The Lost: Book Two, The Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 2) (24 page)

Ana said, “Tessa, I want to help. And I want to know who you were. That’s why I’m reading this, okay?”

No response.

Ana looked down at the cursive handwriting and read.

I just woke up from a nasty lucid dream. I’d drifted too far, I think, leaving my body where I wasn’t as protected. I felt it. It has to be a goetic demon, maybe one of the seventy-two.

Ana couldn’t believe what she was reading. Tessa named the demons she thought hers might be, all the names unfamiliar to Ana. She skipped ahead.

There is life beyond life, and life outside of death. I know it. This body, this stupid town, these people, the universe holds more. There is a beyond.

Th
e
sky was blue, the wind cold, and the roads sloppy from yesterday’s snowstorm. The temperature was dropping again. The ice and snow would refreeze and create havoc for all drivers.

And a lot of people were trying to drive.

Eddie steered out of George’s parking lot, cutting a ragged path over the snow and slush, and managed to get to the road. His adrenaline had kicked in, and he remembered this feeling from before.

It was all about the hunt. Finding something nobody else did. Seeing through another’s lies and laying bare the truth.

The snow had turned the two way street into a lane and a half. A minute up the road he was stuck in a gridlock.

The line of cars stretched ahead along the curve in the road, and Eddie pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Time was running out. A killer was out there.

Behind him, a chorus of car horns blared as somebody else forced their way out of the lot into traffic. He didn’t pay the car any mind because he was trying to get past the jam. He thrummed the steering wheel, impatient.

The footprints were different sizes.

The obvious question was: why would a ghost leave different-sized footprints? The obvious answer was: she wouldn’t. Not bloody likely.

Tim would have said: Yeah, but maybe you’ve got two ghosts.

And Eddie would have responded: Sure, and the chances they’re both exhibiting the same paranormal behavior are slim and none.

Then he multiplied those slim odds by the chances there were simultaneous hauntings in three different locations, and that all three would be witnessed by him on two successive nights.

The whole set-up failed the laugh-test.

Debunking a paranormal claim was one thing. But accusing the local gentry of fraud was something else. He needed solid proof.

Even if he could get back into Kindler’s place, he wouldn’t find anything else probably. And Bernard’s house was out. That left him one option.

False in one, false in all.

The brake lights ahead of him went off, and slowly the line of cars lurched forward. He rounded the bend and saw a uniformed cop directing traffic. A car in the opposing lane of traffic was askew, its front wheels stuck in the snow embankment along the roadside. Only one lane was getting through at a time.

Eddie got past the crash site, and the chain of cars unlinked and the road opened up. The concrete was dangerously slick so he forced himself to go slow and give the car in front a healthy lead.

The traffic thinned, but still it was probably more volume than this road had seen in a long time.

He took the next turn from memory, away from the traffic. The adrenaline was still pumping. He was close to putting an end to this charade … or he was way off base.

He slowed down, unsure of the next turn because the snow had robbed him of many of the landmarks he’d seen two nights ago. The next street felt like the right one. He turned.

The scenery looked familiar now. An old mailbox sticking out toward the street like it was trying to thumb a ride. He drove past it, recognized a break in the tree line …

Colin’s house was just a little farther.

Now his mind was playing devil’s advocate. Sure, he could debunk Kindler’s house, but could he debunk what Ana and company had just missed at the lake?

No, that was impossible because he hadn’t been there. If he was there, he would have walked the entire perimeter of the lake, checked for electrical equipment, and—

The next epiphany hit him.

If any paranormal investigator had seen that light from the lake, they would have done the same thing. They would have looked for rational explanations. But nobody got the chance, because the lake just so happened to light up
when no one was looking and conveniently only when the camera was watching
.

Eddie didn’t see that as coincidence.

But that meant Ana, Jimbo, and Tony were in on it too. He couldn’t imagine Ana being part of a fraud like this, especially one that exploited the memory of her dead sister. And why would anybody trust Jimbo or Tony with this kind of secret? Neither was very reliable. Even if they were being paid.

Then he remembered what Ana had said: Kindler knew when she and her crew would be at the lake.
False in one, false in all
.

The less-traveled road grew treacherous. He slowed even more. The car fishtailed in the slush. It was like they’d plowed this street early in the storm and had forgotten to come back for it.

He took his foot off the gas, now just idling. Despite his crawling pace, he almost missed Colin’s driveway.

His heart thudded against his ribs. His knuckles whitened against the wheel as he steered into Colin’s driveway.

Eddie had done a lot of dumb shit, but he’d never broken and entered before. He smiled.

There was a first time for everything.

Past the tree line, the snow thickened on the driveway. Nobody had plowed obviously. Colin was dead. Nobody needed to get in and out of here that badly. The cops had already done their thing, and Whitmore’s tiny crew had other things to worry about, like Bernard’s disappearance and tonight’s gathering.

Eddie stopped just past the mouth of the driveway because there was no way he’d get any closer without getting stuck. Last thing he wanted was to be without wheels at a dead man’s house.

He killed the engine and grabbed the backpack.

He was all alone.

But not for long.

Th
e
snow was cold but Eddie didn’t even feel it. He slopped his way through and under the cover of the front porch he wiped and brushed the snow off his now-soaked jeans.

The front door was locked.

But the front window wasn’t.

He tried to remember the layout of the living room and specifically what was by the window. A recliner? He didn’t want to disturb anything in the house to give away his illegal visit later. Technically, what he was doing right now was a parole violation. Funny how to expose a fraud he had to break the law.

