The Dead Place (28 page)

It was an obelisk of black marble sitting on the edge of the piano, and she’d passed by it during her first search because it looked solid. Except that she’d forgotten that metronomes had doors of their own that opened to reveal the inner workings of the machine. With trembling hands, she turned the little latch and opened the door. And there, small and shiny, was the key.

Laurence Beetleman greeted students on his way back to his car with a jovial smile and a wish of “Happy Holidays.” Once he was in the privacy of the brown sedan, the mask fell away. He sped through the streets ignoring the snow, and nearly caused an accident when he slid through a red light at the intersection of Morton and Reed. He didn’t slow down.

While he drove he hummed Chopin’s
Funeral March,
gripping the steering wheel tighter and tighter while imagining that it was her throat underneath his hands. She thought she could fool him, the bitch, and she would beg for death before he was finished with her. She wanted to ruin him, but he wouldn’t let that happen.

“You’re a dirty little pig, Laurence.” His mother frowned down at him while working a bar of lye soap into a lather with her hands. She smeared it across his face, dug into his skin with a washcloth. “Stop spluttering, you won’t die swallowing a little soap. It’ll do you good. Do you want to live in filth all your life? Don’t you want something better?”

He had made a better life and she couldn’t be allowed to disrupt it. None of this would be happening if Ian Corbin had been more of a man. He wasn’t a leader at all; he was a follower, following after a woman like every weak man. The man had to be the head of the household; that was the natural order of things. Crazy little redheaded bitch. In another century, they would have burned her at the stake.

There wasn’t time to waste on getting the car in the garage. He parked in front of the house and jogged up the walk. As he stepped in the front door, Clara came flying down the stairs, small, plump body hustling.

“Goodness, you gave me a start! I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

He strode into the living room, the mask falling effortlessly back into place complete with smile, but the room was empty. The ornaments wobbled slightly on the tree. The twinkling lights seemed to mock him. He turned to Clara. “Where is she?”

“Laurence, your boots!”

Snow from his boots puddled on the hardwood floor and seeped into the Persian rug. “Never mind that—where’s Kate Corbin?”

“Kate? She was here earlier, but she left.”

“When did she leave? Did you let her in my studio?”

“Of course not!”

He brushed past her, heading toward the kitchen in the rear of the house, and she followed, blathering on about the snow. “I can’t believe that they called you in for a meeting in this weather. What was the dean thinking? Can’t you take off your boots? It won’t take a moment.”

A teapot and two used cups and saucers were on the kitchen counter. She’d been here, in his house, drinking tea with his wife. He scanned the backyard, but it was dusk and he had to switch on the outside lights to search for footprints.

“Rob called while you were out. He wanted to know what time we were planning to serve dinner on Christmas. I said we weren’t sure and asked why he needed to know, and then it came out that they have to eat with her family, too. Why they couldn’t have told us this weeks ago I don’t know, but of course I didn’t say that—”

“Would you just shut up!” It was a growl.

Clara abruptly stopped talking, her large cow eyes going wide. She wasn’t accustomed to him shouting, and shrank back against the kitchen counter. He pressed a hand to his forehead. Wrong voice. Wrong manner. His worlds were colliding; he had to keep things separate.

“I’m sorry.” He slipped the smile back on with some effort, patted her plump hand. “What did Kate Corbin want?”

“To talk about her daughter. You didn’t tell me their daughter was missing.”

“She ran away a few days ago. It has nothing to do with us.” He could see something along the fence line. What was it?

“She wanted to talk to you, but I wouldn’t let her go out to the studio, not while you were working.”

“You told her I was in the studio?” It looked like a trash can, but what was a trash can doing on this side of the fence?

“Yes, because she wanted to talk to you.”

“Did you let her in the yard?”

“What? No, why would I do that?” Clara laughed a little, but stopped when he grabbed her arm and yanked her to where he stood looking out the window.

He pointed to the dark spot in the snow. “Then tell me how one of our trash cans ended up on this side of the fence.”

Clara whimpered and tried to pull away. “Laurence, you’re hurting me.”

“Answer me!”

“I don’t know!”

“I’ve told you about letting people trespass. I’ve warned you about that time and time again, Clara.”

“I didn’t, Laurence, I swear!”

He opened a kitchen drawer, searching. “You shouldn’t have let Kate Corbin in the house.”

“Why not? I thought you liked the Corbins.”

“She’s a crazy woman, that’s why.” He shifted dish towels, reaching toward the back of the drawer.

“Why does she want to talk to you?”

