Blur (Blur Trilogy) (19 page)

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX

Fierce rain sliced through the night, and the wind beat against him like it was tr
yi
ng to drive him back into the house.

He directed the headlamp’s beam at the ground in front of him, then used one hand to shield his e
ye
s from the rain.

Even though he’d raked the leaves a couple da
ys
ago, the wind had brought a fresh la
ye
r of them down and the
y
la
y
plastered against the grass. The sound of rain pat-splattering against them filled the night around him.

The storm had erased an
y
evidence of boot impressions on the leaves.

Turning around, he saw no sign that an
yo
ne had been digging in the autumn-dead flower beds that lined the back of the house.

He aligned himself with the direction of the mudd
y
prints that left the deck, tried to guess where he might have gone earlier when he ventured into the storm, and then angled his light toward the woods in a straight line from where the boot prints ended.

The garden la
y
between him and the woods. It was the one that his mom used to keep, the one that was overgrown now, the one that the footpath through the woods began at and—

No.

A thought came to him. One that he did not want to consider.

When his mom took off six months earlier, she’d left her pupp
y
with his dad and him, and when Akira got out of the house and was hit b
y
a car three months after that, Daniel and his father had buried her out here, about twent
y
feet past the garden, just off the trail through the forest.

The two of them had placed a large rock over the pupp
y’
s grave to mark the spot and to keep scavenging animals from digging up the corpse.

Daniel tipped the headlamp up and, at the edge of the light’s beam, saw that the ground was disturbed where Akira had been buried. A mound of dirt la
y
beside a gaping hole. The stone had been moved aside and leaned against a tree near the pile of soil.

Someone had dug up Akira’s grave.

He had.

From where he stood he couldn’t see into the open grave.

Carr
yi
ng the shovel, and peering uneasil
y
through the headlamp’s streak of rain-smeared light, Daniel approached the hole.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN

Empt
y.

So where was the carcass, or bones, or whatever would actuall
y
be left of her b
y
now?

You must have put Akira’s remains somewhere.

As that thought gripped him, the storm raged around him in the night.

He spent a few minutes stud
yi
ng the area, but found nothin
g—n
o bones, no desiccated corpse, no sign that there had ever been a dead pupp
y
l
yi
ng in this hole. He even explored along the trail that led through the woods, but didn’t find an
y
evidence of the dog’s remains.

At last, convinced that there was nothing more out here to see, he refilled the hole with soil and patted it down as best he could with the shovel’s blade, then scattered leaves across the area and rolled the rock back in place.

If someone knew what to look for and came to this exact spot, he might be able to tell that it had been dug up, but Daniel couldn’t imagine an
y
reason an
yo
ne would be coming out here to examine Akira’s grave.

Where did
yo
u put the corpse, Daniel? What did
yo
u do with those bones?

The question felt like a solid weight crushing down on him.

Once again he tried to remember what had happened earlier in the night when he should have been asleep in his bed, but he came up blank.

After finishing disguising the hole, he returned to the house, wiped off the shovel, and put it awa
y
in the garage. He changed out of his clothes, then tossed them into the washing machine.

As silentl
y
as he could, he cleaned up the mud that la
y
smeared in the hallwa
y,
sopping up the water with rags and old towels.

As he did, he thought of the conversation he’d had with K
yl
e about going to take a look at Emil
y’
s grave.

A visit to a grave
ya
rd to look for clues.

Ma
yb
e that’s what was on his mind, at least subconsciousl
y.

Ma
yb
e that’s wh
y
he’d done this tonight in his sleep.

A couple of times as he was cleaning up, he thought he might have awakened his father, but he never came out of his bedroom.

Finall
y,
Daniel rinsed out the mudd
y
towels and rags and tossed them into the washing machine with his clothes, figuring he could do the wash first thing in the morning, rather than now, when it would wake up his dad.

After stowing the headlamp, Daniel found his wa
y
to his bedroom, removed the sodden sheets from his bed, and dropped them into the washing machine as well.

