One Last Scream (12 page)

He gave her a forceful hug, and dropped his head on her shoulder. “Shit, I can’t believe they’re dead,” he cried. “How is she? How’s Amelia doing?”

“She’s okay. She just had a bath.” Karen patted his back, then gently pulled away. “Listen, Amelia can’t remember exactly where she took the car last night. She talked to you earlier about the gas.”

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and nodded. “Yeah, looks like she used up about half a tank, but I don’t care. Screw the car. I just feel so bad—”

“How many miles can you get on half a tank in that car?” she asked.

He glanced back at the VW and shrugged. “About a hundred and fifty. What’s the big deal with the car?”

She didn’t go to Wenatchee
, Karen assured herself. That was at least 150 miles
one way
. “Listen, have you cleaned or swept out your car at all since picking it up at my place?”

Mystified, Shane shook his head.

“Amelia thinks she might have left something in it. Do you mind if I take a look?”

He shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

Karen checked the seat and floor on the driver’s side. There wasn’t a drop of blood or a bloody rag anywhere; there was nothing unusual except an empty tequila bottle. Karen checked the glove compartment, then popped the trunk and checked in there. Nothing.

“Busted,” Shane said, nodding at the tequila bottle. “Did she tell you she fell off the wagon last night?”

“Yes, but we’ll worry about that later.” Karen tossed the empty bottle in a recycling bin at the end of the McMillans’ driveway. Then she gave Shane a nudge. “C’mon, I’m counting on you to make sure Amelia puts away some dinner. She hasn’t eaten a thing all day.”

Amelia ate, thank God. Shane sat next to her at the kitchen table. Jessie had set all six places in hopes that Jody might come out of his bedroom and join them. She’d used her charms, along with a root beer and a plateful of chicken tetrazzini and garlic bread, to gain temporary access to his room.

To Karen’s amazement, fifteen minutes into their dinner, Jody shuffled in with a near-empty plate in his hand. He was a good-looking kid, lean with brown eyes and wavy brown hair. “Is there any more of this stuff?” he asked quietly.

Jessie sprung up from the table and grabbed his plate. She got him a second helping—and got him to sit with them at the table. Shane asked Jody if he could crash in his room for the night. Whichever bunk was free, he didn’t care. He just didn’t want to be far from Amelia. If Jody still needed to be alone, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed honored to have his cousin’s boyfriend, a college guy, asking to bunk with him for the night.

Karen sat at the head of the crowded table in Ina McMillan’s breakfast nook. She remembered how she’d eaten dinner alone in front of the TV the night after Haley had died, and she’d done the same thing the night she’d put her father in Sandpoint View Convalescent Home. She wasn’t feeling sorry for herself; she just wished she had family.

She looked at Amelia on the other side of the table. Shane had his arm around her. But Amelia stared back at her with a sad little smile. She nodded, and silently mouthed the words,
Thank you, Karen
.

Karen smiled and nodded back. And she felt as if she had family after all.

When George trudged through the front door at 12:40
A.M
., Jessie began heating up his dinner. He made the rounds, checking in on his kids, kissing them goodnight, and then briefly chatting with Amelia and Shane, who were down in the basement, watching TV.

When he came back up upstairs, Karen asked to talk to him alone. He looked so tired and depleted, but said, “Of course.” They stopped by the kitchen, where he poured them each a glass of wine—and another for Jessie. Then Karen followed him into the study. He closed the door after her, then nodded toward the easy chair. “Please, have a seat.”

Karen sat down. “Thanks. And thank you for getting the police off Amelia’s case today. She was very confused and distraught this afternoon, understandably so. But—well, it wouldn’t have been good for her to talk to anyone, especially the police.”

“Did she tell you about her premonition?” he asked.

Karen nodded. “Yes, sort of.”

George sipped his wine. “Does Amelia think she’s responsible for what happened? Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”

Dumbfounded, Karen just stared up him. “How did you know?”

“She had a
premonition
about Collin’s death too. At one point, she even told Ina she thought she’d murdered him. Didn’t make any sense. She was a hundred miles away when he drowned.” George sighed, and ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper-colored hair. “When Amelia called me today with her premonition about trouble at the lake house, I could tell she felt somehow responsible for it. And then her premonition turned out to be true. Anyway, this afternoon, when you wouldn’t let the cops talk to her, that cinched it. I figured you were covering for her.”

