Return to the Dark House (5 page)

The sun radiates through the glass, making everything feel magnified—the vibration, the brightness, my headache, the musty smell of my car.

I grab the phone and check the screen.
PRIVATE CALLER
. “Hello?”

“Ivy?” A female voice.

“Who is this?”

“Are you coming for us?” she whispers.

“Natalie?” I sit up straighter.

“
Are
you?”

“Natalie?”

The phone clicks. She hung up.

I climb out of the car and hurry inside the police station. Seated behind the dark glass barrier is Officer Squires. “Is he here today?” I ask him.

Squires lets out a sigh. He’s sick of my dropping by here. I’m sick of it too. Before I left the hospital, I’d promised myself that I was done with the police, but ever since
my discharge, I haven’t been able to stop myself, clinging to my list of what-ifs: What if a clue I share helps find the killer? What if I don’t say anything and the others wind up
dead? What if going to the station just one more time means that I’ll learn something new about the case? What if the police start seeing me as an integral part of the investigation?

Officer Squires pages Thomas, and within minutes I’m allowed through the door, inside the station, where the desks are lined up in rows. Officers are on the phone, surfing the Net, and
talking in hushed tones. Detective Dearborn—the token female here—ushers me to the back, where there’s a narrow hallway with interrogation rooms to the left and right. She leads
me into the room at the very end, my least favorite; the window doesn’t open. The interior smells like a locker room. I go inside and take a seat.

“Detective Thomas will be with you soon,” she says. Her face reminds me of a Chihuahua’s, with its beady eyes and pointed snout.

Thomas comes in a few minutes later. “Ivy...” he says, in lieu of hello. He closes the door and sits down across from me with a notepad and pen.

“She called me,” I tell him. “Just now. She asked if I was coming for them.”

“Okay, hold on,
who
called you?”

“Natalie.” Didn’t I mention that?

“How do you know it was her?”

“It was a private call, but it sounded like her.”

He doesn’t write anything down. “Did this person say anything else?”

“It was
her,
” I insist. “Don’t you think we should do something—tell someone?”
Why is it so hot in here?
I look around for a heat vent.

“How long did the conversation last?”

“A few seconds.”

“A few seconds isn’t exactly long enough to prove anything.”

I know. It isn’t.
Ticktock, ticktock.
I clench my teeth, feeling my skin begin to itch.

“There’s more.”

“Okay.” His forehead furrows.

“There was a guy at the diner during my shift.”

“And?”

“And he called me
Princess
,” I say, proceeding to tell him how the guy had been hanging around the diner for more than two hours, and how it seemed he might’ve been
waiting for me. “I’m pretty sure he was in his twenties. He had dark hair, hazel eyes, and he drove a Ford pick—”

“
And?
” Thomas asks again.

“What do you mean
and
?” I balk. “He called me
Princess
...just like I wrote about in my nightmare essay for the contest, just like the Nightmare Elf called me when
he re-created my nightmare. Do you really think it’s a coincidence?”

“I don’t know. It could be.”

“Would
you
call a complete stranger a princess?”

“Maybe if I were a twenty-something-year-old guy looking to flirt with a girl.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a warning. The killer’s coming back for me again. He wants me to be in his next movie.”

“We’re not even sure there was a first movie—at least there wasn’t one discovered.”

“It exists,” I snap. “I saw it. I lived it. The Nightmare Elf made us watch it.” Our experience during the Dark House weekend was recorded; the killer was using that
footage to make a feature film.

“Let’s just say that this guy at the diner...his calling you a princess wasn’t a coincidence....Maybe he found your essay online.”

“It isn’t online,” I say, thinking how I wondered the same—how I asked the mystery boy if he’d found my essay on some site.

“Not that you know of.” Thomas gives me a pointed look. “Maybe he’s some die-hard Justin Blake fan, wanting to meet the girl who got away.”

“Or maybe he came as a messenger,” I say, “from the killer himself.”

“Did he say anything else that might link him to the case?”

I shake my head and look away, almost tempted to make something up.

“Well, you don’t need
me
to tell you that people are interested in your story, Ivy. In some way, you’ve become famous. A lot of Justin Blake fans would go to great
lengths—including frequenting your place of employment—to meet you. To them, you’re a real-life heroine.”

“I’m hardly a heroine.” Heroes don’t leave others behind.

“Sounds like someone’s being too hard on herself. Are you still taking care of yourself, getting the help you need?”

“If you’re talking about outpatient therapy, then the answer is yes,” I lie, knowing he has a point about the story’s appeal. After the Dark House weekend, varied
versions of the story spiraled out of control. Hard-core Justin Blake fans created videos depicting their own ideas of what happened. They posted them online, some even insisting that their films
were the real deal. Last time I checked, there were more than two hundred phony films.

Also after that weekend, I started receiving prank phone calls (people claiming to be Natalie, Parker, and the others), as well as lame-o invitations and admission tickets to see the screening
of numerous Nightmare Elf–inspired projects.

“Why isn’t the FBI looking harder?” I ask him.

“They
are
looking hard. This
is
a serious case. We have five missing people and a potential killer on the loose. In my book, that’s top priority.”

“And in the FBI’s book?”

“Would it make you feel any better if I had an undercover detective frequent your place of work? I already have cops staked out at your parents’ and aunt’s
residences.”

“It would make me feel better if we were on the same page—if you let me in on the investigation. I shouldn’t have to hear from my therapist that my real parents’ killer
is a suspect.”

“No one’s excluding you, Ivy. We’re just looking out for your best interest, as well as the best interest of the case.”

“It’s in my best interest to find the killer and find the others.”

