Home Before Dark (34 page)

55

'You can’t do this to me’
rapidly keying codes in.
but his screne was frozen solid.
but that wouldn’t have caused his system to crash. It had to be just coincidence the server had gone down at the same time.
His cell phone rang and he snatched it up. 'Yes?’
'Hey, it’s me,’ Kira said brightly.
Campbell closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d checked outside the window. There was nobody there. He was a little tense, that’s all.
'Dish, I’m sorry, honey … I can’t talk right now. You caught me . . . I’m right in the middle of something.’
'At this time of night?’ He heard the disappointment in her voice, the crushed note she didn’t try to hide that let him know she’d called hoping to make up. 'You okay? You sound kinda stressed.’
'Everything’s fine, I just . . .’ He realised that whatever he said now she was going to take the wrong way.
'You just felt like biting my head off. Amy’s refusing to go
to sleep unless you tuck her in. You have time to talk to her?’
On the phone with his daughter, cell clamped under his
chin, Campbell logged off, rebooted, then tried to get back
into the crashed website. He kept trying.
'Let me speak to your mom again, petal,’ he said, after he’d promised her he’d be home tomorrow in time to read her a bedtime story.
He understood now why Ward had wanted him to watch the re-enactment. He wanted him to know someone else was in the house that night. This was his answer to the question he put earlier to Grace Wilkes – which probably meant that since their meeting she had talked to Ernest Seaton. He was getting closer. 'What is it, Campbell?’ 'Nothing … I miss you.’ She hesitated. 'Just don’t take any chances.’ I’ll make it up to you when I get home, I promise.’

'Oh really. And when’s that likely to be?’
'Soon,’ he murmured, as he watched the silhouette of Skylands
loom up on his screen. 'I love you but I have to go now.’
He was back in.

In a dark, cramped place, peering out through the small
window at a square of swirl-patterned rug, Campbell took a
moment to get his bearings. The familiar graphics had
dissolved, transposing him from the porch of the virtual
mansion to what appeared to be an interior within an interior.
By moving the cursor, he discovered that the space now on
his screen was filled from floor to rafters by the pyjama-clad
limbs of the boy, crouched motionless in half-shadow, a bent
elbow blocking the miniature front door – he was sharing
Ernie’s hiding place.
When he followed him into the TV room, he’d noticed the
playhouse, an old wooden model of a Cape Cod cottage,
pushed up against the wall. He’d dismissed it as a possible
sanctuary, thinking it too small, too delicately made. The boy
must have climbed in under the shingle roof.
The soundtrack came to life with a soft footfall. The interior
of the playhouse grew darker and suddenly the view was
obscured as someone walked slowly across the front, very
close to the house, then stopped. All Campbell could see now
from the tiny window, looking through Ernie’s eyes, was the
flare of a light-fawn, blood-spattered pants leg breaking over
an old black and white hi-top sneaker, also bloody.
It was like the foot of a giant.
Arms folded over head, head tucked between knees, the
boy remained still, hardly breathing. In the tangle of limbs,
Campbell detected the glitter of an eye alert with terror that
listened now rather than saw. On the soundtrack he could
hear Ernie’s heart beating so loudly it seemed certain that it
would give him away.
Presently the sneaker moved off and the view from the
little window extended across the sea of carpet to a man’s
legs as he sat down in one of the easy chairs opposite the
cabinet television.
Seconds passed and nothing happened. Campbell waited.
He knew what was coming next. He’d seen the drawings.
Some of the detail might be different (the copies Ed had sent
him were on file and he would check them later for artistic
licence), but it was clear that the boy’s taking refuge in the
playhouse, the sense of being trapped in a small space while
menace lurks outside, the predatory sneaker made to seem
enormous by deceptions of scale, had been the source and
inspiration for Sophie Lister’s sketchbook.
She must have watched the re-enactment to catch the fear
that permeated the drawings. He wondered if she’d known
that it was based on real events and not just some dark Web
fantasy. He wondered too if she’d noticed (although the view
from the playhouse window was limited) that the lanky figure
sitting in the armchair, the author of the boy’s terror, looked
like a younger version of her father.
Campbell felt a lead weight tug at his intestines.
He had never met his client in person, but the resemblance
was unmistakable. He remembered Ed telling him about Sam
Metcalf’s murder and being invited to the TV room to watch
a cam of the girl lying dead on the floor of the sleeper . . .
and how shocked Ed had been to discover that from behind the figure in the chair had looked like him. It didn’t make
the revelation now onscreen any less disturbing.
He knew the dangers of letting himself be seduced by a
website, but however little sense it made, one thing was certain
-Ward wanted him to know that the person who came to
the house that night was Ed Lister.
The figure in the chair raised his hand from the armrest,
pointed the remote and the little TV came to life. Not, as
Campbell had anticipated, with a love scene from the movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The tranquil image showed a girl in a
summer dress sprawled in the grass and looking wistfully
towards a house on a hill.
A long red smear running west from above her hip.
The cam pulled back to reveal the famous Wyeth painting
hanging crooked on a wall above a bed, and started to track
slowly downwards. Past the splatters of blood and organic
matter dripping and sliding at a slower pace. Then, as if Ward
had decided that the viewer had seen enough, the picture
disintegrated into static.
Campbell looked away from the screen, shaking his head.
What had Grace meant when she said, 'He doesn’t know’
The suggestion that Ed had been at Skylands the night of
the killings might be the truth, or just part of a game Ward
was playing that moved between cyberspace and real-time,
an elaborate attempt to throw him off the trail. Why hadn’t
he shown the figure in the re-enactment full-face? Was it
because he wasn’t sure it was him? Or did Ward have 'real’
evidence to back up his version of events that he wanted to
share with somebody? Was that the reason 'Ernie’ had come
home?
In the morning, he decided, he would take another run
out to the house.
Jelly lowered the shades before getting undressed for bed.
Then, turning out the lights, she walked around the apartment – as she always did on hot nights, last thing – raising the
shades again to get maximum air from the wide-open
windows.
She lay naked on top of the sheets listening to music
through her earphones, waiting for sleep. She held out for
almost an hour.
Jumping up at last, she went over to check her computer
to see if there was anything more from Ed. In the dark, the
glow from the screen illuminated her body and put the notion
in her head that she needed to cover herself. He wasn’t online,
but she felt Ed could see her through his words, as if they
had been cut into the screen and he was standing on the
other side peering at her through the little incisions.
He’d sent her an e-mail.

