Ghostwriter (21 page)

She should’ve remained behind, not me.

He could see The Little Traveler, where she used to go with her mother and Audrey. There was Grahams, where they’d get ice
cream or chocolate pecan scalies or chocolate covered pretzels. There were a hundred other places that held a hundred other
memories—simple, ordinary memories that now seemed legendary and mythic because Lucy was part of them.

God, I miss her.

Sometimes the ache seemed physical, like some gaping hole in his stomach. It felt like a literal missing part, like someone
had scooped away his vital organs and left all the fat and fl ab behind.

He found himself approaching the church and wondered if he even wanted to read the sign.

But of course, he did.

And of course, it had to say something that nicked him, that cut just a little.

Ripples don’t come back. Actions have consequences, good and bad.

And then, out of the blue, he thought of Cillian’s laughter as he punched him in the face.

He thought of the beating and wondered what ripples it had created.

He could hear them in the kitchen, and it made him smile.

It was good to be surrounded by signs of life: the sounds of dishes being rinsed and put in the dishwasher, a married couple
laughing about old times, the timer going off and the dog barking; the smells of wine and lasagna and some fantastic berry
dish cooking in the oven; the large open family room with the plush couches and the country French design, the pictures of
family adorning the walls, the glow of candlelight mixed with canned lighting.

It was good to be in the Wards’ house again after all this time.

Ward came in with one of Dennis’s bottles of red.

“Here—finish this up.”

“I’m good.”

“Then be better,” Ward said, a grin on his face.

His friend looked relaxed, his eyes a bit squinty after several glasses of wine himself. Ward wasn’t much of a drinker, and
when he did partake, Dennis could always tell.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah. I might just fall asleep on this couch though.”

“We have a guest bedroom.”

“That’s in case we start doing tequila shots later.”

“Kendra might bring that out,” Ward said with a laugh. “One never knows.”

“Something smells delicious.”

“When company comes over, she brings out the big guns. Otherwise it’s mac and cheese and Ho Hos.”

“I’ll gladly help you out anytime.”

“Hey—we have something for you. Kendra found it earlier. Hold on.”

Ward disappeared for a minute, asking his wife where “it” was. Dennis savored a sip of his wine, feeling relaxed and warm
and comfortable. The stereo played a selection of soft songs. A song by Sting that Dennis didn’t recognize. It fit the mood
of the evening. Relaxed, classy, calm.

His eyes felt heavy. That’s how relaxed he was. He could doze off right here on this couch. The shuffl ing of feet made him
stretch and stop drifting.

“Look at this,” Ward told him, handing him a photo.

It was a shot of the two of them back at Databank, where they met. The advertising company had been bought in the late nineties
after they were long gone. Very few people they knew still worked there.

“Look at us. So young.”

“Look at me,” Ward said. “So much hair.”

Dennis laughed. “When was this taken?”

“I don’t know. We had just gotten to know each other.”

“That seems like another lifetime ago.”

“Several lifetimes ago.”

Dennis looked at the men in the picture, two guys in their thirties (though Dennis liked to razz Ward about being older) with
the whole future ahead of them.

“We look like trouble,” Dennis commented.

“We were lucky to get out of there. Some of the guys got canned when the merger took over.”

“Isn’t it nice not to have to worry about mergers?”

“What do you mean?” Ward asked, trying to hide a smile but unable to. “I’m being bought out.”

“Really? McDonald’s finally called, huh?”

“Taco Bell.”

Ward’s wife was cute and petite and a perfect hostess. During dessert, a delicious multiberry pie-like concoction that Dennis
enjoyed so much he asked for seconds, Ward and Kendra talked about their daughter’s recent engagement. She had graduated from
college that May and was now working in downtown Chicago.

“Those days seem like a long time ago, don’t they?” Ward asked shaking his head.

“Yeah.”

Perhaps it was the way Dennis said it, but Ward and Kendra both looked sad and speechless. Dennis realized he had put a little
too much emotion in his response.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No, I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“For bringing up your daughter’s engagement? Come on— that’s great.”

“No—I mean—just the reminiscing.”

Dennis smiled. “You know, Lucy’s name is not forbidden. It’s not like I’m going to turn into some sobbing mess if we talk
about her.”

Both of them nodded with sympathetic, sad eyes.

It was okay. He was used to this. He wasn’t sure how people were supposed to react.

“I still remember the day I proposed to her. That was—let’s see, how many years ago? Man. It was a long time ago.”

“You were married when I met you.”

“Twenty-five. That’s how old I was when I asked Lucy to marry me. That was twenty-six years ago. Can you believe it?”

“No,” Kendra said in a tone that said
I can’t believe she’s gone. None of us can believe she’s gone.

“Where’d you propose to her?” Ward asked.

“You guys ever been to the Fabyan Forest Preserve? Just south of our house off Route 31?”

“The one with the windmill?”

“Yeah—that’s across the river. They’ve redone a lot of the preserve in the last few years. I proposed to her on a summer day
alongside the river. Lucy loved the water and for some reason loved the Fox River. I told her—I promised her—one day we’d
live in a place right by it.”

“You got your wish.”

Dennis nodded at Kendra. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

“Do you go back much?”

Dennis shook his head. “No. Actually I haven’t been back in some time.”

He knew how long it had been. The last time he went there was with Lucy. He didn’t want to go back now. Nothing existed there
except ghosts of the past waiting to haunt him.

