Within These Walls (21 page)

“Holy shit,” he whispered, his throat suddenly dry. His eyes darted to Echo’s face, and the moment their eyes met, her mouth curled up in a satisfied smile. “Where did you get these?” He went back to the photos in his hands, afraid that if he looked away for too long they’d disappear, too good to be real. What he was holding was true-crime gold. If Lucas could publish them in his book, John would push for a blockbuster, one-day laydown release. Screw the writing—people would buy the damn thing just to get an eyeful of these never-before-seen pictures. But the real question wasn’t where Echo had obtained such items; it was how she had known to time her arrival so perfectly. It was strange, as though she hadn’t just googled him but had been peering through the window of his study, waiting for the precise moment to introduce him to his own salvation.

“My family has owned the house down the road for a long time,” she said. “My mom lived there in the early eighties.”

“Your mom? You mean . . .”

Echo nodded. “She knew them. She and Audra Snow were best friends.”

Lucas’s stomach flipped. “You’re kidding me.” Was this really luck? Could serendipity truly be this fortuitous?

She shook her head with a little laugh. “I swear I’m not joking.”

Setting the photos aside, he reached into the box once more and drew out a stack of brittle newspaper clippings, most of which he’d
read before. But that didn’t matter. If Echo’s mother knew Audra, really
knew
her, it was another lead.

“Why are you showing me this?” He shot her a look, unable to keep his suspicions at bay. “We don’t even know each other. You realize this stuff . . .”

Echo held up a hand, assuring him that he didn’t have to finish his statement. She knew. The contents of this box would change everything. It would, perhaps, even change his life.

“I told you, I’m a helper. I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do, at least to pay homage to Audra in my mother’s name.”

Shit.
That meant Echo’s mom wasn’t around anymore. But he still had Audra’s best friend’s daughter. Hell, maybe Audra was like an aunt to Echo when she was a kid. Maybe Echo had met the group herself. She’d been young, but that didn’t mean she’d forgotten it all.

“When I came to introduce myself, you put out this vibe,” Echo explained. “You were in distress. I picked up on it right away. I suppose I’m just a good guesser.” She shrugged. “I figured that maybe, since you said you were going to move away from here, that distress had something to do with your job. And so, here I am.” She lifted a shoulder, smiled. “Just remember me when you finish your book. Give me a mention. Maybe even offer me one of those beers.”

“Oh God.” Lucas shot a glance at his nearly empty bottle. “I’m sorry, do you—”

“It’s okay.” She cut him off. “Next time. I just wanted to drop that off. After all, you have a lot of work to do.”

Lucas shook his head, hardly understanding any of this. It was impossible, a situation that only happened in movies—a happy coincidence that could never occur in real life. Too perfect. But he decided to put his trepidation aside. This was too much of a good thing to lose to his own paranoia. “Hey, I can’t just let you give this to me,” he told her. “Let me pay you or something.”

“I’m not selling them,” she said. “You’re borrowing them, that’s all.”

“No, no, I understand, I just don’t . . . I don’t feel right. I don’t think you understand how incredible this stuff is. It’s invaluable. Priceless. This is like . . .” He struggled to find the words.

She finished his sentence. “It’s the Halcomb Holy Grail, yes, I’m aware. If anyone will put it to good use, I’m confident it’s you. I’m a helper, remember?” Echo lifted her hands, wiggled her fingers at him as if summoning some unknown, mystical force. “The color of your aura is already changing. That distress is dissipating, which means I’ve done my job.”

He didn’t know what to say. It was a kindness that he couldn’t begin to understand, especially after not being that accommodating a neighbor. He hadn’t been on his best behavior when Echo had paid her first visit, and yet here she was, fulfilling her spiritual role. He took a breath and slowly exhaled. “Beer,” he said. “A thousand bottles of whatever you choose—just tell me what you like and come over whenever you want.”

Echo smiled at the offer. “That would be nice.” She cast a look around the room again and nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Then that’s what it’ll be,” Lucas said.
Good fences make good neighbors,
his father would have grumbled, but this time his dad would have been wrong. This strange granola girl had made his day. His year. Possibly his career.

And even though he had been cursing Halcomb not a half hour before, now he couldn’t help but think,
Thank God he talked me into moving to Pier Pointe.
Because without Pier Pointe, he wouldn’t have met Echo, and without Echo, there would be no hope. Suddenly, his dead project was alive and kicking.

Screw Jeffrey Halcomb. If he didn’t want to talk, Lucas would talk to Echo, the next best thing, instead.

LAMBERT CORRECTIONAL INCIDENT REPORT—031210SXH

DATE OF INCIDENT:
March 12, 2010

TIME OF INCIDENT:
15:30

REPORTING OFFICER:
Stewart Xavier Hillstone

At approximately 15:30, I entered Lambert’s solitary confinement unit to retrieve inmate 881978, Jeffrey Christopher Halcomb, and escort him to the visitation cell. Upon entering the unit, I heard Halcomb and inmate 932104, Trey Allen Schwartz, conversing in low tones through the ports in their doors. I made myself known by announcing that Halcomb should ready himself to be cuffed and removed from his cell, which brought their conversation to a halt.

