The Rumor, page 23
“The neighbor thinks Karen’s mother is named Mary.” My mouth’s so dry I can barely form the words. “But what if she has it wrong? What if it’s Marie?”
Mom blanches. I didn’t think it was possible for her to look any paler, but she does. I hear her sharp intake of breath. See the horror in her eyes.
“And you think…” Her hands fly to her mouth. “You think Karen’s mother is Marie? No. No, it can’t be. That woman I saw at the playground was nothing like her. She was…”
She looks at me, her eyes blank with horror. “She was so thin. Her face…her hair. It…it couldn’t have been her. It couldn’t!”
Mom’s landline makes us both jump.
We stare at each other, the tension and hostility of just a few minutes ago suspended by this new, frightening turn of events.
She turns on her heels and runs into the living room, snatches the phone from its cradle.
“Hello?”
I watch her face and know something’s happened. Something bad. She presses the SPEAKER button and turns to me, a helpless expression in her eyes.
A woman’s voice fills the room. An ugly, abrasive voice. “You have a lovely grandson, Sally.” I crumple to my knees. I’ve heard that voice before.
Karen’s mother is Marie. Robbie Harris’s sister. The woman who has vowed never to stop searching for her brother’s killer. The woman who wants Sally McGowan to pay for what she’s done.
And right now, she’s got Alfie.
49
HER VOICE SOURS THE AIR.
“You and I need to have a little talk, Sally. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere nobody will disturb us.”
Mom’s hands are trembling. “Where? Tell me where you are and I’ll come. Just don’t hurt him, Marie. Please, don’t hurt him.”
“Like you didn’t hurt Robbie, you mean?”
Our eyes lock in silent horror.
“He’s a lovely little boy, isn’t he? So trusting. But then they all are at that age, aren’t they?”
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe.
“Please, Marie,” Mom says. “Leave Alfie out of this. If you’ve got something you want to say to me, I’ll listen. But this isn’t the way.”
“Shut up! You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m in charge now, okay? So shut up and listen.”
“Marie!” I scream. “Please, Marie. Tell me where he is.”
“Ah, that sounds like your daughter. I met you the other day, didn’t I, dear? Does she know yet, Sally? Does she know what you are? You did a good job keeping it from her all these years, didn’t you? You always were the clever one.”
“What do you want, Marie?”
“What do I want? I want justice, that’s what I want. Justice for Robbie. And justice for my poor dead mother, and me and my dad. But let’s not chat about it over the phone, eh? I’m sure you want to see your little grandson, don’t you?”
Oh God, if anything’s happened to Alfie…
“Remember where it happened, Sally? Remember that house in Dearborn? Of course you do.”
“Where are you, Marie? Where have you taken him?”
She laughs. A horrible, mirthless cackle. “Believe me, if I could have taken him all the way back there, I would have. There’d be a nice kind of symmetry to that, wouldn’t there? Only I don’t think that old house is still standing. Don’t think any of them are. I doubt we’d recognize the place now, to be honest. Probably just as well, all things considered.
“No. Your little Alfie’s much nearer to home. It’s much bigger than the house where you killed Robbie. Must have been quite something in its day.”
“Where is he, Marie? What have you done with him?”
“Done with him? I haven’t done anything with him yet. The little lamb. But I will. If you don’t do what I say.”
“Where is he?” I scream. “Where is he?”
“Ask your mother what happened, dear. Ask her where she stabbed my little brother. I bet, between the two of you, you can work out where I’ve taken him, but let me tell you this: I don’t want the police involved. You bring any cops with you, or anyone else for that matter, and things could get nasty for your little boy. And I mean really nasty. See, I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I don’t care if they cart me off to prison and throw away the key. So don’t get any ideas, will you? If I see any police sniffing around, I might have an accident with a kitchen knife. You know all about those, don’t you, Sally?”
The phone goes dead.
“No!” Mom screams, her fingers stabbing the handset.