He had another hit of wine, and frowned. “It’s crazy. Thank God she didn’t say anything about it in front of the kids. You’re her therapist. Why would she blame herself for this? I mean, is it some guilt thing left over from her childhood or what?”

“I’m really not sure what it is in Amelia’s case,” Karen admitted. “But you’re right, a childhood trauma could explain a lot. Amelia doesn’t have much recollection from the time before the Faradays adopted her. I understand they had problems trying to track down information about the biological parents.”

He nodded. “There was a fire at the adoption agency.”

“Do you know the name of the place?”

“No, but it was in Spokane. I’m sure the adoption papers are somewhere at Mark and Jenna’s house. Amelia and I need to drive up there this week to go over whatever legal documents need going over. I’ll keep an eye open for those adoption papers, if you think they might help.”

Karen nodded. “Yes, thank you. They might end up helping Amelia—a lot.”

He plopped down in the desk chair. “God, I don’t want her knowing about this….
thing
that happened between her dad and her aunt.” He slowly shook his head. “I’m pretty sure it was just one time, one little episode. Still, for a while there, I didn’t think I could ever forgive Ina. Then I saw her tonight, lying on that gurney. Suddenly, her stupid little sin didn’t matter anymore.” His tired eyes filled with tears. He sat up, and cleared his throat. “Sorry, I hardly know you. I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Karen said, waving away the apology. “I’m a therapist. People get emotional around me all the time. It’s a hazard of my occupation. I’m used to it.”

He just rubbed his forehead.

Karen winced a little at what she’d just said. It sounded stupid. She shifted around in her chair. “Listen, George, if it’s any help, I already talked to Amelia about what happened between your wife and…and Mark.”

He took his hand away from his forehead and stared at her. “You told her…about my wife’s indiscretions?”

“Yes, I—I needed to convince Amelia that her father was responsible for last night—and not her. She didn’t have any idea about how difficult things were at home for her parents.”

“But she didn’t have to know,” he argued. “I discussed it with the cops. They weren’t going to put it in the official report. Don’t you see? Amelia didn’t need to know.”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” Karen said, wincing. “I was worried the police were going to tell her. I didn’t want her to hear it from them. If it—if it’s any consolation, Amelia seemed to take the news in her stride. And she even thanked me for telling her.”

“Well, please don’t expect me to thank you,” he muttered.

“I think I should probably go,” Karen said. “After everything you’ve been through today, the last thing I wanted to do was upset you. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t go. Forget it. I’m just very, very tired,” he grumbled. Then he swilled down the rest of his wine.

Karen didn’t say anything. She felt awful. At the same time, she tried not to take his abrupt sullenness too personally. The poor man was exhausted, and emotionally devastated.

George pulled himself up from the chair. “Then we’re done?”

Karen stood up, too. “Actually, I wanted to ask if you recall Amelia ever having any other premonitions, before the one she had about Collin’s death. When she was growing up, did she show signs of being clairvoyant?”

“You mean like ESP?” He shook his head. “No. I didn’t hear about any special gifts along those lines. I heard a lot about the nightmares when she was a kid. She had these weird phantom pains, too.”

Karen nodded. “Yes, I heard about those. That’s why in junior high school she started sneaking into her parents’ liquor cabinet. She was scared to go to sleep, because of the nightmares. The alcohol made her not worry so much, and she’d pass out. It helped numb the pain, too.”

He brandished his empty wine glass. “Well, right now, that sounds like an excellent idea.”

Karen kept a distance as she followed him from the study back to the kitchen. He refilled his glass with wine, then topped off Karen’s and Jessie’s glasses. He thanked Jessie profusely as she served him a plateful of chicken tetrazzini. Then he sat down at the head of the breakfast table. He took two bites, and said, “Wow, this is good.” But he suddenly seemed to have difficulty swallowing.

Karen stood back near the stove, but she could see tears in his eyes.

George McMillan started to sob over his dinner. “I’m sorry, I can’t eat,” he cried. “I’m sorry—after you went to all that trouble….”

