The Piper (18 page)

‘The name I saw on the Waverly web cam? She said that?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Is that what she meant tonight when she was talking to Jamison about
you know who
?'

Olivia nodded.

‘Because I have to tell you, that was kind of weird.'

‘She's so convincing when she talks about this stuff. I can't tell now when she's lying or telling the truth.'

‘The thing is, Olivia, she was right in the next room. She probably overheard us talking. My take is that her little cousins planted this Duncan Lee, ghost creepy thing in Teddy's head. And my guess is she sort of believes it and she sort of doesn't. Anything can seem real if you concentrate on it too much. Look, do you have good health insurance?'

‘Minimal. And I'm going to have to move her off Hugh's and on to mine, but at least I've got it.'

‘Has Teddy been having any headaches, visual disturbances? Her appetite is normal, she's eating okay?'

Olivia fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. Her stomach was too nauseated for her to actually drink. She hadn't even gotten the Advil down. ‘Nothing like that, other than that night she got really sick, and we wound up in the ER.'

‘I think you should take her to a psychologist, Livie. Someone who specializes in children.'

‘Yeah, Amelia, but you know that's going to get her labeled, and go on her health records, and cause her all kinds of problems later on. That's what happened to me and Chris.'

‘Not if you handle it right. Describe the problems as anxiety and school phobia. Those are typical childhood problems that won't put up red flags. Do you know anybody? Because I can ask around, but most of my contacts are in California.'

‘I do know somebody, yes.'

‘Is she good?'

‘
He
. Yes, he's good, if he's still in practice. He's the guy Chris and I talked to, after Emily disappeared. When my family was having so much trouble.'

Amelia put her head in her hands. ‘Look, I'm exhausted, I need to go back up to bed. But why don't we do this. You get Teddy off to school tomorrow, like usual, and I'll sleep in. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll go and pick her up – make sure you tell her it will be me there, okay? Let's not spring anything on her at the last minute. That way I can spend some time with her, one on one. We'll go shopping, go out to this Long's place you guys keep talking about and get ice cream. Oh hell, I don't have a car.'

‘You can have mine. My office is just around the corner, I can walk.'

‘Walk? This from the woman who has extreme claustrophobia, but still takes the elevator rather than climb the stairs?'

‘I'll walk, Amelia, it's not that far.'

‘Okay, then. Be sure you make that appointment with the shrink. Especially after what happened at the hospital, with that Dr McClintock. She called my office, and checked up on you, Olivia, did I tell you that?'

‘God. No, you didn't.'

‘The bottom line here, Livie, is that you need to get Teddy in counseling for two reasons. One she really needs it, and two, you need to cover your ass. If that McClintock bitch took the step of calling my office, then there's an official record of what happened. So now there's a paper trail. You need to be seen as being a proactive, careful mom. Look, I'm dead on my feet, I'm heading up to bed. But before I head up, pull out your laptop and google that name, will you? Decan Ludde, wasn't it? I want to know if maybe Teddy is pulling stuff off the Internet.'

Olivia hunched over the laptop and keyed
Decan Ludde
into the search engine. Waited. Squinted at the screen. ‘How weird. Look what came up. The Pied Piper of Hamelin.'

‘That kid story?'

Olivia's fingers trembled over the keyboard. She began to read, bit her lip, and looked up at Amelia. ‘OK. So evidently
The Pied Piper
was more than just some poem by Robert Browning. It was based on an actual event in Hamelin, Germany during the Middle Ages. When a whole village of children disappeared.'

Amelia grabbed Olivia's shoulder. ‘But isn't that what your brother said in his phone call? You told me that, didn't you? That he paid the piper, so everything would be OK.'

‘Yeah. Amelia, did I tell you what they're doing for Teddy's third grade play?
The Pied Piper
. Teddy's going to be a rat, she brought home the school instructions for her costume this week.'

‘Take it easy, Livie, it's just a fairy tale.'

‘Is it? Really? Maybe Charlotte has a point. She won't let Annette be in the play.'

‘But doesn't it say anything about what happened to those kids? Surely somebody has theories.'

