It was one of the cats. As motionless as a piece of sculpture, it sat at the end of the hallway, in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror that covered the wall. It observed him quietly.
“Damn thing,” he said. “Why don’t you go away?”
The cat stared at him.
He ignored the feline and began to explore the house. It was vast, with eleven bedrooms, almost as many bathrooms, and a couple of dozen other rooms and sitting areas. Every room was immaculate and stylishly furnished with high-end, contemporary furniture and the latest and greatest technological gadgets.
It was as if Mika had discovered the blueprint for his dream home and brought it to magnificent life.
But it’s not real,
a voice whispered.
You had a glimpse of the truth before you blacked out . . . this place isn’t what it appears to be . . .
But everything he touched felt real; the jasmine in the air smelled real; and everything he saw was colorful and brand new, indisputably real.
Two things, however, captured his attention.
One: although there were numerous telephones, none of them had a dial tone. All of them issued only dead silence, as if they were mere props in a model house.
Two: a closer look at the oil paintings revealed that he and Mika were the featured subjects of each one. One work depicted them lying together in a grassy meadow under a summer sun, on the verge of a kiss. Another showed them riding a galloping black horse across a flowery countryside, her hands wrapped around his waist and her face pressed against his neck. Yet another piece had them sitting at a banquet table laden with fruit, feeding each other white grapes.
There were dozens of other paintings, but no matter the setting, the tone of all of them was the same: the celebration of a passionate romance.
She had created these works herself. On their first date, she’d told him that she was a painter. She was talented, imaginative.
But looking at the paintings made his stomach sour. Her obsession with him knew no limits.
I have to get out of here.
Downstairs in the foyer, he grasped the knob of the front door and twisted.
Surprisingly, the door opened. Cool, damp air drifted inside, carrying the sounds of nighttime creatures.
He thought of running out of the house, and dismissed the idea. She’d secured the boundaries with some kind of weird magic. Why waste more energy running in vain?
He had to accept the truth.
He was trapped. In a luxurious prison.
Mika awaited him at the crest of the staircase. One of the cats lounged on the balustrade, furry tail caressing her arm.
“Enjoy your walk?” she asked.
“My father said that he heard voices when he came here,” he said. “Screams, footsteps—ghosts in torment, I guess. What happened to them?”
Her lips curled in disdain. “Those dreadful things would only distress you, baby. I’ve shielded you from them.”
“Have you shielded me from anything else? Like the dust and junk I thought I saw around here, right before I passed out?”
“Dust and junk?” She spoke the words as if they tasted foul in her mouth. She swept her arm around them. “Do you see any of that, Andrew?”
“No, but I did, for a second.”
She smiled. “Are you certain that you weren’t dreaming?”
He shook his head. He wasn’t certain of anything anymore.
“Where’s the attic?” he asked.
“Why do you want to know?” Her gaze was sharp.
“Just curious. Place this big has to have an interesting attic, right?”
“Hmm. Curiosity can be dangerous. For your own safety, I’ve hidden the upper chamber.”
“Sounds like you’ve hidden a lot from me.”
“Does it? I apologize, but it is only to keep you happy. May I ask you a question?”
He shrugged.
She touched his cheek. By sheer force of will he kept himself from pushing her away. He was on her turf. Pissing her off wouldn’t help him.
“Do you remember our love?” she asked.
“No.”
“Still?” She slipped her hand into the kimono’s voluminous front pocket, fingered something there. “Remember how I promised to show you proof of our romance?”
“You said something about that, I think.” What craziness was she going to bring out this time?
“Here it is.” She dug something out of her pocket: a thick, worn, leather-bound diary. She handed it to him.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Open it.”
He turned the brass latch on the diary, opened it.
The journal’s ruled pages were yellowed, filled with elegant writing that could only be Mika’s.
“Read the letters,” she said.
Near the middle of the diary, he found a bundle of folded, age-softened papers. He unfurled one of them.
It was a letter, the careful penmanship—different from the cursive writing in the diary, somehow more masculine—done in dark ink. It was addressed to, “Celestina, My Love.”
“Celestina was my birth name,” she said.
He started to read.
By the time he reached the end of the page, his hands shook badly.
“You see?” Mika said. She smirked. “Proof, baby.”
“This can’t be real,” he said. “You’ve made this up, had this forged or something.”
“They’re one hundred percent genuine, darling. I kept those letters because they kept you alive in my heart—and I knew you would come back to me one day, too. I wanted to have them as evidence to help you remember.”
“This is bullshit.”
“All of your running, all of your hiding from our love . . . see how pointless it was? You’ve always been mine, before you ever had any inkling of the truth—”
“Listen, this is bullshit!”
“Stop resisting the truth, honey—” She reached out to touch him.
He ran away from her. Bolted into the room across the hall: his so-called office. He slammed the door.
His legs felt weak. As if he were on the brink of passing out again. He dropped into the leather desk chair and drew deep breaths, to regain his bearings.
He clutched the diary and its unbelievable letters in his clammy hands. He wanted to throw it into a fire. But he couldn’t. Because if she were right . . .
“Can’t be,” he said to himself. He shook his head, fat beads of sweat streaming down his face.
