The only pictures that didn’t feature the old lady were of Erin and her husband or other family members. One, an older one of a young girl with teased bangs and laser lights shooting behind her, had to be her mother. The eighties were a scary time. Another one of a young girl with cat’s-eye glasses and a bouffant, could have been her grandmother. Or possibly a beloved great-aunt. But for the most part, the Clarks were living in what I would consider a house of horror. Every picture was disturbing on new and escalating levels.
Then I realized they might not all be of baby Hannah. Some of them could be of Erin’s first children. Was someone or something haunting Erin? Was a ghost targeting her children for some reason? And if so, for what reason? What would a ghost have to gain by killing children?
I wish this seeing dead people had come with a manual of some sort. Or a diagram. A flow chart would have been nice. I might have to go to the library and look up Fifty Reasons Ghosts Kill. Or How to Tell if You Have a Poltergeist in Ten Simple Steps.
Poltergeist. Could that be it? Weren’t they different from, like, regular dead people? I wracked my amnesic brain. What did I know about honest-to-goodness poltergeists? They were angry. I knew that. They often attached themselves to a place, an object, or a person. They lived, in a manner of speaking, for scaring the crap out of people.
But if that was the case, Headless Henry fit the definition as well.
Wait, no he didn’t. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t using his power for evil. He had an evil sense of humor, but that didn’t make him a bad guy. This woman, the woman targeting Erin and her family, was bad.
If I were being the least bit honest, I would have admitted that I had no idea whether a ghost could actually kill. It seemed wrong in the grand scheme of things. But it was the only explanation. Other than the obvious one that any normal person would adhere to: Erin’s children died of SIDS. Plain and simple and what I considered one of the most tragic of all losses. Pretty much any bad event that happened to a child made no sense. Everything from kids with cancer to the ones who’d been abused or abandoned. The mere thought ripped at my heart. And the idea of Erin losing another child squeezed it like a vise.
Why? Did the child really have to pay for the sins of the father? And if so, what the bloody fuck? Why should my kid have to pay for my mistakes?
I was so never having children. They’d be doomed.
A male voice sounded from behind me, and the adrenaline that dumped into my system caused me to jump so high I almost bit it on the landing.
“Hey!” he yelled. “What are you doing?”
Reflexively, I picked up the poker from the fireplace and turned to him, aiming it like a sword. “Stay back! I mean it.”
He stood just outside the kitchen, wearing only a towel and holding a… frying pan. Really? An entire kitchen at his disposal and he chooses a frying pan? Admittedly, it was cast iron. It’d kill if wielded properly, but I didn’t think this guy was a killer.
“You’re in my house,” he said, holding the skillet with both hands in the exact manner I was holding the poker. I honestly didn’t know who was more frightened. But he did have a good point. I was the trespasser, he the trespassee.
“Who are you?” he asked as he took a wary step back. He looked to the side and spotted something.
All my dreams of living a life free of sliding bars and crappy food vanished when I realized he was going for his phone.
“Wait!” I yelled before he picked it up. “I think your house is haunted!”
He picked up the phone anyway but didn’t do anything with it. Not yet.
There was still hope. I took one hand off the poker and raised it in surrender. “I know how this is going to sound, but I think your baby’s in danger.”
“That’s what my wife keeps saying. Do you know her?”
“She told me your first two children passed before they were a year old.”
He lowered the pan. “Yeah, but they weren’t mine. She and her ex divorced after their second child died.”
That made sense. Not many couples lasted after losing a child.
“And now she keeps going on and on about this bitch at work and how she now believes Hannah will die, too, no matter how safe we are.”
“Yeah. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m the bitch.”
His muscles tensed.
“Did she tell you about the palm reader?”
He nodded. “I know it sounds crazy, but I think I’m starting to believe her. Either that or it’s like those cults where they brainwash their members into believing aliens are going to take them to their home planet.”
“Right? What’s up with that?” I wracked my brain trying to remember his name.
“That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my house. Unless, like Erin said, you are here to kill our baby.” His hand tightened around the pan again, and he started pushing buttons on his phone.
“What? She said I would try to kill your baby?”
“Not in so many words, but she said just the fact that you’re here has put her in danger.”
It finally came to me. “I’m here to try to save her, Billy. To try to figure out what’s going on.”
“Mm-hm.” He held up an index finger to put me on pause, then scrolled though his phone. I heard elevator music in my mind until he said, “Yes, I’d like to report a break-in.”
My jaw dropped open. “Billy!” I whispered, rushing toward him. Prison orange did not look good on me. “Just give me a chance. I can see things others can’t. I can see a woman in the pictures of your daughter. An old woman with white eyes and —”
“Never mind,” he said into the phone. “I thought someone was breaking in across the street, but they were just leaving a note.” His entire demeanor changed in a heartbeat, and he went from scowling at me to gaping at me, only in a really cute way. Seriously, the kid could have been a supermodel. “Yes. No, yeah, I understand. I’ll keep an eye out. Sorry about that.”
He talked his way out of the call and put his phone down.
“You’ve seen her, too?” I asked. “In the pictures?”
“No. In the house.”
Fuck. I was right. She was here.
“Okay, tell me exactly what you saw.”
He’d grown a little pale and had to sit down. We walked back into the living room and sat on their very used but terribly comfy couch. It was probably a hand-me-down. They clearly couldn’t afford much. Their decor was sparse but prettily placed.
They worked hard for what they had, and I admired them both.
“So, I got up one night about a week ago to check on Hannah. Just this weird tug inside me.”
I wondered if he might be a little touched as well.
“I was half asleep, but when I got to Hannah’s room, I could have sworn I saw someone standing over her. An old lady. I asked her what she was doing in my daughter’s room, and she —” He stopped as though gathering himself. “She turned and just came at me. I fell back, but when I looked again, she was gone.”
“That’s awful.” I wanted to share. I wanted to tell him about being chased by the headless horseman and how this customer at work had a demon tucked inside him, but now was not the time for group therapy. “What did you do?”