The phone is still on speaker and the words “the caller withheld their number” reverberate around the room.
Panic swells in my chest, surges up to my throat, almost drowning my words.
“Oh my God! I think I know the place she’s talking about. That derelict house on the waterfront! It’s just a few hundred yards from where Karen lives. She must have taken him there.”
With trembling fingers I call Michael’s number, but it just keeps ringing. Why isn’t he answering? Of course, he’s probably driving by now, with the radio on. He always puts it on full blast when he’s on his own in the car.
“I can’t get through to him. Let’s just go. Where are your car keys?”
Mom stuffs her feet into her sneakers. “The garage door’s acting up again. We’ll be quicker if we run.”
I race to the front door. Yank it open. Sol starts barking, but Mom shuts him in the kitchen.
“Come on!” I yell at her, and now we’re outside, running down the driveway and out onto the street. Mom sprints ahead of me. I do my best to follow as fast as I can, but by the time we reach the end of the road, I’m breathless. Somehow, I find the strength to keep going. Chasing my mother down wet sidewalks, I’m powered by something more than fear. Adrenaline courses through me like fire, spurring me on. My son’s life depends on us getting there. Nothing else matters. Nothing.
The rain’s coming faster now. Sheets of it slicing into us sideways. My chest heaves with pain but we’re almost there. I can hear the dull roar of the sea, can see the wall of darkness ahead where the cliff ends. Mom’s already turning the corner. She knows the house, too. Must have passed it a thousand times, walking Sol.
My feet pound the sidewalks. My heart thuds in my chest, my neck. Blood booms in my ears. I have to be right. She has to be there. Where else could she have taken him?
At last I’ve caught up with Mom. She’s outside the abandoned house, staring at its boarded-up windows, transfixed with terror. I push past her. The tiles on the path are jagged and broken, the ones still intact glassy with rain. My feet slip and slide. Mom’s behind me now, her ragged breath in my ear.
Whoever’s responsible for this place still hasn’t secured it since it was broken into a while back. My hand closes around the doorknob, and the door moves.
Karen must be in on this, too. I’ve been played by her all along. She was only being friendly to gain my confidence. Why oh why didn’t I ask Kay to pick Alfie up? Who cares if she’s been lying about her daughter? There must be a reason for that. Kay’s a kind, sweet lady.
We stumble through the doorway, Mom pressed up so close behind me it’s like we’re one person. We’re inside a dark, cold hallway. It smells of damp and mold. It smells of decay. From somewhere inside the house comes the sound of rain falling on wood. But there’s something else, too. Mom stiffens beside me. Cigarette smoke. It’s unmistakable.
Shapes resolve in the darkness. Shadows loom. The ghost of a family house stretches out in three directions: the corridor and stairs ahead, a room on each side. Both doors are open but there’s no light coming from either of them. No sound, either, except for a faint rustling and scratching. It seems to be coming from the walls. I shudder. It must be mice. Or…a shiver of revulsion makes my shoulders tense and rise. Or rats.
Just the thought of them makes me cringe, but I have to keep going. If Marie and Karen have Alfie somewhere in this house, rats are the least of my problems.
I hold myself rigid, stomach muscles so tight they ache. Mom steps out from behind me and turns into the doorway of the room on the right. The floorboards creak under her step.
“Marie!” she calls out. Her voice startles me. Something scurries across the floor and I freeze.
“Marie!” she calls again. Louder this time. The name echoes in the shadows.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket and switches the flashlight on. I do the same on mine and follow her in. The room is empty apart from two old-fashioned chairs, the fabric torn and stained. Squashed beer cans and discarded roach ends litter the bare floorboards, and the charred remains of a fire fill the grate. The air is colder in here than outside. Thick and still.
The beam of white light snags on a tiny plastic figure and my heart stops. It’s R2-D2. And though I know tons of kids have figures just like it and that any child in the past could have dropped this here, I know beyond a whisper of a doubt that this is his. This is Alfie’s. It would have been just like him to smuggle it to school in his pocket.
