The Siren and the Specter Page 18

  Shelby tried to pull his face away, but Harkless’s fingers tightened. She jerked his face, hard, her voice becoming a harsh rasp. “And even when you called, you were hesitant, like you weren’t sure there was anything wrong. Like you don’t even have a parental instinct.”

  “You ain’t a mother,” Honey murmured.

  Quicker than David would have thought possible, Harkless backhanded Honey, the taller woman’s face whipping sideways and a stream of drool spattering on the leather sofa. Harkless gripped her by the chin, and got nose-to-nose. “You’re done, Honey. You hear me? You had your chance to be a mother, and you squandered it.”

  Shelby was staring at Harkless, aghast. “You can’t assault my wife. I’ll have our attorney on you so fast—”

  “David,” Harkless said.

  David moved forward, grasped a handful of Shelby’s hair, and said, “Not another word.”

  Whatever Shelby saw in David’s face, he evidently believed the threat. Shelby lowered his eyes.

  Still gripping Honey’s chin, Harkless said, “I’m sending Mike Jr. to a safe place tonight.” When Honey started to speak, Harkless overrode her. “You’re not gonna know where it is, so don’t even ask. And if you look like you’re gonna do something stupid, I’ll bungee your ass again and throw you in the river.”

  “You can’t take our kids away,” Honey said, her voice garbled by drink.

  “You already lost one of them,” Harkless said. “I’m just taking the other to make sure you don’t misplace him too.”

  Honey didn’t answer, only gazed at Harkless with measureless hate.

  Shelby looked like a man mired in a nightmare. “What are we supposed to do?”

  Straightening, Harkless said, “I’m gonna take your car keys to make sure you don’t try to run.”

  “I’m telling my father-in-law,” Shelby said.

  Harkless ignored him. “You two lumps of shit are gonna get up and start looking for your daughter.”

  Shelby shook his head. “We’ve been looking, we haven’t found any—”

  “Look again,” Harkless said. “If my people are gonna risk their necks stumbling around these woods at night, you’re sure as hell gonna join them. You’re the shitheads who caused this mess.”

  Honey’s voice was surprisingly level. “It ain’t our fault Ivy got herself lost.”

  Harkless made a move for Honey, but David said, “You have any clue what your daughter wants?”

  Honey glowered at him. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “That night she and Mike Jr. stayed with me,” David continued, “all she wanted was somebody to show they cared. Someone to make her a sandwich. To look at her when she was talking.”

  Honey’s eyes were widening.

  “During the storm, you didn’t even know she was gone. What if she hadn’t come to my house that night? She would’ve been in bed hiding under the covers, scared to death of the thunder.”

  Honey’s mouth twitched.

  “All she wanted was a mom,” David said. He nodded at Shelby. “A dad. But you were too busy doing everything but caring for her. When all Ivy needed was a little attention. A little love.”

  Then, horribly, Honey’s self-control crumbled, and she was sobbing, the sounds like a dying animal, the sight of her snot-streaked face too much to bear.

  David looked at Harkless, who was staring at Honey without an iota of pity.

  “You wanna stay with these sad sacks while I get Mike Jr. out of here?” Harkless asked.

  “Happy to,” David said.

  “Gimme a five-minute start,” Harkless said. “And don’t take off the bungees until they’ve given you their keys.”

  Harkless started out, but David asked, “What then? How can I help?”

  “I’d tell you to get some sleep, but I know you won’t be able to. You want, you and Jessica can look for Ivy. To my knowledge, nobody’s searched your side of the peninsula yet.”

  “Done,” David said.

  Harkless looked at him a moment. Then she went around to the staircase and called up to Jessica and Mike Jr.

  When David returned to the family room, Shelby was sobbing along with his wife.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ten minutes later, David was walking the river path with Jessica. When Shelby had finally told David where their car keys were, David pocketed them, loosed the Shelbys of their fetters, and gotten the hell out of there.

  Jessica’s voice was hushed. “Where do you think Ivy is?”

  David shook his head, not wanting to give voice to his worst suspicion.

  “Mike Jr.’s not so bad once you get to know him,” Jessica said.

  “He’s a pain in the ass.”

  Jessica smiled quickly at him. “He sort of is, isn’t he?”

  David almost smiled too. Then his good humor faded when he heard the distant sounds of voices in the woods, the nighttime search party calling out to Ivy on the off-chance she’d gotten lost in the forest. He had no idea how he knew it, but David was certain Ivy was not in these woods. Tomorrow, a larger search party would be formed, but he suspected it would be fruitless.

  He thought of Ivy’s willowy body clinging to his side. Thought of her carrying around a stuffed animal for comfort.

  “I’m sorry, David.”

  He looked at Jessica. Her eyes were large and liquid in the moonglow.

  “You care about her,” she said.

  He nodded but didn’t speak. What was there to say?

  “There’s a flashlight in my trunk,” he said as they drew nearer his property. “I think there’s another under the sink.”