Once I had Halcomb cuffed, I unlocked his cell and led him down the hall toward visitation, at which time Schwartz called out to him. I didn’t catch exactly what was said, but it was something akin to “see you later, Jay.” Schwartz sounded in good spirits. Halcomb did not respond.

I surrendered Halcomb to Officers Pasqual Cruz and Steven Morris at approximately 15:35, stopped by the security desk to note that Halcomb was in visitation, and returned to the SC unit and proceeded to do a standard contraband check of Halcomb’s cell. I completed my check and was ready to proceed back to the security desk when I noticed blood pooling out from beneath Inmate Schwartz’s door. Through the port in the door, I discovered the inmate unconscious on the floor at approximately 15:45. It
appeared that the inmate had obtained an undetermined piece of contraband and stabbed himself in the carotid artery of his neck.

I immediately called for backup as well as for the security desk to unlock his cell. I rolled the inmate over and checked for a pulse while waiting for medical assistance, but the inmate appeared unconscious and limp long before they arrived. By the time assisting officers Malcom Gladwell and Craig Koch appeared, the inmate was deceased. The inmate was transported to Lambert General at approximately 18:15, where he was officially pronounced dead by the Lambert City coroner. The coroner removed the object that was used to end the inmate’s life and identified it as a metal cross with a sharpened stem approximately three inches in length. The cross appeared to have been a piece of costume jewelry potentially obtained through a visitor, though records show that Inmate Schwartz had no visitors for the three months previous to his death. It is as yet unclear as to how the inmate obtained such an item.

28

Y
OU SHOULDN’T HAVE
said anything.

Vee sat on the edge of her mattress and stared at the carpet beneath her feet.

We’re going to move as soon as I can find us another place to go.

No surprise there. She’d brought her father’s decision to leave the house down on herself, all because she had been angry, because she couldn’t resist taking a jab at him. He had seemed serious when he’d announced the change of plans, sad and defeated but not willing to take no for an answer. She could have said a lot of things to her dad right then, like how she wanted him to succeed so he could be happy again. Like how she knew that his books were what made him who he was and his writing kept him alive from day to day. She could have told him she loved him, that she was terrified of losing him in a divorce. She could have let him in on
her
secret, told him about the girl in the mirror, the boy in the orchard, the shadow people and weird music, the way the house had changed before her eyes.

But instead, she had been cruel.
Giving up isn’t going to get Mom back.
As though he didn’t know that. As if she had to remind him of what seemed like a guaranteed loss. Vee wasn’t convinced that a runaway bestseller would win back her mother, and perhaps that was for the better. She doubted her mom still loved her dad, and if there was no love there, her father was better off being alone.

Except that now he thinks you don’t love him, either.
She bit her
bottom lip hard enough to make herself wince.
You’re an idiot,
she thought.
You can’t be supportive when people need it most. It’s like there’s something wrong with you. You’re broken, Vee. He’ll be happier without you, too.
Swallowing against the bitterness in her throat, she shoved her fingers through her hair and nudged her laptop with her bare foot. It was enough to rouse it from sleep. The screen snapped on, and Jeff Halcomb gave her a look of understanding.

It’s not you, it’s him.

Because none of this would be happening if her
dad
hadn’t lied, if her parents could stop screaming for long enough to talk. She was being torn between two people, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she would be better off on her own. Her dad would be happier without her. Her mom was already happier halfway across the world, having erased them both from her mind. Why shouldn’t Vee forget as well?

She had found a few interviews online. They told a story of a group of people under the direction of a man who loved them unconditionally. Jeffrey Halcomb encouraged a sloughing off of the past to move on to a happier future. It was exactly what Vee wanted, what she felt she
needed.
Jeffrey had promised his followers love and peace. Who was to say that wasn’t what they had when they all died? Who were the living to equate death with sorrow and pain?

You should try harder.
She had to heed her own advice. If she didn’t try, she’d be moving in a week or two, her parents would
still
get divorced, and she’d be afraid of what the future held. She’d lose the opportunity to find her spiritual self, and what better place to seek it than in a house of spirits?

Perhaps, if she tried harder, the ghosts that lived within the walls would reveal their secrets.

Perhaps, if she just put in a little more effort, Jeffrey Halcomb would help her, too.

Vee grabbed her phone and composed a text.

Maybe the stuff with my parents is my fault.

Heidi:

What R U talking about? UR parents are crazy.

Vee exhaled a breath and dropped her phone onto the sheets. Heidi didn’t get it. Sometimes it seemed to Vee that she didn’t even
want
to get it, and what kind of a friend was that?

She rose from her mattress, grabbed some things from her closet, and stepped out into the hall. But she couldn’t bring herself to go into the blue room again. Hesitating in front of the door that led into what should have been
her
bathroom, she only stared at the doorknob, afraid that touching it would bring back the phantoms that were hiding in that house. Vee glanced over the banister to the ground floor. Her dad was in his office. She could hear him in there. Ducking into the master bedroom, she slipped into her father’s bathroom and quietly closed the door.

