Within These Walls (23 page)

31

L
UCAS SAT ON
the stairs with his cell phone plastered to his ear and his thumbnail between his teeth, listening to the pause of unsure silence on Mark’s end of the line. Eventually, his friend spoke.

“So, it just . . . moved?”

“Yes, it just moved.”

“And you heard the door open and shut before this happened?”

Lucas closed his eyes, squeezed the bridge of his nose. He knew it was a hard story to swallow, but repeating the details wasn’t going to make it seem any saner. He decided to ride out Mark’s inquiry without a response.

“And Jeanie knows . . .” Mark said, sounding like he was talking more to himself than to Lucas. “Then the neighbor chick brought you some stuff and somehow that means you
can’t
move?”

“It means that if we move, I might lose her as a lead.”

Another pause, this one a lot longer.

“Dude.” Mark sounded baffled. “You realize that if you don’t move you might lose your
kid,
right?”

“Jeanie doesn’t want to move.”

“Forget what
Jeanie
wants, what’s Caroline going to say if she finds out? Imagine how that’s going to look in court.”

“You mean it’ll be worse than it’s already going to be?” Lucas emitted a dry laugh. “So it’s either I stay, write the book, and make some cash so I have a shot at keeping my kid, or quit, spiral
into abject poverty, and lose my kid for sure? Oh, the
options
, my friend.”

“Okay.” Mark relented. “I hear you. But . . . maybe you should at least get an alarm.”

“Yeah? With what money?”

“Lou, you saw someone wandering around outside and it
wasn’t
your neighbor.”

“I don’t know if it was or if it wasn’t. It was dark. I was inside. There was a glare on the kitchen window.”

“But there was definitely someone there?”

“Of course there was someone there,” Lucas hissed, trying to keep his voice down to not wake Jeanie. “Of
course
there was.”

Mark went quiet.

“I’m sorry, I’m
sorry,
I’m just—”

“You’re freaking out,” Mark said. “As you should be. But it still doesn’t make sense, Lou. You hear the door open, or close, or
whatever.
You walk out of the kitchen to the front door, check the lock, hear something—”

“Laughter. It was fucking
laughter
, like two girls yukking it up next to the refrigerator or something. The sound came from the kitchen. I
know
it did.”

“Okay, but even if there
were
two chicks in your house and they were able to miraculously sneak in without you seeing them, how the hell do they move a table and four chairs into the middle of the living room without making a goddamned sound? And how do they do that in, what, five seconds? I mean, they’d have to have been right behind you. You’d have to have gotten up out of your seat, turned your back, and they were lifting the damn thing off the floor before you ever set foot out of the kitchen.”

Lucas ran his hand across his mouth. It didn’t make sense. It was an impossible goddamn feat. And yet the kitchen table was still
there, front and center in the living room. It was no figment of his imagination. He could dance on top of it if he wanted to.

“You don’t think it’s . . .” Mark hesitated, then cleared his throat. “You know, something else . . . ?”

“What, something else?”

“You know, like, the house.”

He knew it was coming. Of course. The house. The superstition. The fact that when people die in a place, that place may be haunted, if places could even
be
haunted.

“Is that a yes or a no? I mean, how else do you explain it?”

Lucas said nothing. There was no explanation. That was the problem.

“Lou?” Mark sounded wary. “Hey, listen, maybe you and Jeanie should come up to Seattle. We’ll go to Pike Place, watch fishmongers toss giant tunas back and forth at each other. Hell, I’ll even pay our way up to the top of the Space Needle. We’ll have a grand old time, man. Because if there
is
something to be worried about, better safe than sorry, right? Especially when there’s a kid involved. You don’t have to call it a move . . . just, you know, an extended visit.”

“Yeah.” Except Lucas couldn’t leave. He had work to do. He had a million questions he wanted to ask Echo, and he couldn’t do that from up north.
He’d finally caught a break, and was determined to ride it out like a ball bearing in a Rube Goldberg machine.

But Mark was right—it would be good for Jeanie to get away. He wouldn’t have to worry about someone crawling through a window and getting to her while he was downstairs. That, and he could lock himself away 24-7 and work until he finished this book. A little less guilt. A little less of feeling like a worthless bastard.

“I can’t go, but if you guys wouldn’t mind taking Jeanie for a bit. At least that way I can figure out what the hell is going on around here.”

“Lou . . .” Mark didn’t sound happy. “If Michael Myers is wandering around Pier Pointe looking for Camp Crystal Lake, he’s not going to give a shit if you’re a dad or not. He’s going to chop your goddamn head off regardless. Besides, you can use my computer room. It has a door. You can close it. Nobody’s going to mind.”

“It’ll screw me up,” Lucas insisted. “Besides, if a serial killer comes knocking on the front door, it’ll give me more material.” Gallows humor. What else was there to do but to laugh?

