The Darkest Lullaby Read online

  Nothing.

  Her skull throbbed, the headache worsening.

  Ellie went upstairs to the bathroom and found what she was searching for right away—the extra-strength pain relievers. She shook two out and tossed them into her mouth. She leaned down to sip enough tap water to wash the pills down.

  She made a face at the metallic tang of the water. Chris had prepared her for it, but even so, the well water was a shock to her system. She bent and drank again, remembering something Chris had said: Sometimes you’ll smell manure from the pig farms, and the humidity can be brutal, but the water will be cleaner in Indiana, and…

  “…it’ll be better for our babies too,” Ellie said and wiped her mouth.

  When she opened the cabinet to put the bottle away, something between the first and second shelves caught her attention.

  She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before, but built into the dingy cabinet interior was a small metal door, about two inches wide and one inch tall. She pushed the cool metal surface and glimpsed the darkness within.

  What on earth?

  Propping up the tiny door with her fingers, she braced herself on the edge of the vanity and brought her face as close as she could to the opening. She couldn’t imagine what its use could be. A peephole? A laundry chute for mice?

  An idea occurred to her. She left the bathroom and entered the bedroom that shared the wall. She crossed the room, opened the closet door, and gasped as something lunged at her legs.

  The yardstick clattered on the wood floor.

  Ellie put a hand to her mouth and suppressed laughter at her skittishness.

  She yanked the pullstring, and light flooded the closet. It was a small space, scarcely wide enough for her to enter without having to turn sideways. Straight ahead, level with her ribcage, Ellie spotted a tiny wooden knob affixed to what appeared to be a small wooden door. The medicine cabinet, she calculated, would be exactly that height. She grabbed the knob and pushed. For a moment the door slid easily to the left. Then it caught and wouldn’t budge no matter how she tried to joggle it. Still, the aperture was wide enough she could slip her hand inside, which she did, feeling around the narrow compartment for some clue to the thing’s purpose.

  The tip of a finger brushed something.

  Vague thoughts of secret treasure cavorted through her mind. Childhood memories of playing pirates with Katherine recurred as she reached deeper, determined now to retrieve something of worth from the compartment.

  She brought her body flush against the wall, her bare arm skimming the smooth wood within. Ellie paused. Her fingers had touched something cold and hard lying at the bottom of the compartment. A coin? Straining, she pushed farther inside and got hold of something very thin. Sharp even.

  A bead of sweat oozed down Ellie’s temple, her shoulder beginning to ache from the contortion. God, she wished she had Chris’s long arms now. She straightened her elbow as much as possible, slid her arm inside another couple inches. She turned her hand, got hold of the object with her index finger and thumb, tugged. It slipped a little, so she pulled harder, and within the compartment something shifted, and her thumb erupted in a starburst of pain. Crying out, Ellie jerked her hand away, a hideous fire searing through her flesh.

  Her knees became jelly when she beheld the bright red lines on her forearm and the razor blade sticking out of her thumb.

  She hissed as she extracted the razor blade from the soft pad of skin.

  The wound was deep. It ran the length of her thumbprint and ended just shy of the nail. Within the dark compartment she could see a gruesome mass of razor blades, many of them rusted with age, some speckled with what might have been dry blood. One blade tumbled out and clittered on the floor an inch from her bare feet, as though it too wanted a sample of her blood. She grimaced and dropped the blade that had cleaved her flesh.

  She sucked on her thumb, the coppery taste making her queasy. Then she stopped, eyes widening.

  What the hell was she thinking? She hadn’t sliced her thumb open on an envelope or a piece of clear plastic, she’d cut it on a goddamned razor blade, a razor blade with rust or blood or God knew what caked all over its filthy mean edge.

  A litany of horrific possibilities crashed down upon her like hailstones:

  Tetanus.

  Lockjaw.

  Hepatitis.

  AIDS.

  Was AIDS even around when the razor blades had been discarded here? She scrambled through the dates, calculating with panicked rapidity. The last tenant, of course, was Aunt Lillith, and though Ellie had despised the old goblin, she doubted Lillith had been afflicted with any diseases.

  But what did that prove? Just because Lillith had been healthy didn’t mean the owners before her had been. Anyone in the last hundred years could have used this disgusting razor blade disposal system and consigned Ellie to a life of disease and a slow-suffering death.

  Unconsciously, she’d begun to suck her bleeding thumb again.

  Revolted, she jerked it out and spat, brought up the belly of her tank top to clean her tongue with.

  She was shivering all over, her thoughts dissolving in a sick, fatalistic haze.

  Think, Ellie. Think.

  Katherine’s voice, for once a welcome sound. Get your tush in the bathroom and wash your wound. Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.

  Automatically, Ellie obeyed. She strode into the bathroom. Using her uninjured left hand to twist on the water, she thrust her thumb under the cold flow and winced as the dull throb increased.

  “Ooo,” she said, walking in place. “Damn damn damn damn damn.”

  Eventually the water warmed, but she held the thumb under the misty spray as long as she could stand it, the vague notion that hot water would kill the razor’s germs raising her pain tolerance to a level far above normal.

