Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 5

He parked two blocks away on Crockett Street per the directions Eric had texted him and turned off the Crown Vic.

Rain beaded on the windshield, distorting the lights of passing cars.

Grant glanced at his phone: 9:25.

The knot in his stomach had been tightening with every mile he’d driven since leaving the Four Seasons, and now it felt taut enough to fray.

He locked his gun in the glove compartment.

Opened the door, stepped out into rain that was cold enough to leave a metallic chill where it touched his skin. Grant raised the hood of his North Face jacket, thrust his hands into the pockets, and started down the sidewalk.

It was an affluent quarter in upper Queen Anne—rows of brownstones interspersed with Victorian mansions. Streetlamps ran along the block, and between the rain falling through their illumination and a haze of mist lingering in the alleyways, the neighborhood assumed the eerie gloom of a nineteenth-century London slum.

At the next block, Grant stopped and stared cattycorner across the intersection at a freestanding brownstone. The building was three stories. It occupied a corner. Evergreen hedges rose almost to the windows of the first-level, and though the curtains were drawn, he could see light around the edges. The second and third floors stood completely dark.

Grant waited for a break in traffic and then jogged across the street, dodging a large puddle several inches deep.

He stopped at the wrought iron fence that encircled the property and leveled his gaze on the front door. The scent of wood smoke was faint in the air.

The number on the small, black mailbox beside the door matched the address he’d been given. He unlatched the gate and pushed his way through, moving along the path of flagstones, and then up the stairs. With each step, he noted a strange sensation, a pressure building in his head, his pace involuntarily quickening, as though he were being pulled toward the building.

Then he was standing under the covered stoop, his pulse at full throttle, trying to catch his breath before he knocked.

A small camera pointed down from just above the door’s upper hinge.

This was happening too fast.

His head still hummed from the Johnnie Walker Blue, and he had only the vaguest concept of what he was going to say.

Swallowing the doubt and the fear, he pressed the buzzer.

The muffled thud of footsteps—most likely barefoot—came into range on the other side of the door.

A voice crackled through an intercom under the mailbox.

“Michael, how are you?”

Grant hit the TALK button, leaned in, responded with, “Doing well. Little wet out here.”

“Then let’s get you out of the cold.”

The slide of a chain.

Two deadbolts turning.

Hinges creaking.

A blade of light cut across the stone at Grant’s feet as the heavy wood door swung open.

Top-shelf perfume swept over him.

The light was poor.

She wore a purple silk kimono with a pattern of black vines and flowers that curled down the sleeves. Plunging neckline. Her blond hair had been lifted off her neck and shoulders with a pair of black chopsticks. She stood barefoot in the doorframe, her hand still clutching the knob. Behind her, the darkened room shifted in the firelight.

Grant looked into her face, into her eyes, hoping for some unfamiliar detail, but they all belonged unquestionably to her.

Waves of horror and relief raged through his head.

She tried to shut the door, but he’d anticipated this, the toe of his boot already across the threshold.

“Leave,” she said. “Right now.”

“I just want to talk to you.”

“How dare you.”

“Can I come in?”

“You here to arrest me?”

“No.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I want you to leave right now.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“What do you want?”

“Just to see you.”

“Congratulations. You’ve seen me. Toodaloo.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you.” She was still trying to force the door closed.

Grant put his hand up and braced himself against it.

He said, “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. That’s the truth. Then I find out you’re back in Seattle. You could’ve reached out to me. You could’ve made contact.”

“And why on earth would I do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because I’m your brother?”

“So what?”

“How could you say that?”

“I don’t need you sweeping back into my life for a night. Leveling your judgment. Telling me how I’m destroying my life. How I should fix it. How you’ll help me—”

“I miss you, Paige. I just want to see you. That’s all.”

“You’re melting my heart.”

“Please.”

She looked him up and down.

For a moment, there was nothing but the hush of rainfall on the street. The quiet hum of the globe light above their heads. The thunder of Grant’s heart slamming inside his chest.

She said finally, “All right, but you leave when I say.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not here to fix me. You understand that?”

“Yes.”

Paige sighed and moved back from the door.