Mark didn’t find it funny. There was a beat of silence, then a resolute sigh from his end of the line. “Fine. I’m at work until four tomorrow, but Selma will be here. I’ll tell her to expect you. But I still think it’s crazy for you to stay there if there’s a chance something weird is going on, be it an intruder or a fucking ghost.”

Except that if it was a ghost, it was the best reason in the world to stay.

If it
really
was a ghost, there was no doubt in his mind it was connected to Jeffrey Halcomb, to the kids who had taken their own lives in his name.

It’s not a ghost.

Yeah, probably not. But it was a damn good angle—one that would potentially sell a whole lot of books.

TWIN HARBORS METAPHYSICAL GROUP

CASE FILE:
091501

DATE:
09/15/01

ADDRESS:
101 Montlake Road, Pier Pointe, WA

CLASSIFICATION:
Private Residence

REQUESTING PARTY:
Giana Lodi

COMPLAINT:
Resident complains of shadow people, seeing movement, misplaced items, rooms appearing “different,” disembodied voices, possible full-bodied apparitions, feelings of being touched.

TESTS PERFORMED:
EVP, EMF, video surveillance, motion detection, thermal scan, traditional séance, night vision photography.

INVESTIGATORS:
Mallory Leonard, Craig Erickson, Genevieve Lajounesse, Ella Hammond.

FINDINGS:
Some static photographs show signs of orbs or orb-like figures. Consistent EMF spikes picked up in various parts of the house, which suggests possible wiring issues, not paranormal entities. Possible laughter on EVP recording (tape 5, 01:34:21), but faint and hard to make out. Nothing on video surveillance or motion detection. Temperature remained between 68–71 degrees Fahrenheit. Séance resulted in multiple instances of feeling a presence by both Genevieve and Ella, but EMF remained steady throughout the sitting. No evidence of items being moved.

CONCLUSION:
While results are inconclusive, the house has a history of violence and multiple deaths (see note re: Montlake
Massacre of ’83). Resident has been encouraged to reach out to us again if she experiences anything new. Resident has started using pine branches and needles to protect against dark spirits. When asked about this particular method, resident stated it made her “feel safer,” though she wasn’t sure as to why. THMG suspects possible haunting, but has no conclusive evidence at this time.

32

L
UCAS EVENTUALLY MOVED
the table and chairs back into the kitchen after hanging up with Mark. He then worked through the entire night scribbling questions he had for Echo and Josh ­Morales—if the guy ever called him back—rather than going to bed. He did this in the kitchen rather than his study, with lights burning bright above his head. The table had left him properly spooked, and he’d spent a good part of the evening checking the windows and doors for possible points of entry.

He hadn’t been able to find anything that even came close to explaining how a few girls could get inside without him knowing, but it didn’t change the fact that they had. He left himself a note on the kitchen table to call an alarm company first thing in the morning. Money be damned, he’d rather rack up more debt than end up dead.

His head hit the pillow at a little after five in the morning, his brain swimming with interview questions and worries about trespassers. He thought about Caroline and Italy, recalling memories of their less-than-perfect honeymoon—the way they had to stand at every café they came across because the place wanted to charge them to sit; how they had eaten gelato after gelato, unable to pick their favorite flavor; how they had almost lost each other in a mass of people while the pope puttered by in his bulletproof golf cart.

When sleep refused to come, he went back down to the kitchen and continued to work. By the time Jeanie came downstairs a lit
tle after nine a.m., Lucas felt as though he could have fallen asleep where he sat.

He watched her walk to the fridge without so much as a hello. There was something skittish about the way she moved, as if trying not to wake something that Lucas couldn’t see. When their eyes finally met, she gave him a bland look—annoyed, as though his mere presence put her off.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she muttered, pulled open the refrigerator door, and slid a gallon of milk onto the kitchen island. Lucas remained silent as she retrieved a bowl from one of the cabinets and fished out a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from the pantry. Wordlessly, she fixed herself a bowl of cereal. Rather than joining him at the kitchen table, she stood at the island to eat. Lucas frowned.

“What’s up, Jeanie?”

She glared at him and he immediately remembered her pretty blue blouse. He looked down at his coffee cup.

“I’m sorry about yesterday, kid,” he told her. “I got caught up.”

She replied by crunching a mouthful of cereal.
Story of your life, Dad.

“We’re going to go up to Seattle today, okay? We can do whatever you want. I’m taking the day off.”

Jeanie arched an eyebrow upward, looking dubious. The bruise beneath her right eye was nearly gone, having shifted from a wounded purple to an odd shade of yellowish green.

“I’m serious,” he said. “We can go as soon as you’re ready, but pack a bag. You’re going to stay with Mark and Selma for a few days.”