Since his mattress was still wet, he left it uncovered so it could start to dr
y.
Instead of sleeping on top of it, he spent the rest of the night on the floor in his sleeping bag, tr
yi
ng to grab as much sleep as he could.

It didn’t go so well.

With Akira’s missing remains on his mind, he kept waking up and fluctuating into and out of a tired, dream-encrusted haze until his alarm rang at seven thirt
y.

The
y
were leaving for the doctor’s office in Superior in thirt
y
minutes.

Yawning, he got dressed. Even though he normall
y
didn’t drink coffee, some caffeine was probabl
y
in order or he couldn’t see himself making it through the morning without crashing and burning.

He was about to punch the button on the washing machine when his father walked in on him. “You’re getting an earl
y
start on that.”

“I had some clothes I needed to throw in.”

“The
y’
re not going to finish before we leave. We won’t be able to dr
y
them until we get back this afternoon. Wh
y
don’t
yo
u just wait until then?”

The tension from last night’s conversation in the garage hadn’t disappeared
ye
t, and ever
yt
hing both of them said was marked with a cool, objective distance.

“I alread
y
put the soap in. Might as well get it done now.”

His dad mulled that over. Daniel had the sense that he was going to press things, but he changed the subject instead. “Did
yo
u get breakfast
ye
t?”

“No. I’ll be right in.”

“Alright. Remember, we need to leave b
y
eight if we’re going to make the appointment.”

“Yeah. I’ll be read
y.
”

His dad left for the kitchen, and Daniel leaned a hand against the washing machine and let out a long breath.

He had no idea what he would have said if his dad had looked into the machine and seen the mudd
y
towels.

You dug up Akira.

You did it in
yo
ur sleep.

Even though it was some weird t
yp
e of sleepwalking and wasn’t officiall
y
a hallucination, his research on their causes came to mind.

A brain tumor.

Some kind of head injur
y
he wasn’t aware of.

Or ma
yb
e, based on how he seemed to be losing touch with realit
y,
schizophrenia.

Ma
yb
e he reall
y
was going craz
y.

Honestl
y,
the thought of going insane frightened him even more than the possibilit
y
of having a tumor growing in his brain.

Instead of digging up the grave, what if he’d walked into the middle of the road as a car was approaching? Or gotten into his own car and driven off the road into a ditch or off the embankment into Pine River?

He’d heard about people who’d actuall
y
killed famil
y
members in their sleep. What if he’d attacked his father?

No, this couldn’t go on. The visions, the nightmares, the sleepwalking. He needed some answers before something serious happened.

Though he didn’t like admitting it, the sooner he could get checked out to see what was wrong, the better.

After starting the wash, he grabbed some coffee and a bite to eat, packed his laptop so he could work on his U.S. Histor
y
report in the car or while he was waiting to be seen at the doctor’s office, and then he left the house with his dad.

And saw what he had done with Akira’s corpse.

He’d left it on the hood of his dad’s car.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT

His father stared at the rain-soaked carcass of the dog, then gazed at his son.

“What do
yo
u know about this, Daniel?”

Wh
y
would
yo
u have left Akira’s bod
y
there? What is wrong with
yo
u?

“I don’t know wh
y
an
yo
ne would’ve done that.” Daniel felt limp and somewhat dizz
y,
like he was standing on ground that was made of sand and he was slipping down into a world where he would no longer be able to tell what was real from what was not.

Languishing in a nightmare. Trapped forever in a dream.

The words came to him just as the phrases for his blog had come the other night when K
yl
e was over:
Dark birds that feed on the flesh of his dead dreams. Picking them clean until onl
y
the bones remain.

Yes.

The
y
are.

And the
y’
re ripping through the fabric of his sanit
y.

Of
yo
ur sanit
y.

Thankfull
y,
the corpse was old enough that the area didn’t reek of rot and death, but there was a faint odor of deca
y,
probabl
y
made more distinct b
y
the damp morning air.

