text:
# Contents

  1. About the Book
  2. About the Author
  3. Also by James Patterson
  4. Title Page
  5. Prologue
  6. Chapter 1
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Chapter 3
  9. Chapter 4
  10. Chapter 5
  11. Chapter 6
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Chapter 10
  16. Chapter 11
  17. Chapter 12
  18. Chapter 13
  19. Chapter 14
  20. Chapter 15
  21. Chapter 16
  22. Chapter 17
  23. Chapter 18
  24. Chapter 19
  25. Chapter 20
  26. Chapter 21
  27. Chapter 22
  28. Chapter 23
  29. Chapter 24
  30. Chapter 25
  31. Chapter 26
  32. Chapter 27
  33. Chapter 28
  34. Chapter 29
  35. Chapter 30
  36. Chapter 31
  37. Chapter 32
  38. Copyright

##  Navigation

  1. Cover
  2. Start
  3. Contents

# About the Book

**Going home for the holidays can be murder.**

Joanie was dreading Thanksgiving with her family at their strange new house. And that was before she saw her brother Alan standing in the kitchen. It was hard to know what to say to him, seeing as he'd died five years ago...

# About the Author

JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 350 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women's Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past ten years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

# ALSO BY JAMES PATTERSON

ALEX CROSS NOVELS

Along Came a Spider

Kiss the Girls

Jack and Jill

Cat and Mouse

Pop Goes the Weasel

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue

Four Blind Mice

The Big Bad Wolf

London Bridges

Mary, Mary

Cross

Double Cross

Cross Country

Alex Cross's Trial ( _with Richard DiLallo_ )

I, Alex Cross

Cross Fire

Kill Alex Cross

Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

Alex Cross, Run

Cross My Heart

Hope to Die

Cross Justice

Cross the Line

THE WOMEN'S MURDER CLUB SERIES

1st to Die

2nd Chance ( _with Andrew Gross_ )

3rd Degree ( _with Andrew Gross_ )

4th of July ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

The 5th Horseman ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

The 6th Target ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

7th Heaven ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

8th Confession ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

9th Judgement ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

10th Anniversary ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

11th Hour ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

12th of Never ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Unlucky 13 ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

14th Deadly Sin ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

15th Affair ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

16th Seduction ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

DETECTIVE MICHAEL BENNETT SERIES

Step on a Crack ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Run for Your Life ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Worst Case ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Tick Tock ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

I, Michael Bennett ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Gone ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Burn ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Alert ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Bullseye ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

PRIVATE NOVELS

Private ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Private London ( _with Mark Pearson_ )

Private Games ( _with Mark Sullivan_ )

Private: No. 1 Suspect ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Private Berlin ( _with Mark Sullivan_ )

Private Down Under ( _with Michael White_ )

Private L.A. ( _with Mark Sullivan_ )

Private India ( _with Ashwin Sanghi_ )

Private Vegas ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Private Sydney ( _with Kathryn Fox_ )

Private Paris ( _with Mark Sullivan_ )

The Games ( _with Mark Sullivan_ )

Private Delhi ( _with Ashwin Sanghi_ )

NYPD RED SERIES

NYPD Red ( _with Marshall Karp_ )

NYPD Red 2 ( _with Marshall Karp_ )

NYPD Red 3 ( _with Marshall Karp_ )

NYPD Red 4 ( _with Marshall Karp_ )

DETECTIVE HARRIET BLUE SERIES

Never Never ( _with Candice Fox_ )

Fifty Fifty ( _with Candice Fox_ )

STAND-ALONE THRILLERS

Sail ( _with Howard Roughan_ )

Swimsuit ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Don't Blink ( _with Howard Roughan_ )

Postcard Killers ( _with Liza Marklund_ )

Toys ( _with Neil McMahon_ )

Now You See Her ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Kill Me If You Can ( _with Marshall Karp_ )

Guilty Wives ( _with David Ellis_ )

Zoo ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

Second Honeymoon ( _with Howard Roughan_ )

Mistress ( _with David Ellis_ )

Invisible ( _with David Ellis_ )

The Thomas Berryman Number

Truth or Die ( _with Howard Roughan_ )

Murder House ( _with David Ellis_ )

Woman of God ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Hide and Seek

Humans, Bow Down ( _with Emily Raymond_ )

The Black Book ( _with David Ellis_ )

Murder Games ( _with Howard Roughan_ )

Black Market

The Midnight Club

The Store ( _with Richard DiLallo_ )

BOOKSHOTS

Black & Blue ( _with Candice Fox_ )

Cross Kill

Private Royals ( _with Rees Jones_ )

The Trial ( _with Maxine Paetro_ )

Chase ( _with Michael Ledwidge_ )

French Kiss ( _with Richard DiLallo_ )