Jessie patted his shoulder. She pulled a chair over, and then plopped down beside George. Her chubby arms went around him while he wept on her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispered. “Don’t you worry about it.”

Karen remained by the stove, watching them. She knew, from eating alone so often and on certain nights, that it was hard to swallow while crying.

Springfield, Oregon—October 2001

Tracy Atkinson felt silly for having reservations about shopping at Gateway Mall that beautiful October night. But there were all sorts of alerts on the news about the spread of anthrax and another possible terrorist attack. Big shopping malls were supposed to be a prime target. She’d been avoiding crowded places for over a month now. The 26-year-old blond dental technician wished she were more like her fiancé, Zach, who kept telling her: “Hey, when your number’s up, it’s up, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He’d had no qualms about getting on a plane yesterday and flying to Boston for a sales conference. She had to admire him for it.

After a half hour inside the shopping mall, with visits to Target and Kohl’s, she started to relax. On her way into Fantastic Footwear, she noticed a backpack left unattended beside a bench. It made her nervous, and she didn’t linger in the shoe store for long before coming out and checking if the backpack was still there. Tracy let out a grateful sigh as she watched a teenage boy grab the backpack and strap it on. Sipping from Taco Time containers, he and his buddies wandered toward the cinemas at the other end of the mall.

“Excuse me, do you own a green SUV with an American flag decal on the rear passenger window?”

Tracy swiveled around and blinked at the middle-aged man. He held a teenage girl by the arm. She was pretty, with gorgeous blue eyes, but her black hair was unwashed. She wore the usual punk attire: black jeans and a black sweatshirt, also unwashed. She sneered at Tracy, and then tried to jerk her arm away from the man. But he didn’t let go, not even when he pulled a wallet from his windbreaker pocket and flashed his badge at Tracy. “I’m Officer Simms,” he said with a polite smile.

He was balding and slightly paunchy, but his eyes had a certain intensity that made him oddly attractive. His smile was nice, too. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I think this young lady keyed the driver’s side of your SUV.”

“It’s just a little scratch,” the girl grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Shit…”

“It’s destruction of private property and vandalism,” the man said.

Tracy gaped at them both. She and Zach had bought the green SUV only two months ago. They planned to start having kids right after they got married, and the SUV, though a bit premature, was part of that plan. Zach called it their
babymobile
. He’d put the U.S. flag in the window a few days after 9/11. Tracy couldn’t believe this little urchin had keyed their brand-new babymobile. Zach would have a cow.

“Why would you do that?” she asked the girl. Tracy guessed she was about thirteen. “What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know you, for God’s sake.”

The bratty girl merely rolled her eyes again.

“Pointless, just pointless,” the man said, frowning. “Listen, ma’am. Why don’t you walk out to the parking lot with us? You can review the damage to your vehicle, and decide whether or not you want to press charges.”

“Of course,” Tracy muttered, still bewildered. “I’m parked outside the furniture store.”

But then, he was already aware of that, Tracy reminded herself. In order to know who she was, the man must have seen her parking the SUV in front of the furniture store. Obviously, the kid had keyed the babymobile just moments later, the little bitch.

The funny thing was, Tracy hadn’t seen anyone else in the area when she’d left the car forty-five minutes ago. That section of the mall was usually the least crowded. She’d figured the new SUV would be safe there.

She imagined the cop looking for her, and dragging this punk girl around the mall for the last forty-five minutes. Why hadn’t he just asked them to make an announcement over the mall’s PA system?
Would the owner of a green SUV, license plate number COL216, report to the information desk?
That certainly would have been easier.

“Are you with mall security?” Tracy asked the man. They were walking through the furniture store, the dining room section. He still had the girl by her arm. She seemed to be resisting a little as they neared the exit.

“No, I’m a cop, off duty right now,” he replied. “At least, I
was
off duty. If you’d like to press charges—and I think you should—I can radio it in to the station and they’ll start filling out the paperwork right away. I’ll drive you to the station. I promise it won’t take that long.”