  They’d passed the dock and rounded the edge of the woods when Jessica stopped short, her body rigid. David followed her shocked gaze to the house, and at first could only frown. Other than the way the siding glowed a spectral white in the moonlight, the Alexander House looked the way it always did.

  Then he realized what was wrong.

  The front door stood wide open.

  “David?” she said. “You think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, but he was already hurrying toward the house.

  * * *

  “Ivy?” he called in the entryway. He rushed into the kitchen, the dining room, flipping on lights as he went.

  “Ivy?” Jessica called. She’d headed the other direction, toward the den and master suite. David moved to the hallway and the screened-in porch, hoping against hope he’d discover the girl huddled in a corner, frightened but safe.

  The porch was empty.

  He met Jessica in the hallway. “Nothing in this part of the house,” she said. “I checked under your bed, the closets….”

  David nodded absently and started up the stairs. Jessica followed but didn’t speak. Without thinking he went immediately to the long bedroom, switched on the nearest lamp, and proceeded to fire up the other two lamps, which still didn’t lend adequate light to the murky space. He lowered on his knees and began drawing up the bedclothes to make sure Ivy wasn’t hiding there. Peripherally, he could see Jessica doing the same.

  Into the silence, she said, “The room is deeper than it looked in the video.”

  With a start he remembered he’d shown her the thermal camera recording, had made her privy to all he knew about the house.

  Forgetting Ivy for a moment, he studied Jessica’s face, the nervous way she fiddled with the hem of her black shirt. “You feel it too,” he said.

  “I always wondered…” she started, but trailed off as if catching herself.

  He tried to smile. “What is it?”

  Her face clouded. She gripped her elbows. “Let’s look in the other rooms.”

  They did, by mutual consent shunning the third story. After all, he told himself, there was no way Ivy could leap into the air, pull down a heavy l
adder, and, once she reached the third-floor dormer, heave the whole apparatus back into position.

  That’s right, a voice teased. Only Judson Alexander can do all that.

  He bared his teeth against the taunt, told himself to focus. Even if Ivy wasn’t here now, she might have been here, and if she had, it was possible she’d left a clue.

  In his opinion, there were several reasons why she might have ventured inside his house, the most basic of which being a desire to see him. He’d felt a strong bond with the child the night of the storm, and he believed the regard was mutual. She might have come while he was on his date with Jessica.

  The front door wasn’t open when you and Jessica arrived here from Lancaster.

  That was true, he acknowledged. But the door had been open when they’d returned from the Shelbys’.

  Jessica had moved into the bedroom across the hall, but David froze on the landing, a horrid thought dawning.

  Jessica emerged from the bedroom and saw the look on his face. “What?”

  He looked at her. “What if Ivy was in the house when we first got here, but by the time we left the Shelbys’ she was gone?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  David’s heart thumped dully in his chest. “I don’t think she did anything.”

  “David,” Jessica said, moving closer. “You aren’t making sense.”

  “I think….” He swallowed. “I think someone had her hidden here, then took her while we were at the Shelbys’.”

  * * *

  Flashlight beams dueling, they crisscrossed the broad stretch of vacant land between the Alexander property and Ralph Hooper’s. Whenever they neared the shore, David’s muscles tightened, an atavistic fear of discovering Ivy’s body floating facedown in a rock pool overmastering him. But each time they ventured near the shore, the only objects their flashlights revealed were wet rocks, a scum of brown bubbles reefed by vegetation, and a dead fish, its putrid body alabaster.

  When they’d made it halfway across the lot without spotting any sign of Ivy, Jessica said, “What makes you think she was taken? Isn’t it just as possible she was hiding in your house and made a break for it when we went over to her house?”

  David thought of the way the screen door had hung open, like a whiff of violence on the air.

  “For that matter,” Jessica pressed on, “why are you so sure it was Ivy? Georgia’s people were already combing the area when we were at the Shelbys’. Maybe one of them checked your place.”

  “And left the door wide open?”

  “It’s an emotional time. People don’t behave rationally.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I just want Ivy to be alive so badly I’m telling myself she was the one who left the door open.” He looked at her, could barely discern the delicate outline of her face in the moonlight. “If it was Ivy, that would mean she was alive not twenty minutes ago.”

  Near the edge of the lane, they turned southward, the tall wild grass enameling their shins with dew.

  “You think she’s running away?” Jessica asked.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Jessica didn’t answer. David’s body jolted as he stepped into a depression. A bolt of pain shot through his knee.

  “Careful,” he said, shining the light into the hole, which was disguised by skeins of violet thistles and goldenrod.

  David rubbed his knee, tested it.

  “That you, Caine?” a man’s voice called.

  “Ralph?” he asked.

  Jessica’s beam picked him out. Ralph Hooper stood about twenty feet before the tree line that enclosed his property. He carried no flashlight, but he was clutching a shotgun.

  “Why do you have that?” David asked.

  Ralph brought up a hand, visored his eyes. “Miss, do you mind….”

  “Sorry,” she said, lowering the flashlight beam.

  “Why are the cops out here?” Ralph asked them.