Olivia scrolled the computer screen. ‘There's a theory that the Pied Piper was a psychopathic pedophile, kidnapping children and using them in
unspeakable ways
. Some of them were found dismembered and scattered, or hanging from the branches of trees. Or were never seen again.'

‘So what they're saying is the Pied Piper of Hamelin was a serial killer? Why did it come up for that name, Decan Ludde?'

Olivia rubbed her forehead. ‘Decan Ludde of Hamelin, 1384. It looks like he may or may not have been a
priest
. They can't trace him. But he supposedly had some kind of chorus book with a Latin verse giving an eyewitness account of what happened. There was a stained glass window in the church in Hamelin, circa 1300 – evidently a sort of memorial.' She frowned at the keyboard. ‘Oh, God. Listen to this – it's in the town chronicles from 1384. “It is ten years since our children left.”'

‘
That sounds so sad. And so creepy.'

‘Put the pieces together, Amel. The Pied Piper is all about making deals. That's why they call it
paying the piper
. So Chris and Jamison and Bennington go to this haunted sanatorium the night before their wrestling match. They go into the Death Tunnel where all the bodies went, back when it was an active hospital. And in the most haunted place in America, this Death Tunnel is where they went. The center of paranormal activity.'

Amelia sat back down, staring out the window into the night. ‘The next day they each win every match in their wrestling competition. They all get scholarships.'

‘Right. They get what they ask for. And then Jamison has his car accident and suffers this closed head injury, so for Jamison the scholarship becomes nothing more than a cruel joke.'

‘And your brother Chris?'

‘Comes home in happy triumph only to find his sister has disappeared.'

‘Because they have to pay the piper,' Amelia whispered.

‘Right. And afterwards, my brother, Chris, is wracked with guilt, like somehow it's all his fault. And he won't take that scholarship. Like maybe he doesn't deserve it. Or it's tainted.'

‘So what are you telling me here, Livie? That all of them made some kind of deal with this Decan Ludde thing, whatever it is?'

‘Look at the pattern, Amel. Say my brother made a deal, all those years ago, and learns a hard lesson. He gets what he wants but the price is too high. Then he leaves this thing he attracted somehow at the Waverly, whatever it is, he leaves it alone. But then. Then his little girl, Janet, is deathly ill.'

Amelia put a hand to her chin. ‘So he's a desperate father who will do anything to save his daughter. You're saying he made another deal.'

‘Look how it played out. Janet is suddenly okay, but Chris doesn't sleep, he loses sixty pounds, he has nightmares and can't sleep. He makes his family move out of the house.'

‘He's afraid.'

‘Right. He knows he's going to have to
pay
. Which is exactly what he told me in the phone call. He had to pay the piper.'

‘I wonder what happened to the Bennington guy,' Amelia said. ‘Do you think Charlotte knows any details about him?'

‘I think she knows more than she's said.'

Amelia put a hard hand on Olivia's shoulder. ‘You might want to keep some distance between you and this sister-in-law, Livie. Remember, all of this started up when this was
her
house.'

‘That won't be a problem. She treats Teddy and I like we're . . . infected.'

‘Yeah. But Teddy picked up a lot of nasty ideas from that cousin of hers. Maybe they're the ones infected. Not you.'

F
or the first time since Livie had come home to Knoxville, she was able to clear her mind and concentrate on work. Having Amelia at the house made things better. Amelia was smart, and practical, she loved Teddy like her own, and she had a way of tackling problems that made them seem doable. Olivia did not feel so alone.

If Amelia thought that Teddy was going through a normal phase of adjustment, then Olivia would ride it out. It was parenting. It was life.

The day got off to a wobbly start when Olivia's assistant called in sick. Olivia had three morning appointments stacked one after the other, and she made a pot of coffee, her thoughts jumping from a tally of the commissions she was going to need to make her bills this month, to kissing McTavish on the front porch the night before, to imagining Amelia and Teddy having ice cream at the soda fountain at Long's.

But the office was more cheerful without Robbie's air of disapproval and Olivia relaxed and let the phones go to voice mail. One of the clients, a retired elderly teacher, had a windfall from a lottery ticket, and she wanted to invest.

‘You ought to travel and have some fun,' Olivia told her.

