The Jennifer McMahon E-Book Bundle (87 page)

Sam’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. Balancing grocery bags, she unlocked the door and carried everything in. The answering machine was blinking and she pushed
PLAY
, still balancing the groceries in her arms. The first message was from Sam. The tree service he worked for was clearing a lot and he said he’d be home late.

The machine beeped a second time and Franny’s voice came on: “Hey there, Bee. I just wanted to tell you I love you and I’m thinking of you. If you need anything, just call. Oh, and I thought of something you might be interested in. There’s this girl, Becca Reynolds. She was in the same class as me and Sammy. I was kinda friends with her, but mostly because I felt sorry for her. Anyway, she and her brother lived two houses down from Sam and Lisa. They hung out a lot. They moved away just after Lisa disappeared, down to Massachusetts, I think. Anyway, I just ran into Becca the other day—she’s moved back to Vermont and is working in the floral department at Price Chopper over in St. Johnsbury. I thought maybe you and Sam might want to talk to her. Who knows—she might remember something from the time Lisa went missing. As I recall, she was all into the fairy stuff, went around telling everyone that she’d seen the Fairy King herself. Anyway . . . I hope everything goes well tonight. I know it will. Let’s get together soon, huh? Maybe Friday after work? Let me know.”

The third message was from Evie.

“Sam?” said a quavering voice into the machine. “They were here. My place is trashed. They hit me over the head. I’m afraid they’ll be back. I don’t know what to do. If you get this, please—” There was a little wheezing breath, then the line went dead.

Phoebe dropped the grocery bags, grabbed the phone, and punched in Evie’s number. She let it ring twelve times before giving up and trying to get Sam on his cell. It went right to voice mail. “Damn!” she said. Sam had either left his phone in his truck or was out where there was no service. She slammed the phone down and scrawled a quick note to Sam.

            
Love, Bee

CHAPTER 16

Lisa

JUNE 8, FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

A
light bobbed down the path through the woods.

“Lisa? Lisa! Where are you?”

“Here,” she called, her voice small and flat. She clung to the damp stone wall of the cellar hole, watched as the light moved closer.

She’d been unable to move out of the hole since hearing the scream, terrified of what might be out there. But now they were coming to rescue her.

Suddenly the light was in her face. Bright. Blinding. Interrogation light. She put up her hands to shade her eyes.

“Are you okay?” It was Evie’s voice, wheezing and frantic. “We fell asleep. God, I’m so sorry! I heard you scream. That’s what woke me. What happened? Jesus, get the light off her face, Sam.”

Lisa listened to Evie try to catch her breath—she must have run all the way down from the yard.

“It wasn’t me,” Lisa said, putting her hands back down. She looked up and saw Evie and Sam at the edge of the cellar hole, two pale faces peering down, making her feel like a tiger in a pit at the zoo. “I didn’t scream.” Lisa saw that Evie had her hunting knife clenched in her hand.

“Well, who the hell did, then?” Evie asked, sheathing the knife.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell what it came from,” Lisa admitted.

She squinted past her brother and cousin, scanning the dark woods for any sign of movement.

“Fisher, maybe,” Sammy said. “Or an owl.”

“That was no damn owl,” Evie said, sounding a little spooked as she looked around the woods, then back down at Lisa. “Come on. Let’s bug out. Go back to the house.” She held out her hand.

“What’s that?” Sam asked. The beam of the flashlight was pointed at a little nest of cut ferns down in the cellar hole, right beside Lisa. In it, like a strange, misshapen egg, was a cloth bundle wound round and round with string.

“Give me the light!” Lisa said, reaching up.

She scanned the corner and saw that the plate of sweets was empty, the cup drained.

“Damn it!” she snapped. How could she have missed it? She couldn’t believe she’d let herself fall asleep.

She turned the light back down on the ferns and picked up the bundle. The cloth was worn and dirty—white or beige once, now stained brown. The string was thin and waxy.

