“I’ll send out an officer to take a statement and draw up a report.”
“The first dispatcher already did that.”
Clickity-clack. Silence. Then: “Yes, sir.”
“What?”
“Yes,” she repeated. “An officer will be there soon.”
Lucas shook his head, confused. “Another one, or just—okay, never mind. I just wanted to add to my original call, so I can aid you people in understanding what the hell is going on. Someone broke into my house and then came back inside and undid what they did.”
“What they did, Mr. Graham?” He could hear her confusion growing just like his. “Sir,” she said. “Has there been an accident?”
He almost laughed. This was ridiculous. “No. A break-in and a stolen car.”
“And they . . . undid something?”
“They undid the vandalism.”
“The vandalism is gone, sir?”
Jeanie stared at her dad, listening to only one side of the conversation. Lucas shoved his fingers through his hair and exhaled a rough sigh. “Yes, just . . . send someone over as soon as possible, all right? There may still be someone on the property. Actually, I’m almost positive there is.”
“Then you should leave the property, sir.”
“And go where?”
“I suggest you at least get in your car and lock the doors, turn on the headlights, and keep your cell phone charged.”
“Are you not hearing me? They stole my car.”
“Are you alone, sir?”
“No, I’m with my daughter.”
“Is she a minor?”
“She’s twelve. I don’t see what that has to—”
“Sir?” She cut him off. “In the interest of your daughter’s safety, you should head to your nearest neighbor’s residence and wait for dispatch to arrive.”
That’s it. Enough.
He let fly.
“My nearest neighbor lives over a mile away,” he snapped. “I live in a house that draws these . . . these freaks to it, see? It’s the house Jeffrey Halcomb lived in . . .” He didn’t know why he was going into detail, only that he couldn’t help himself, that he’d held it in too long. It didn’t matter that Jeanie was staring at him with her big green eyes or if she got scared because they were leaving. His life was over. All that was left was to pack up his shit and go. “Halcomb is dead.” He spit the words out like something foul. “He killed himself in prison today and I think they know, and now they’re here for us, do you understand? They’re here because of the house and I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
Jeanie stiffened beside him, but he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to see the look on her face. He was afraid that, upon seeing it, his inexplicable anger would combust inside his chest. Anger, not sympathy for his kid. Why am I so goddamn pissed off? This isn’t me. This isn’t the way I am . . .
“Sir,” the dispatcher said, as if calling him that would somehow soothe his nerves. “I understand that you’re upset, but I need you to remain calm, okay? An officer will be there soon, but we want you and your daughter to stay safe. Please leave the house and find a safe place to wait for us to arrive.”
Lucas opened his mouth to argue, to say something that would possibly hurry whatever cop was on the way up. But he fell silent when he saw Jeanie standing in the open front door, staring into the front yard.
There, just beyond her shoulder, was the Maxima. Parked exactly where it was supposed to be.
48
VIVI FELT LIKE she was about to explode. She kept out of the way while her dad—who was acting seriously weird—gestured with his hands and explained to the arriving officer exactly what he had seen. She believed him—boy, did she believe him—but she wasn’t about to let him know. On top of the fact that she wasn’t thrilled to be interacting with him, she was supposed to keep what she knew to herself. A secret, just like Echo had said.
He’ll ruin everything.
She tried to imagine the furniture stacked the way he had described, an impossible feat, like the towers of rocks people piled on beaches and mountaintops. But rather than their furniture, she kept picturing what didn’t belong to them at all—an ugly plaid-patterned couch, a crappy old armchair, a TV stuck in an odd-looking wooden chest. And on top of the pile was a knotted tapestry, its dangling beads tap-tap-tapping in the dark, blown by a nonexistent breeze.
And then there was Jeff. The moment her dad had announced his death to the dispatcher, Vivi had been desperate to sprint up the stairs and lock herself inside her room. Her father derailed her impromptu Ouija session by busting into her room unannounced. But before she had heard him stomping up the stairs, she had whispered to Jeff’s dearly departed:
I know you’re here. I’m going to help.
A second later, her dad—who it felt as though she hadn’t seen in weeks—was throwing open her door. She scrambled to push the Ouija board out of view, but he was too busy snatching her up by the arm to notice. Downstairs, the furniture was supposedly screwed up and the car was missing—a car that, somehow, magically reappeared as soon as their backs were turned. How did they do that? They. The people living within the walls. Jeff’s brood. She knew it was them. Positive. One hundred percent.
But the longer she waited for her dad to give her the go-ahead to return to her room, the more she was starting to suspect there was something more to this house than the ghosts that haunted it. There was something broken here. Something that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the world. It was as though there had been a shift that had never quite managed to reset itself. Like switching the channel on the radio, where you could still hear the station you’d been searching for, but there would be another song playing ever so faintly beneath the first. Transference—it was how ghosts traveled from the real world to a place beyond the living. Either Jeff’s family was stuck in a constant state of travel or the house had somehow been stripped of the boundary between here and nowhere.
The officer didn’t say much, and because everything was back in order and the car was where it had always been parked, he couldn’t do much, either. When the cop finally pulled his cruiser out of the driveway, her dad waved his hand at the door as if dismissing the guy as a phony.
“Whatever,” he muttered, then turned around and gave Jeanie a defeated look. “Get your stuff.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
He shook his head at her. “I didn’t ask you what you want, kid. We’re going.”
Her only hope was to reason with him. She couldn’t possibly leave. Not now. Not with Jeffrey on the other side, waiting for her to reach out to him.
“If we leave, they win, Dad. They’re just trying to scare us.” If he wanted to believe in intruders, she’d let him. “I’m not going to Seattle . . . I’ll go back to New York to be with Mom before I move in with Uncle Mark.”
That statement brought a change to her father’s expression, as she knew it would. Even though he still loved Mom, the thing that would hurt her father the most was for Vivi to pick her mother over him. It was something he would never say, but she understood regardless.
“I want to stay here with you.” It was a lie. She didn’t give a damn about staying with him anymore, just as she didn’t care about being with her mom, either. As far as she was concerned, both her parents could disappear off the face of the earth; she’d be happy without them. After all, she was going to have a new family by then. A bigger family that understood, that actually cared. “You wanted to move here to work on your book,” she reminded him, “so that’s what you’re gonna do. Work on your book.”