“I don’t have time for this conversation, Clara. You go on back upstairs.”

“But Laurence—”

“I said go upstairs!” His voice thundered and she flinched. His hand closed on the item he wanted, but she was still here, standing as if planted in the doorway, her fat body jiggling with barely suppressed emotion.

“Laurence,” she tried again, his name a whine.

“Just go,” he said in a softer voice. “I’ll take care of things.”

He waited until she was gone before he lifted his hand from the drawer and pocketed what he’d been after. He unlocked the back door and headed across the snow to his studio.

The key turned smoothly in the lock and the door opened. Kate saw a flight of wooden steps disappearing into darkness.

“Grace?” Her voice shook, barely louder than a whisper. She could hear nothing beyond the rapid beating of her own heart. She ran her hands along the wall hunting for a light switch, but couldn’t find one. One step down, then another. “Grace!” She shouted it this time, but there was no echo and no answering cry. All sound seemed to be swallowed up. At the bottom of the steps, she could see the outline of a light fixture. It took a few seconds of frantic fumbling and standing on tiptoe before finally locating the switch, which had been oddly mounted flush against the ceiling.

Light flooded a corner of the room and she looked around, blinking. There was a long chain attached to the wall and some dog bowls near it. But the metal collar at the end of the chain wouldn’t fit around a dog’s neck.

“Jesus!” Bile rose in Kate’s stomach and her legs felt weak. “Grace!” She screamed her daughter’s name, tears running down her cheeks, but there was no response, no sound at all except her own rapid breathing.

She fumbled for her cell phone, she had to call the police, but it wouldn’t get a signal underground. She couldn’t leave. A scent came faintly to her that grew stronger as she moved farther into the space. It smelled like flowers.

Around a partition was another room that was empty except for a wooden cupboard hanging from one wall. She opened it and retched. It was filled with torture devices, whips and clamps and gags and more of the cuffs like the one in the other room. “You bastard,” she muttered. “You sick bastard.”

She swiped at her eyes and kept going, following the scent of the flowers and turning on the lights as she went. The next room was dominated by a velvet chaise lounge, and several pieces of expensive-looking photography equipment. In a corner stood a bucket filled with white roses and lilies. Kate pressed a trembling hand to her mouth to hold back the bile. Her whole body shook, she didn’t think she’d ever stop shaking.

“Grace, please God, not Grace.” Had he already taken her daughter’s photo? Had Grace been spread like a feast on this lounge surrounded by flowers?

Suddenly, something clanged behind her. Kate spun around, sure that Beetleman had returned, but then the noise came again. Closer.

There was another room. She hadn’t seen it in the dark. She fumbled with the knob and the noise came again. The door wouldn’t open. Kate slammed against it and only then realized that there was a dead bolt fastened higher up.

She slid back the bolt and flung open the door. Chained to the four corners of a large iron bed, naked, gagged, and bruised but very much alive, was Grace.

His boots left deep tracks in the thick snow as Laurence crossed the yard. It fell on his shoulders and sleeves, caught in the wool of his coat. “Your father has never aspired to anything more than this cesspool of a town. He actually likes it here.” His mother lifted her highball glass and took a long swallow. He ran his car across the living room floor and watched her. She had on her shiny dress. They’d been to dinner out of town and left him with a sitter, and now they were back. His father with his tie pulled loose hid on the sofa behind the newspaper, a thin line of cigarette smoke wafting up toward the crack in the ceiling.

“Isn’t that right, John?” she said, her words slurring. “He likes the people here. He thinks people like this are salt of the earth. Poor, illiterate, and ignorant—why, he’s king among such men. You’re nothing but a small-town undertaker and you always will be.”

Bitch. A woman like that would tear a man down. He couldn’t let her tear him down. Some women wouldn’t listen to reason. Some women had to be taught their place.

The trash can had been used to get over the fence. He followed the footprints leading from it around the side of his studio. When he saw the door ajar, Laurence felt a surge of righteous anger. She’d violated his sanctuary.

Shards of glass were caught in the curtains and scattered across the floor. He stepped quietly over them and into the gloom of the room. He waited, listening, certain that he’d find her hiding in the shadows, but nothing moved. His eyes moved around the room, searching for things that she’d violated. It took him a moment to realize just how much she’d discovered. It wasn’t until he’d walked farther into the room that he saw the bookcase pulled out from the wall. And then he heard her voice coming from the basement.

Kate’s hands tore at the cloth wrapped tightly across Grace’s mouth and all the while her daughter’s eyes were on her. Both of them were crying.