  When she could endure it no longer, she shut off the water and held her dripping hand above the sink. A bright red drop pattered in the white basin and coalesced, swirling, into the rivulets of water spiraling toward the drain.

  She swaddled her thumb in a moist washcloth and stood, exhausted, before the open cabinet. She eyed the metal door and fought an insane urge to strike it with a hammer.

  Ridiculous, she knew, to take out her frustration on an inanimate object. Besides, she had no idea if they even had a hammer.

  Her thumb pounding, Ellie glared at the rectangle of metal.

  She’d find a hammer in the morning.

  Chapter Four

  After exploring Ravana for a while, Chris went to a store called Ike’s and splurged on groceries. When his cart began to overflow, he checked his watch and realized that seven a.m. was fast approaching. He didn’t want Ellie to awaken in the new house alone.

  The clerk watched him impassively as he began unloading his cart on the conveyor.

  “You Ike?” Chris asked.

  “Do I look like an Ike?”

  Chris smiled. “Sorry. I just assumed you were the owner.”

  The man started scanning Chris’s items. “Please, I’d rather eat dirt than own a business in this town.”

  A bunch of bananas refused to read. The clerk passed it over the dark glass again and again. As he did, Chris noticed the thinning black hair, shiny with too much gel. The hairy forearms. He detected a faint trace of old sweat and resolved to breathe through his mouth.

  “Well, damn,” the little man muttered and began typing in numbers.

  In his peripheral vision Chris saw someone approach. He turned and saw a tall, broad-shouldered woman who quickly averted her eyes. He blinked a moment, the lack of sleep finally getting to him, when comprehension dawned.

  “Doris?” he asked.

  She froze as though debating whether or not she could keep walking and pretend she hadn’t heard. Apparently deciding there was no escape, she faced him, her cold expression altering to something that wasn’t quite friendliness.

  She said, “I take it you decided to go through with it.”

&nb
sp; “We got in last night, and hopefully—” He knocked on the steel rim of the counter. “—the movers will arrive today.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” she said, smiling. “Those companies can be awfully unreliable.”

  “So I’ve heard,” he answered and was irritated to note the clerk had stopped scanning to better hear their conversation.

  Doris examined a bottle of shampoo from a center display. “Shame we weren’t able to sell your property.”

  Chris folded his arms. “I’m sort of glad it didn’t sell.”

  “You’re not the one who’s moving into the Martin house,” the clerk said.

  Chris returned his gaze. “That’s right. Lillith was my aunt.”

  The little man glanced at the real estate agent and something passed between them.

  Doris said, “I feel we should have a talk, Mr. Crane. For closure.”

  She was only a few inches shy of his six-foot-three frame. He remembered seeing her photo on the real estate website, but nothing could’ve prepared him for the real thing. The woman was intimidating as hell, her large breasts crowding him, her small gray eyes rife with accusation.

  Grateful for an excuse to avoid her gaze, Chris ran his debit card through the keypad and typed in his PIN number. “I don’t see the need for that, Mrs. Keller. You did your best to sell the house.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  Her words were clipped and too loud by half in the otherwise deserted store. He noted with wonderment how fierce her expression had become, how aggressive her posture.

  He faced her. “When would you like to meet?”

  “I have showings until Friday. Come to my office then.”

  “Seems to me,” Chris said, “since you’re the one who wants to talk, you should come to our house.”

  She pursed her lips. “Friday around noon then,” she said and walked away.

  Chris looked at the clerk. “You wanna let me in on the secret?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “For starters, why no one wanted to buy the land.”

  A cunning smile played over the man’s lips and was replaced by a seriousness Chris knew was feigned. The clerk asked, “Have you heard of Gerald Destragis?”

  The name meant nothing to him. He said so.

  The little man nodded. “Might be a good place to start.”

  Chris opened his mouth to ask another question but a bloodcurdling wail from outside stopped him. For a long moment he and the little man stared at one another uncertainly. Then Chris remembered the dog in his car and started for the door.

  When he first spotted the man bent toward the Camry’s window, his face mere inches from the gap in the window, Chris thought he was taunting the animal. His blue work shirt, denim overalls and stovepipe hat gave the man a mischievous appearance, like a ceramic garden gnome come to life. Furthering the impression was the man’s posture: hands on knees, red-bearded face jutting forward, the flesh of his cheeks ruddy and gleeful.

  The man was saying something to the dog, which was baying wildly and scratching at the window. As he approached, Chris realized the man was attempting to mollify rather than provoke the animal.

  “…a good dog…he’ll be back for you soon…shhh…”

  “What’s going on?” Chris asked. Dog and man looked up at his voice, and though the man was smiling broadly, the dog’s efforts to claw his way out of the car redoubled.

  “Doesn’t much care for being alone,” the man said.

  “Guess not,” Chris answered and opened the door. A black blur leaped out and nearly sent him sprawling. The dog skidded awkwardly, scrabbled for footholds, and jumped at Chris again. The man laughed as the animal hurled himself against Chris’s body as though they’d been apart for years rather than minutes.

  “Easy,” Chris said. “Easy, boy.”

  “Take care,” the man said and went toward the store.

