On Tenterhooks (29 page)

He shrugged.
“Later on,
I couldn’t sleep
, so
I was looking through the stack of work mail I had brought home and th
at
letter showed up again.
I
didn’t even remember b
ringing it home. I was
bored, lonely,
o
r desperate
.
A little of all three I
guess
.”

Jack finished scanning the letter and reluctantly passed it to Abby’s waiting hand.

“So I sent my wife a note.
I know, it sounds funny, even
now
when the words come out
.
But late at night
alone
in a big empty house, everything gets kinda funny. So yeah, I sent her a note, nothing big
.
I
told her how much I missed her and things like that.
”

He
nodded along with his own words.
 
“The next day, there was another note
in my office
.
Only this one was different
.
Someone had
handwritten
this one. It
looked like my wife had written it.
It was very personal
. . .
and it was
a direct response to what I had submitted on that website
.
What’s more, it
had things in it, other
things that
only my wife would know.”

He stood and wandered behind the couch.
“
Simply put, it freaked me out
.
I am a
computer guy
for a
bank, so I was
pretty
certain
I’d become
a victim of identity theft or some kind of cybercrime
.
It
made me very, very paranoid.”

T
app
ing
the back of the couch for emphasis
, he continued
, “
I did some digging on this
Say Goodbye to Me
outfit and didn’t turn up much of anything until I
found
this list.
That was it. Four names and some info
.
”

He
walked around the couch and
passed the list to Jack, who accepted and scanned it
, and then passed it to Abby
.
Susan
read
over
her daughter’s
shoulder.
“Did you contact the police?”
she
asked.

“No.
I had no proof of anything illegal
.
I
wanted to try to pin something on someone with hard evidence
,
before I got the authorities involved
.
Frankly, I was afraid if the police started sniffing around, the scammers would just pack up shop and move on.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I want
ed
justice
for
the opportunistic ba
stard who used Julie’s death
as a
free meal ticket at my expense.
”

Jack nodded.
“What do you think they’re after?”

“Well,” admitted Steve,
“t
hat’s
the part I can’t explain
.
I was pretty
sure of my theory until I contacted Martin here
.
He had a similar experience
,
but came away with a
very
different view of things.”

“That I did,” said Martin. “
I got the same
strange
note at work
.
It seemed to appear
out of nowhere
on
my
pharmacy
counter one day
.
Like Steve,
I figured the timing was just coincidental or somebody was playing a sick joke or something.
But I got into the lonely house syndrome myself
,
and I sent
my own
note in to the website too.
One
day after I sent it
,
my
daughter
spoke to me
.”

The Nikkos all stared at Martin.

“Excuse me?” said Jack.

“
I operate
a HAM radio stack for a hobby.
I was at my console
,
and I heard
Maggie
right through the
headphones
.
She came through loud and clear
,
just like she was standing
there
next to me
.
B
ased on wh
at she said, it was obvious she’d
read my letter
.
She told me to be strong and that she was sorry for leaving me. It was my daughter
.
I couldn’t talk back to her, but I am
certain
that it was
Mags
,
and there was no fishy business involved.”

Abby was nodding at his words.
Martin paused and tried to make eye contact with everyone in the room, as if
daring
them to refute his statement
.
No one did.

“So, you think it’s a scam,” said Jack, looking at Steve. “And you think it is legit,”
turning to
Martin. “And how about you?” he asked
Veronica
. “
What do you think
?”

“Well,
I did get that same first note
.
Only it came to me as an email, not a letter. I deleted it,
figuring it for spam
.
I h
adn’t given it another thought until these two showed up at my office with
their
story.”

“I did some digging, using that list,” said Steve, gesturing to the
slip of paper
on the coffee table between them. “I looked up the other three names. Martin was first
.
I flew
up
to see him in Virginia
,
and after we discussed
what
had happened to us
a bit,
what we decided
has led us here.”

“They hopped on a plane and hounded me at work,” continued
Veronica
. “I never sent a note, so I
had
no idea what they were talking about
.
But
when they told me what they knew about my
m
om’s death
—
how she
really
died
—
it
was a red flag
.
Because of
that
list, Martin and Steve knew things that only I and the police in Mexico
knew .
.
. things
my
family
didn’t even know. And after I had a run in with the preacher they warned me about, I was on board, at least to learn enough to keep myself safe from whatever it is.”

At the mention of the preacher, Susan and Jack exchanged a
glance.

“You’ve seen him
,
too
,
then?”
Martin
asked.

“No,” said Susan
, hesitating
. “We
haven’t .
.
. but
Abby’s school called
us earlier this week
.
There was a man dressed as a preacher there, asking to see Abby.”

“Mom!
Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Calm down
,
Abby,” said Jack. “Your
mom
and I saw no reason to upset you
.
For all we knew
,
it was a harmless local pastor checking up on you.”

“He’s not harmless!” Abby
shrieked
.
“He’s in my dreams
.
I see him all the time!”

“He’s not harmless,”
Veronica
echoed
. “The
re is something wrong
about
him.
I can’t explain it, but he feels
just .
.
. wrong
.
I can’t
tell you
any
more than that, but I have seen him twice now
,
and each time it
’
s
as if
I am in some poison
ous
gas cloud or something
.
I have a panic attack.”

“
He’s been in my dreams
,
too
.
And when I see him in real life, h
e twists my insides all up,” Mar
t
in
chimed in
.
“
We saw him this morning before we left LaGuardia. When we were close to him,
I thought I was gonna be sick to my stomach.”

“I’ve seen him
twice
now
in real life
,” said Steve. “He was just like he is in my dreams
—
tall, skeletal,
with translucent skin. H
e barely looks human.
I have no idea what he has to do with all of this, but he seems to be follo
wing us
.
He talked to me, but he only seems to want to twist a knife in me
.
It’s like he knows I’m hurting
,
and he likes it that way.
”

Susan rose from the couch
,
“I am calling the police
.”

“Susan,” said Jack
.
“
What
are you going to tell them?  That you want them put out an
alert
on
some mysterious preacher who seems to be popping up
in dreams
?”

“So what then
,
Jack
?
You want to wait until he shows up
at our doorstep
? I
’m not ready
to take that chance!”

Jack
softened his voice,
“Think about it
.
No laws have been broken
,
and you can’t go off half-cocked
with
a crazy story like this from complete strangers.”

“No offense,”
he
continued, looking at the group.

“None taken,” replied Steve
automatically
.

“Does anybody want to hear my
part of things here?” said Abby
. She continued without waiting for an answer. “This is
not
a crazy story. The same thing
s have
happened to me.”

Susan
sat back down on
the couch
, the telephone still in her left hand
.
“You
mean
you got that letter too?”
she
asked.

“Got it and sent a
message
of my own,” replied Abby
, nodding
. “And I got a response too.”

She pulled a folded
piece of paper out of the back pocket of her jeans
and
handed it to
her mother, who
put the phone down
to use both of her trembling hands to
unfold
the paper
.
Jack stood up and moved around
behind her
to read over her shoulder.