Since this morning, my world has changed and nothing in
it will ever be the same. After you ran away I spent the
day searching for you. I went to all the places in the city
you’ve ever mentioned. I looked for your face in every
crowd, expecting to find you again at any moment. I don’t
care how crazy this sounds.
Jelly, just say you’ll see me. I know you’re afraid of
what will happen if we meet. But the love, the destiny we
share, isn’t just something . . .

She stopped there. Wait just a minute . . . what the hell! The
way he was still going on about wanting to meet, it was as
though Ed hadn’t taken in a single word of what she’d told
him. She was in Pittsburgh, out of the state, she didn’t . . .
EXIST!
She read on, shaking her head. He was making all these
assumptions when he damned well knew she didn’t feel that
way about him.

I’m as certain as I’ve ever been of anything that this was
meant to happen, that we are intended. I can only guess
at what was going through your mind in the subway, but
when our eyes met it was as if I was encountering for the
first time the other half of my being. For me now … for
both of us, Jelly, there can be no peace no rest no happiness
no life until we are together.
Was he crazy or just being dense? Her throat felt dry. She
got up and went to the refrigerator and, standing in front of
the open door to get the chill on her legs, drank Tropicana
straight from the carton.
When she came back to her desk, she finished reading Ed’s
words and felt humbled, even a little ashamed.

Even if you refuse to see me, I will never stop loving you.
You say we can’t be together. But if you don’t take risks
in life, my angel, the price can sometimes be far higher. I
can’t begin to describe what I feel for you, or what you
mean to me.
I love you, Eddie
PS. I got back to the hotel half an hour ago. It’s now
nearly 8 pm. I’ll wait here till I hear from you.