A buzz disturbed Dennis’s thoughts. He reached into his pocket and took out his cell phone, blaring a tune his daughter had
programmed. “I can’t get this thing to play anything else,” Dennis said. “Sorry. I should’ve turned that off.” He looked at
the number and saw it was Ryan. He decided to let it go to voice mail, but during the next hour all he could think about was
the message waiting for him.

On the drive home, feeling upbeat after a refreshing evening with friends, Dennis listened to the voice mail from Ryan.

“Hey, Dennis. This is Ryan. I did some investigating on that guy who’s been harassing you. I think you’ve got someone giving
you the wrong info. This guy that you told me to look up—name of Cillian Reed. About nine months ago a man by the name of
Daniel Cillian Reed was found dead in a garbage dump. Actually, he wasn’t found but parts of him were, I guess. It was pretty
grisly. They had a funeral and everything. I’ve got the file on him and can show it to you.

“I guess the guy had started going by Cillian, but everyone—including his family—knew him as Daniel. That’s probably why you
weren’t able to find anything on him. But it made the news—I remember them talking about it not long ago.

“So whoever’s telling you this—someone’s screwing with your head, Dennis. But then again, sounds like something one of your
fans might think is funny, you know? Taking the name of a dead man and posing as him for a laugh.

“I left a package at your door—everything I could make copies of from what I found. Give me a call once you’ve looked it over.
And let me know if this guy keeps bothering you. Like I said, I bet it’s just some crazed fan trying to make a point.”

He can feel his heart beating as he opens the package simply marked Dennis.

His hands shake.

The light overhead seems too cold and too dim in this cold, dim house.

He slides open the folder.

And then he reads the note.

Hey Dennis.

Someone’s really messing with your mind. Here are several pictures. The first is a shot of an arrest photo for Daniel Cillian
Reed taken in 2003. Another is for disorderly conduct taken in 2005. There are a few copies of some newspaper articles in
the
Tribune
and the
Daily Herald
detailing Daniel’s death. Pretty grisly stuff. But as I said, this can’ t be your guy unless he’s a ghost.

Call me.

Ryan

Dennis starts to look at the photo, but he already knows.

He already believes what’s happening.

He knew it the moment it clicked, when he thought about the text Cillian sent about
Marooned,
about how Cillian seemed to be lurking in his thoughts.

Grinning with that delirious smile is Cillian in a mug shot, then Cillian in another mug shot looking drunk and obnoxious.
And then the papers showing photos of Daniel Cillian Reed from high school.

It’s the same guy who showed up at his book signing, the same guy who’s been stalking and harassing and threatening him, the
same guy he beat to a pulp.

The same guy who was murdered a year ago.

He waited in the veiled covering of the atrium tucked under the ghostlike trees in the forest preserve. Wind blew around him
and through him and he shivered, zipping up his coat. He wasn’t sure why Bob had wanted to meet here, but since the debacle
the other night, he would do whatever Bob wanted him to do.

And Bob wanted to meet him here at midnight.

The moon reflected off the slow moving river. He had walked here, leaving his car parked a couple miles away. The forest preserve
closed at dusk, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t easy to get into. He had simply walked through the woods and down past the
oriental garden to reach this metal-encased dwelling.

The sound of shuffling feet gave Bob away. He wasn’t trying to slip up on Cillian. Maybe tonight Bob would show him something
new, something else that horrified and shocked and fascinated. With the big guy, Cillian was constantly surprised.

“You made it,” he said.

“Yeah,” the reply came, along with a sigh.

“So what’s going on?”

For a moment Bob just lingered in the gloom of the enclosed building. Cillian could barely make out the big guy’s face, but
he could see the outline of his shoulder and towering head.

Bob looked out toward the river. “Why do you always talk about fear?”

“What?” The question seemed out of the ordinary—and out of the blue—for the big guy. “What do you mean fear?”

“You’re always talking about finding ways to scare yourself. What do you mean by that?”

Cillian’s laugh felt hollow and forced. “Not a lot frightens me.”

“No?”

“Very little.”

Cillian squinted, trying to make out Bob’s face, to see if he had anything in his hand, to see what this was about.

“What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?” the big guy asked.

“You mean the scariest movie?”

“No, I mean in real life. Ever.”

Cillian slowly shifted toward the edge of the atrium, a three foot concrete wall behind him. If he wanted to—if he needed
to—he could get out of here.

You frighten me like no one else has because there is no fear on your face and no sensation in your soul. There is just black
like this night, like this place, darker than anything I could ever paint or imagine. Blackness.

Cillian lit up a cigarette, a habit he had picked up since being around Bob. “I have to think about that question.”

“What happened with the girl?”

“I just—I froze. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s one thing to hurt someone, but can you understand what it’s like?”

Cillian inhaled his cigarette and kept his eyes focused on Bob. “What what’s like?”

“To kill. You’ve hurt. The man you chased in the woods. You hurt him and maimed him, but you didn’t finish him off.”

“I know. I tried. I couldn’t.”

“Does death scare you?”

“Killing does.”

Bob’s face was expressionless, emotionless.

“It just—I don’t know. I thought—”

“It’s permanent,” Bob said. “And that’s what scares you, isn’t it? There’s no going back. And it’s not a movie or a book.
It’s a real life and it’s suddenly gone and there’s nothing else to do except dispose of the parts.”

“Yeah.”

This was a bad idea coming here, being with him. This was a bad idea.

Cillian had a crazy thought. Even as Bob continued to talk.

“You said you wanted to see something scary, didn’t you?”

“I’ve seen some pretty freaky stuff, man,” Cillian said.

He thought of the switchblade in his pocket. He thought of using that.

He thought of finally killing, this time not out of curiosity but out of self defense.