My hand closes around it till the plastic digs into my palm. I stretch my hand out toward Mom and slowly uncurl my fingers. She gasps.
“Alfie!” My scream ricochets around the room. What has she done with him? Where is he?
Mom pulls me out of the room and into the one across the passageway. As she enters, the dusty threads of a cobweb snag on my chin and trail across my nose and mouth. I splutter and scrape them away, goosebumps surging down the backs of my arms.
This room must once have looked beautiful. An oval-shaped table with six hard-backed chairs takes center stage, and on the floor lies an ancient, dusty rug. Heavy velvet curtains still hang at the boarded-up windows, their ends pooling on the floor.
Apart from more trash there’s nothing else here, so we ease our way along the hall toward the back of the house and the kitchen, my heart thumping painfully. My flashlight sweeps the torn linoleum floor and dated cabinets, the bare wooden counters ringed with ancient stains. We see it at the same time, both of us cringing in horror—a Perrydale Elementary School sweatshirt pinned to one of the counters by a knife, the blade warped and rusty. My knees buckle. Mom grips my arm so tight I feel her fingers pressing on the bone.
“No!” Her voice is barely audible.
I reach for the knife, hands trembling, and wrench it free of the fabric. It falls from my hand as I lift the sweatshirt up and check the back of the neckline, knowing what it’s going to say before I see it. ALFIE CRITCHLEY in red cursive letters, my own clumsy stitching around the edges of the tag. I bury my nose in the fabric, inhaling his scent.
“Up here,” comes a voice from somewhere above us. A now familiar, gravelly voice.
We freeze and look up to the ceiling. Mom darts toward the stairs, but I run after her and pull her back. Insist on going up first. I strain my ears for sounds of Alfie, but if he’s here, he’s staying silent. Dread twists in the pit of my stomach. An empty, griping pain. What if he can’t make a noise? What if she’s keeping him silent by…?
I force the dreadful images from my mind and concentrate only on climbing the stairs. Rain spatters down on us from above. I crane my neck back and a drop of water lands straight in my left eye, making me flinch. There must be a hole in the roof somewhere. The treads creak and I motion to Mom to step on the outer edges in case the joists are rotten. Some of the spindles that support the handrail are missing, and the carpet is dangerously loose. It’s soaked and it reeks.
With each step we climb, the smell of cigarette smoke gets stronger. The wallpaper—an old-fashioned print of sprigged flowers—is peeling away in damp scrolls. Chunks of plaster are coming loose, too. The darkness presses at our backs the higher we climb. Behind me, Mom’s breaths come fast and shallow.
At the top, a strip of dull yellow light shows under one of the doors.
The door isn’t fully closed. The wood must have swollen in the damp air, and the strike plate’s out of alignment with the latch. Steeling myself for what I might find on the other side, I rest the flat of my hand on the door and push gently.
50
THE ROOM IS BARE EXCEPT for a narrow bed and a closet. The light is coming from a large candle in a saucer on the floor. Alfie’s coat is hooked over the handle of the closet door. I’m across the room in a flash, tugging it off, clutching it to my chest along with his sweatshirt, hugging it tight as if, by some miracle, he’s still inside it. Mom pulls at the closet door, but it’s jammed shut.
“Alfie? Alfie, are you in there?”
At last the door judders open, and in that split second dread floors me. I sink to my knees, still clutching Alfie’s sweatshirt and coat against my neck, and find myself staring at two empty hangers and some scrunched-up newspaper. He’s not inside. Wherever else he is, he hasn’t been shut up in this closet.
“Marie?” Mom’s voice rings out in the stillness of the house. “Where are you?”
Nobody replies. Hurriedly, we check the other rooms. With boards covering the panes of glass, they’re as black as windowless cellars. Without the flashlights on our phones, we’d be stumbling around half blind. We search each and every cupboard and closet, desperately checking even the smallest of spaces.