She stood motionless for a moment, her face a puzzle of confusion.

“It’ll be fun.” He tried to play it up, gave her a smile that was supposed to be jovial but felt entirely stupid. “Selma will—”

“Oh,
right
,
Dad!” The words exploded from her throat. She shoved her cereal bowl away. Tiny toasts rode a wave of milk over the rim of her bowl, splashing across the counter. “Now you’re sending me away?”

“Jeanie, I’m not—”

“You are!” Her fists hit the Formica top.

“Jeanie,
stop.
” He gave her a stern look. “I’m not sending you away. You said you didn’t want to move and we’re
not
—”

“Well,
good.
” She cut him off. “That means I
don’t
have to stay at Uncle Mark’s, doesn’t it? We’re not moving, so I’ll just stay
home
.”

“No, kid. I need to get some stuff done and it would be—”

“Better?” Jeanie narrowed her eyes just enough to resemble her mother. He half expected her to do an about-face and stomp through the kitchen and back up to her room. But rather than fleeing the way she normally did, she stared down at the island as if in thought, as though trying to reel it in for once. “What kind of stuff?” she finally asked, and while she was trying to play it cool, he could see the muscles of her jaw clenching from across the room.

“Work stuff.”

“I thought you were giving up,” she murmured.

“I thought so, too. But you convinced me to reconsider.”

Jeanie lifted a hand, rubbed at the fading bruise beneath her eye, and sighed. “Well, either way, I’m not staying at Uncle Mark’s.”

“Jeanie . . .”

“No, listen, Dad,” she said, her face going rigid with determination. “You want to make it up to me? Don’t make me stay over there.”

“What’s wrong with Uncle Mark’s?” Lucas asked, confused by her adamant refusal.

“I just don’t want to stay there, okay? What’s the big deal?”

“Even after . . .” He paused, not wanting to say it. Jeanie shook her head at him and scooped another spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“It’s just a
house
.”

Except he didn’t want Jeanie there, not with what had happened the night before. But if he refused Jeanie’s request, there would be a battle. When it came to emotions, Jeanie took after Caroline. She was explosive, sometimes irrational. There would be screaming, probably some crying. She had a difficult time listening to reason, no matter what the circumstance. His gaze paused on the phone number he’d scribbled onto a Post-it Note tacked to the surface of the kitchen table. If he could get an alarm guy out there today, maybe he’d stop stressing so much, actually be able to get some work done.

“
Maybe
,” he told her. Jeanie’s expression brightened for once. He grabbed his phone, ready to call the number and see how quickly the alarm place could do the job, but before he could dial, his cell buzzed in the palm of his hand. He peered at the bright screen, which displayed an unknown number, answered.

“Hello?”

Jeanie grabbed her bowl and left the kitchen. A moment later, the sound of the television cut through the otherwise quiet house.

“Hi, Lucas?” A male voice, a slight Hispanic accent.

“Speaking.”

“It’s Josh,” the voice said. “Josh Morales from Lambert Correctional.”

Lucas blinked at the unexpected but welcome call.

“Hey! . . . Yeah, how’s it going?” Lucas asked. “Thanks for calling me back.”

“Nah, don’t mention it. Sorry it took me so long, man. What can I do you for?”

Lucas turned his attention away from the living room and looked
back to his cup of lukewarm coffee. “I was wondering if we could set up a meeting; you, me, and possibly your friend Eperson if he’s interested. I thought we could talk about Halcomb, just your experiences with him as a guard at the facility.”

“He’s interested,” Morales said. “I talked to him the afternoon you left, told him who you were. He bought your book the next day, the one about Ramirez.”

But of course.

“Well, I’d like to thank him if he’ll let me. I can drive up to Lambert, meet you guys at your favorite place to eat, buy you two a few beers, some lunch.”

“Sounds good, but that’s why I’m calling,” Morales said. “Marty—uh, Eperson—he just had a family emergency come up. He’s going out of town and he’s not sure how long he’ll be gone. He’s still in town, but I think he’s leaving soon.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“It means if you’re on some kind of deadline and you want to talk to Marty about that visitor Halcomb keeps getting, we should do it today. If you can, I mean . . . I don’t know what your plans are or anything, so . . .”

Lucas closed his eyes and silently exhaled. A stream of profanities slithered through his head. If he hadn’t had the phone pressed against his ear and Jeanie hadn’t been in the living room, he would have let them spill out onto the ugly linoleum beneath his feet.

“I mean, we can do it mano a mano—off the record, of course. All this
has
to be off the record, or we can’t talk. We could get fired, and that would only be the beginning. But like I told you the other day, Marty works that part of the prison a hell of a lot more than me. He knows those guys better than anyone.”

“Did you tell him I’m interested in figuring out who that visitor is?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, man. I don’t know what he can tell you, but he’s a good dude. I don’t think he’d be wanting to meet up if he didn’t have any useful info, you know?”