Detective Thomas studies my face for several moments, tapping his pencil against the pad, as if calculating his next few words. “Does the name Houdini mean anything to you?”

“Houdini, as in the magician?”

“As in the serial killer. He hasn’t been active for a few years now. His crimes typically involve a magic-show theme. Like the Nightmare Elf suspect, he wears a costume and creates
elaborate setups using lights, props, theater staging, video equipment. After he kills his victims, he moves the bodies; they don’t turn up until months later, and when they do, it’s in
some showy, magical fashion.”

“And the Feds think that he’s the same person who organized the Dark House weekend? Do they have a concrete reason? Fingerprints? DNA?”

“It’s just one of the many theories right now.”

“In other words, no.”

“We can’t dismiss theories based on lack of evidence.”

“Maybe you should take your own advice.”

“Excuse me?”

“The Nightmare Elf’s theme is horror, not magic,” I remind him.

“Still, there are enough common threads to raise suspicion, especially since Houdini’s victims fit the profile of your group: an eclectic mix of college-age students looking for a
good time. The victims are often tricked into going to see a magic show; there’s usually some element of winning a contest.”

“What if the Nightmare Elf killer knew about Houdini and was trying to copy his style? What if he was hoping that you’d pin the Dark House weekend crimes on Houdini?”

“Ivy...”

“What?”
I ask, able to hear the ticktock deep inside me. It throbs against my chest, echoing inside my brain. “You’re wasting your time on any other theory that
doesn’t involve my real parents’ killer.”

“I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: leave the manhunt to the experts, okay?” He closes his notepad and tucks it inside his jacket.

“What about Taylor?” I persist.

“The FBI already spoke to her.”

“So how come I haven’t heard the outcome? Why did she leave the Dark House early?”

Taylor was supposed to have been my roommate for that weekend. She and Natalie were the first to arrive at the house. But not long after their arrival, Taylor left, in the midst of
unpacking—without her bags, without her cell phone, without a word to Natalie that she was leaving. Later, we found a message in Taylor’s closet, scrawled against the back wall:
GET OUT BEFORE IT
’
S TOO LATE
. I’m pretty sure Taylor wrote it—pretty confident that it was her way of trying to warn us.

“I need to talk to Taylor,” I tell him. “We need to compare notes, fill in blanks, discuss each other’s chronology....”

“Whatever Taylor claims to have seen at the Dark House is of no concern to you right now.”

“Can you arrange for the two of us to meet?”

Thomas leans forward, as if about to let me in on a secret. “You’re what, three weeks out of a mental hospital?”

“Five weeks.” I swallow hard.

“And how many times have you called and/or come to see me since then?”

“Four?”

“Try fourteen,” he says, his voice softening. “Fourteen times in five weeks. Now, I know this must be frustrating, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate your input,
but my advice for you?”

“Forget it,” I say, getting up from the table. I go for the door, slamming it shut behind me.

D
OZENS OF DANCE RECITAL DRESSES
hover above my head. The tassels dangle into my eyes. The unsettled dust makes me have to sneeze. But I can’t.
I won’t. I have to remain still.

I’m hiding inside a closet, tucked behind the dancing bear costume from
The Nutcracker Suite.

Someone comes into the room. I hear a floorboard creak. The sound of feet scuff against the carpeted floor. There’s a sniffle and then a cough. Did someone open a dresser drawer? Is
that my suitcase being zipped?

“I don’t think she’s in here.” Midge’s voice. “No, I already searched it,” she says, talking on the phone. “Yes, of course. That one’s
already done too. Are you even listening to me? I think she might’ve left.”

The closet door slides open. The costumes shift forward and back. I’m at the far end, against the wall, about to lose my lunch. My hand is bleeding. The wound is throbbing.

“Wait a second,” Midge says, still talking on the phone.

The costumes push forward again. Sequins poke into my eye.

“Come on, now. You aren’t really implying what I think you are, are you?” she continues. “Well, then you can go to hell.”

The phone beeps a couple of seconds later. I think she hung up mid-conversation. I hear the door shut.

My heart pounding, I grab the lip-gloss tube that’s in my pocket and write the word
KILLER
across the wall.

“Taylor?”

I write
KILLER
again, bearing down so hard that the tube snaps in half. Blood from my hand spurts over the rug.

“Earth to Taylor Monroe,” someone sings.

And that’s when I realize...when I snap out of my daydream.

I look down at my notebook. The word KILLER is scrawled across the page. My pencil—not my lip gloss—has snapped in two. There is no blood; the cut on my hand has long since
healed.

Chantel I-never-stop-playing-with-my-hair Coughlin, my resident advisor, is standing over me, twirling a curlicue around her finger. We’re in the dorm lobby. At school. There are groups of
students sprinkled about the space—doing their homework, sipping their coffee, texting on phones, and chatting among themselves.

“Holy embarrassing moment, Batgirl.” My face fries with heat. I close up my notebook.

Chantel flashes me a polite smile, as if my nutty behavior is totally normal and doesn’t warrant a snarky comment.

“I totally zoned out, didn’t I?” I’ve been doing that lately, having flashbacks, getting cold sweats, murmuring to myself like some
Twilight Zone
–ish freak.
“Lack of sleep does some funky stuff to people, doesn’t it?” I fake a giggle.

“I have some good news,” she says, straight-faced, all business, still curl-twirling. “It took some doing, but we were able to move your case to the top of our priority
list.”

“I have a case?” I ask, feeling the confusion on my face.

“A single room will be opening up sooner than anticipated. We should be able to get you in by the end of next week.”

“Couldn’t I just switch roommates?” I ask, pretty sure that I sound like a broken record. “It’ll be kind of weird living alone. I mean, I came here to be with
people.”