“It’s okay, I’m here now, it’s okay,” she crooned, just as she had when an infant Grace had woken in the night crying. She couldn’t get the knot undone, but she managed to wriggle the cloth free of Grace’s mouth.

“It’s Beetleman, he’s the killer!” she cried.

“I know. I’ve got to get you out of these.” Kate checked the cuff around Grace’s left wrist, but it was bound tight.

“There are keys. He leaves the keys.” Grace jerked her head to the left, nodding frantically in the direction of one of the large candelabras flanking either side of the bed. Kate looked, but couldn’t see anything but used pillars and wax drippings.

“I can’t find them!”

“Up! Look up!”

High above the candelabra an iron hook jutted out from the wall. Dangling from it was a set of keys. Kate grabbed them.

“Hold on, baby, hold still.” There were five keys on the ring and she’d gotten to the fourth before the steel cuff finally sprang open. Grace gave a little cry as her arm fell free.

“Hurry, Mom! He’s coming back!”

Kate raced around the bed to the other wrist before releasing both ankles. The shackles clattered against the bed frame. Grace scrambled up, wobbling when she stood on her feet. Kate caught her and Grace clung, her shaking arms holding tight to her mother. Kate drank in the feel of her, stroking her hair, but then she pulled back.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” She unzipped her coat. “Quick, take this.” She helped Grace into it and put her arm around her daughter’s waist. “Can you walk? As quick as you can, sweetie.”

They moved together out of the dark room and down the creepy hallway. Grace hobbled slowly, then faster, seeming to gain strength with every footstep. When they reached the stairs, Kate wrapped her arm more tightly around Grace’s waist.

“Here we go, honey, one step at a time.”

One, two, three. Each step seemed to take an effort. Four. Five. Kate was watching Grace’s feet when her daughter stiffened in her arms.

“Going somewhere?”

The voice was a hiss, inhuman. Grace screamed as Kate looked up in time to see Beetleman coming down the stairs. He raised his arm as she pushed Grace behind her. She swung her fist at him, but he blocked her with his arm and then pressed something hard against her side. Her entire body convulsed with pain, and then she fell backward into darkness.

When Dr. Beetleman left, Ian sat back down at his desk and looked more closely at the e-mail. It had to have been sent by Kate. According to Mildred, nobody else had been in all day and the mail had been sent from this computer.

Why on earth had she sent it? He called home first, and when nobody answered dialed her cell phone. It rang and rang. The sun was low in the sky. He could see a silver glint from the river far off in the distance. Ian decided he wasn’t going to stay late. The work could wait; he needed to find Kate. He packed his briefcase and grabbed his coat, surprising Mildred in the outer office just as she was looping a long, bright orange scarf multiple times around her neck.

“Good night, Dean Corbin. Have a good evening.”

“You too, Mildred. Tell me, did Kate seem, well, okay this afternoon?”

“She seemed her regular self if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. She wasn’t agitated?”

“No, not that I noticed.”

Not that Mildred was a reliable source. Her desire to look at the bright side blinded her to reality. What did she do when she went home? He knew she was single and that she owned a cat, but nothing else beyond that. Did she sit alone in a small apartment with just the TV and her cat for company? At some point he might have thought that sounded like a lonely existence, but at the moment he envied her. How nice it must be to leave work without having to think about it again until the next day and go home to a quiet place with the assurance of an equally quiet evening.

Snow was still falling as he walked to his car, a silent downpour of small white flakes. The temperature had dropped, and he pulled up the collar of his coat. There were drifts along the sidewalks, and the previously black and barren trees were now outlined in white. His car was one of the last in the lot.

He tried calling Kate again, but both numbers rang and rang and she still didn’t answer. He pictured the Volvo spinning out on an icy patch or its engine dying and leaving her stranded. He drove through the dark streets toward home following a salt truck.

The Volvo wasn’t in the driveway, and the house was dark. Ian made a vodka tonic and drank it while playing back messages on the answering machine. There were no messages from Kate, but there was an interesting message from Dr. Greta Schneider asking that Kate please call if she wanted to reschedule the meeting she’d missed that morning.

“Damn it all, Kate, where are you?” His words echoed in the empty house. It was in that moment that he realized she’d left him. That would explain why she hadn’t gone to her therapy appointment and why she wasn’t answering the phone. He climbed the stairs to their bedroom steeling himself to confront an empty closet, but when he slid back the door all her clothes were there. Feeling almost giddy with relief, Ian checked her dresser and found it equally full. She hadn’t left. He wasn’t a complete failure as a husband then. Not yet.