Vee pulled her hair into a ponytail. She changed out of her pj’s and into a pair of black jeans and a sleeveless midnight-blue blouse her mom had bought her a few months before. Her dad had suggested the beach, but maybe they could go into town. She could ask him to drive by the school she’d attend if she decided to stay past the summer with him—here, in
this
house, not some crappy apartment. Maybe they’d go to the movies for once and she’d meet a few kids in the theater lobby. One or two good friends was all she needed to decide where fate would take her; back to New York, to Heidi and Tim, or to a fresh start in Washington with new friends, new boys, and Jeff.

It seemed to her that Heidi never texted her anymore; it was always Vee texting Heidi. Maybe Heidi didn’t care that Vee was three thousand miles away. Maybe Tim didn’t care, either. Maybe some new friends would do her good. Perhaps trying harder meant trying something new. Because had life in New York really been
that
great?

Washington could be cool,
she thought as she smoothed her hands over her shirt.
Washington could be better.
She stared at herself in the mirror with a frown. Her eye still looked bad. It would lead to sideways glances and people murmuring about how maybe, quite possibly, her dad had laid into her like some abusive jerk.
Bruises shining from the inside
out.
She opened the tin lunch box she’d brought with her and began to dig through it. Inside were various types of makeup—lip gloss, eye shadow, eyeliner, and a small tube of concealer. She kept the items hidden the way a superstitious person might keep a dybbuk locked away in a box. They were the fruits of sudden impulse, of a thing that felt wrong and unlike her. Vee never thought she’d be the type to pocket cosmetics when no one was looking, but the proof was laid out in front of her. Maybe her mother was right and the dark clothes and angry music were turning her into someone other than herself. Or maybe this was just who she was—bad, imperfect, inadequate, worthless.

She blotted some concealer around her injured eye and inspected her face, then turned away from the mirror and with her pj’s and lunch box in her arms, stepped back into the hall. Someone was downstairs. She stalled her retreat back into her room, listening to her father speak. A woman’s voice responded. When she spotted the weird neighbor lady drifting out of her dad’s study and out the front door, Vee pulled in a breath, stashed her stuff just inside her room, and made her way downstairs.

Try harder.

Moving across the living room to his study, she stuck an eye over
the crack between the door and its frame and peered inside. He was huddled over his desk, already in the thick of work.

As the child of a professional writer, Vee had learned at an early age to never disturb her dad while he was working. It was a cardinal sin, like waking a sleeping baby or kicking a dog. But if she was going to try harder, some rules would need to be broken.

She cleared her throat and nudged open the door a little farther. Her dad looked up from a box on his desk, his expression full of what she could only read as fascination.

“Dad?” She shifted her weight from one Converse sneaker to the other. “What about the beach?” And maybe the movies and swinging by the high school. They’d been cooped up for so long; he at least owed her that.

Her question seemed to shift his intrigue from riveted to agitated. The change in his countenance appeared for only half a second at best, but she was quick to catch it. She was bothering him, always bothering him. Even though he’d suggested spending time together himself, such a mundane offering didn’t hold a candle to whatever it was their neighbor had presented.

“Um . . . can you give me a few hours, do you think?”

“Sure,” she murmured. “Yeah, whatever.” She turned away and, with slumped shoulders, moved into the kitchen in search of a snack. With a cherry Pop-Tart soon held tight in her grasp, she slouched against one of the chairs and tried to keep her emotions in check.

I work as hard as I do for
you
!
he had yelled at her mom once.
Everything I do is for you and Jeanie.
Everything!

But sometimes it was tough to see it that way. At times it felt as though he loved his books more than anything else. She tore the silver wrapper from her breakfast pastry, her bottom lip quivering at this new thought: her mom could be a real nag, but maybe Vee hadn’t been fair. It was possible that her mother had given up on her
dad because of this exact thing—the anticipation of spending time together crushed beneath the weight of his inability to disengage. Perhaps her mom had given up because she was too familiar with what Vee was feeling now—cast aside and forgotten.

Suddenly, Vee felt lonelier than she ever had, almost enough to finally read her mother’s stupid email. Although she tried not to, it was useless—she burst into tears.

She wasn’t sure why she held her dad in such high regard. Perhaps it was that invisible, unifying string of weirdness, that camaraderie of liking scary movies and strange music. Or maybe it was the fact that he didn’t make her feel like an alien because her clothes were black or she smudged eye shadow three shades too dark around her eyes. But what did any of that matter if he didn’t have the desire to give her the time of day? How could she live with him if she was completely invisible?

She considered that perhaps her mom had started paying attention to Kurt Murphy because that new romance made her feel like she mattered. After all, it was nice to be noticed every now and again. Maybe her mother wasn’t the bad guy in all this.

Maybe Vee had been rooting for the bad guy all along.

No, forget it. She’s just as bad as he is.

She narrowed her eyes, willed herself to stop her tears, and rose from her seat. It could be that she wouldn’t live with either one of them.
Screw you both, I’ll live somewhere else entirely
. Kids did it all the time. They took off, ran away, lived with people who gave more of a shit than their real parents ever did.

That, or they figured out how to make it on their own.

Like the Halcomb kids. Just like them, as a matter of fact.