Ghostwriter (29 page)
Welcome home, Audrey. Just in time for Halloween.
And just like everything plays out in Empty Spaces.
Have you read that book, Dennis? The critics say it’s pretty good.
It’s seven thirty on Thursday morning. He’s been to Harner’s Restaurant before, right next to the Fox River, serving good
meals at cheap prices.
But he’s not here for the food.
He’s here to watch.
Bob followed them this morning, completely unnoticed. He sits at a table where he can see the girl.
She doesn’t notice him. Nobody does.
The girl has long arms and long legs and a long neck. He ponders this as he eats his breakfast, as he pours the syrup on his
blueberry pancakes, as he sips his coffee, as his large hand surrounds the cup.
She wears slim jeans and high-heeled boots and a fitted shirt.
She smiles at the boy across from her.
They might be late teens, early twenties. She laughs like a little girl. The boy stares like a little boy.
He watches them as he eats.
His fork slices through the soft skin of the pancakes, the blueberries dripping.
And he waits a little longer this morning, getting one more refill than his usual two, having two more creams than his usual
one, taking an extra couple seconds stirring the cream with his spoon.
She doesn’t know that he watches her.
And she doesn’t know that soon he’ll kill her father.
And soon after that, despite what the voices told him, he will kill her.
When the young couple leaves, he leaves with them, tossing a distant good-bye to the waitress named Kay. He walks out into
the parking lot to see the car driving by. It’s a white Ford Mustang. He studies the license plate, remembering the numbers.
The car turns left and he stares after it, studying the car to remember what it looks like.
He thinks of their pretty faces, their smiles, their love of life.
And he knows he will see them again. Sometime very soon.
—Den. Wake up. Wake up.
—Huh?
—Something’s wrong.
—What?
—It’s Audrey. I can’t find her.
—Find her where?
—She’s missing.
—What?
—I’ve searched the whole house.
Dennis woke up on the couch downstairs, the Oberweis cups from last night’s ice cream shakes still on the table, the television
still on, the .38 still under the seat cushion. He was about to run up to see if Audrey was there when he realized Lucy hadn’t
whispered to him and Audrey wasn’t missing. He had just been dreaming of when she had snuck out of her room one morning to
go inside the garage to look for hidden birthday presents. She was only five years old, but it had shaken him and Lucy.
It didn’t matter if Audrey was five or twenty-five. Nobody was taking her anywhere.
Last night had been fun. A vanilla shake from Oberweis Dairy only made Audrey more animated, and they stayed up late talking
about school and Mom and the empty house and books and more school. Dennis didn’t say much about writing. There wasn’t much
to talk about.
He knew Audrey was sleeping in this morning. So he was surprised to find a note in the kitchen. At first he knew who it was
from. Cillian. But instead the note was in his daughter’s cursive:
Didn’ t want to wake you. I’m heading to Harner’s for breakfast with Mitch. We’ ll be a while. See you soon.
A
PS—You know there are beds in the house?
He loved Audrey’s sense of humor. He also loved knowing she was probably worried around the stiffness in his back and neck
from sleeping on the couch. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t heard her this morning.
You sleep better when Audrey’s home.
Dennis started the coffee and decided to call Audrey to say good morning. Then he thought twice about it, deciding to give
her a little space.
“So how is Mitch?”
Audrey smiled, her wavy hair bouncing as she moved around the kitchen. The girl never stopped. She had a drive just like…
Just like you used to have before there was no need to have a drive anymore.
“He’s fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Don’t give me that. There’s nothing there.”
“Good to hear that.”
“But that doesn’t mean there can’t be.”
Dennis asked if she had any plans while she was here.
“I’ve called several friends. I won’t be in your hair.”
“I want you to be in my ‘hair.’ ”
“That sounds weird.”
“You know what I mean,” Dennis said.
“Yeah, but I have a life too, you know.”
“Okay. But my time is your time.”
“I want to go see her.”
Dennis held her eyes for a long moment, then looked away. He knew what she was talking about. It had been a long time since
he had gone to Lucy’s grave with Audrey. Or even on his own.
“Okay.”
“Will you come?”
“Yes.”
“Last time you didn’t.”
“I know. I will. I promise.”
“She might be gone, but she’s never leaving us, you know. There are reminders of her every day of my life.”
“Isn’t that something I should say to you?” he asked as he walked over and put his arm around her.
“Probably, but you’re not good at the sentimental stuff. Blood and guts. That’s your specialty.”
“What a legacy,” Dennis said, rolling his eyes.
Blood and guts.