“Bring it up here,” Evie instructed, holding out her hand to help Lisa out of the hole. “Lemme see,” Evie said, grabbing for the bundle, but Lisa held it tight.

“No,” she said. “I’ll open it.”

Tucking the flashlight between her tilted head and shoulder, Lisa went to work untying the string. Evie moved so that she was toe to toe with Lisa, her head bumping Lisa’s as they both looked down.

“Careful,” Evie warned. Lisa stopped what she was doing, suddenly frightened by what might be inside. More teeth? Some other body part?

What had the scream in the woods been? Was whatever it was still out there, watching?

Pushing the questions from her head, she went back to work untying the strange egg-shaped bundle.

Lisa finally got the string off and slowly opened the stained, worn cloth. Inside was a round silver medal with the words
SAINT CHRISTOPHER PROTECT US
around the edge. In the center was a picture of a man with a staff and beard carrying a child on his back.

“Is he stealing the kid?” Sammy asked, leaning in for a closer look.

“No, dummy,” Evie said. “That’s Christ. Look at the halo. He’s carrying Christ across a river. Don’t you know the story?”

Sammy shook his head.

“This guy, Saint Christopher, he’s the patron saint of travel. You’re supposed to pray to him and stuff when you take a trip. Carrying this is supposed to bring good luck if you get on a plane or a boat or something.”

“How do you know all this?” Lisa asked. No one in their family was even slightly religious. When she’d once asked if she and Sammy had been baptized, her parents had laughed like it was the most ridiculous question in the world. When she told them that Gerald and Pinkie said she wouldn’t get into heaven if she wasn’t baptized, they laughed harder still.

“Not everyone believes in God and heaven,” Da had explained. “The people who do tend to think that they’re right and anyone with different beliefs is wrong.”

“Well then, what do
we
believe?” Lisa asked. Da looked at Lisa’s mom, who smiled.

“That organized religion is the opiate of the masses,” her mom said.

“Huh?” Lisa said.

“That people should be educated enough to make their own choices,” Da said.

Lisa’s mom snorted. “Right,” she said. “I’m sure that’ll happen any day now, honey. And the sky will rain pink lemonade and we’ll have snow made of big, puffy marshmallows.”

L
isa looked down at Saint Christopher, then at Evie. “Well?” she said. “What makes you an expert on saints all of a sudden?” She hated when Evie knew something she didn’t. Lisa was the one who read all the time. Evie got F’s in school, never went to the library.

“I go to church sometimes,” Evie said at last, looking shy about it, like it was a secret and she shouldn’t have told.

Lisa stared up at her, perplexed. She didn’t know what was weirder—the idea of Evie going to church or the fact that Evie had kept this a secret from her.

“What, with your mom?” Lisa asked.

“No,” Evie said. “Don’t say anything to her, huh? She’d kill me. I go by myself. There’s one about two miles from our house. Sometimes I get on my bike and ride down. They have doughnuts after.”

“So what, you’re getting in good with God for doughnuts?”

As soon as she said it, she knew she shouldn’t have. She was just pissed that Evie had kept a secret.

“Forget it,” Evie said. “Let’s just get back to the house.” She turned away and started toward the hill through the darkness. Lisa and Sam followed, Lisa holding the flashlight in one hand, the Saint Christopher medal in the other.

“Well,” Sammy said, as they walked along. “One thing’s for sure—if the medal is supposed to protect you when you travel, it was found by the wrong person. Lisa never goes anywhere.”

At that moment, from the dark woods off to the left, came another voice, a girl’s voice edged with panic.

“Did—did you see him?” They all froze.

Lisa pointed the beam of the flashlight toward the voice and spotted Pinkie, partially hidden behind a tree.

“See who?” Lisa asked.

“The bogeyman,” Pinkie said.

“What do you mean?” Evie asked, moving slowly toward Pinkie, who was cowering behind the tree.