I can’t bear to think that Alfie might be here somewhere, locked up in the dark, scared out of his wits. But except for an old suit hanging up in one of the closets and some ancient sling-back sandals, there’s nothing here. The beds are still made and there are pictures on the walls. Ghost bedrooms—their previous inhabitants long since departed.
In the bathroom, I snatch the filthy shower curtain back and stare into the lime-scaled bath. The rank stench of damp and mold fills my nostrils.
“Up here.” The disembodied voice seems to come from above the bathroom ceiling.
Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, is a spiral staircase leading up to the top floor. A faint glow filters down from above. Rainwater trickles down the steps and drips through a hole in the floorboards.
Mom’s already edging her way up, one hand on the wall, the other on the handrail, planting her feet carefully on either side of the sagging treads. The boards are rotten. This whole place is a deathtrap.
My knees tremble as I follow her up, aping her movements, the muscles in my chest clenched. If Marie has hurt Alfie in any way…God help me, I’ll kill her. I’ll tear her limb from limb. Panic rears up inside me. Panic and rage.
There’s only one door in this tiniest of square landings at the very top of the house, and Marie is behind it. Mom reaches for the handle. I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life. This moment. This time. This place. It’s all there is. It’s all there ever will be.
The door swings open on a small attic room. Candles flicker from various vantage points, the light creeping on the walls. A slow, ghostly dance. An odor of mildew and dust mingled with cigarette smoke and damp cardboard assails my nostrils.
Marie is facing us. She’s sitting on a wooden chair positioned in front of an old-fashioned dormer window, the glass gray with encrusted grime. A framed photograph of Robbie Harris is wedged on her lap so that his smiling, cherubic face is looking straight at us. At her feet is a small pile of cigarette butts.
My eyes scan each shadowy corner, but the images I’ve been holding at bay in my head aren’t the ones that meet my gaze now. Alfie isn’t here. I don’t know whether to be relieved or horrified. Because if he isn’t here, where the hell is he? What has she done with my son?
“Come on in, Sally,” Marie says, her smile a deathly grimace, gesturing to an empty chair tucked under the steeply pitched eaves.
She’s wearing a pale sweat suit that must once have fit snugly but now hangs off her in folds. Her skin is gray and waxy. In different circumstances, I’d find the sight of her pitiful. Now she inspires nothing but hatred and dread. And pure, unadulterated rage.
“Where is he?” I cry. “What have you done with him?”
“All in good time, my dear. All in good time. Your mom and I need to have a little chat first, don’t we, Sally?”
I lunge toward her, grab her by her thin shoulders. I could wrestle her to the ground if I wanted to. I could kill her right now with my bare hands.
“Where’s my son? What have you done with him? Is he here somewhere? In this house?”
Marie looks me right in the eye, daring me to let go of her. “I know what you’re thinking, Jo. I’m no match for you physically, not the state I’m in. But what good would that do, eh? I won’t tell you where Alfie is until I’ve gotten what I want.” She jabs a finger toward Mom. “From her. Anything happens to me, you might never find out where he is.” A strange little smile twists her lips. “You’d better just hope I don’t croak in the next few minutes.”
A cry of anguish erupts from my lungs. We should have called the police. Whatever Marie said, we should have called them right away. Mom’s not the only one I’ll never forgive. I’ll never forgive myself for being so stupid, for doing exactly what Marie said instead of phoning the police like any normal person would have. I’ve been an idiot. A stupid, fucking idiot. Running here at Marie’s bidding. Straight into her trap.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Mom says. “You’ll go to prison. For Christ’s sake, Marie, where is he? What have you done with him?”
I wait with bated breath for her reply. All I want to do is hold my son in my arms. All this other stuff with Mom…the shock of the last few hours, it’s nothing compared with the thought of losing Alfie. Nothing.
Marie inclines her head toward my phone. “Turn that off. Throw it on the floor where I can see it.”
I stare at her.
“Do it,” Mom whispers.
“You too, Sally. You too.”