He could hear Audrey’s words in his head. That was his specialty. At least it used to be.
After spending an hour persuading him to let her go, Audrey had gone out to see one of her friends. He wanted to warn her
but didn’t know what to say. “Stay away from any ghosts you see.” She would be more worried about him than ever before. All
he was able to do was tell her to come home quickly.
As Dennis sat in his office worrying, staring at the blank screen, the familiar routine mildly comforting even though he had
nothing he wanted to write about—his e-mail inbox began to fill, the pings providing yet another distraction. When there were
twelve waiting to be read, he decided to check them.
He knew who they were from.
All dozen e-mails were from
[email protected]
. Some were simple:
Busy Dennis?
Others had profanities, hundreds of times over. One came with an attached snapshot of that afternoon, taken in the kitchen
as Dennis spoke with his daughter.
He’s just toying with you, that’s all. Just ignore it. Ignore the e-mails and Cillian.
Dennis forced himself to start focusing on his novel. He typed something just to prove he could at least do that.
Mary had a little lamb, her fleece was white as snow. Sometimes if you stub your foot, you’ll get a big fat toe.
Dennis continued on with this gibberish, reassuring himself that at least he could type, he could spell, he could complete
whole sentences.
And then the tapping stopped.
His middle finger pressed I and stayed there. He couldn’t release it. The computer followed his command.
He glanced and saw the caps-lock key lit. He tried desperately to remove his finger from the I, but it wouldn’t come off.
It was stuck, some unseen force holding it there. Slowly, one by one, as he tried to wiggle free of the wireless keyboard
pad, his fingers found themselves locked onto letters.
And as the letters continued forming, he stood and tried to jerk the keyboard away. But it was stuck. He shook his arms up
and away from his chest and even used his knee to brace against the keyboard.
This is insane.
He tried to break the keyboard in half, but it suddenly became heavier and started to glow.
T
his is all in your mind, Dennis. Nothing is happening. Your fingers aren’t superglued to the keyboard.
But a ripping pain told him otherwise.
His face winced, and he screamed. The wireless pad had turned into a red, glowing blade, a long knife that looked like it
had just been taken out of the fire.
He wailed and jerked his arms and heard his skin sizzling and saw pieces of flesh dripping off the knife.
And as he screamed and shut his eyes, he collapsed to the carpeted floor.
This is all in your mind.
But the sickly pink and red hands said otherwise.
He could barely dial 911. Dennis held the phone between his chin and shoulder, his hands throbbing, shaking, his entire body
shuddering.
This is not real. You’re going to wake up any moment now.
But he already had woken up. And he had found his keyboard monitor split in half across the carpet. The burns on his hands
were real. The tears lining his face were real. The paramedics who arrived were real. The bandages placed over his hands were
real. The ride to the hospital was real.
His stomach rolled and ached, his body shaking, and it wasn’t because of the pain. It was because of fear. He would have thrown
up if he hadn’t already done so.
The snarling cry of terror filled his heart and his mind and his soul. And he had no idea what to do about it. Not anymore.
Maybe this is what really happens.
You find yourself staring at the keyboard, your fingers unmoving.
Then you stand up, holding the wireless pad with fingers that have control but a mind that doesn’t. You shake and rattle and
roll but nothing happens because you don’t let it happen. Then you crack the monitor in half and walk out.
You go downstairs and turn on a burner on your stove. Then, as the gas flames warm the black iron grill, you pick it up and
sear your hands and scream and wail and imagine that you’re holding your keyboard.
This of course is the only logical explanation because fingers don’t just get
magically
stuck to keyboards. And keyboards don’t suddenly get
magically
turned into hot molten knives. And minds don’t suddenly just go loopy.
It takes a long time for a mind to melt away.
Say, nine books or so.
That’s when the imagination turns on you like a tidal wave. And when you’re forced to lie to the doctors about your third-degree
burns, the same way you’re going to have to lie to your daughter and everyone else.
The same way you’ll lie to yourself that you actually turned on the stove because you know for an absolute positive fact that
you didn’t.
The only thing you did was write a book about a killer who liked burning things, especially his victims, and he would often
work on them slowly and deliberately.
Many times starting with their hands…
Rain caresses his forehead, his cheeks, the back of his neck. For a moment Bob stops, looking off across the fields to the
highway in the distance. Flickers of light shine from moving cars. He’s alone for miles. Nobody will ever see the hole he
just dug. Nobody will ever dig up the two bodies he has thrown into it.
There is already a pool of water forming at the base of the hole, where the trash bags lay.