She let me in, and right off, I noticed she didn’t look well. Strung out, I figured. She’s always struggled with addiction, so I’ve seen it before. But nothing like this. She looked emaciated. Pale as a ghost.”
“You should’ve called me.”
“Be glad I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Grant glanced up the staircase.
His stomach churned.
“I need to show you something. If I uncuff you, am I going to regret it?”
“No.”
Grant walked into the living room, grabbed the flashlight from the coffee table, and then retrieved Sophie’s Glock from beneath a tufted wingback chair that sat in the corner. He pocketed the magazine, racked the slide, and caught the semi-jacketed .40 cal hollowpoint in midair.
“You think I’d shoot you?” she asked.
“You ever think I’d cuff you to a banister?”
Grant dug her keys out of his pocket as he walked back over to the stairs. Unlocking the bracelet from the balustrade, he cuffed it around his own wrist and helped Sophie onto her feet.
“Can I see your hand?” he asked.
She held it up, the swelling already begun along the ring and pinkie fingers below the knuckles, Sophie’s light brown skin flashing the darkening blush of a bruise.
“Next time you hit someone,” Grant said, “keep your fist closed.”
“Your jaw’s an asshole,” she said.
“You hit like a girl.” He motioned toward the steps. “We’re headed up.”
“Why?”
“To show you something.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
“Remember what they say about seeing?”
“No.”
“It’s believing.”
They climbed in tandem, Grant’s right hand bound to Sophie’s left. Halfway up, they lost the morsels of light from the candles down below. Grant switched on the flashlight, its beam striking the landing above them with a circle of illumination that seemed much weaker than the last time he’d used it.
He was suddenly aware of the shudder of his heart, like something shaking manically inside his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t like it up here.”
They reached the second floor and Grant led them to the foot of the corridor that accessed Paige’s bedroom.
He passed the beam over the table, the lamp, the peeling wallpaper.
“What are we doing up here?” Sophie asked.
Grant shone his flashlight on the bedroom door.
Still closed.
“We’re almost there,” he said.
They moved down the corridor. As they neared Paige’s room, Grant felt himself struggling against the same fear he’d known as a child—staring down the hall from his bedroom in the middle of the night, weighing his thirst for a drink of water from the kitchen against the knowledge that he’d have to walk past the yawning black mouth of the bathroom to get it.
As they passed Paige’s door, Grant felt that magnetic pull he’d dreamt of.
A burning desire crystallized in the back of his mind which contained all the fatal allure of a suicidal question …
What would the barrel of this gun taste like?
What would it feel like to jump?
What if I stepped in front of that bus?
What if I just opened the door?
It would be the simplest action, one he’d done tens of thousands of times in his life.
Just turn the knob and push.
“Grant, you okay?”
He realized he’d stopped walking.
Was standing with the tip of his nose several inches from Paige’s door, his flashlight pointed at the carpet.
“Yeah, this way,” he said, pulling himself away from the door.
They moved together to the end of the hall.
Turning the corner, they came to the guestroom.
Grant stopped at the closed door.
“What now?” Sophie asked.
In all the turmoil, Grant realized he’d overlooked the fact that this wasn’t just going to shock Sophie, it was going to hurt her as much as it had hurt him. She’d known Don too, and not only in a professional capacity. During her cancer scare, Don had availed himself to her. His wife had gone through a similar ordeal the year before. His insight, coupled with an uncanny ability to demystify fear and help people stare it right in the face, had gone a long way toward getting Sophie through those excruciating days between the biopsy and the results. He had become as much a fixture in her life as he had been in Grant’s. Don was a healer, and he had touched them both in their darkest moments.
“Instead of calling you last night,” Grant said, “I called Don. He came over, tried to talk to Paige. She was acting crazy. Saying there was something upstairs in her bedroom. That she couldn’t leave the house. I thought she was psychotic.”
Grant opened the door.
“Don offered to come upstairs and walk through her bedroom. Prove to her there was nothing strange going on. That it was all in her mind.”
“Is this her bedroom?” Sophie asked.
“No. This is where I found Don. After he’d been inside her bedroom.”
“What do you mean ‘found him?’ Is Don okay?”
“No.”
She snatched the flashlight out of his hand and started into the guestroom.
“Sophie, it’s not pretty.”
She was already crying. “I’ve seen not pretty before.”
“But anyone you loved?”
She was shining the light all over the room.
“Where?” she asked.
“Bathroom.”
She dragged Grant toward the doorway.
He didn’t want to go through it again. Once in real life, once in a dream—that was all he had in him.
Sophie stopped.
Her shoulders sagged, and he heard the air go out of her, like she was deflating.