He held the door open for Tracy, and they stepped outside. It had grown dark out, and chilly. But the lot was illuminated by halogen lights, which gave the area a stark, eerie, bluish glow. There weren’t many cars left in this section. Tracy could see the SUV ahead, and on the driver’s side, one long uninterrupted scratch. It started above the front tire and continued across the driver’s door, then along the back door to the rear bumper. “Oh, damn it,” Tracy muttered.

“That’s my minivan over there,” the man said, nodding at a blue Dodge Caravan parked nearby. “Come with me, and I’ll radio this in.”

Tracy stared at the girl, who didn’t seem to have an ounce of remorse in her. She just looked annoyed, as if they were bothering her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Tracy asked.

“Don’t even try,” the man said, dragging the girl toward his minivan. “C’mon…”

The girl didn’t put up much of a fight as the man slid open the back door, put a hand on top of her head and guided her into the backseat. “Buckle up!” he barked.

He shut the door, then opened the front passenger door for Tracy. “I promise this won’t take long.”

Tracy climbed into the front. She watched him walk around the front of the vehicle toward the driver’s side. The minivan was a bit stuffy, and smelled like a dirty ashtray. Tracy immediately rolled down her window a little. She glanced at the girl in the rearview mirror. The teenager was very sullen and quiet. But she stared back at Tracy in the mirror and shook her head. “Stupid,” she grumbled.

“What?” Tracy asked. “What did you just say to me?”

The man opened the driver’s door and climbed behind the wheel. “You should buckle up, too,” he said. “This shouldn’t take long. The station isn’t far from here.”

Tracy automatically started to reach back for her seat belt, but then she glanced out the window at her and Zach’s SUV. It didn’t make sense to leave the SUV behind. Wouldn’t they want to take pictures of the damage? And doing it this way, he’d have to drive her back to the mall later. Following him to the station in the SUV would be easier. She let the seat belt slide back to its original position.

“Say, you know…” Tracy trailed off as she gazed at the dashboard.

He’d said he would radio in a report to the police station. But there was no radio in the car. Then it dawned on her: He’s not a cop.

“Stupid,” the girl repeated.

“Oh, no,” Tracy murmured. “God, no! Wait—”

In one quick motion, the man had her by the throat.

All at once, she couldn’t breathe. Tracy tried to fight him off, pounding away at him and, at the same time, frantically groping at the door. But she couldn’t find the handle. And she couldn’t stop him. He was too strong.

With one hand taut around her neck, he practically lifted her off the seat. He was crushing her windpipe. Tracy thought he’d snap her head off. He held a blackjack in his other hand.

For a second, everything froze, and Tracy caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror.

Nibbling at a fingernail, the girl stared at her. There was something in her eyes, something Tracy hadn’t seen earlier. It was remorse.

Then everything went out of focus. Tracy desperately clawed at the hand around her throat. She felt something hard hit her on the side of her head.

She didn’t feel anything after that.

In the kitchen, it sounded as if the faint, distant moaning might be something in the water pipes, maybe a plumbing problem. The girl had to listen very carefully to hear it. The drip in the kitchen sink, where she’d just washed the dinner dishes, made a more pronounced sound.

She scooped up Neely, the tabby who had been rubbing against the side of her leg for the last few moments. Cradling the cat in her arms, she opened the basement door. She could hear it better: a murmuring that might have been mistaken for one of the other cats meowing. As she started down the cellar stairs, the creaking steps temporarily drowned out that other faint sound.

The 13-year-old stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She stroked Neely’s head. She could hear the woman’s voice from here, muffled and undecipherable, but sounding human now, a woman crying out.

The girl flicked on the light switch as she stepped into the laundry room. The basement was unfinished, with a concrete floor and muddy-looking walls. Above the washer and dryer, there was a small window and a shelf full of houseplants her mother had collected and nurtured in old coffee cans and cheesy planters. One was a pink ceramic pot with W
ORLD’S
G
REATEST
M
OM
in faded swirling gold script on it. That held the philodendron with the vines that draped down across the top of the washing machine operation panel.