“You stay away from me,” Pinkie said. “You busted Gerald’s arm, you know? We were at the hospital for hours. My mom’s real pissed—she had to miss work and everything. She might get a lawyer and sue your asses off.”

Evie stopped. Took a step back.

“Becca,” Sam said, stepping close enough to touch her, “what are you doing out here? What did you see?”

“I wanted to know. I see you down here all the time. I wanted to know what the big secret was. I watched tonight. I was there at the edge of your yard. I saw Evie go into the woods. Then Lisa. So I waited. Then I came down and saw.”

“Saw what?” Sam asked.

“I’ll take you to where he was,” Pinkie said, pushing off from the tree and walking off to the left, deeper into the woods. They walked in silence for a few minutes, following Pinkie.

There was light up ahead.

“I don’t like this,” Evie said.

Lisa reached out and took Evie’s hand, which was cool and clammy. Evie’s breath whistled in her chest.

Becca led them to a clearing. A pink flashlight was lying on the forest floor casting a beam of dim light, the batteries low.

“He was right here,” Pinkie said, swiveling her head around, squinting into shadows. She reached and picked up her flashlight, giving it a shake, trying to make it brighter.

“Who?” Sammy asked.

“The bogeyman.”

“What did he look like?” Evie asked.

Pinkie was silent a moment, thinking. “Like a man made of shadows,” she said at last.

“What about his face?” Sammy asked.

“He didn’t have a face,” Pinkie said.

Lisa shivered.

“No face,” Evie said. “Right . . .”

“But he was wearing a cap,” Pinkie said.

“A cap?” Sammy asked.

“Yeah, you know, like a baseball cap.”

Evie laughed. “The bogeyman’s a baseball fan, huh? What, does he play shortstop?”

“I know what I saw,
Stevie
,” Pinkie spat. “I screamed, dropped my light, and ran away as fast as I could.”

Lisa nodded, relieved to finally know where the horrible scream had come from.

“Know what I think?” Evie asked. “I think you’re making all this crap up.”

Pinkie didn’t say anything. She picked at her arm, making one of the mosquito bites bleed.

Lisa looked away. Something on the ground behind Sammy caught her eye and she walked slowly over to it.

“Lisa?” Evie called as Lisa moved away from the group, casting her flashlight at the object on the ground. “You find something?”

“No,” Lisa said, her voice sounding small as she forced the lie out. She turned out the flashlight and bent down to pick up the faded, paint-splattered object in the grass. She’d know it anywhere. Lisa hid it under her sweatshirt and walked back to the others, heart racing.

“You okay?” Evie asked, putting a hand on Lisa’s shoulder, making her jump.

She nodded. “I just want to go home.”

“You got it,” said Evie, glancing around the woods. “Let’s bug out before Pinkie the Spy here thinks up any more crazy bullshit.”

Lisa followed them, crossing her arms over the object in her sweatshirt.

It was Da’s Red Sox hat.

CHAPTER 17

Phoebe

JUNE 8, PRESENT DAY

E
vie’s door had been forced open; the wooden frame was splintered as if it had been hit hard with a battering ram. Phoebe took a deep breath, pushed the door in with her fingertips, and saw that the stairs were dark. She groped around for a light switch. Her fingers found one and flicked it. Nothing happened.

She left the stairway and went back to the Mercury, where she grabbed the heavy metal Maglite from the trunk. Sam had put it there along with a few tools, some road flares, and an emergency silver space blanket. Sam believed in being prepared.

“This would sure be a lot easier if you were here,” she mumbled. If she found out later that he was pounding back beers with some of the guys from work while she was out risking her life to save his cousin, she’d kill him.

“Here goes nothing.”

Holding the flashlight with both hands like a weapon, she made her way down the stairs into Evie’s dark cave of an apartment.

