No such luck.

“What happened at Lambert?” Mark asked.

The question set his teeth on edge. “The fucking guy stood me up.”

“Why? What was his reason?”

“He doesn’t need a reason.” Lucas felt his lip curl over his teeth. “You can talk a bunch of people into suicide by poisoning, but don’t worry: your right to privacy will stay intact.”

“What bullshit,” Mark scoffed. “Leave it to the system. You going to try again?”

“What choice do I have? I mean, other than digging my own grave around the back of the house.”

“You’ve got nothing?”

“Not anything a person with half a brain and an Internet connection can’t find on their own in old articles and reports. There are a couple of guards at Lambert Correctional that may be able to help, but the guy I talked to seemed kind of reluctant. I’m guessing they can only tell me so much before losing their jobs. What am I supposed to offer them in compensation? A thank-you in the acknowledgments, a sorry-I-got-you-fired?”

Mark frowned at the floor. Selma chewed on her bottom lip, then gave both men a pained sort of smile. “I think I’m going to head back.”

“Okay, I’ll see you at home,” Mark told her. She leaned into him and gave him a quick kiss before crossing the kitchen, stopping just shy of Lucas’s chair.

“Everything is going to work out.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Come out to the city soon?”

“We will,” Lucas said. “Thanks for the car.”

“Of course.” She gave him a wink, gathered her things, and stepped across the living room to the front door.

She left Lucas and Mark in silence. The clattering of Mark’s plate scraping against the bottom of the sink punctuated the quiet.

Eventually, Mark cleared his throat and leaned against the counter again.

“So, I’m going to ask you this once,” he said.

Lucas glanced up, apprehensive. “Oh, here it comes,” he murmured.

“Well, if you’d offer up some information now and again . . .” Mark countered.

“Offer up what?”

“This house. What’s the story? This isn’t what I think it is, is it?”

“Which is what?” Lucas was playing dumb, but he knew exactly what Mark was getting at.

Mark sighed. “You know how you said that any idiot with an Internet connection could look this stuff up? Well, guess what.” He tapped his chest. “This idiot has an Internet connection and looked it up. I put in the address, found articles about a congressman and his kid, found out that kid was . . .” He paused, shot a look toward the living room, lowered his voice so that Jeanie wouldn’t hear. “. . . that some satanic cult slashed the kid up. In this very house, Lou. And, surprise surprise, the dude in charge is now sitting in Lambert, asking you, and only you, to take a meeting with him.”

Lucas said nothing.

“God, Lou. Is that what you meant when you said you had a deal out here? You agreed to live in his house of fucking horrors?”

“It’s a house, Mark. It’s got walls and a floor. It’s just a place to live in.”

“Right. Like Amityville was just a house.”

“Amityville was a hoax.”

“So you’re saying you don’t believe in any of that stuff?” Mark asked. “Not a single shred of belief in your whole entire body? Because you might want to mention that to Jeanie. I went upstairs to see what she was doing, and you know what I found?”

“A girl with a black eye?”

“Books,” Mark said flatly. “A lot of books about shit twelve-year-old girls don’t normally focus on. Parapsychology? Ghosts? She had them spread all over her bed.”

“Lots of kids read about ghosts.”

“She’s got things bookmarked—she’s in deeper than you think. If Jeanie finds out what this house is . . .”

“But she isn’t going to find out, is she?”

Mark held up his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, you’ve gotten yourself into some crazy shit here. I love you like a brother, Lou. But I have to tell you, there’s something intrinsically fucked up about what you’re doing here. And now, with this guy standing you up the way he did. What was the deal—that you’d live here in exchange for him talking to you about what happened?”

Lucas nodded.

“Then why would he stand you up? It doesn’t make sense. I mean, something’s not right.”

“You know what’s not right?” Lucas’s agitation breached the levy of self-control. He rose from his seat, pushed the chair away a little too hard. “Where my life has gone. Your life isn’t my life, okay? If I haven’t lost it yet, I’m in the process of losing it and everything I care about. Remember how that feels? I didn’t know what the fuck else to do.”

“But how does this make sense?” Mark asked, his tone steady, undeterred by his best friend’s outburst.

“Because it’s the only plan I have,” Lucas said. “I saw an opportunity and I took it, and now things have changed and I don’t know what any of it means. But I don’t have the cash to turn it around, and I’m all out of ideas for material. I’m going to lose my kid, Mark. Caroline, I mean, I wish I could fix that . . . I’m going to do everything I can. But at the end of the day, it isn’t Caroline I give a shit about—it’s the fact that if I lose Caroline, I lose Jeanie, too.”

Mark pushed his fingers through his hair, then shook his head as if not sure what to say anymore. After a moment, he spoke. “Give me the truck keys.”

“What?”

“The keys to the moving truck. Give them to me.”

Lucas grabbed the keys off the kitchen table and arced them through the air toward Mark’s awaiting hand.

“I’m going to pick up your car for you. You keep mine.” He tossed his own keys back at Lucas. “We’ll trade when you come up for dinner. And maybe you should consider staying with us—if this place gets too heavy, I mean.”

Lucas nodded.

“I still think this whole thing is crazy,” Mark said.

“Maybe it is,” Lucas replied. “But normal isn’t going to fix this.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mark said. “I mean, normal never was your thing.”

18

SURROUNDED BY OPEN and half-empty boxes, Vee heard the yelling all the way up in her room. She raised her head from the book in her lap and squinted at the muffled tones filtering through her open door. She hated the sound of arguing, but this was new. Her dad was battling it out with Uncle Mark—a person she’d never heard him fight with before. Her curiosity got the best of her. Rather than closing her door to block out the sound, she tiptoed into the upstairs hallway and peeked over the banister to the living room below.

“You know how you said that any idiot with an Internet connection could look this stuff up? Well, guess what. This idiot has an Internet connection and looked it up. I put in the address, found articles about a congressman and his kid . . .”

Uncle Mark’s voice dropped off then, as though he had said too much. She chewed on a nail, descending the stairs one after the other, careful not to make any noise.

“It’s a house, Mark. It’s got walls and a floor. It’s just a place to live in.” Her dad, frustration punctuating his tone. The tension in his voice was familiar. He hadn’t sounded anything but stressed for what seemed like years, but these last few weeks had been particularly hard.

“Right. Like Amityville was just a house.”

Vee stalled at the reference.

Amityville.

She’d watched that movie with Tim and Heidi on Tim’s TV only a few months before. Tim had a whole collection of old horror movies he’d bought at some going-out-of-business sale for a few bucks a pop; Troll and Dolls and Critters. They were cheapie films that Vee laughed at while watching but spooked her when the lights went out. But The Amityville Horror had been no joke. Both she and Heidi had watched it wide-eyed the whole way through. Even Tim had kept quiet until the end, which was a feat in and of itself. Tim was notorious for mid-movie commentary; half the time, they couldn’t get him to shut up for more than five minutes.