The One I Left Behind (13 page)

“This is the latest,” George said, holding up a nearly finished duck carving. His gouges and chisels were lined up beside it. “A female mallard. Everyone always does the males because they’re so flashy with their green heads, but I thought a female might be nice. She can keep the males I’ve got upstairs company.” He gave Reggie a wink.

“It’s great,” Reggie said, meaning it. She thought it was amazing that George could take a simple block of wood and find a duck inside it.

“What’s this?” Reggie said, looking at a set of plans on the bench.

“A surprise for Lorraine. I thought I’d make her a cabinet to hold all her fishing rods. Don’t say anything, huh?”

“Of course not,” Reggie said, her eyes still on the plans, trying to understand what part she was looking at.

“Your mother know where you are?” George asked.

Reggie shook her head.

“Maybe we ought to call her.”

“She’s not home. That’s kind of why I’m here.”

George set the duck back down on the workbench and gave Reggie a questioning look.

“She hasn’t been back since she took off with that guy at the bowling alley.”

George ran his hand through his hair. “That’s not exactly unusual, is it? I mean, you know your mother and men—”

“No,” Reggie admitted, cutting him off. “It’s not unusual. But something’s been bugging me. The guy in the white shirt, the one she left with, he drove a tan car. I saw them pulling out of the parking lot in it.”

“And?”

“And that waitress that disappeared, Candace Jacques, she was picked up by a guy in a tan car, too.”

George smiled gently. “So you rode out here on your bike at ten o’clock at night to say you think your mother may have been kidnapped?”

“Kind of.” She looked down at her can of soda in her hand. This was exactly the kind of situation she depended on George for. The kind where she needed a normal grown-up to do and say the normal grown-up thing.

“Reg,” George said, lowering himself so that she made eye contact with him. “Now, it’s true that I didn’t see your mother leave with the man from the bowling alley, but I’m more than sure that she went willingly. He probably reminded her of some movie star or something. Trust me, your mother’s fine. She can take care of herself. She’ll come back home when she’s ready. You know how she is.”

Reggie twirled the Coke can in her hand.

“Right?” George said.

“Right,” Reggie agreed, feeling better.

“Hey, how about you help me get started on that fishing cabinet? I can call Lorraine so she doesn’t worry, tell her we’re working on something, and that I’ll bring you home in an hour or so. How does that sound?”

Reggie nodded enthusiastically and George reached for the plans.

“We can rough-cut the lumber tonight. I got some nice oak. See, look at this,” he said, pointing at one of the drawings. “Dovetail joinery. Beautiful, isn’t it? It’ll be a little tricky to get all the cuts right, but it’ll be worth it, don’t you think?”

Reggie nodded, feeling her body relax—all the craziness of the tan car, missing waitress, and hand in a milk carton faded away as she studied the neat drawing showing a close-up of the little trapezoidal shapes that would fit like puzzle pieces, binding the walls of the cabinet together tightly, perfectly almost, no need for nails or screws.

Chapter 11

October 16, 2010

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

T
HE SMOKE BILLOWED OUT
of the open door behind Lorraine.

“Call the fire department,” Reggie instructed, holding her cell phone out to her aunt. Lorraine looked at the phone like it was a laser gun. Her face was carved by wrinkles and her hair was completely white—except in the places where it was singed at the ends. She had a slight stoop, shoulders hunched and neck stretched out, reminding Reggie of an elderly turtle.

The last time Reggie had seen Lorraine was when Lorraine and George had come to Reggie’s graduation from RISD. Since then, Lorraine had called every week but never pushed Reggie to come home for a visit. Reggie was always careful to talk about how busy she was, plans she had to travel out of the country. She never dreamed of inviting her aunt up to visit her, and Lorraine never hinted that she wanted an invitation. Reggie knew from her weekly calls that Lorraine had retired from the elementary school a few years ago, and now spent a lot of her free time volunteering at the Brighton Falls Historical Society.

“Just dial 9-1-1 and push the call button,” Reggie said, placing the phone carefully in her aunt’s bony hands. Lorraine began tentatively pressing buttons. Reggie ran around to the back of the truck and grabbed the fire extinguisher clamped in beside her toolbox.