He wandered through the rest of the rooms, but there was no sign that she’d been home since the morning. His sense of relief that she hadn’t packed up and gone gave way to anxiety. Where was she? He called the police and was put on hold for ten minutes. He’d already spoken with Officer Dombroski once that day, checking in as he had every day for any sighting of Damien and Grace, but there’d been nothing new to report.

When Officer Dombroski got on the phone, she started talking before he could ask about Kate. “I planned to call you just as soon as we verified this information, Mr. Corbin, which we hadn’t until a few minutes ago.”

“What information? Is it something about my wife?”

“Your wife? No, sir. It’s about your daughter, or about the man she was supposedly traveling with.” He heard papers rustling. “Damien Rattle or Rachtel.”

“The police found him?”

“Yes, sir, the police in Los Angeles followed a tip on his whereabouts and located him in a Hollywood hotel earlier today. He denied being with your daughter, but they took him in for questioning while checking out his story. Apparently, he was telling the truth—he was able to provide receipts for single travel out to Los Angeles via Greyhound, and after double-checking with the company, we’ve verified that no one matching your daughter’s description traveled by bus that day.”

Ian sank into a chair, his head reeling. “So she isn’t with him?”

“No, sir, apparently not.”

“But then where is she?”

“I couldn’t tell you, sir. We don’t know that yet, but as soon as we have any more information we’ll definitely call you.”

When he hung up, Ian just sat there in the dark room. Memories of Grace overwhelmed him. Grace as an infant being held by a smiling, tired Kate in the hospital room. Five-year-old Grace twirling around with her arms outstretched, sun glinting off her short black hair. Grace swaying slightly as she played the piano, her eyes closed in concentration, her long fingers flying across the keys.

Such a short time, only fifteen years, yet it seemed like she’d been part of them forever, and the thought of losing her caused the breath to catch in Ian’s throat and he felt a sudden stabbing pain in his chest.

He’d held onto the belief that she’d run away because it was easier. As awful as it was to know that Grace had run away to be with that stupid boy, at least that way she’d left of her own accord. It was far worse to face the harsh reality that she’d been taken.

Grace wouldn’t have gone away on her own, her mother was right about that. She’d been right all along and Ian hadn’t listened to her. He’d been so sure that her belief in an abduction was just another manifestation of the stress she’d been under since the assault. What if the letter hadn’t been a hoax? What if it was real?

Ian ran back up the stairs in search of the letter. He had to find it. The police would need to take another look at it now that Damien had been exonerated. Ian searched the entire house, but couldn’t find it anywhere. He called Kate’s cell phone again and again, but there was still no answer and his sense of desperation grew. It finally occurred to him to check her studio, and that’s where he found it, tucked next to the easel where there was a disturbing canvas of a female form struggling in dark, flowing water. The face on the figure looked like Grace.

He read the letter once and then again, trying to really analyze it. It had been typed on clean white paper.

It was plain white paper. Plain typeface. There was no handwriting to identify, and when he held the paper up to the light hoping to find a watermark, there was nothing. It was just cheap, generic printing paper sold in reams at every office discount store in the country. Nothing gave any clue to the identity of the writer but the message. He read it again and then another time, taking it word by word.

Whoever wrote the letter was obviously insulted that Kate had thought Terrence Simnic was the killer. It was Simnic’s occupation that the letter writer felt insulted by. He used the word florist twice. It was a class thing, this distinction, and it stirred something in Ian’s memory. It flashed through his mind too quickly for him to grasp, like a fish darting through water.

He stood up and walked around the studio trying to distract his brain so that the memory would float back and he could grab it. He saw that Kate had a pile of Grace’s practice CDs and put one in the paint-spattered player. A haunting melody filled the room and he could picture Grace playing it, her pretty face frowning in concentration, her fingers slowing a bit as she came to a difficult section. The music went on for a few minutes and then stopped, interrupted by a voice. “No, no! Again, with more feeling. You must bring more emotion into your performance. You must feel the music in your soul. Do you have the soul of a grocer or an artist?”

Ian hit rewind. The words were so familiar. Suddenly, he had hold of the memory. He’d been talking with Dr. Beetleman about the architects submitting their plans to the local committee to secure building permits. “A town full of peasants,” Beetleman had scoffed. “We have to convince them that they want an arts center.”

It wasn’t just the same sentiment as the letter, it was the same tone. Ian headed for the door, moving so fast that his hip caught Kate’s worktable and sent paints and brushes clattering to the floor. He ignored them, pausing only to grab the letter, which he clutched in a tight fist as he ran to his car.