And then there was the faithful literary agent John Cormick, the steadfast optimist. He’d drop representation of Lucas in two seconds flat after hearing that the book on Halcomb was stillborn.

Sorry, Lou. We’ve had a great run, but I gotta cut you loose. Keep your head up. Best of luck.

Without putting a single word of this new project to paper, he was already defeated.

“Fuck.”

He exhaled the profanity into his palms, dragged his fingers down his face, and let his hands slap against the varnished oak. Not knowing what else to do, he stepped out of the room with his head bowed and his thoughts scrambled, only glancing up for half a second to see Jeanie’s closed bedroom door. He made a beeline for the kitchen. Rummaging through the few unpacked boxes, he located his desk-sized coffeemaker—a little four-cup job just large enough to keep him fueled. It was a crappy old thing that needed replacing, one he had bought out of frustration, each trip to the kitchen for a refill robbing him of precious momentum. That was during a time when he’d actually had momentum. Now he was simply hoping for a caffeinated jump-start. Tugging the coffeemaker out of the box by its cord, he tucked it beneath his arm, grabbed a filter from the pantry, and fished a bag of Starbucks grounds out of the refrigerator door. He all but tripped over the box he’d left in the middle of the room, just barely catching himself on the wall.

“Jesus Christ.”

He continued onward, determined to set up his coffeemaker and get to work, no matter how shitty or unmotivated he felt. Maybe, somehow, by some miracle, he could pull a rabbit out of a hat. Because if he gave up now, it wasn’t just about the book—it was everything. Caroline. Jeanie. His career.

Goddammit, he forgot the water. He turned around, climbed the two brick steps from the recessed living room into the kitchen, and stopped midstep.

There was a voice.

It was far-off. Indiscernible. Nothing but a handful of muffled underwater tones, but it was distinctly female.

Lucas froze and listened as he stood in the mouth of the kitchen. He held his breath, trying to make out where the sound had originated. His first thought was that it could have been Jeanie watching some late-night TV, but there was no television in her room. When he had glanced upstairs on his way to get coffee, her door was closed.

The voice faded as quickly as it had come, leaving Lucas to shake off the goose bumps that had crawled across his skin.

Just my imagination. After all, houses had a tendency to unnerve new tenants, and this one had an especially good reason to creep someone out. Except what about the shadow figure he had thought he’d seen in the corner of the kitchen minutes after he’d first stepped into the house? Had that been more of his runaway creativity? It seemed to him that this house was making him jumpy as hell. If anything, it should have been sparking some literary artistry. But instead, it was just making him feel like he was losing his mind.

He stepped into the kitchen, still listening for what he swore he had heard—you didn’t hear a damn thing, Lou—and stuck the small glass coffee pitcher beneath the faucet. That was when he saw her; a blond-haired woman running through the cherry orchard. It seemed as though someone was chasing her. She looked panicked, half tripping over her feet as she darted between the trees.

Lucas’s heart sputtered. He squinted, struggling to see past his own reflection in the window above the sink. She moved out of sight before he could get his bearings, leaving him to stare at rows upon rows of trees glowing silver in the moonlight. A moment later, he saw a flash of two or three others, tailing her like pale streamers tied to her feet.

“What the hell . . . ?”

He left his pitcher of water on the counter, unlocked the door that led out onto the back patio, and stepped outside.

“Hello? Is somebody there?”

He had seen that sort of panic before, had spotted it on the face of a woman who had run up the platform stairs just in time to miss the number 7 train. Jeanie had been fussy that night, which was why they had left the party they were attending early to head home. Caroline was busy taking care of their toddler while Lucas stared out the train’s scratched-up safety glass, his head still fuzzy from all the wine he’d drunk. A woman had come up onto the platform, just missing the train. A hooded figure appeared at the top of the stairs behind her. The woman’s eyes went wide, as if seeing her own fate approach. She held up her hands, fending the figure off. It was the last thing Lucas saw before the train screamed down the rails, nixing prey and predator from view.

Lucas had scoured for news of a subway station assault for weeks. Haunted by the fact that he may have been the last person to see the woman alive, he struggled with the idea that she was somebody’s little girl, someone’s Virginia. It had taken him months to shake her ghost. Now, the familiar dread was back.

Halcomb’s neo-followers—the new generation who, according to Josh Morales, took the time to write Halcomb prison letters on the regular—could easily be prowling the woods. Copycats looking to sacrifice a pretty blonde on the cult leader’s long-abandoned stomping grounds. The more Lucas considered the possibility of eccentrics hanging around the area, the more likely it seemed. He hadn’t spotted any markings on the property suggestive of such visits, but anything was possible. Some people traveled the country to check out haunted spots. Others drove thousands of miles just to get a look at crime scenes that were long since cleaned up. If people were dedicated enough to write to Halcomb thirty years after his crimes, how much of a stretch could it be for some nut job to visit the infamous house on Montlake Road?

“Is anybody out here?”

He looked into the darkness, but the night was still. All he could hear was the dull roar of the ocean a quarter of a mile away, the constant whoosh of water ebbing away from the shore.

Left with no other choice than to let it go, he turned back toward the house, nearly choking on his own heartbeat when he found Jeanie standing in the open kitchen door.

“Jesus, you scared me.” He exhaled a dry laugh, trying to steady his pulse. But his daughter’s dark expression didn’t offer much consolation. The shadows that cut across her face made her look severe. Her bruised eye gave her a skeletal appearance, like a death mask waiting to smile.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked.

“Just getting some air.”

She jumped onto the tail end of his lie as soon as it left his throat. “Did you see somebody?”

“What? No.” The last thing Lucas needed was Jeanie worrying about people creeping through the trees.

“Dad.” She stood steadfast in the doorway. Her arms coiled defensively across her chest. “I know.”

Every muscle in his body tensed. For a split second, he tried to assure himself that what she was referring to had nothing to do with the house. But he could see it in her eyes—fresh enlightenment, the spark of a riddle that had suddenly come clear.

“What?” It was the only word he could squeeze out of his throat, a single syllable heavy with the hope that he was wrong.

“I know what happened here.”

Lucas’s face flushed hot. “I don’t . . .”

 . . . don’t know what you mean.

“Dad.” She looked him square in the face, not in the mood for games. “I read all about it online. I know what this place is.”

INVESTIGATION REPORT

Puget Sound Paranormal Group

CASE FILE: PPW101

DATE: January 6, 1989

RESIDENTS: Hailey and Robert Yates, Trisha Yates