Wielding the heavy red extinguisher, she stopped at the passenger window. “Stay in the car, Mom. Don’t get out. Do not come inside. Okay?”

Vera gave her a nervous smile. “Did he beat us here?” she asked.

“Who?” Reggie asked.

“Old Scratch.”

Reggie stiffened, eyes focused on the doorway where the smoke reached out, beckoning her, daring her to come inside. “I don’t think so, Mom. But I’m gonna go check it out.”

Lorraine was giving the address to the 911 dispatcher. She held the phone in front of her face and away from her mouth like she was using a walkie-talkie.

Reggie took a deep breath of clean air and headed up the stone steps, looked through the open door and into the smoke. She couldn’t see flames or even tell where the fire was.

You have one minute to grab what you can. What do you choose?

Had her early morning dream been trying to warn her, to prepare her for this very moment?

And if she got inside and discovered the house was burning and that there was no way to stop it, what would she choose to save? She wasn’t at all sure there was anything of hers left inside.

One way to find out.

She reached up and touched the hourglass necklace hidden under her shirt for luck, then pulled the pin on the extinguisher. She put the nozzle in her left hand and held the lever with her right, then stepped through the door. Behind her, sirens had started in the distance.

Hurry
, she heard Tara say in her ear.
You’re running out of time.

Even through the thick haze of smoke, Reggie could see the entryway and hall were exactly the same as they had been the day she’d left for college. There was a worn Oriental rug, coat hooks, a simple Shaker-style bench with a mirror above, and the grandfather clock, which seemed to have stopped altogether. To her left, against the wall, was the stairway leading up to the bedrooms. Straight ahead was the hallway that led to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. The source of the smoke was somewhere back there.

She blinked and coughed as she moved forward, but the smoke played tricks on her. She walked into a wall, sure the hall was right in front of her. She turned and looked at her image in the mirror above the bench—it wavered, seeming to grow large, then small; then she disappeared altogether. It was as if she’d stepped into a nightmare fun house.

Maybe, she thought, for half an irrational second, it was just Monique’s Wish getting back at her, punishing her for abandoning it so easily. If buildings held memories, had souls, didn’t it stand to reason that they could get angry, too?

She felt her way along the wall in front of her until she got to the hallway and caught a hint of movement up ahead.

Was there someone in the house with her? A wispy body moving through the smoke, beckoning,
This way
.

“Hello?” she called out, feeling silly when she heard her own voice. Of course there was no one there.

She heard her mother’s voice in her head:
Did he beat us here? Old Scratch
.

Holding the fire extinguisher in front of her, Reggie headed down the hallway. The smoke stung her eyes and burned her throat, but she continued on, promising herself she’d turn back if things got too bad.

She turned left into the kitchen, where the teasing lick of flames caught her eye.

Compared to the smoke, the actual fire wasn’t all that impressive. A pan on the back burner of the stove was lit up, the flames shooting up the wall. Reggie aimed the fire extinguisher and squeezed the lever, sweeping over the flames. The fire sputtered and sighed; in less than a minute the flames were gone.

The big cast-iron pan was full of white foam and oil. Reggie could just make out three blackened trout peeking through the mess. Their heads and tails were still attached, the way Lorraine always liked to cook them, no part wasted. Reggie pulled the chain to start the vent fan on the wall near the stove and threw open the window above the sink. The sirens were louder now—a ladder truck and police car were coming up the driveway.

She stumbled through the kitchen, bumping against the old round table and chairs, and into the dining room to open those windows. They were the original wooden sash windows her grandfather had installed, and they had always stuck terribly. She had to pound one with her fist to get it to budge at all. The glazing didn’t hold—an entire pane of glass fell out, breaking against her arm, giving her a good gash just above her wrist, before shattering on the pine-board floor.

“Shit,” she hissed, inspecting the damage.

“Hello?” a voice called from the open front door.

Reggie got to the front hall just as a group of firemen were coming in.

“Fire’s out,” she said.

“Mind if we take a look?” said a young man who looked like a little kid playing dress-up in his oversize coat, hat, and boots.

