Lineage (34 page)

Lance scanned the page Harold had been looking at, and then flipped open the ledger to Gerald Rhinelander’s last week of entry dates. “What does
ANN
stand for?” Lance asked, sliding the ledger over to Harold and pointing at entries in the notes column. A full week’s worth of the abbreviation had been entered in line with Gerald’s name and then had ceased, along with the name itself.

“
Absent, no notice
, I believe,” Harold said. At this, the historian reached across the table to where the tray lay and pulled an envelope that Lance hadn’t noticed from it. “I found this with the other documents about his disappearance. It was actually the photo his ex-wife provided for the police when she filed a missing-person report.”

Lance opened the envelope and pulled a dull photograph from within. It had the odd colors and shades characteristic of a picture from the late sixties. Gerald stood leaning on the front fender of a classic Mustang, his smile radiating the happiness he must have been feeling at the time. The license plate read
189-GRR
.

“I remember him driving that car,” Harold said. “He was so proud of it. He bought it new off the line back in ’67. He said it was meant for him since it had his initials on the license plate.”

Lance stared at the picture.
The man leaning so casually on his machine.
The sleek shape of the muscle car, its radiant blue color apparent even in the old photo.

Lance remembered Harold’s description from before. Nothing had been touched in Gerald’s home, his wallet left behind as if he hadn’t planned on being gone long. It was as if he and his car had been picked up and pulled straight from the earth, plucked from existence without remorse.

“What happened to his ex-wife?” Mary
asked,
her coffee untouched on the table before her.

“She left town about a year after Gerald’s disappearance. I’m not sure what happened to her after that,” Harold answered.

Lance looked around the basement. His spine hurt from sitting in the hard-backed chair, and despite the empty cup of coffee in front of him, he still felt his eyelids drooping.

He rose from the table and began placing the ledgers into the box. “Would you mind if I took
these home
with me? I’d like to look through them a little more, if that’s possible.”

Harold’s face only held a sliver of reserve before he smiled and nodded. “Go right ahead, they’re not doing any good sitting down here in the dark.”

A few minutes later Lance slid the box into the back of the Land Rover while Mary stood a few paces away, leaning against her Honda. Harold had locked the door of the historical society and bustled off shortly thereafter, murmuring that Josie would be worrying about him. The failing fall sunlight still felt warm on Lance’s back as he shut the rear hatch of the SUV. Shadows were beginning to freckle the street, the outlines of cars and trees taking on sinister, elongated shapes. Lance stepped away from his car and looked at Mary.

“So, anything you want to tell me?” Mary asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

Lance frowned. “Like what?”

“Like whatever’s been bothering you since I set foot in that basement?
I could see it on your face between your questions earlier.” She paused, waiting. “You can tell me.”

Lance looked away, toward the blank eyes of the building they had exited. He hadn’t realized his anxiety had been so transparent during their meeting in the basement. The events of the night before had taken their toll on him, and he realized now that he wasn’t in any shape to absorb what had happened while maintaining a steadfast façade.

“I had a nightmare last night, that’s all,” Lance said, looking back at her.

“That’s all?”

“That’s all,” he lied, hating every second of it. He watched Mary’s face for a challenge to what he’d said. In actuality, it hadn’t been a complete lie, just a half-truth, but he could live with it if it meant keeping Mary out of the reach of the cold hands that had grasped his flesh the night before.

“Your father?” she inquired carefully. Mary could see Lance’s discomfort, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

“No, it’s fine. I just don’t really feel up to talking about it,” Lance said.
You’re doing it again, my friend. Push her away. You don’t know how to do anything else,
the voice said, and he mentally screamed at it, effectively silencing it.

Mary smiled and leaned close to him. He hugged her instead of pressing his lips against hers. She seemed confused, but hugged him back nonetheless.

“I’ll call you,” Lance said, as he let her go and rounded the back of the Land Rover. Without looking back, he pulled away from the historical building, leaving Mary watching after him.

Chapter 10

“It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.”

—Leonardo
da
Vinci

The fire crackled and spit in the center of the gazebo as Lance sat in the lawn chair and watched the light leech its final color from the lake. The shotgun rested a few feet away, leaning against the closest wall. An empty bottle of wine sat near the chair’s feet and a wineglass, almost as empty, hung suspended from Lance’s relaxed grip as he peered back down at one of the last ledgers from the box.

After a time, he snapped it shut with an audible crack and tossed it with the others that had been piled haphazardly back in the box. Lance sighed and blinked at the deepening dark of the lake. His sight had taken on the fuzziness that wine always brought, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache that would properly introduce itself in the morning in the back of his neck. At the moment he didn’t care. He had spent another two hours poring over the ledgers, with nothing to show for it. The insane urge to feed all of the books to the glowing fire in the ring a few feet before him became almost irresistible.

Instead, he drained the last of his wine and rose to unroll the sleeping bag he had brought down from the house earlier. He had made the decision to sleep in the gazebo after confirming with John that it had been built long after Erwin had been laid to rest. For some unknown reason, he felt he would be safe sleeping here, just out of reach of the things that no doubt waited for him in the house.

