Smoke and Mirrors (55 page)

He might suck at let's pretend, but he aced obsession.

Brianna was talking to Caulfield's son, so Caulfield's son was obviously there . . .

. . . sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of a big old wardrobe that filled the corner where the shower . . .

The scene wavered.

. . . that filled the far corner of the dingy room. The walls were gray, the floor some kind of early industrial tile, and if he'd had a cigarette, the smell would have reminded him of nights spent crouched in doorways on the Yonge Street strip. Hard to forget the smell of old urine walked on by expensive shoes.

Blond, blue-eyed, and somewhere between twelve and twenty, Richard Caulfield had Down's syndrome. Tony was no expert, but he'd known people with Down's syndrome and this didn't look like it was that severe a case. Certainly not lock-the-kid-in-a-room severe. Still, in a hundred years he supposed the definition of severe changed and, not to forget, he'd already determined that Creighton Caulfield was bugfuck. Evil and bugfuck.

Bare feet peeking out from under a white-and-blue-striped nightshirt, Richard hugged his knees, rocked, and cried. Every now and then, he wiped his nose on the fabric stretched over his knees. That explained the snuffling sound.

Brianna, crouched in front of him, was telling him about what had been happening down in the butler's pantry. “. . . and like Ashes keeps falling asleep because she's a total loser until Mason, he's the actor I told you about, he stopped being a spaz and they untied him and then she was all over him again and the real creepy bit is that he seems to like it now.”

Ashley's adoration would act like an anchor, redefining Mason's unpossessed self. Mouse had his viewfinder. Mason had a fan. Kate had her temper. And Lee, who'd been through so much more, Lee probably had a whole lot of therapy to look forward to.

“Get down.” Brianna's voice cut through his reflections. “You're too tall and you scare him.”

So Tony crouched. “Hey, Richard.”

Richard tried to push back farther into the space.

“It's okay.” He held out his hand, expecting Richard to cringe away, not expecting a grab that flipped stubby fingers through his with no contact. The wail of despair brought tears to his own eyes.

“What's wrong?” Brianna demanded.

Tony wasn't sure if she was asking him or Richard, but he answered anyway. “He's lonely. He's been alone up here for a long time.” Resting one knee on the floor, he glanced down at the throbbing pattern on his left palm, cupped his left elbow with his right hand, and lifted. The fingers of his left hand brushed the warm, damp skin of Richard's cheek, trailed down, and were suddenly clutched so tightly that he literally saw stars.

“Easy,” he gasped. Richard seemed to understand. The pressure eased off a bit. Most of the stars faded. “Good. Thank you.”

“Ank ou.”

“Hey, you can talk!”

“Risherd Cawfud.”

“That's your name!” Brianna punched Tony. “That's his name!”

“No hit!”

To Tony's surprise she looked abashed at Richard's protest. “Sorry.”

“S'okay. Richard . . .”

“Risherd Cawfud.”

“Right. Richard . . .”

“Risherd Cawfud.”

Okay. Rewrite and try again. “You don't need to be afraid anymore.”

New tears. And a tighter grip.

“OW!”

Richard cringed back but continued to cling to Tony's hand. “Shurry. Shurry! No hit!”

Brianna understood immediately. “Tony's not going to hit you!” Her voice lowered to a near growl, and Tony was, once again, reminded of her father. “No one is ever going to hit you again!”

And like her father, it was impossible not to believe her.

“Not hit?”

“Never again! Tony . . .”

“No hit,” Tony agreed as reassuringly as the pain allowed. “Come on.” He started to stand and thanked any gods that might be listening when Richard scrambled up onto his feet with him. “It's time to go.”

“Go where?” Brianna asked as Richard wiped his nose on the back of Tony's hand and stared trustingly at them both.

Good question.

Where did the dead go? Questions of religion aside.

A snail trail of snot glistened on the back of Tony's hand.

Glistened.

Where did the dead always go?

“Go into the light.”

“Cliché much,” Brianna muttered.

Richard looked worried. “No leave room.”

“You don't have to.” When Tony smiled, Richard smiled with him. “All you have to do is walk into the light. It's right here. It's been here all along.” He stepped closer to Brianna so that Richard could look past him.

His eyes widened and his smile with it. “Light.”

“Yeah.”

The one thing all the replays had in common was light. He'd thought, while it was happening, that it was just the difference between the small circle of light thrown by the lantern or the candles or his monitor and the gas or electric lights of the past. In his own defense, while it was happening, he'd had other things on his mind. But the light had been exactly the same for all the replays. Richard didn't replay, but the light was exactly the same in his room.

Wiping his nose one more time, Richard shuffled forward. Tony moved with him, teeth clenched, trying not to scream as the movement pulled his arm out away from his body. As he turned, pivoting to follow, the light grew until there was only light and Richard Caulfield silhouetted in front of it.