Killer Chef ( _with Jeffrey J. Keyes_ )

The Christmas Mystery ( _with Richard DiLallo_ )

Come and Get Us ( _with Shan Serafin_ )

Hidden ( _with James O. Born_ )

Malicious ( _with James O. Born_ )

French Twist ( _with Richard DiLallo_ )

The Exile ( _with Alison Joseph_ )

The End ( _with Brendan DuBois_ )

After the End ( _with Brendan DuBois_ )

The Shut-In ( _with Duane Swierczynski_ )

Private Gold ( _with Jassy Mackenzie_ )

Detective Cross

The Women's War ( _with Shan Serafin_ )

Deadly Cargo ( _with Will Jordan_ )

What you are holding in your hands right now is no ordinary book, it's a BookShot.

BookShots are page-turning stories by James Patterson and other writers that can be read in one sitting.

Each and every one is fast-paced, 100% story-driven; a shot of pure entertainment guaranteed to satisfy.

Available as new, compact paperbacks, ebooks and audio, everywhere books are sold.

**BookShots – the ultimate form of storytelling.
From the ultimate storyteller.**

Prologue

ONLY TWO HOMICIDES have ever been horrific enough to shake Detective Medeiros. The first was a decade ago. The second is today, a Black Friday morning after the worst Thanksgiving nor'easter he can remember.

And it's at the same house.

Sitting in the back of an evidence van, Medeiros is glad to have escaped the crime scene. There's a tremor in his spine. It's not the cold. It's not the carnage. He's seen all that before.

It's his soul recoiling from a darkness that lingers even here, under a stark winter sun.

It's the presence of evil.

A young technician takes the plowed path from the house. The snowbanks flanking her are three feet high. She's carrying what looks like a knife in a white paper evidence bag.

"May I?" Medeiros asks.

She's more than happy to give it up. On closer inspection, it's not a knife but a letter opener bearing the etching:

_The Fálcon Hotel, New York City_

A faint but chilling memory brushes the back of the detective's neck.

"Another bedroom find," the tech says. "Dried blood on the blade, if you can call it that."

"If it stabs... " Medeiros muses.

The young tech climbs into the van. She wants heat for a minute, and Medeiros doesn't begrudge her. The house itself has become a vast icebox after a power outage, doors left open, windows smashed. Mirrors coated with frost and snowfall on the furniture.

Already they've collected a Browning shotgun and three spent shells, plus an antique Colt "Peacemaker" revolver. Nearly ten thousand dollars in loose one-hundred-dollar bills. A broken candelabra, also bloody.

"They used to call this place the Thorpe House, yeah?" the tech asks.

Medeiros nods, casting another glance at the residence in question. It looms on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, on the southernmost stretch of Rhode Island. It's a monstrous estate, a seaside cottage built to palatial scale.

"The Thorpe family owned this land from colonial times," Medeiros explains. "Till ten years ago."

"The _other_ murders." She lifts a Ziploc bag. "This is them, right? The Thorpes?"

In the bag is a faded family portrait. Designer clothes and haunted expressions. Looking at the picture, Medeiros feels a weight press on his soul. Maybe his priest would understand, or the witness they've got waiting back at the station.

"You were here? Ten years ago? For the other... " the tech asks.

"That was my case, too."

"But these people just bought the place?"

"New York City transplants, to my understanding."

"So what are they doing with a picture of a dead family from ten years ago?"

Medeiros lets the question hang. Soon enough, they'll piece a story together. They'll take the witness testimony and correlate it with what they've found. They'll close the case.

But Medeiros has been to this house before. Here, there are deeper machinations that no police report will ever explain. A hunger that won't abate.

Not until the whole house burns and its charred remains are bulldozed into the sea.
Chapter 1

THIS IS THE last time I'll ever see my family.

In the back of a Subaru Forester, I huddle against my boyfriend, Nate, desperate to stay warm. Father's personal assistant drives us over winding back roads in the middle of a freak November snowstorm.

We're headed to my parents' new house, a place I've never visited. Like some kind of tyrant king, Father has _summoned_ me, his youngest daughter, for a Thanksgiving feast.

He'll disown me by the end of the day. I'm sure of it. Once the Whitmores hear my decision, I'll be totally banished. And maybe that's what I'll choose to be thankful for today.

Father's assistant has just fetched Nate and me from the train station. Trish is her name. She's a recent hire, but I doubt she'll last, poor lady. Anyone forced to deal with my family as a full-time job deserves a Medal of Valor. She twitches every time the wipers squeak across the windshield. I don't know if it's the weather or the Whitmores that have her spooked.

Same deal for me. I can't stop shivering from the cold and the dread of what this day will bring. "Who even knew there could be a middle-of-nowhere in tiny Rhode Island?" I ask Trish.