The gazebo felt comfortably warm as he threw on another two pieces of wood to bank the fire for the night. When he eased his body into the heavy material of the sleeping bag, he felt the weariness that had hovered over him the entire day finally settle down and cover him completely in soft waves of exhaustion. Before he could forget, he pulled the shotgun from its resting place and laid it like a lover beside him on the floor. His head buzzed from the wine, and as he closed his eyes to the dancing light of the fire on the roof and walls, he wondered if any more dreams would disturb his sleep. It was a fleeting thought that was chased away almost at once by fatigue, but nonetheless, the last thing he heard as he slipped out of consciousness was his father’s voice:
There’s nothing out there for you, boy.

He awoke sometime later. His eyes opened and he almost said
yes?
As if a question had just been asked of him in the darkness.
The fire had burned low, and only coals now radiated a pale red glow that illuminated the gazebo in pulsing shadow. When he turned his head toward the door, which he had locked tight upon entering, he felt the throb of the wine at the base of his skull.

Lance pushed himself out of the sleeping bag and into a sitting position. He squinted at the darkness beyond the reflection of the dying fire in the glass and noticed a partial moon hanging over the lake. The stain would be there on the floor, shining in the moonlight. Would the door be open now, at this instant? Would something be standing there, looking out the window at him, if he turned his head just a little and looked over his shoulder?

He shivered and stood, the cooling air of the fall night creeping through the cracks in the walls and pushing against the remnants of his fire. He stepped across the bare floor to the other side of the gazebo and grabbed a piece of wood from the stack near the door.

He froze.

Someone was standing in the water just off the shore.

He could see the dark outline of a person against the shimmering calm of the lake’s surface. The moon threw just enough light for Lance to make out a head, shoulders, and arms that dangled in the frigid water.

He stood there, staring at the figure, not wanting to look away in the event it faded from sight. He felt a blade of fear pass through his stomach. Just as he began to move closer to the glass to get a clearer view, an errant ember flared and obscured the view through the window with light. Lance turned, and in two bounds he had grabbed the shotgun from the floor and ripped the door open.

The dew was cold, but Lance barely registered it. As he jogged toward the lapping shore, he fumbled with the flashlight on the end of the gun until a spear of white light abruptly pierced the shadows off to his left. He swung the gun around, his intent not to harm but to reveal what was there. The darkness fled before the beam, which glared off the lake’s face.

Shoulders, so white they looked to be made of
marble,
and a blond head were just slipping beneath the ripples as his light flooded the area. Lance stopped and held the gun steady, pointed toward the place where the crown of hair had vanished. Nothing moved. There were no swirls or bubbles to indicate something had been there.
Nothing.

Without hesitating, he doubled back and dashed up the rise to the glowing gazebo, his breath beginning to burn in his lungs. The interior warmth of the structure felt wonderful on his bare skin, but he didn’t stop to enjoy it. After setting the shotgun down, he spun and began throwing log after log onto the fire. Soon, flames were dancing excitedly around their new dinner, licking the bark and stray fibers from the wood.

He turned and knelt beside the shotgun, the idea in his mind stupid and rash, but nonetheless unavoidable, as if he were tipping down a steep hill, the skis beneath his feet gathering speed until there was no chance of stopping. His fingers fumbled at the fasteners on the light. How had Stub done that? He touched what felt like a flattened wing nut on one side of the light and twisted. That did it. The flashlight unhooked easily from the bottom of the gun and rested in his hand. He gave the fire one last look, and then jogged out of the gazebo, back into the cool darkness.

As he neared the shoreline, already shivering as the air cut around him, he mentally prepared himself for what was to come. He tried to imagine what the water would feel like and how deep he would have to go, but then his feet were wet and all other thought left him.

The water was hundreds of wasp stings on his bare legs. Soon, his thighs were under, and then his waist. With another click of the flashlight, the beam spread out on the freezing water. Lance lowered it below the surface, testing whether its claim of waterproofing held true or not; he didn’t want to be stranded in inky darkness if it failed. He swung the light in an arc around him. The image of hotel pools at midnight came to him, their depths illuminated by their watertight bulbs. Satisfied with the light, Lance stepped farther out, his feet finding a few sharp rocks and the sludgy bottom, which squeezed between his toes.

The water rippled near his chest, and he felt the lake bottom fall away. He’d reached the drop-off. His eyes sought the moon one last time as he breathed deeply in and out, in quick succession. With a lunging motion, he dove forward and kicked his body down.

Even the cold that had enveloped his body—numbed it almost—didn’t prepare him for the sensation of the water closing over his head. The temptation to resurface tugged at him, but he swam down instead, pulling at the water in a breaststroke. The flashlight gave him short, indecipherable glimpses of the world around him. The bottom glided by a few feet beneath his stomach. He kicked several more times, and then pulled the light up in front of him.

Silt, disturbed by his approach, obscured the first few feet around him. The bottom dropped away steadily at a forty-five-degree angle. He judged that the surface now sat at least twenty feet above his head.