“How man
y
people know where Akira was buried?” his dad asked.

“Just us and K
yl
e.”

He threaded things together. “The laundr
y,
huh? But wh
y
would
yo
u do this? What’s going on with
yo
u?”

Daniel might have felt more reassured somehow if his dad had been angr
y,
but he didn’t sound mad at all. Just deepl
y
worried.

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “I don’t remember an
yt
hing.”

“But it wasn’t K
yl
e, was it?”

A long pause. “No.”

Here it comes.

“Go on, get in the car.”

His father went for a garbage bag and retrieved the shovel from the garage, then used it to carr
y
the dog’s remains to the back
ya
rd. When he returned he said simpl
y,
“We’ll take care of it when we get back home.”

“Honestl
y,
Dad, I don’t know what happened. I woke up wet. I must have sleepwalked.”

“Alright.” But from his tone it didn’t sound like he thought things were alright. “A headache? Did
yo
u have one when
yo
u went to bed last night? Do
yo
u have one now?”

“No. Have I ever sleepwalked before? Ma
yb
e when I was little or something?”

“Onl
y
once.”

“When was that?”

“When
yo
u were five. After
yo
ur grandfather died. Your mother and I were in the living room and
yo
u walked past us on
yo
ur wa
y
to the front door.”

“Where was I going?”

“We asked
yo
u that. You said
yo
u were going to find him.”

“To find who? Grandpa? But he was dead.”

“Yes.” He started the car. “He was.”

The conversation pooled off into stillness like water trickling into a stagnant lake.

Then the two of them left for Superior to find out what was reall
y
wrong with Daniel.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE

The morning was spent in a series of test
s—a
n MRI, a CAT scan, and some other ones Daniel had never even heard of. It was nearl
y
noon when the neurologist finall
y
met up with him and his father to talk through the results.

She was a petite woman with stark brown e
ye
s, wire-rimmed glasses, and short hair. She had a somewhat uneas
y
smile, probabl
y
from tr
yi
ng to put a positive spin on the bad news that she had to share all too often with her patients.

Daniel could see a storm of worr
y
on his dad’s face and it spoke volumes as to how much he reall
y
did care about him.

He guessed that his dad was probabl
y
thinking about more than just the two times in the last week that his son had blacked out. Undoubtedl
y,
the incident with Akira’s corpse was also on his mind.

The two of them took seats in the doctor’s office on the pair of leather chairs facing the desk. Diplomas hung from the walls, and thick medical textbooks filled the shelves. The window behind the desk faced a small park that la
y
across the street where two little kids were pla
yi
ng with their mom in the sunlight.

The doctor sat facing them. “Well, from what I can see, we can rule out a tumor, and that’s something we can be thankful for.” She paused as if she were expecting them to agree, but the
y
were quiet, attentive, waiting expectantl
y
for her to tell them what was actuall
y
going on.

She took a little time to summarize the test results, then concluded b
y
sa
yi
ng, “The truth is, I can’t find an
yt
hing ph
ys
icall
y
wrong with
yo
u, Daniel. That’s good news.” The wa
y
she phrased that made Daniel think that ma
yb
e she was about to share some bad news.

Nothing ph
ys
icall
y
wrong. So it must just be in
yo
ur head, that’s what she’s sa
yi
ng.

And that was bad news in itself, because if there was no tumor, there weren’t that man
y
reasons left for wh
y
he was having hallucinations. Prett
y
much just one thing: schizophrenia.

“And so,” Daniel’s dad said, “where does that leave us?”

“Well, there’s another doctor
yo
u might want to see. Actuall
y,
he’s right there in Beldon.” She sounded like she was tr
yi
ng a little too hard to sound nonchalant as she spoke.

“A second opinion?”

A slight pause. “In a sense. Yes.”

Daniel had a feeling he knew what kind of doctor she was about to recommend.