But the woman shook her head. ‘I'll be getting some new curtains for the kitchen. But I want a safe little nest egg for my grandchildren. Do you think I should play the market with all that short selling stuff?'

‘No, ma'am, I think we should find you some safe and boring bonds or a guaranteed annuity.'

‘That was a test question, young lady. You are now officially hired.'

Olivia's lunch hour came and went with no time to eat, but by two the clients had left satisfied and she had miraculously made her sales quota for another month. Time to savor the moment. She closed her office door, leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, and had an entire ninety seconds of peace before the bells jangled on the front door. She reluctantly slid back into her shoes and stuck her head around the corner of her office, thinking she smelled pizza.

McTavish was heading toward her down the little hallway, smiling, hair mussed from the wind and a Red Onion pizza box under one arm. He wore gray flannel trousers and a French blue oxford shirt with white cuffs.

‘I took a chance you might be free for lunch,' he said, then put the pizza box on the front counter and looked at her over one shoulder. He was giving her that half smile he had, and Olivia wondered if she'd been on his mind that morning as much as he'd been on hers.

Olivia flipped the
Open
sign to
Closed
and locked the front door. ‘My stomach was growling so much during my last appointment I had to keep scooting my chair around to cover up the noise. I'm glad to see you. Come on back. I've got coffee, bottles of water, and Coke.'

‘Coke it is.'

McTavish had put the pizza box on the side table next to her desk and was hanging his jacket over the back of a chair as she came out of the little kitchenette with two icy red cans of Coke. She could see the gun, holstered at his back. He took the cans out of her hand, and set them on the desk, then pulled her close and moved closer still to kiss her.

‘I've been thinking about you all morning,' he said, voice low in her ear.

Olivia sighed as he planted nibbling little kisses up and down her neck. She pushed in closer, and kicked her shoes off. McTavish sucked her lower lip gently into his mouth and ran his hands down her back, then lifted her skirt.

‘
Christ
,' he said, running a finger around the lacy top of her stockings.

He lifted her off her feet, and sat her on the edge of the desk, pushing her skirt up and out of the way, and pressing close, kissing her again, one hand moving up under her sweater and the other moving between her thighs.

‘Oh shit, McTavish.'

‘Oh shit yes, or oh shit no?'

‘Oh shit yes.' Olivia caught her lip in her teeth, wondering if he was going to do that thing he used to do. She touched him through the cloth of his trousers, and began to unbuckle his belt.

He had her bra unfastened, and the sweater up and over her head, and cupped her breasts in his hands as he put his head between her legs. Olivia bit the edge of the collar of his shirt, leaving little teeth marks where the point of the collar was securely buttoned down. She grabbed hold of his shoulders and shut her eyes tight, and he wrapped his arms around her waist so she could give herself over to the excruciating sweetness of the sensations that rippled like tiny little shocks making her legs tremble.

He grabbed her suddenly, roughly, and pulled her off the desk, turning her so he could take her from behind, thrusting and pulling out slowly, one arm around her stomach pulling her in hard and tight.

‘This is really good pizza,' Olivia said. ‘What's in the other box?'

‘Baklava.'

They were sitting side by side with their backs to the desk, clothes back on but with the kind of telltale tangles and creases that could lead to speculation from coworkers.

McTavish rooted through the pizza box for another slice. ‘You know that sweater you had on last night is pretty irresistible. I lay awake half the night thinking about you taking it off.'

‘Really? What about the sweater I have on now. You don't like this one?'

‘I thought it was the same sweater.'

Olivia winced and shifted sideways, reaching under her leg for whatever it was that was causing her pain, coming up with a white plastic fork. ‘So this is a baklava slash pizza joint?'

McTavish nodded, chewing thoughtfully. ‘Pretty much. They deliver, by the way, and they're just a couple of blocks from your house. Jamison and I order out there all the time. Oh, hey.' He reached into his pocket. ‘I got some information for you. You know that guy you asked me to check out last night? That old buddy of your brother's? That Bennington guy?' He handed her a scrap of paper from a memo pad. ‘Background check looks fine, he's married, got a couple kids. Here's his phone number. I called a couple times around noon, but no luck.'