The Killing Jar (7 page)

“Yes.” A wave of chills swam over me, making my teeth rattle. I had changed clothes before leaving our house—my bloody clothes had been bagged as evidence—but I barely remembered choosing what to wear. I wished I'd brought a sweater, but at the time I'd felt feverish. Now I was freezing, and my skin was starting to crawl. I fought the urge to rake it with my fingernails.

Dr. Wong consulted the chart in front of him. “I remember Erin. I treated her when your mom brought her in a few years ago. She'd fallen and broken several bones.”

I winced as I recalled the incident in fifth grade, the last year Erin had attended school. Erin had disobeyed our mom's strict mandate never to use the playground equipment, but she'd gotten tired of sitting on the sidelines with her books, watching the other kids swing and run and have a good time. It was my job to watch her, make sure she never did anything dangerous, and usually I did. But that one day, I turned my back for a few minutes and Erin ended up with multiple fractures in both tibias after dropping only a foot from the monkey bars and landing normally. Erin's bones were not meant to withstand that kind of impact, and she'd spent the next few months in double casts and a wheelchair. My mom had been furious with me for not taking better care of her.

She needs you, Kenna,
my mom had told me while tears of guilt poured down my face.
You're the strong one. You have to protect her
.

I braced myself for bad news as I asked, “What about her condition?”

The doctor spread his hands in a gesture that implied helplessness, but a ghost of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I don't understand what happened at your house last night, and maybe I never will. But as far as your sister's afflictions are concerned … she no longer seems to have them. She's perfectly healthy.”

I swallowed and finally the lump in my throat went down. Tears stung the backs of my eyes and my breath hitched in my throat.

I stood, my knees trembling. “Can I see her now?”

*   *   *

My mom and Erin had been relegated to a suite on the third floor, where they would be kept for observation and testing until Dr. Wong had satisfied his curiosity. I exited the elevator and walked quickly to their suite, but froze outside when I heard my mom's voice. I cracked the door open slightly and peered inside. I caught sight of a broad-shouldered man in a suit, blocking the view of my mom. He held a pad of paper and was writing quickly. I guessed he was a detective.

I stood still and listened, realizing my mom was giving a statement of what had happened last night. I needed to know what she said so I could repeat it.

“We went to bed later than usual,” Mom said. “We'd been at a music festival near Portland, watching Kenna perform.”

“Kenna is your other daughter?” the detective said. “The one who came home later?”

“That's right,” my mom said. “She was out with her boyfriend.”

“Name?” the detective asked.

“Blake Callahan.”

“Are they talking about me?”

I whirled to find Blake standing behind me. He looked exhausted and wonderful and worried. I wanted to throw my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. Instead, I took a step back from him and put a finger to my lips to shush him. He nodded, and leaned in to listen.

“So,” Mom continued, “it was after midnight when we went to bed. My guess is Dunn was already in the house waiting for us when we got home. I woke up about an hour later with a gun pressed to my head. He … he had Erin. He told me he wouldn't hurt her if I did what he wanted.” A choked sob followed. Tears sprang to my eyes and I had to press both hands over my mouth to hold back a sob of my own.

“He lied,” my mom said, her voice bitter and cold. “We cooperated with him because he said he wouldn't hurt us if we did. He marched us down to the storage room in the basement, probably because it was farthest from the front door. He didn't want Kenna to hear anything if she came home while he was”—she paused—“while he was in the middle of things.”

“What did he do once he had you down there?” the detective asked.

“He was insane,” Mom said, not really answering the question. “We knew him, you know. He was our neighbor a long time ago, but after his son died he lost his mind. We tried to reason with him, but he wouldn't listen. He started screaming at us about Kenna, saying she had killed his son, which is ridiculous. Obviously he needed someone to blame.”

I had to hand it to my mom, she was a good liar. I almost believed what she was saying even though I knew it was bullshit.

“And then he … attacked you?” the detective asked, sounding cagey, like he wasn't sure how to broach this subject. “I mean, he must have attacked you. Your blood was all over that room.”

“Yes,” my mom and Erin said at the same time.

“And then?”

A pause, and then Mom said, “We don't remember.”

“What do you mean, you don't remember?”

“That's all we can tell you. Thomas Dunn attacked us. He had a gun, but he didn't use it, probably didn't want to alert the neighbors. He used a knife instead, and while he was … while he was busy with me, I yelled for Erin to make a run for it. Sh-she—” Her voice cracked, and Erin cut in.

“He caught me before I could get out of the basement,” she said in a tremulous whisper I could barely make out. “He hit me and broke my glasses and dragged me back to the room. I … I don't remember anything after that.”

“You don't remember Kenna coming home?”

“No,” Mom said.

“No,” Erin said.

“And you don't know how Thomas Dunn died?”

“No,” they repeated.

“Or what happened to the land around your house? No theories? Aliens? Astrological event? Divine intervention?”

“No,” my mom said firmly. “We have no idea what happened. We don't know why we're still alive. All we can do is be thankful that we are. I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can tell you, Detective.”

“Then I hope Kenna can fill in a few blanks. Thanks for your time.”

The detective's footsteps moved toward the door. I motioned Blake into the room next door to my family's, which was thankfully empty. Blake and I hid behind the curtain, both of us breathing fast, until the footsteps faded.

Then Blake looked at me. “You're shivering.” He took off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. It smelled like him. Like brown sugar and cinnamon, honey and cedar. I wished I could press my face to his neck and breathe him in, let him put his arms around me. But I didn't dare let him touch me. The hunger was getting worse, a raw ache. A cavernous emptiness that begged to be filled. Withering cells crying to be sated. The papery fluttering in my ears continued, louder now, and my skin prickled like I was being jabbed by a thousand acid-laced stingers.