“But
yo
u did the tests alread
y,
” his dad said. “You said we can rule out a brain tumor. Are
yo
u sa
yi
ng
yo
u think we need another set of e
ye
s to interpret the results?”

The silence that followed made Daniel uncomfortable, and he expected that b
y
now his dad must certainl
y
have pieced together what was going on. Ma
yb
e he was just waiting for the doctor to spell it out to them.

At last she replied, “That’s not exactl
y
what I’m suggesting. I’m sa
yi
ng that ph
ys
icall
y
there’s nothing wrong with Daniel.”

“Ph
ys
icall
y.
” The wa
y
he said that made it clear that he was thinking along the same lines as Daniel.

“Yes.” She sounded like she definitel
y
did not want to be having this conversation. Reaching into her pocket she produced a business card. “I’ve written his cell number on the back. He’s experienced at this sort of thing.”

“And what sort of thing is that?” His father’s voice had become sharp.

“Um . . . Well,
yo
u told me what happened with the sleepwalking last night an
d—”

“What are
yo
u sa
yi
ng? A shrink? That m
y
son needs to see a ps
yc
hiatrist?”

“From what
yo
u’ve shared with me, Daniel has been under a lot of stress latel
y—
t
he funeral of the girl from his school, the pressure of performing well at the football game in front of the college scout
s—”

“It’s not stress,” Daniel told her. “That’s not what’s causing an
y
of this.” He didn’t bring up the hallucinations. That definitel
y
would not have helped matters.

Daniel’s dad shook his head. “M
y
son doesn’t need to see a ps
yc
hiatrist.”

She was still holding the business card out for them. “There’s no stigma t
o—”

“Thank
yo
u for
yo
ur time.” Daniel’s father rose.

“He’s ver
y
good,” she assured them. “Meet with him once. If it doesn’t go well, at least
yo
u gave it a shot.”

“Thanks, but we’ll be alright.” He indicated for Daniel to follow him out of the office.

It looked like the doctor was about to pocket the card, but she extended it one more time. “If
yo
u change
yo
ur mind.”

Although Daniel had the sense that his father had no intention of calling the ps
yc
hiatrist, in the end he accepted the card and stuffed it into his pocket.

Then, with what seemed like somewhat forced politeness, he thanked the doctor and led his son out of her office.

Daniel puzzled over wh
y
his dad was so set against him seeing a ps
yc
hiatrist. He could think of onl
y
one reason: right before their separation, Daniel’s parents had seen a counselor a few times and that hadn’t turned out exceptionall
y
well.

Ps
yc
hologist, ps
yc
hiatrist, it didn’t reall
y
matter.

Either one is going to look for the same thin
g—s
omething wrong with
yo
ur head.

Something that’s not just ph
ys
icall
y
wrong.

Once the
y
were outside, his father tossed the business card into a nearb
y
trash can. “Let’s get some lunch.”

“Sure.”

When the
y
were in the car and on their wa
y,
Daniel said, “What are
yo
u going to tell Mom?”

“Exactl
y
what that doctor said.”

“And that is?”

“That there’s nothing wrong with
yo
u.”

Of course, that wasn’t
exactl
y
what the doctor had said, but Daniel had the sense that pointing that out would not be such a good idea.

“What are
yo
u hungr
y
for?” his dad asked.

“Doesn’t matter. An
yt
hing is fine.”

“Subs, then. I saw a place on the wa
y.
”

Apart from mentioning it to the doctor, the
y
hadn’t spoken at all about the incident involving the pupp
y’
s remains since the
y’
d left home earlier that morning, and Daniel expected that at an
y
time his dad would bring it up.

But he did not.

The
y
were about fifteen minutes from Beldon when his father turned off the highwa
y
and steered the car onto one of the little-used count
y
roads near the national forest and the trail leading to Wolf Cave.

“Where are we going?” Daniel asked.

“There’s somewhere I’d like
yo
u to take me.”

“Where’s that?”

“I want
yo
u to show me exactl
y
where
yo
u found those glasses on the beach at Lake Algonquin.”