“This man last night ... did he have wavy gray hair? Strong build? An inch or two over six feet?”
“Yeah, his name is Jude Grazer. He’s a doctor. How do you know about him?”
“When Stu called me, I was at this little diner in North Bend watching Grazer, Talbert, and Seymour having coffee in one of the booths.”
Grant felt a coldness move down the center of his back. He said, “These men were there together?”
“Yep.”
“Doing what?”
“No idea. But they were acting very strange.”
“What were they talking about?”
“Nothing that came close to making sense.”
“Why would they be together? There’s no connection between Seymour and Talbert.”
“Um ... your sister?”
“And you just left them?”
“Only when I thought you might be in trouble. But Art took my place. He’s there now, won’t let them out of his sight.”
Grant sat down on the end of the bed.
“What do you think would happen, Sophie, if I called in the cavalry right now?”
“The cavalry would come.”
“And then what? When I told them this crazy story I just told you. When I showed them Don. When you told them how I’d disarmed you and cuffed you to a staircase, and then to me?” He held up their chained wrists. “How exactly would all of that go over?”
Sophie stared at the floor.
Grant said, “Interrogation. Psyche eval. Suspect. And what would happen to my sister?”
“I respect you, Grant. You know that. And so do a lot of other people. Sure. There’d be questions—”
“That I don’t have answers to. I can’t explain it. Not any of it. And on top of that, I can’t leave this house.”
“What do you mean you can’t leave?”
“I can’t physically leave this house. It has some kind of power over me. I tried last night after what happened to Don. When I got to the bottom of the front porch steps, this pain hit me. I threw up. My head felt like someone was beating me with a baseball bat. I would’ve died. The only relief was crawling back inside.”
“I don’t even know how to respond to that, Grant.”
“You think I don’t get that? That I don’t fully understand that no one’s going to believe me? And does that give you some small insight into the choices I’ve made during the last twenty-four hours?”
Sophie let out a slow, trembling breath. “I want to believe you, Grant. I do.”
“I know. And I know it’s hard.”
“What exactly do you think is happening inside this house?”
“I have no idea.”
“But it’s focused in the vicinity of Paige’s room?”
“Yes.”
“Have you been in there?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone who sets foot inside comes out massively fucked.”
“Except your sister.”
“Did you just talk to Stu on the phone, or did you actually meet up with him before you came here?”
“I swung by the coffee shop. Why?”
“Didn’t he have something for me?”
Sophie’s eyes lost their thoughtful intensity. “Yeah, actually. A manila folder with some papers inside.”
“Where is it?”
She hesitated. “In my car. What’s in the folder? I haven’t looked.”
“Background history on this building. Prior residents. Ownership. Information that could possibly help us.”
“Will you trust me to go out and get it and come right back?”
“Absolutely not. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, I wouldn’t trust me either. It’s not really in my car. I left it in the basement.”
Chapter 26
The flashlight was practically worthless by the time Grant and Sophie reached the foyer. In the kitchen, Paige was flipping grilled cheese sandwiches at the stovetop. Grant swapped the flashlight for a pair of candles, and with his partner’s wrist still chained to his, he pulled open the door to the basement.
The darkness hovered as thick as water, and it seemed to push back against the candlelight with a palpable force, limiting the sphere of illumination to only three or four feet. Clearly, the brownstone’s recent renovation hadn’t laid a finger on this creaky set of stairs, each step bowing under Grant’s and Sophie’s weight.
The fifteenth step spit them out at the bottom and Grant held the candle above his head to get a better look.
Walls of crumbling brick climbed to pairs of windows—two near the top of the wall that faced the street, two along the back wall. One of these had been shattered. Shards of glass glinted on the rough stone floor.
A hot water boiler occupied one gloomy corner.
An electrical box another.
These were the only things in the basement that looked to have been built in the last fifty years.
There were mouse droppings everywhere, and the cellar-temperature air reeked of must.
Grant moved past an upright piano against the wall that stood draped in cobwebs. A third of its yellowed ivory keys were missing.
They stopped at the remnants of a work bench underneath the broken window.
The right-hand side of its surface had been smashed in.
“This where you dropped down into the basement?” Grant asked.
“Yeah.”
“Lucky you didn’t break your legs.”
“It was so dark, I couldn’t tell how far the drop was.”
Grant spotted a manila folder next to a rusty vise.
He set his candle down and opened it.
The first page was a spreadsheet entitled “Prior Tenants - 1990 to Present.” It consisted of three columns (Name/Dates of Occupancy/Contact Info) and nine rows of names.
Under the spreadsheet were a number of reports, each individually stapled, and all spring-clamped together. Grant recognized Stu’s handwriting on the first one.
6 out of 9 background checks, best I could do
Under the reports, he found one last item—a Residential Seller Property Disclosure. Across the top of this form, Stu had scrawled ...
you owe me for this one
“This everything you asked Stu for?” Sophie said.
“Mostly.” Grant leaned down, squinting at the poor photocopy of the property disclosure, but the light was bad. “I can’t make any of this out.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out Sophie’s phone. It still had a three-quarter charge.
“Grant?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t believe I’m about to have a serious conversation about this, but I have an observation.”
“Shoot.”
“In thinking about Seymour and Talbert and the other men, there’s a common theme which you appear to be overlooking.”
“What’s that?”
“Your sister.”
“Meaning ...”
“This is her house. It’s her bedroom they’re all walking into and coming out like zombies. Or killing themselves.”
“Point being?”
“You’ve got all this background info on the house—and that’s useful—but are you sure you’re not missing something that’s staring you right in the face?”
“My sister is as much a victim—no, more so—than anyone. She’s a wreck.”
“But you have no idea what she’s been doing for the last five years. I mean ... do you really even know her?”
“You’re suggesting maybe Paige is the cause of all this?”
“I’m saying you seem to be looking everywhere but the obvious direction.”
“She wasn’t even in her room when Don went up there, Sophie. And you think she’s somehow causing me to become violently ill when I step outside?”
“Who the hell knows? Assuming everything you’ve told me is true, we’re dealing with a rulebook we’ve never seen before.”
“Yes, she’s an addict and a prostitute who has fucked her own life from every possible position, but that doesn’t mean ... what are you saying exactly? That Paige has put a—for lack of a better word—curse on this house? On me? On everyone who walks in? Does this mean she’s a witch? Come on.”
“Remember what you wrote in my birthday card last month?”