Evie hadn’t been exaggerating. The place was trashed—the same interior decorating team who’d visited her house over the weekend had come to Evie’s. A horrible thought occurred to her: Had she and Sam led them here? What if they’d been followed from their house Saturday night?

However they got here, the scene looked all too familiar. Chairs were tipped over, the upholstery sliced open and stuffing pulled out. The television was smashed. Books and papers were scattered. Phoebe found another light switch and tried it: nothing.

“Evie?” Her voice trembled as she called in just above a whisper. “You here?”

Nothing. Not so much as a murmur. Then, all at once, came a roaring sound from above. Phoebe gripped the flashlight like a baseball bat and crouched down, ready to pummel whatever came at her. But there was only the gurgle of water. Someone in the apartment above had flushed the toilet.

Phoebe gave a weak laugh to comfort herself.

Holding the light out in front of her, she made her way through the kitchen, where dishes and glasses lay shattered on cracked linoleum. Then she moved down the hallway. On the left was the bathroom. The shower curtain had been ripped down, the mirror on the medicine cabinet smashed. To her right was what she guessed to be Evie’s bedroom. The door was opened just a crack. It was covered with red paint—not blood, definitely not blood, Phoebe assured herself. It was rough, slapped on in a hurry, but in a second she recognized it. The same symbol Sam found on their car when they made it out of the woods.

Teilo
, Sam had whispered.
The King of the Fairies
.

Phoebe held her breath and gently toed the door open, swinging her body into the door frame, pointing her light like a gun, secretly wishing it was one.

And what was it she thought she’d see? A fairy? Tinker Bell, she could handle. The bastards behind what happened to them at the cabin were another matter. But she saw no movement, no sign of life, human or otherwise.

The mattress was overturned and eviscerated. Feathers from a down comforter covered the floor like fluffy Christmas snow. Magazines and books were scattered, as were clothes. A small chest of drawers stood empty, all the drawers pulled out and smashed to useless splinters. The sliding doors to the closet were closed, and from behind it Phoebe heard a small thump, then a dragging sound.

Phoebe froze, listening.

Her mind flashed to the sounds she would hear at night as a kid, the scuttling and scraping beneath her bed. She’d lie with her head under the pillow using all of her power to try to convince herself that it was just her imagination. Then, eventually, she’d need air and she’d lift the pillow slowly, telling herself that she’d keep her eyes closed, but she always looked. And he was always there. Standing at the foot of her bed.

There was another muffled thud from inside Evie’s closet.

Cold sweat beaded on Phoebe’s forehead.

She used to think it was her mother’s fault. That he only came into houses with drunk mothers who never checked on their daughters; that maybe it was really her mother he was after and he was just waiting for Phoebe to fall asleep so he could go get her ma.

She told herself that maybe it was all just her imagination. Maybe she was going nuts. One time her ma drank so much, she hallucinated cockroaches everywhere. Maybe it was like that.

But she knew it wasn’t true.

And what did she think now, at thirty-five? Now that she was supposed to know better?

There was another thump from inside the closet and Phoebe’s bowels felt icy.

You’re way too old for the bogeyman
, she told herself.

She raised the flashlight, counted to three, and jerked the door open.

Evie was there, crouched on the closet floor among mismatched shoes, dressed only in bra and panties. She still had on the silver chain with the old key dangling from the end. Her lips quivered, and her narrow face was flushed and wet with tears. She had feathers from the comforter in her tangled hair. Her left eye was nearly swollen closed. In her hands she held a small handgun, which was pointed directly at Phoebe’s chest.

Phoebe moved the light out of Evie’s eyes and cast it back at her own face.

“Evie,” she said in her calmest voice, “it’s me, Phoebe. I’m here to help. Put down the gun.”

There was no relieved recognition in the other woman’s eyes. The gun stayed pointed at Phoebe’s chest, the hand that held it trembling.

