“Like what?”

“Well, that’s the whole trick of it. Nobody really knows for sure.”

“What do you mean, nobody knows? He’s in prison, right?”

Lucas nodded. “Yeah, but he’s not talking.”

“Well, why don’t they just, like, squeeze it out of him or something?”

“Squeeze it out of him?” He cracked a faint smile. “Just give him the ol’ boot heel, huh?”

“He did something bad, right? So, why would he have the choice of not talking about it? How come he wouldn’t have to tell, like, a judge or the court or the cops or something?”

“Because he’s still got rights, kiddo.”

She didn’t like that answer. “Well, that’s dumb.”

“Dumb or not, that’s the way the justice system works. Just because you’re in prison doesn’t mean people can make you do what you don’t want to do.”

Jeanie remained silent for a long while, as though chewing on this newfound fact. Lucas couldn’t help the grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth when he caught her expression. She looked more serious than he’d ever seen her, her eyebrows pinched together and her mouth pressed into a terse line.

“So . . . how many people did he kill?” she finally asked.

“Ten.” That number wasn’t entirely accurate, but he didn’t want to discuss the details of infanticide with his twelve-year-old kid. “And he would argue that he didn’t kill them; they killed themselves.” Again, not completely true. The way Lucas saw it, sacrifice was the same as murder, but many argued that Audra Snow had been a willing participant in Halcomb’s ritual. In Lucas’s mind, however, it didn’t matter whether Audra had offered her life to Jeff Halcomb or not. He had still been the one who had cut her open from pelvis to sternum. He had spilled her blood. He was responsible for taking that life, even if a valid argument could be made against the deaths of the others.

“People have been theorizing about what happened for thirty years now. Halcomb had a lot of followers, some that ended up losing interest or getting scared by the things he said. So when this happened, the suicides, some people decided to speak up. But Halcomb has never said a word about it. I mean, nothing.”

“And you’re going to go see him?”

Lucas’s stomach churned at Jeanie’s inquiry. The mere idea of meeting The Man made him sick with nerves. When he had torn open Halcomb’s letter on the sidewalk outside their house, he had hardly believed what he held in his hands. He had read it a good six or seven times before blasting into the house and calling his agent. For a true-crime writer, a washed-up true-crime writer, that letter was a goddamn miracle. It was as though the sky had opened up and the Creator himself had said, Fix your life already, dummy. Here’s a project anyone worth their salt would kill for and it’s all yours, Lucas; don’t fuck it up.

“Dad, what if he makes you do something?”

Lucas blinked, then gave Jeanie a sidelong glance. “What? No, he won’t.”

“But how do you know? Those people that died? They probably didn’t think they were gullible, either. And then they met him.”

“Except there’s a difference between those people and me, Jeanie. I know what he can do. It’s a magic trick. If you know how the trick is done, it doesn’t work, right?”

“I guess,” she muttered. “Like Criss Angel.”

Lucas’s mouth quirked up into a smirk, but his amusement was short-lived. No matter how he tried to reason it away, Jeanie’s concern was sound. Even John Cormick had voiced his doubts.

What makes you think this guy isn’t screwing with you, Lou? He hasn’t spoken to anyone about the case in three decades, and suddenly he wants you? No offense, but that’s weird, right? That’s like really fucking weird, Lucas. You’ve got to be careful, here.

But those doubts, the potential danger of it, hadn’t hit him until now. Halcomb still had the same power. Lucas knew the trick, and yet Halcomb had worked his magic without their ever meeting face-to-face.

You want my story, you live in my house.

Lucas hadn’t hesitated. He had simply picked up the phone and left a message with the front desk at Lambert Correctional.

Yes, he had said. Please let the inmate know that my answer is yes.

7

THE FORTY-TWO-HOUR TRIP should have taken them five days, but Lucas somehow made it in three and a half. Each twelve-hour driving stint left him exhausted, and yet, when he and Jeanie piled out of the moving van and into questionably clean roadside motels, he couldn’t keep his eyes closed. Jeff Halcomb’s deadline loomed dark and constant above his head. He only had two weeks left of the four weeks he’d started with. The more time Lucas had in Pier Pointe, the better. And so he had pushed it, driving as long as he could bear without falling asleep behind the wheel.

When they finally reached Pier Pointe it was well after dark. Rain cut across the headlights like streaks of silver, the high beams illuminating the front of a two-story ranch-style home. The place was dark—no neighbors, no streetlights, the moon’s glow over Washington squelched by the heavy cover of clouds. Lucas knew the house was a few miles from the outskirts of town, but seeing it in the darkness made it seem that much more remote. It appeared to stand at the edge of the earth, exiled among the trees.

For a moment, all he could do was sit and stare. This was it, the scene of the crime, the house that nobody but Halcomb truly understood. Lucas’s chest tightened along with his fingers, which were gripping the wheel. Was this a good idea? Was this really the best way to get his next book? Was it right to usher Jeanie through that front door and into a sleeping nightmare?

It’s just a house.

The assurance bumped against the inner curve of his skull.

There is no such thing as haunted places, only haunted people.

He had read that somewhere once, and at the time he hadn’t been so sure. The absence of haunted places meant that life was finite, that after we exhaled our final breath, there was nothing beyond the door. Lucas didn’t like that idea. His ever-present love for all things morbid demanded he believe there was more to death than that.

But that house was glaring at him—glaring, and yet, simultaneously inviting him in. Come, it whispered through the darkness. Welcome. Don’t be shy.

Lucas looked away from it. His gaze drifted along the wooded property, pausing on a couple of empty beer cans abandoned at the base of a pine. People had been here, more than likely kids that were a carbon copy of who he had once been. He couldn’t count the times he and his friend Mark had climbed fences, ignoring signs that warned trespassers of prosecution. He couldn’t remember how many windows of abandoned houses they had peered into, or how many supposedly haunted tunnels they had walked. And yet, here he was, the lover of all things dark and mysterious, wondering if taking up residence in Audra Snow’s old house was worth the risk.

What are you going to do, Lou? Turn the truck around and drive back to New York? You don’t live there anymore. That life is gone. You’ve been abandoned, excommunicated, forgotten, or has that already slipped your mind? With Caroline’s sister Trish on hand in case of an emergency, the house in Briarwood was locked up for the two weeks Caroline was overseas. Who knew what she’d do with it once she returned? Perhaps, on top of signing divorce papers, he’d also be signing a sales agreement. The New York City real estate market was ripe for the picking. She could list it on a Monday and have a deal wrapped up by the weekend.