It was like the world's cheesiest special effect. All it needed was that Czechoslovakian women's choir that seemed to be wailing in harmony on every soundtrack recorded in the last twenty years.

The extended dance version of “Night and Day” just didn't have the same effect.

Tony could only see Richard, but he could feel the crowd passing by. As they brushed against his injured arm, falling to his knees and screaming was starting to feel more and more like a good idea. Richard held him in place.

There might have been voices and some of the touching might have gotten a bit personal, but he couldn't be sure over the distraction of his arm.

Distraction.

Yeah. When distraction meant constant bone-grinding, blood-boiling agony. He wanted to snatch his hand away, but he couldn't. After so many years alone in this room, it had to be Richard's choice.

The outside edges of the light started to close in. A gentle tug.

“Come with.”

“I can't.” A harder tug that should have hurt more than it did. “It's all right. You won't be alone. You won't ever be alone again unless you want to be. But you have to go into the light.”

“Risherd Cawfud.”

Tony managed a smile. “I'll remember.”

The band stopped playing and the light condensed into a brilliant globe that lingered for a moment with the touch of Richard's fingers against Tony's palm.

Then it was gone.

“Do you see that?”

“See what?” CB asked as the two RCMP constables rejoined them on the path.

“The um . . .” Elson gestured with one hand and then stopped, fully aware that no one—not the three guys they'd joined, nor the three people who'd just come out of one of the trucks, nor his partner, nor, hell, himself—was looking at anything other than the brilliant white light rising up from the house. “The that.”

“Yes, Constable, we see it.”

“Okay. Good. What is it?”

“If pressed, I'd have to say it's a shocking absence of originality.”

Something hummed.

Something sparked.

And the lights came on.

They were standing in the bathroom of the master suite.

The light over the sink was on.

“What the hell just happened?” Zev demanded. “Are you two all right?”

Tony glanced at Brianna who shrugged. “Yeah, we're fine.” And then added, surprised. “Really.” His left arm no longer hurt. The symbol was still there on his palm, etched into his skin like a scar, but everything worked. Muscles, ligaments, bones, joints, those stringy things that attached stuff . . . tendons, that was it. Everything. No pain. The absence left him a little light-headed.

Light-headed.

The light.

It had to have been the light. Or some kind of freaky coincidence, but Tony preferred to think he'd sent Cassie and Stephen and Richard and Tom and Hartley and, hell, even Brenda to a place where good things happened.

They could hear shouting downstairs.

“We should join the rest of them.” Zev gestured with the lantern. Brianna took his other hand and led the way out to the hall.

As Zev flicked the hall light on, Tony paused.

He could hear . . .

“You guys go on, I'll be down in a minute.”

“I don't think . . .”

Then they all heard: “Ashley! Brianna!”

“DADDY!”

Zev shook his head as Brianna yanked her hands free and raced for the stairs. “I should go with her, so he knows we weren't letting her wander around alone.”

“Go on. I'll be fine.” Tony could see that the other man didn't entirely believe him—or more specifically didn't believe him at all but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He watched until Zev disappeared down the stairs then turned and headed the other way.

Paused at the door to the bathroom, flicked on the light, glanced in. White walls. A scuff on the floor from where the camera had been set up. Not where the noise was coming from. He left the light on.

At the door to the back stairs, he recognized the sound.

When he opened the door, Lucy Lewis was sitting on the lowest step leading to the third floor, the noose around her neck, the end of the rope—the rope he'd cut with the ax he couldn't see—hanging against the upper bib of her apron.

He frowned. Thought about it for a moment. “You died before Richard did.”

She nodded, toying with the end of her rope.

The light levels hadn't been the same in all the replays. They'd always been different at the back stairs. Not as bright. “You weren't under the control of the thing when you pushed that guy, were you?”

“No.” Her voice sounded a little better now the pressure on her throat had been relieved. More like the engine on an old truck and less like a working cement mixer. “He said he loved me and then he met this girl from town . . .”

Oldest story in the book. “You gave the thing the murder /suicide template. Two dead for the price of one.”

She shrugged.

A glance down the back stairs showed nothing but a patch of kitchen floor. And a black cat. “So
he's
gone?”

A nod and an adjustment that reminded him of Stephen. They'd barely been gone for ten minutes and he was missing them already. And they
had
gone into the light with the rest. Of course they had. They hadn't been responsible for what they'd done that last afternoon of their lives and if they were, well, they'd certainly paid. He asked, but Lucy shrugged.

“Not part of my story.”

Yeah. That was helpful. “Okay, your story's still . . . uh . . . in progress because . . . ?”

Her hand closed around the dangling rope. “I need to make amends.”

“You saved my ass. I don't think I'd have made it to the basement if you hadn't come in and diverted the pain. And if I hadn't made it to the basement, we'd all still be stuck here. That's amends where I come from.”

“You're not enough.”