Phoebe licked her lips, took in a breath. If Evie shot her now, even if it was an accident, she’d be killing two people. What was she thinking coming here? It wasn’t just her life she was putting in danger. What kind of mother-to-be made choices like that?

“They came,” Evie whimpered. “They said they’d be back.”

“Then we better get moving, okay?” Phoebe whispered. “I’m going to take you someplace safe. Just put down the gun and we’ll get you dressed and be on our way, okay?”

Slowly, reluctantly almost, Evie lowered the gun. She looked so broken there, crouched on the closet floor in her underwear. Bones and tendons bulging out, making her look more like a puppet than a flesh-and-blood person. Phoebe held out her hand.

“I’ve got you,” she said, helping Evie up. “You’re safe now.”

“W
here have you been?” Sam demanded. Then, as she walked through the door, his eyes fell on his cousin.

“Evie? What the hell happened?” he asked.

“Didn’t you get my note?” Phoebe asked, pushing past Sam to get some ice from the kitchen. “Didn’t you play the message on the machine?” She wrapped the ice in a clean dish towel.

“I didn’t see any note,” Sam said. “And there were no messages on the machine. I got home an hour ago, saw the groceries still in bags in the kitchen, ice cream melted, and I was worried sick. I tried to get you on your cell, but you left the damn thing on the kitchen counter. I’ve called everyone we know. I was about to call the cops.”

Phoebe came back into the living room and looked for the note, checked the machine, and saw the message had been erased.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“Teilo,” Evie said, shaking her head. “This is all his work.”

Surely no one had come into the house, taken her note, and erased the message. Phoebe must have erased the message herself by accident. And the note . . . shit, there was no explaining the note. She knew damn well she’d left it there.

“I think,” Phoebe said, turning back to Evie, “that you should start at the beginning. Tell us everything that happened. But here,” she said, handing the ice over, “put this on your eye first. Maybe it’ll get some of the swelling down.”

She hadn’t tried to talk to Evie about the attack. She had grabbed Evie some jeans and a T-shirt and got her out of the apartment and on the highway. Evie rode curled up in the backseat in a fetal position, a jacket over her head. Phoebe heard Evie counting backward from one hundred over and over. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see Evie’s whole body trembling under the jacket.

“I was home. Right . . . duh,” Evie said, hitting herself on the head lightly with the hand that wasn’t pressing the dish towel full of ice to her eye. “I’m always home. I mean, where else would I be?” She was still shaky, but less so. She licked her chapped lips and looked around the apartment with her one good eye, which fell on the aquariums. “What the hell’s all this?” she asked. “Lab rats or something?”

“Phoebe’s menagerie,” Sam explained. “Home of the broken and neglected. A biting hedgehog, a one-eyed snake, and a couple of rats no one but Phoebe could love.”

“No shit?” Evie said, stepping toward the tanks. “You’ve really got a hedgehog in there?”

Phoebe nodded. “I’ll introduce you to him later. In the meantime, you were telling us what happened at your place?”

“Right,” Evie said, taking a seat on the couch. “I was watching some crappy infomercial on TV—you know, do our program and you’ll lose thirty pounds, have more self-confidence, and have beautiful people lined up at your door begging for a date. I was sitting in the recliner and must have dozed off. The next thing I know, I open my eyes and it’s dark. No TV. No lights. And I have those heavy curtains on my windows, so it’s not like much daylight is gonna sneak through there.”

Phoebe nodded, remembering how dark the apartment had been, how none of the light switches had worked.

“And the room is . . . full of people.” Evie’s unhurt eye was wide, panicked at the memory.

“How many people?” Sam asked.

“It felt like ten, but it may have been just three or four. I don’t know. They were moving fast. Really fucking fast. Like otherworldly kind of fast.”

Phoebe remembered how fast the old woman had run, shedding clothes and years until she was young.

“So what? Are you saying fairies trashed your place?” Sam asked.