She leaned against the doorframe and put the light on Don.
She didn’t make a sound.
In twenty-four hours, the nose of the room had changed markedly, like a wine opening up. Not exactly fetid, but rich and dank—the intensity of a greenhouse with a disturbing note of sweetness creeping in.
“Oh, Don.”
“He broke the mirror and cut his own throat with a piece of glass,” Grant said.
Under the fading illumination of the flashlight, the blood on the checkerboard tile looked as black as oil. It had lost its lustrous sheen, now dulled, congealed, and spiderwebbed with cracks like the surface of a four-hundred-year-old oil painting.
Even in the bad light, the changes in Don were evident. The skin of his face looked loose and waxy and drained of color save for a few dark spots where the blood had pooled underneath.
Sophie still hadn’t taken her eyes off him.
She said, “He went into Paige’s room. Then he came in here and killed himself. That’s what you’re saying happened.”
“No, that’s what happened.”
“Have you called Rachel?”
“Not yet.”
Sophie glared at him. “You’ve let her just wonder where her husband is for the last twenty-four hours?”
“And what would you have done?”
“She must be out of her mind by now. We have to call her.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Are you?”
“And tell her what exactly? I still don’t understand what’s—”
“We have to bring some people in on this, Grant. Don’t you think it’s time for that? I mean, Jesus Christ, look at this.”
He stepped back out of the doorway, dragging Sophie along.
Said, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.”
“All the more reason.”
“You don’t understand. When people set foot in this house, it changes them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Seymour? He was a client of my sister’s. He came here just before he disappeared.”
“Seriously?”
“Something happened to him in Paige’s room. You obviously saw the effect it had.”
“Grant—”
“Barry Talbert too. He was here this week. And another man came last night. Went up with Paige into her bedroom, and then walked out like a goddamn zombie. Just like the man you saw twenty minutes ago.”
“This man last night … did he have wavy gray hair? Strong build? An inch or two over six feet?”
“Yeah, his name is Jude Grazer. He’s a doctor. How do you know about him?”
“When Stu called me, I was at this little diner in North Bend watching Grazer, Talbert, and Seymour having coffee in one of the booths.”
Grant felt a coldness move down the center of his back. He said, “These men were there
together
?”
“Yep.”
“Doing what?”
“No idea. But they were acting very strange.”
“What were they talking about?”
“Nothing that came close to making sense.”
“Why would they be together? There’s no connection between Seymour and Talbert.”
“Um … your sister?”
“And you just left them?”
“Only when I thought you might be in trouble. But Art took my place. He’s there now, won’t let them out of his sight.”
Grant sat down on the end of the bed.
“What do you think would happen, Sophie, if I called in the cavalry right now?”
“The cavalry would come.”
“And then what? When I told them this crazy story I just told you. When I showed them Don. When you told them how I’d disarmed you and cuffed you to a staircase, and then to me?” He held up their chained wrists. “How exactly would all of that go over?”
Sophie stared at the floor.
Grant said, “Interrogation. Psyche eval. Suspect. And what would happen to my sister?”
“I respect you, Grant. You know that. And so do a lot of other people. Sure. There’d be questions—”
“That I don’t have answers to. I can’t explain it. Not any of it. And on top of that, I can’t leave this house.”
“What do you mean you can’t leave?”
“I can’t physically leave this house. It has some kind of power over me. I tried last night after what happened to Don. When I got to the bottom of the front porch steps, this pain hit me. I threw up. My head felt like someone was beating me with a baseball bat. I would’ve died. The only relief was crawling back inside.”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that, Grant.”
“You think I don’t get that? That I don’t fully understand that no one’s going to believe me? And does that give you some small insight into the choices I’ve made during the last twenty-four hours?”
Sophie let out a slow, trembling breath. “I want to believe you, Grant. I do.”
“I know. And I know it’s hard.”
“What exactly do you think is happening inside this house?”
“I have no idea.”
“But it’s focused in the vicinity of Paige’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been in there?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone who sets foot inside comes out massively fucked.”
“Except your sister.”
“Did you just talk to Stu on the phone, or did you actually meet up with him before you came here?”
“I swung by the coffee shop. Why?”
“Didn’t he have something for me?”
Sophie’s eyes lost their thoughtful intensity. “Yeah, actually. A manila folder with some papers inside.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated. “In my car. What’s in the folder? I haven’t looked.”
“Background history on this building. Prior residents. Ownership. Information that could possibly help us.”
“Will you trust me to go out and get it and come right back?”
“Absolutely not. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I wouldn’t trust me either. It’s not really in my car. I left it in the basement.”