Reggie led them into the kitchen, where they inspected the charred remains of fish and the blackened wall. Satisfied, the little parade made their way back out of the house where an older fireman was talking with the police officer in the yard.

“Fire’s out, Chief,” reported one of the men. “Flare-up from a pan of oil on the stove. The lady got it with an extinguisher.”

“Oil gets hot like that, it’s gonna ignite,” the chief said to Reggie sagely. She nodded and caught him looking at her arm. Blood had seeped through her shirtsleeve.

“I’m fine,” she told him before he could say anything. “Just a little scratch. We’ll be more careful while we’re cooking. Thanks for coming out.”

“Was it Old Scratch?” Vera had let herself out of the truck and now stood just behind Reggie. The fire chief glanced over at her, and then his gaze seemed to catch on her, going from her face to the spot where her hand should have been, and back again.

“Dear God,” he said, “Vera Dufrane?”

Reggie’s skin prickled. She looked at the circle of volunteer firefighters—seven men altogether, along with a cop.

“No,” Reggie said, stepping in front of her mother. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

Vera immediately maneuvered out from behind Reggie.

“Did you know,” asked Vera dramatically “that I was the Aphrodite Cold Cream girl?” The men all stared. Vera smiled flirtatiously at them, showing brown teeth.

“Yes, I know,” the chief said. He took off his hat. “It’s Paul, Vera. Paul LaRouche. We went to school together?” Vera continued to look at him blankly, smile glued on. “My God,” Chief LaRouche said. “I’m seeing it with my own eyes, but I can’t believe it.”

“Wait a minute,” said the young police officer, stepping forward to give Vera a closer look. “Vera Dufrane? Neptune’s last victim?”

Reggie got between her mother and the group again. “The police have already interviewed my mother. Now please, I need to get her inside. She’s not well.”

She guided her mother gently toward the house, but Vera resisted. She kept turning, pulling back toward the circle of men. They were talking quietly, excitedly among themselves. Reggie only caught bits and pieces:
hand; the only body never found; where in God’s name’s she been all this time?

“It happened so fast,” Lorraine was saying at the edge of the circle, wringing her hands, talking to everyone and no one. “I fry fish all the time. I’ve never had a problem. But today . . . today everything went to hell.”

“Come on, Mom,” Reggie cooed softly in her mother’s ear. “Let’s go in and see the clock.”

“Ticky tocky, ticky tocky,” her mother said.

The young cop was on his radio now. One of the volunteer firefighters got out a cell phone and made a call. Shit. So much for slipping back into town without being noticed.

Reggie led her mother into the smoke-scented hallway.

“Welcome home,” Reggie said, inhaling the acrid, smoke-tinged air. It smelled like ruin.

Chapter 12

June 8 and June 12, 1985

Brighton Falls, Connecticut

T
WO DAYS AFTER THE
waitress’s disappearance, on the first official day of summer vacation, a package arrived on the granite steps of the police station. The officer who was assigned to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity near the front steps had somehow missed the drop-off. There were a lot of people coming and going—press, citizens coming in to argue about parking tickets, and it was the start of the day shift, so even the cops were flowing in and out of the building. The officer went to hold the door for an elderly gentleman, and then stepped inside to direct him to the window where he could report a lost cat. When the officer returned to his post, he noticed the package.

Like the first, this one was a red and white milk carton stapled closed at the top, wrapped in brown butcher’s paper, tied neatly with thin string.

Inside was Candace Jacques’s right hand.

It was identified by the bubblegum-pink nail polish and the little gold and amethyst pinkie ring she’d been wearing.

Candy’s mother appeared on Eyewitness News at noon sobbing, begging for the killer to let Candace go. “She’s all I’ve got,” the old woman said into the camera. “Please, please, have mercy.”

“Kind of pathetic,” Tara said, rolling her eyes. She was sitting with Charlie and Reggie in Reggie’s living room. Lorraine had gone out back to the brook dressed in her huge rubber waders, carrying a fly rod and net. Tara had taken a bottle of blue polish out of her ratty drawstring purse and was painting her short, ragged nails.