Something moved just outside the reach of the light, farther down the slope. Lance kicked ahead and glided over a small rise. On the other side sat a long row of large slimy boulders, their backs hunched toward the surface as if they had burrowed into the soft mud in an attempt to stay warm. Lance swam a few more feet, the air in his lungs turning acidic. He swung the light back and forth at the descending hill, trying to discern if something lay there that he had missed.

A shine caught his eye as he passed the beam back to the left. It came from the first boulder.
Perhaps a shimmer of quartz reflecting in the white light.
He swam forward and swept the light across the rock’s surface again. The same shine glimmered at him on the rock’s lower edge, almost where its second half disappeared in the spongy bottom. Lance reached out and touched the rock where it shined. His fingers slid on what felt like glass under the layer of sludge that had accumulated there. He brushed more of the mud away and saw that it was not quartz but the metallic flawlessness of chrome that shone in the light. His hand ran farther to the left, and then to the right, uncovering more of the object. His breath felt stale in the pockets of his chest and a haze began to crowd the edges of his vision. His hands worked of their own accord, scraping off years of grime that had settled there. The need to breath now felt undeniable and he decided to surface and dive a second time, but instead saw something that stilled him in the humming silence of the lake.

The edge of a license plate peeked from beneath a patch of dark green algae just above the chrome. There was no mistaking the rounded blue border and the faded yellow background. The light blue leg of a letter had been wiped clean. Lance rubbed his hand across the surface, the hidden letters and numbers emerging just as he knew they would.

189-GRR.

He shone his light farther down the row of what he had thought were boulders, their shapes now familiar to him.
The flattened hump of a roof, the rounded shape of a fender, the dull shine of chrome beneath layers of time.
They stretched off into darkness, out of the light’s reach. 

Movement made him turn his head to the right, and his eyes met the empty sockets of Rhinelander, who hung motionless beside him, his blond hair splayed out around his head.

The scream escaped Lance in a rush of bubbles so thick it veiled the ghost completely from view. He kicked toward the surface, the flashlight falling from his hand unnoticed. He swam upward, his arms anticipating the feeling of breaking the surface, while his legs waited for the cold grip of a long-dead hand. His chest began to hitch reflexively, seeking air, though his mind screamed that there was none to be had. The darkness of the lake looked like it was beginning to lighten, then it all became the same opaque shade.
I’m passing out,
Lance thought, even as he kicked feebly one last time.

A half-lidded eye hung above him in the void, its flawless white pupil probing him as he floated there. He imagined it was God looking at him, but he felt no warmth in the gaze, only indifference and a harsh scrutiny. It wasn’t God, or anything like him. He realized then under its cyclopean gaze that there was no God.
Only the floating darkness of eternal apathy.
No warmth, only the cold understanding of absolute desolation, the hopelessness of being utterly forsaken.

A cold rushing sensation flowed up from the pit of Lance’s stomach and forced its way out of his open mouth. He vomited lake water in
a gout
that flew up and landed on his upturned face. He coughed and rolled onto his side in the water. More brackish liquid surged from inside him, and he sucked in air greedily when the racking coughs passed. He felt his arms and legs begin to tread water, and turned so he faced the shore. He could see the gazebo glowing warmly, and he began to swim toward it. When he finally chanced putting his feet down, he felt the grazing touch of the bottom and began to walk, pushing with his arms to help propel him forward. Soon, the grass was beneath his feet and he moved up the forever climb of the hill. Then the door was open and he stood in the warmth of the gazebo. The fire crackled as it chewed the wood into cinder, and Lance saw arms held out before him—he supposed they were his—to the edge of the fire. All at once, he began to shake, just a shiver at first and then harder. He felt that the chattering of his teeth would jar the fillings from his mouth. He shook and then, just as fast as they had begun, the tremors eased, and he lowered himself into the lawn chair after throwing yet another piece of wood on the flames.

His eyes darted to the windows, although he couldn’t see anything beyond the reflection of the room. He wondered if his light still burned on the lake bed, if it shone on Gerald’s license plate, or perhaps on Gerald himself. His mind went back to the humps on the bottom of the lake.
The cars.
How many were there?

There’s so many,
Andy’s voice answered in a hollow tone. At least now Lance knew what he’d meant. The fact that a man’s car, missing for over forty years, sat submerged along with God knew how many more overwhelmed him for a moment. Rhinelander had been trying to show him all this time. At first, he had just been a character in Lance’s mind, a figment of his imagination that had taken shape within the story. Then he had appeared in earnest, within Lance’s dreams and in the lake itself. Gerald had been trying to lead him to the car. To show him that he had been murdered.

There,
Lance thought, at last giving in to the idea that had been building in his mind since seeing the license plate beneath the cold waves. Gerald Rhinelander had been murdered by someone in the house. His father’s face floated before his eyes, but how old had Anthony been at the time?
Eleven?
Twelve?
It didn’t make sense. The only other possibility was Erwin. John had said the man had been violent—but murder?
And not just one person but, from the looks of it, many.