  Kneeling before the dog, Chris called, “He just start howling like that? For no reason?”

  “None that I could see,” the man said and came back over. “I didn’t even notice him when I got out of my truck. When he started in I must’ve jumped a mile in the air.”

  Now that the triphammer of his heart had subsided, Chris was able to survey the length of the man’s beard, the plainness of his clothing. A German Baptist, or what his parents called Amish.

  The man asked, “New in town?”

  “My wife and I arrived last night. We moved into my aunt’s old home.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s east of town. A black house in the woods.”

  For the merest fraction of a second the man didn’t respond. Then his grin returned and he said, “Sure, I know the place.” He offered his hand. “Name’s Daniel Wolf.”

  Chris told the man his name and shook, the large hand gripping his firmly.

  “We’re neighbors, Mr. Crane,” Daniel said.

  “Chris.”

  Daniel nodded at Chris’s belt buckle. “Figured your name was Lenny.”

  Chris smiled and explained the buckle’s origins.

  Daniel nodded. “Your land ends at Deer Creek Road—mine begins across the way.”

  Chris opened the Camry door and ushered the dog in. Closing it, he asked, “Are you a farmer?”

  Daniel grinned, regarded his scuffed work boots. “I cash-rent a little. Mainly I work on houses.”

  “Like a handyman?”

  “If people need that, sure. Mostly we do renovations, but occasionally we’ll do a new construction.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my brother. I do custom cabinetry, Aaron’s a wiz with plumbing and electric.”

  The dog pawed the inside of the window, whined at them.

  “Just a second, pal,” Chris said and smiled an apology at Daniel. “You in the yellow pages, Mr. Wolf? We might be needing you guys soon.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, Aaron did some work there.”

  Chris nodded and hooked a thumb at the dog. “I better get going before he eats the seat.”

  “Hope you like it here,” Daniel said and walked away.

  Chris got in but before he could fit the key in the ignition, the dog assaulted him with a flurry of slobbery licks. Chris shielded his face, nudged the dog back toward the passenger seat. “All right, all right, I was only gone a few minutes.”

  The dog whined and shook his posterior excitedly.

  “I’ve been thinking about names,” Chris said. He started the engine and glanced at the dog. “How about Petey?”

  Nestled in the sleeping bag, Ellie heard the Camry approaching and thought: He better have food. Then she recalled the incident in the closet and the sleep fog burned away.

  Ellie got up and went downstairs, and through the kitchen window saw Chris pop the trunk. He hefted several plastic bags and jogged to the back door. Reluctantly, she went over and opened it for him.

  “Don’t hit me,” he said as he passed.

  She peeked inside a couple of bags and felt much of her anger melt away at the sight of eggs, apples and bagged lettuce.

  Setting everything on the counter, he said, “I was hoping you’d sleep until I got back.”

  She was about to relay her bad experience when a large yellow sack caught her eye.

  “Dog food?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  But he was already by her, down the steps, and flinging open the Camry’s back door.

  The black dog was enormous.

  Worse, it was bounding toward her like some kind of heartland panther, its eyes gleaming with idiot ferocity.

  “Chris?” she said.

  But he was laughing as the dog torpedoed her mid-section and almost knocked her down. She pivoted and made to escape but the dog shoved its nose up the crack of her ass. She straightened and let out a cry. And Chris, goddamn him, was laughing as though it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.
She hated this kind of dog, the kind that jumped on you and treated your crotch like its own personal wonderland.

  “Down, boy,” Chris said, finally coming over. “Down, Petey.”

  “Petey?” she asked as she tried to ward it off. The dog continued bouncing, his nose boring between her legs.

  Chris laughed. “Friendly, isn’t he?”

  She covered her privates but the dog battered himself against her hands and nearly bent her double.

  She backpedaled. “Chris…can you…”

  “All right, Petey, stay down.”

  “You sure he’s safe? Living in the wild, he could have any number of diseases.”

  “The wild? Come on, honey, this is Indiana.”

  She watched her husband soothe the eager animal and fought the ridiculous feeling that she’d been replaced. The dog surged forward but Chris wrapped it up before it could assault her again.

  Ellie backpedaled to the screen door and grasped the handle in case Petey broke free.

  “Can’t you give it a sedative or something?”

  “I think he likes you.”

  Petey finally gave up trying to reach her and contented himself with licking Chris’s face.

  Ellie made a mental note to withhold her good morning kiss. As if to affirm her thinking, Petey left off slobbering on her husband and immersed himself in licking his own testicles.

  “Charming,” Ellie said. “He doing that when you found him?”

  “Kind of impressive, really.”

  “So we’re keeping him,” she said. “That’s what you’ve decided.”

  Chris made a pained face. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

  She chewed her lip. “You could’ve consulted me.”

  “You were dead to the world.”

  “I wasn’t,” she said, holding up her bandaged arm. “But I might be.”

  “Oh hell,” he said, moving over to her. “What happened?”

  “I’ll share the gory details over breakfast,” she said. “You get pancake mix?”

  He wrapped his arms about her waist. “I got everything.”

  He leaned in to kiss her, but she stayed him with a hand on his chest.