Lucas let his head loll back to stare at the ceiling, the angel on his shoulder assuring him that Eperson would be back, he
had
to come back. He had a job. And even if he was out of town for weeks, it wasn’t as though Lucas was going anywhere himself. He could catch up with Eperson later, get whatever information he was holding and work it into the book later.

But patience wasn’t Lucas’s best virtue. If Eperson had pertinent info on Halcomb’s secret visitor, it could change the entire trajectory of his work. Eperson could reveal a new lead and Lucas knew better than anyone that you had to follow up on leads as soon as possible, otherwise the trail could go cold. Had he started this project a mere three months earlier, January Moore may have still been walking the earth, willing to talk, ready to give him the story of a lifetime. He couldn’t take the risk.

“Shit, okay,” he said, nearly spitting out the words. “What time should I meet you?”

“I start my shift at three, and I don’t get off until midnight, so lunch would be good. I’ll call Marty, tell him to meet us at the Chili’s on Main. It’s the only Chili’s we’ve got, so you can’t miss it. One o’clock should give you plenty of time to get up here, no?”

It gave him four hours, two of which he’d spend driving to Lambert. “Yeah . . . okay. I’ll see you then.”

“Cool, see you, man. Oh, hey . . .”

Lucas paused, nearly ending the call before hearing Morales speak. “Yeah?”

“I know you probably get this all the time, and I’ll pay whatever it
costs, but do you have any copies of your books lying around? Maybe one you could bring with you and sign for me? I know Marty’s going to have his . . .”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

“Cool, man. I appreciate it. That’s awesome. Okay, see you soon.”

Morales disconnected the call.

Lucas stared at his phone for a moment, considering what he’d just done. Another broken promise. “Shit.” The word tumbled out of him in a muted whisper. He shoved his phone into the pocket of his lounge pants and stepped into the living room. Jeanie was watching
Adventure Time
over the rim of her bowl. She eventually glanced away from the TV and at her dad.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m . . . the worst father,” he said. “I can be back by four or five. We can drive up after that, spend the night in a fancy hotel . . .”

Jeanie gave him a
who are you kidding
look.

“I’ll put it on a credit card.”

“Forget it, it’s fine.”

“It’s
not
fine. Shit, I need to call Selma.” If Selma was going to watch Jeanie, she had to leave soon . . . if Selma could watch Jeanie at all. Mark said Selma would be home, but that was later in the day. For all Lucas knew, Selma was out of the house, taking advantage of her day off.

“Or you can finally let me stay home by myself,” Jeanie suggested.

No, absolutely not. Not after what happened last night. Only an insane person would allow their kid to stay home alone after a break-in . . . if that’s what it really was.

“I’m not a little kid anymore,” Jeanie told him.

“Says the girl who’s eating sugary cereal in front of a cartoon . . .”

She made a face at him. “Like, what’s going to happen anyway? I’m not going to burn the place down.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Lucas said. “That’s the whole point.”

Jeanie rolled her eyes and slid her empty bowl onto the coffee table. “Well, what about that neighbor lady, then?”

“Echo . . . ?” No way. She was a stranger. He appreciated the box of photographs she’d brought over more than words could ever express, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t know a damn thing about her. Leaving Jeanie with Echo seemed almost as risky as leaving Jeanie by herself.

“Oh,
come on
, Dad. Is she a psycho or something? Is
that
why you were hanging out with her in your office while I was upstairs yesterday?”

“What? No. I wasn’t
hanging out
with anyone. We don’t know anything about her. I’m calling Selma, okay?”

She shook her head at him as he turned away and dialed Selma’s number. No answer. He left her a message, but unless she checked her voice mail in the next twenty minutes, she had no hope of arriving in Pier Pointe in time, even if she could come to begin with.

Dammit. Maybe . . . maybe Echo wasn’t that crazy of an idea, come to think of it.

She’d been nothing but helpful, and having her babysit would show that he trusted her. It would build rapport.

This is your kid’s safety we’re talking about, and you’re thinking about rapport?

Okay, that was the wrong way to think about it, but he had to get to know Echo better
sometime
, and she had seemed a little lonely. A family friend was far more likely to help him with his project, and it would be good for Jeanie to have someone other than him to talk to. Granted, he
could
drive Jeanie into town so she could find some kids her own age, but he couldn’t leave her alone in town anyway.

“Okay,” he said. “You stay here by yourself”—Jeanie’s expression lit up—“
for now. . . .
I’m going to drive over to Echo’s place to talk to her.” Jeanie snorted and went back to her show. “I’ll be back in half an hour, okay?” She didn’t respond. “Jeanie.”

“Okay, okay,” she mumbled. “Whatever you say.”