  Coming nearer, David told him of Ivy’s disappearance.

  Ralph nodded. “Thought it might be an escaped criminal or something. They used to….” He looked away.

  “Used to what?” David asked.

  “Never mind,” Ralph said. “There’s no sign of her?”

  “Nothing definitive,” Jessica said. “You haven’t seen anything, have you?”

  Ralph shook his head. “You guys wanna come in?”

  “Can we search your woods?” David asked.

  Something hooded came over Ralph’s face. “Ransack my house if you want.”

  David grimaced. “I’m not accusing you.”

  “Well, that’s how you act,” Ralph snapped. “A kid goes missing and all of a sudden I’m John Wayne Gacy. You forget who took you in last night?”

  David shone the light over Ralph’s shoulder. “She might be hiding in your grove.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s been a traumatic night,” Jessica explained. “The Shelbys…they’re—”

  “Trash,” Ralph said. “You don’t have to tell me. I heard a gunshot over there a few months ago.”

  David took a step toward him. “Do you know the little girl?”

  “Sure I know her. Comes by for popsicles now and then. Her and that foul-mouthed urchin.”

  “The sheriff took Mike Jr. somewhere safe,” Jessica said.

  Ralph nodded. “It’ll get him the hell out of that house.”

  They’d neared the edge of the thicket when David stopped, put a hand on Ralph’s arm. “I’ve had enough mystery, Ralph. What did you mean a little while ago?” When Ralph only looked at him blankly, David said, “About escaped criminals.”

  Ralph reached into his pocket and produced a crinkled pouch of Red Man. “It’s a complicated business.”

  “Ralph’s talking about Judson Alexander,” Jessica said.

  David turned. Jessica’s gaze was steady.

  “The Alexander House is my hobby,” she explained. “You might call it an obsession.”

  “We spent the day talking about it. I showed you the video….” He shook his head. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was using you to get information.”

  “Were you?”

  She folded her arms. “Is that what you believe?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “Apparently you do. Maybe it’s best that you drive me home now.”

  David watched her. “Why did you act like you didn’t know anything?”

  “I didn’t know,” she said. “Not most of it, at least. The stuff involving you. How would I know about it?”

  Ralph seemed about to say something, but Jessica stilled him with a sharp glance. David looked from one to the other. “Wait a minute. You two know each other?”

  Jessica stared back at him defiantly.

  Ralph was scratching the back of his neck. “I can see you two need time to sort things out. I’ll just head back—”

  “You’re staying,” David said. He looked at Jessica. “And I’m not taking you anywhere. We’re gonna go to Ralph’s and you’re gonna tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Jessica and Ralph exchanged a look. Ralph ventured a sheepish grin. “The Red Sox are on tonight.”

  * * *

  Ralph had the game on, but he turned it down almost to inaudibility when they took their seats on the screened-in porch. David snagged a wooden chair from the kitchen so Ralph and Jessica could have the gliding rockers, and though the chair wasn’t as comfortable, it did allow him to face the pair. It also spared him a view of the river, which loomed more and more ominous with each passing minute.

  “Talk,” David said. He nodded at Jessica. “You first.”

  She sat back in the rocker. “What would you like to know, Davey?”

  “Why are you obsessed with the Alexander Ho
use?”

  Though the lamp in Ralph’s kitchen tossed light onto the screened-in porch, Jessica’s features were difficult to make out. Her eyes were riveted on him, but they resembled the eyes of an antique doll, glassy and emotionless.

  “I think you know,” she said.

  He felt a heat building at the base of his neck because, God help him, he did suspect why she was so obsessed with the place. But to give voice to the suspicion was unthinkable.

  David tapped his fingers on his knees. “Are you familiar with Chris and Katherine?”

  Jessica was smiling now.

  “You in on it with them?” David demanded.

  “Easy, David,” Ralph murmured.

  But David scarcely heard him. “Tell me.”

  Jessica didn’t speak, but her smile broadened.

  “You…you knew Anna.” The words cost him an effort.

  At utterance of the name, something triumphant shone in Jessica’s face.

  His hands curled into fists. “You’ve been playing me.”

  Her maddening smile never wavered. “I’ve been nothing but genuine.”

  “It’s true, David,” Ralph said.

  “Shut up,” David snapped. He turned to Jessica. “How did you know her?”

  Jessica didn’t answer.

  David pushed to his feet, the wooden chair nearly overturning. “How did you know her?”

  “David,” Ralph said gently.

  “How?” he demanded.

  Jessica gazed up at him. “Sit and I’ll tell you.”

  David glanced from face to face, dragged a wrist over his mouth, and sat. “Goddamn you two,” he muttered.

  Jessica glanced down at her folded hands. “Anna was my sister.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Into the thunderstruck silence, Ralph said, “I think I’ll just—”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” David said. To Jessica: “So this is about revenge. You’ve been working with Chris and Katherine to…undo me? To discredit me?”

  She tilted her head. “You’re rather full of yourself, you know that, Davey?”

  “I can’t believe you’d deny it.”