You've been through this before
, I told myself.
You made it through that time. You can do it again.

But that had been different. I had been locked in a cell alone, not surrounded by people.

“What are you going to tell that detective?” Blake asked. “You can't avoid him forever.”

I shook my head. “I don't know,” I said, but I understood what Blake was really asking.

What happened to you last night? What did you do? What are you hiding?

“I need to see my family,” I said to change the subject. “Alone.”

Blake nodded, doing his best to hide his disappointment that I wasn't ready to confide in him. “I'll wait in the hall.”

I started to turn away, but Blake caught my hand and pulled me back, holding on tight when I tried to pull away. I gritted my teeth behind closed lips so he wouldn't know the torture it was to be so close to him, so close to what was inside of him.

Life. So much irresistible life.

“You can trust me,” he said, holding my gaze. “No matter what you tell me, it stays between us, okay?”

“Okay. I know.” I slid my hand from his and breathed again. But even when I'd left him behind, I could still feel the pulsing seduction of life inside him, and I wanted it. Needed it. In an instant I went from shivering to sweating. My muscles cramped and my stomach roiled with nausea. It was all I could do to keep from doubling over and retching.

I paused at the door to take a few deep breaths, which helped a little. Then I stepped inside.

There were two beds in the suite. The curtains that would normally partition the patients had been pushed back, so the room with its peach-colored wallpaper and benign country art on the walls was wide open.

I looked from my mom to Erin. For several seconds all I could do was stare. Whatever had caused their spasmodic movements had calmed. Both of them shone with health and vitality, their skin porcelain smooth and radiant, which seemed doubly impossible because no one looked that good under fluorescent hospital lighting. My mom's and Erin's hair fell in melted-ice-cream waves over their shoulders. Erin's dishwater-blond hair had always been thin and brittle, but now it was the color of butter, and was so thick and satiny I had to wonder for a moment if she was wearing a wig.

I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do. I couldn't tear my eyes from my twin's, couldn't stop seeing the bruises that had blackened her face a few hours ago, the swollen lump of her eye and the blood soaking her pajamas. My sickly, frail twin who once broke both legs dropping a foot from the monkey bars, who was so tiny, so skeletal that Mom had to buy her clothes from the children's department … my sister was transformed as though she'd spent the night in a chrysalis and had been reborn into a new body. A healthy, strong, perfect body.

“Is it true?” I asked her. “You're … you're…”

She beamed at me, her eyes filling with tears, and nodded. “So much for not living to see my next birthday.”

There was a chair next to Erin's bed. I dropped into it before my watery knees gave out. Erin had terrible eyesight. When she wasn't wearing her glasses, she tended to squint like a mole. But her glasses were gone, and her eyes were wide open.

“What do we do now?” I asked the room.

My mom and Erin shared a furtive glance.

“Plead ignorance,” my mom said, keeping her voice low in case anyone was listening outside the door. “No matter what they ask, we don't remember anything, all right? Kenna, it's especially important that you remain vague.”

I turned to Erin and saw her clear, bright eyes fill with tears and her chin begin to quiver.

“Do you remember?” I asked softly.

She licked her lips and swallowed. “You brought us back,” she whispered. “I was outside my body, just sort of drifting. Then I felt this tug, like I was a balloon on a string, and you were the one holding the end.” She smiled sadly and wiped her eyes as the tears dripped down her nose. “You saved us. You saved
me
.”

I wanted to tell her no, she was mistaken. I hadn't saved them. I had damned them. I was the reason Thomas Dunn did what he did.

I was the reason they had died in the first place.

Then the door opened and the detective stepped inside. He was middle-aged, graying, twenty pounds overweight. His tired eyes pinned me down. “There you are,” he said. “I'm the detective handling your family's case. I need to take your statement.”

“Can we do it here?”

He shook his head. “Just you and me.” He gestured impatiently for me to follow. “It won't take long. Come on, let's talk in the cafeteria, get some coffee. Your boyfriend can come, too,” he added with a half smile, as though he were trying to be charming.

Reluctantly, I stood and followed him, my fever ramping up a few degrees. I wanted to take off Blake's jacket, but it felt like a layer of armor, a protective shell. I curled my hands inside the sleeves.

Blake waited in the hallway outside the room, pacing restlessly. When I emerged, he stopped pacing and moved to my side. He tried to take my hand, but I folded my arms and stuck my hands in my armpits.

“I'm Detective Speakman, by the way,” the detective said. He held his hand out to me. I ignored it.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. “You already have your man and he's dead. What's left to investigate?” What was left that didn't call for an episode of
The X-Files
?

He raised his eyebrows at me, but lowered his hand, gazing at me with a blank expression. “I just need to get all the facts.”

 

I
T
'
S
H
APPENING
A
GAIN

I spent the next hour sitting at a table in the cafeteria, sipping and cringing at incredibly bad coffee and picking at a stale Danish as I told Detective Speakman the abridged version of my story. Blake backed me up on all the parts for which he'd been present. The rest was mine to alter, since there were no witnesses to contradict my account.

Finally, Detective Speakman closed his notebook and stashed it in the inside pocket of his suit coat. “So that's it. You came home. You found your mom and sister wounded, blood everywhere. Thomas Dunn trapped you, and then you fell and blacked out and you don't remember anything else.”

“That's right.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Blake studying me, trying to decide if I was lying, just like Detective Speakman was doing openly.

The detective put his hands facedown on the table. “Well, I suppose that's all then.” He pulled a card from his wallet and passed it to me. “If you or your family miraculously remember anything, be sure to give me a call.”

“We will,” I said, and the detective rose to leave. He started walking away from the table and then paused. “One more thing. Thomas Dunn's son, Jason, the one who died seven years ago … you were the last person to see him alive?”