“No,” Evie said, looking down at her ragged fingernails. “These were no fairies. Not like what we saw when we were kids, anyway. No twinkling little lights. These were people. And they meant business. They clobbered the shit out of me before I could get up from the chair. I barely fought back. I was out cold after the second punch. When I came to, I was still in the chair but stripped down to my underwear. And they had all left. Except for one. I heard this voice calling down from the top of the stairs.
We’ll be back
, he says. And I’m thinking, hell no. Then I guess I must have fainted again or something. When I came to, I called you guys. Then I remembered the gun I keep in my closet, inside my left winter boot. I got it just after Elliot was killed—intended to use it to off myself, but I never had the guts. Pathetic, right?” She looked at Phoebe as she said this.

No, Phoebe shook her head. She wanted to take the other woman in her arms, rock her, find a way to fix what was broken.

“Anyway,” Evie said, chewing on a nail, spitting the little sliver she’d bitten off onto the floor, “I crawled into the closet, found the gun right where I’d left it, and just stayed put. I was too terrified to do much else.”

“Did you get a look at any of them?” Sam asked.

“No. It was dark. And like I said, they all moved so fast.”

“What do you think they were after?” Phoebe asked.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, they sure didn’t find it. I can’t go back there. Shit.” She put down the towel of ice and glanced over at Phoebe, her eyes frantic and little-girlish. “What am I going to do?”

“You’ll stay here,” Phoebe told her. “With us. As long as you need. As long as it takes us to get to the bottom of all of this.”

Evie gave her a relieved smile, and Phoebe reached out, took her hand, and squeezed it. Evie’s fingers were bony and cold. “You must be starving,” Phoebe said. “I’ll go fix us all some dinner. Make yourself at home.”

“W
hat were you thinking?” Sam whispered when he came up behind her in the kitchen. Phoebe was putting on water for pasta. “She can’t stay here.”

Phoebe couldn’t believe her ears. She set the pot down, turned up the flame. “She’s your cousin, Sam. She’s got nowhere else to go.”

“But we don’t have room. We hardly know her.” This was not the Sam she knew. The Sam who was happy to let old college friends he hadn’t seen in years crash at their place whenever they were passing through.

Phoebe gave him a puzzled look. “But, Sam—”

“The woman is obviously a fucking basket case,” Sam said.

There was an awkward little coughing sound, and they both turned toward the doorway of the kitchen, where Evie stood, leaning against the frame. Her bony shoulders were hunched, her left eye weepy and swollen.

“You’re right,” she said to Sam, her jaw clenched tight. “I’ll go. I can call my mom. Maybe she can drive down and get me.”

“No,” Phoebe said quickly. “You’ll stay with us. We could use your help trying to make sense of all this. You were there that summer.”

She wasn’t letting go of this link to Sam’s past. Evie was the one person other than Sam who might have some actual insight into what happened to Lisa. And the truth of it was, she really liked Evie. She wanted to get to know her, to help her. Evie didn’t have anyone else, and Phoebe remembered all too well what that was like. Before Sam, she didn’t have anyone. Not anyone who could be counted on.

“This Teilo guy seems to think you’re connected, Evie,” Phoebe went on. “We all seem to have something he wants. We’ve got to band together if we’re going to get our heads around all of this.” She looked at Sam, but he looked away, opened the fridge, then slammed the door shut.

“You forgot to buy beer,” he said. “I’ll go get some.” He stomped out of the kitchen, looking neither Evie nor Phoebe in the eye.

“Sam?” Phoebe called, but she heard the front door close. Then the engine of his truck started in the driveway.

“Son of a bitch,” Phoebe mumbled. She couldn’t believe Sam would act this way. Not sure of what else to do, she turned back to the cooking, grabbing an onion from the hanging basket above the sink. He’d never walked out on her like that. This is exactly what she would have expected from the other guys she used to date—the lowlifes whose big idea of communication was asking if she wanted to get high first or just go straight for the bedroom.