“Can’t be.”
He would deny it forever. Accepting his connection to the letters was unthinkable.
She knocked on the door. “Let me in, Andrew. I know it’s hard to accept the truth. But please don’t shut me out like this.”
Tensed, he sat still. He half expected the door to blow open. This was her lair, and she could do whatever she desired.
But she didn’t force her way inside.
Was she trying some kind of reverse psychology tactic on him?
He waited another minute. Looked around the room anew.
If he ever got away from here and had an opportunity to build a dream home, his office would look nothing like this one. The fantasy had been ruined for him.
Finally, he rose. He opened the door.
He frowned.
Mika had vanished. Her loyal cat had departed, too.
At the end of the hallway, the long mirror rippled, like the surface of a lake. Then, it solidified.
The house was tomb-silent.
His frown deepened.
Something was going on.
Chapter 58
A
s the shovel whistled through the air on a direct course for Raymond’s head, someone pushed Raymond out of the deadly blade’s path.
He fell on his behind on the wet grass, the impact rattling through his pelvis.
A vortex of coldness spun around him.
Sammy
. The kid had knocked him down—and saved his life.
“You have no business here,” Walter said. He raised the shovel, preparing for a mighty downward swing.
Raymond grabbed the axe and logrolled across the ground.
Walter slammed the shovel against the earth in the spot that Raymond had vacated only a second ago, divots flying into the air and spraying the legs of a nearby goddess statue.
Raymond bounded to his feet.
He saw two bodies—Eric and Carmen—lying at the rim of a half-dug grave, like statues that had yet to be erected on bases.
Dear God. They were only kids.
Acid-hot grief boiled up his throat, and he choked it down. He didn’t have time to get emotional. Allowing himself to lose focus would land his body next to theirs.
He brandished the axe like a baseball bat.
His steel-gray hair flopping on his head like a bad wig, Walter grunted and yanked the shovel out of the earth. He grinned, showing huge, straight white teeth that seemed misplaced in his weathered, walnut-brown face.
“I’ll dig a hole for you next,” Walter said. He came at Raymond, swinging.
The shovel sliced through the air. Moving away, Raymond almost slipped in the grass, but narrowly avoided the blade’s swooping arc.
He swung the axe. Walter whipped the shovel toward him at the same time. The blades clashed together with a
clang
, the vibration rattling through Raymond’s hands so violently that the axe jumped out of his fingers.
As he dove to the ground to retrieve the weapon, Walter struck his shoulder with the back of the shovel. Agony exploded through Raymond’s arm. Crying out, he dropped onto the grass on his side.
“Too slow, old man,” Walter said.
Tears of pain almost blinding him, Raymond rolled, found the axe, scrambled forward on all fours.
Move your ass, Ray. Ignore the pain and move.
In his mind’s eye, he saw a terrible vision: Walter splitting his head open like a cantaloupe, his brains splattering the ground . . .
Don’t think about that, Ray, don’t you dare.
He crawled behind a thick maple tree. Using the trunk for support, he slid upward, until he was on his feet again. Gritted his teeth as intense pain fanned through his shoulder.
He saw graves around him, marked not by headstones, but by clumps of summer flowers. Dozens of them, grouped around the boxwoods and statues. To anyone else, it might have appeared to be only an oddly arranged garden. But because of the insight his dreams had given him, he
knew
what lay only a few feet beneath the surface.
I’ll be damned if it’s my time to die. I’m not gonna be buried here.
His face a visage of fury, Walter thundered toward him. He swung the shovel at Raymond’s head.
Raymond ducked out of the way.
The shovel thwacked against the tree, bit deep into the bark. Walter struggled to dislodge it.
Recognizing his opportunity, Raymond lifted the axe and brought it down on Walter’s arm.
The axe cleaved through as if his limb were made of balsa wood.
Roaring, Walter fell to his knees. Blood spouted from his severed arm. He stared at it, stupefied.
Raymond froze, too. Stunned at the savage act he’d committed. Warm blood dripped down the axe handle, colored his fingers. He looked at the blood on his hand with an almost childish awe.
Shit, did I really do this? Did I really have to do this . . .
Walter forced himself to his feet. No weapon in his remaining hand, eyes afire, he lunged at Raymond like a rabid dog.
Raymond’s conscience quieted and his survival instinct took over.
He stepped back like a baseball slugger and heaved the weapon toward Walter in a powerful arc.
The axe lopped off Walter’s head with sickening, fluid ease.
The caretaker’s decapitated body crashed to the ground. It writhed against the grass, legs kicking.
Raymond jammed his fist in his mouth to stem the urge to vomit.
Walter’s head lay on its side, at the feet of a statue of Athena. The eyes blinked rapidly, like some macabre kewpie doll. The gaze honed in on Raymond. Hate burned in those eyes—eyes that should’ve been unblinking and dead.
He was still alive. God in heaven, how?
Walter’s torso twisted onto its stomach. Using its good arm, it crawled toward the head.
Raymond understood, with dreadful clarity, what was going to happen.
Walter was going to pull himself together. Like some horrific Humpty Dumpty.