Exposed pipes and support beams ran across the ceiling throughout the basement. It was from the far right support beam here in the laundry room where her mother had hanged herself nine years before. The girl had found her there at the end of a rope, dressed in a black skirt and her favorite blouse—white with pictures of gold pocket watches and chains on it. One of her slippers had come off, probably when she’d kicked the stool out from under her. It would have been a horrific discovery for almost any child. But by that time, the four-year-old girl had become quite accustomed to death and suffering.

The girl still watered her mother’s plants when she did the laundry twice a week, like some people tended to flowers on a grave.

She continued on to the furnace room, where the muffled cries didn’t seem so far away anymore. She could make out parts of what Tracy was screaming: “Please, please…can somebody hear me? Help me! My parents have money! They’ll pay you…please! God, somebody…”

She knew the woman’s name, because she’d looked at her driver’s license: Tracy Eileen Atkinson. Born: 2-20-1975; Ht: 5-06; Wt: 119; Eyes: Brn.

She reached up and pulled the string attached to the furnace room light that dangled from the ceiling. She stared at the big, heavy metal door to the bomb shelter. He’d lodged a crowbar in the door handle, so no matter how hard Tracy pulled and tugged at the door, it wouldn’t budge.

“Can anyone hear me? Please! Help me!”

If Tracy was like the others before her, she’d grow tired and stop screaming for help in a day or two. And a day or two after that, he’d grow tired of Tracy and slit her throat.

But until then, Tracy would learn that if she cooperated with him, he would give her some food scraps, maybe even an orange or an apple. If she put up a fight, she wouldn’t get anything, except maybe cat food.

Neely meowed, and the girl continued to pet her head as she approached the bomb shelter door. “There now, Neely,” she said.

“Is someone out there? Hello?”

She leaned close to the thick metal door. “I can hear you,” she called softly. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes. Oh, thank God! You have to help me…”

“Listen,” she said. “I just want you to know. I didn’t touch your car. He’s the one who scratched it up.”

“What? I don’t care…you’ve got to let me out of here…. Are you still there?”

Tracy started screaming and pounding on the metal door. But the sound was so muffled outside the bomb shelter, it was quite easy to ignore.

Stroking Neely and pressing her cheek against the tabby’s fur, she turned away from the door. She pulled the string to the single overhead light, and the furnace room went dark once again. She switched off the light in the laundry room, then ascended the basement stairs.

She could hardly hear Tracy anymore—unless she tried. And even then, it was just a faint, distant moaning.

Seattle—six years later

“Your father always loved my fried chicken.”

Jessie seemed so flattered by the way Frank gorged on her chicken, Karen didn’t have the heart to tell her that he’d attacked his serving of shepherd’s pie with the same relish last week—and that was the most revolting dish the rest home cafeteria served. “Well, Dad obviously misses your cooking,” she said.

Frank sat in a hardback chair with Jessie’s home-cooked dinner on a hospital table in front of him. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, yellow pants, a white belt, and slippers. He had a towel in his lap in lieu of a napkin. He’d turned into a very messy eater in the last few years.

Sitting with Jessie on the foot of his hospital bed, Karen was dressed in a black skirt and a dark blue tailored shirt. Sometimes, watching her father gnaw away at a meal—especially finger foods—was pure torture for her. Corn on the cob and spareribs were the worst, but fried chicken ranked high up there, too. Forcing a smile, she could only glance at her father momentarily before turning away.

Karen looked out his window, and the smile vanished from her face.

There it was again—the old black Cadillac with the bent antenna. She’d seen the car several times the last few days. She’d started noticing it after that Saturday Amelia had come to her about the deaths of her parents and aunt. Twice the banged-up Cadillac was parked on her block; another time it cruised along the drive at Volunteer Park while she’d been running laps around the reservoir. She’d spotted the same vehicle in her rearview mirror on her way to pick up Jessie this afternoon. And now it was in the parking lot at the convalescent home.

Karen got to her feet and moved to the window. From this distance, she couldn’t tell if anyone was in the car.

“Frank, slow down,” Jessie was saying. “The chicken’s all yours. It’s not going anywhere. Take your sweet time.”

“Jessie, come here and look at this,” Karen said, gazing out the window. Jessie waddled up beside her. “See that Cadillac out there, the one with the broken antenna? Does it look familiar? I think someone in that car has been following me.”