He poked his head in, saw the back of the recliner very close. He pulled one foot through and shimmied the rest of his body into the space between the recliner and the window.

He left the window open. He didn’t expect to be here that long.

Walking through a dead man’s house felt wrong on many levels. It felt like Colin had just gone on vacation, like he would come back soon.

Ana had pointed out the problem earlier. Eddie hadn’t controlled the environment here. Not for the entire investigation.

After a half-hearted argument, Colin had given up and let him go dark like he wanted. But Colin had effectively put a time limit on the investigation, rather than allowing Eddie to do his thing his way.

Colin had told him to turn the power back on by eleven-thirty. At the time, he’d given Eddie a pretty good reason why. He didn’t want to come home to a freezing house at midnight.

But Eddie was starting to think that was bullshit.

Eddie moved through the living room and stood where he’d stood the other night when the noise began. He checked the entertainment center and spotted the clock on the DVD player. The power was still on.

His eyes tracked up to the ceiling, to where he’d heard that banging. He walked the length of the room, kept his eyes on the ceiling. There was nothing noticeable.

He tiptoed into the kitchen. Part of him expected that ungodly screaming to start, but it didn’t. His wet sneaker squelched on the floor. He went and stood in the middle of the kitchen. Slowly, very slowly, he did a 360 degree turn and looked at everything.

There were two counters, a sink, a bunch of cabinets at shin- and face-level, an old fridge that ran loudly, a small table tucked away into the corner of the room.

He did another circle.

There was a blender, a toaster, a toaster oven on the counter. A plate of fruit beginning to go bad on the table. A trashcan in the corner of the room. A radio on top of the fridge.

Everything still plugged in.

He went back in his mind to the other night. He’d been unable to source the screaming they’d heard. When he’d stood in the kitchen, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere else.

Maybe it was.

He went upstairs. He hesitated in front of Colin’s bedroom. A house was private, but a bedroom seemed sacred.

He nudged the door open. He poked his head in first, looked around.

The bed was made. The closet curtains were drawn. Colin’s dresser was still a mess, with loose change and receipts and his wallet on top of it. Eddie stepped into the room.

He’d checked under the bed last time and had seen nothing. He got into push-up position and checked again. He could still see clear across to the other side of the room.

He had to know if he was right.

The bed was on wheels. He pushed it to the far wall.

The carpet that had been under the bed looked newer and had a deeper shade to it. A few dust bunnies skittered out of his way. A pair of ratty, laceless sneakers sat under where the headboard had been.

He got on hands and knees and examined the carpet. There were no obvious seams, no rips, no tears. He ran his fingers over where he thought the sound had been coming from.

He felt something.

Sea
n
McKenna knew it was time.

It had been a close call back at the bar. An approaching driver had horned him, and Sean had feared the noise would get Eddie’s attention.

But Eddie hadn’t seen him.

Sean parked his car up the road between some trees where the snow wasn’t deep and hustled back just in time to see Eddie step in through the front window on the porch.

If Eddie was breaking and entering, that meant nobody was home. They were alone.

Yesterday, Sean had gathered as much intel as he could and it wasn’t that hard. The town was abuzz with talk of Eddie’s investigation. Sean knew that someone had been killed and another man had disappeared.

The police were baffled by such a bizarre chain of events, and now they had this huge influx of people coming for the gathering by the lake. The local PD didn’t have the resources to keep an eye on everything, and with all the confusion and distraction and noise, and with one man dead already, Eddie’s murder wouldn’t be clearly understood and at best, just linked to the paranormal investigation.

Nobody would be looking for someone out of Eddie’s past. Sean could easily slip away after the deed.

Sean moved through the trees and got to Eddie’s car. He punctured the driver’s side tires with a hunting knife.

Then Sean took out his gun and smiled.

He’d been waiting for this moment for five years.

Eddi
e
bent so his eyes were inches from the carpet.

It was stitched where he was looking.

Not like the stitching that held the carpet together elsewhere. This was different. A thin eight-inch line.

He didn’t see any other stitching like that.

His fingers ran back to the strange line in the carpet. Now he saw there was more stitching at both ends of the line, like someone had cut a capital I into the carpet.

He used his keys to cut.

One stitch popped and then the rest came easily. He loosened the line, then went to work on the ends.

The I-cut in the carpet created two flaps. The carpet sluggishly resisted being folded. It had long been laid flat.

But the flaps folded up like it had been done before.

The exposed hardwood underneath was old but still had the traces of its original sheen. Probably it had been polished before the carpet had been laid down.

But that was the last thing Eddie cared about.

Because a rectangular cut had been made to the exposed plank.

Eddie tried to lift the rectangular cut out of the plank but he couldn’t get enough of a grip with his nails. He wedged his key between the cutting and the plank and jimmied the wood up and out of place.

The rectangular piece came away from the plank about a foot but would go no farther.

Because a wire was attached to it.             

He flipped the wood around and discovered the wire was attached to a tiny box-like device on the back of the wood. He knew what it was immediately.

Some kind of speaker.

And he understood why Colin had asked him to reset the clocks before he returned home. The speaker had been set to make noise at a certain time.

Like when Eddie and Ana were there.

Eddie was right.

It was all a hoax.

But why was Colin dead? It followed that someone didn’t want the fraud to be exposed. Colin wouldn’t be able to talk if he was dead.

As Benjamin Franklin had once said, three people can keep a secret if—

Thud
.

The noise had come from downstairs.