When she read the postscript she understood. She checked
the header and saw that the message had been sent at 19.56 – an hour and a half before their last conversation. Jelly frowned.
She was almost sure her in-box had been empty when she’d
checked earlier. But she often got delays and glitches with
her e-mails.
She needed to think about changing her Service Provider.
At least now she wouldn’t have to reply – she did that
already. She’d given him her answer. And the fact that he
hadn’t tried to get in touch since could only mean Ed had
accepted her story about being someone else.
She sat staring wretchedly at the screen. Nobody had ever
written to her like this before . . . shit, it wasn’t even what
people wrote or said or were supposed to feel any more. All
the talk about destiny and how they were 'intended’ reminded
her of Guy Mallory’s warning. Maybe Ed was acting a little
crazy and obsessive, but his words were sad and beautiful to
her. She knew that he really was in love with her. She wasn’t
going to take that away from him. She didn’t see him as a
threat now. What she felt was his pain and longing.
Later, in bed, Jelly kept turning the whole mess over in her
head, trying to figure out what she should do. She hated to
admit there was even a possibility that Guy could be right.
But if Ed had been able to find her in Brooklyn, it was only
a matter of time before he tracked her down here to Thirty
ninth Street.
Maybe she should leave town for a few days.
It was tearing her apart.
She said her prayers, including Ed in them as she had done
for a while, asking for guidance in a situation that filled her
with uncertainty. Just before she drifted off, she wondered
what he’d meant by,

'If you don’t take risks the price can sometimes be far
higher …”

It reminded her of something Guy had said earlier when
they were driving back into Manhattan across the Brooklyn
Bridge.
Her eyelids were closing. She was floating out of her depth.
What the hell was it?
She saw him on the stairs, looking back at her to wave
goodbye. Some off-colour comment he’d made about the
Twin Towers and then, here in the house, warning her that
you couldn’t risk showing a stalker – he meant someone like
Ed – the slightest kindness, or he would take it as a sign his
feelings were returned.
Did she just imagine he’d called her 'Jelly’?

Thursday morning, after checking out of the Mountain View
motor inn a quarter before seven, Campbell Armour drove
up to the diner he liked in Canaan, where he ordered his last
Early-Bird special. He was booked on a ten thirty flight into
La Guardia, New York, which meant he needed to be at
Bradley Airport in Hartford by nine at the latest. He had a
meeting with Ed Lister that afternoon in the city.
He doubled back into Litchfield County on the WinstedNorfolk
road – slowing down a couple of times to make sure
he wasn’t followed – then, keeping in his head the route he
needed to take to the airport, made a detour via Skylands.
It was almost ten to eight when Campbell pulled up in
front of the derelict mansion. He killed the engine and sat
for a moment, weighing the situation. What had seemed like
a reasonable plan last night – returning to the house to look
for evidence to support the website re-enactment – struck
him now as a seriously bad idea. Letting himself be lured
out here into real B-movie territory … he had to be out of
his mind. He glanced up through the windshield at the front
door, getting the same unpleasant feeling he’d experienced
before. Nothing you could pin down, but he felt almost
certain Ward was watching from somewhere.
If it weren’t for the money, and his inflexible friends in
Sarasota, he’d have turned right around and kept driving. He
knew he was pushing his luck, but as a gambling man
Campbell never could resist playing one more hand, taking
that final throw against dismaying odds. It got him in trouble
every time, and yet . . . you never can tell. He got out of the
car and stepped up onto the long empty porch.
He reached for the brass doorknob and gave the front door
a tentative shove. He wasn’t surprised when it yielded. He
pushed again and the front door to Skylands swung inwards.
His palms felt clammy with sweat.
He stood quite still, the morning sun throwing his shadow
ahead of him across the threshold, and listened. The low
gear grindings of a truck climbing the hill rose from the
valley below. There wasn’t a sound from inside the house.
Squinting at the dim hall beyond the front porch, Campbell
noticed that the pattern of footprints in the dust he’d seen
through the cat-flap had been scuffed over. Someone had
been here since, tidied up and, conveniently, left the front
door unlocked.
He might as well have found a welcome note.
He hesitated, turning to look behind him and out across
the ridge to the distant view of the Green Mountains. After
witnessing the re-enactment last night, Campbell wasn’t so
taken with the beauty of the place.The landscape felt haunted.
He could only see it now through the dark prism of the
website, and the terrible events that took place in that room
upstairs. He caught the fresh summery scent of mountain
laurel and wild thyme on the blue warming air.
Ignoring the thumping of his heart and a voice telling him
it wasn’t too late to change his mind, he entered the house
and closed the door behind him.