She gives me this forced laugh.

"You're going to try to make it back to the city tonight?"

"Dear God, yes," she exhales.

Nate marvels at the gnarled tree branches reaching over the road, the granite stone walls almost buried in snow. He's got zero clue what he's in for. Every time I try to warn him, it sounds like I'm just recounting the plot of some terrible stage play.

"Joanie, it's like a Robert Frost poem," he says.

"Except we're in H. P. Lovecraft country."

"Aw, you're just nervous. It'll be great," he says. I love that Nate's an optimist, but he's never met my family. He's from Tampa, so he carries sunshine around wherever he goes.

All I can hope is that he'll make it through this visit with his usual grace intact. We'll scratch "meet the parents" off the bucket list, never look back, and live happily ever after.

I've almost convinced myself to be just that hopeful when out of nowhere something leaps over a low stone wall, straight into Trish's path. It happens in slow motion, like a dream.

Trish cries out. She stomps the brake so hard the Forester fishtails. I grab the armrest, convinced we're going to roll into a ditch. All my worry is realized in a sudden rush –

The car skids to a stop. Silence, except our panicked breathing. The creature in the road stands still, its breath huffing white. It isn't a deer. It's something that shouldn't be out here in the woods at all.

A black goat.

Its horns curl up like motorcycle handlebars. Its long tuft of chin hair ripples in the bitter wind.

"Would you look at that?" Nate chuckles slowly. "You don't see that every day."

Trish places a hand against her heart. Her last coping mechanism has just been busted, and I don't blame her.

I reach over the seat and grip her shoulder. "It's all right. We're safe," I tell her. I don't know Trish, but it seems like she should know I've got her back just now.

"I like his beard," Nate says, stroking his own wavy facial hair.

I don't know where it possibly could have come from, but this random goat gives me the creeps. The creature watches us through the windshield with its almost-demonic slitted pupils.

When Trish finally honks, the goat throws back its head in disgust. It bleats like a man strapped to a torture device. The bell on its neck gives an empty clang.

I've had enough of this place already. I just want Trish to turn around and drive straight to Manhattan without looking back. Nate and I could spend the holiday alone and head back to classes at Columbia on Monday, no harm done.

The goat stands its ground, so Trish steers around it. As we pass, it swivels its head, watching us. It stares so unblinkingly and intensely that I think it will ram its horns into the car.

Another mile later, we turn down a snow-covered drive. A gate of black iron rails slides open on its tracks. As Trish drives between the pillars, my sense of dread thickens, like we've slipped into some other atmosphere. Our last chance to turn away is gone.

The house looms on a flat stretch of land. It's a huge Nantucket colonial with countless gables and a rough hide of cedar shakes. It verges on a flat, gray span of snow-covered emptiness that in better weather is supposedly an oceanfront vista.

My father, Carter Whitmore, the shrewd and infamous New York hotelier, has picked the literal edge of the earth for his retirement home.

My nerves go rigid. I've come here to tell my parents that I'm engaged to this bearded, bleeding-heart liberal Lit major from Florida. Chances are, they'll disown me, and if that's the way it has to be, I'm more than willing to renounce my name. It's honestly my best chance at losing all this baggage and living a normal, productive life.

For reassurance, I kiss Nate a little too hard on the lips. Maybe, just maybe, things will go a different way. Maybe he'll charm them. Maybe, when my family gets to know him, they'll give us their blessing. Maybe they'll change for the better. Miracles happen.

Trish shifts the car into Park and turns to get a look at us. Her glasses magnify her intense eyes in a way that makes me want to jump out of the car and bolt. She stares into me just like that goat on the road, almost like it's channeled some silent message to her, _possessed_ her.

"Listen, Joanie Whitmore," she says. "You seem to be the good one. The white sheep."

I try to swallow but my throat is too dry. Her voice vibrates through my spine.

She takes my hand in her icy grip and squeezes hard enough to make my bones ache. "Please, just do this for me? Promise me you'll watch yourself in there. Whatever you do, do _not_ give in to that house. _You've been warned._ "
Chapter 2

THE SECURITY GATE clangs shut behind Trish's retreating car.

Even as I clap the front door knocker, I wish for anything that will help us avoid going inside. But out here the wind bites hard and the icy snow attacks our eyes. There's no choice, nowhere else to go.

Still, it's kind of a relief when nobody answers.

"You could just go in," Nate suggests. "It's technically your house."

"It is _not_ my house." But I shove the door open anyway. Right off, I catch a chill that has nothing to do with temperature. Trish's warning echoes in my mind: _Do not give in to that house._

The timber floors lead to a burning fireplace so huge you could light a Christmas tree inside it. The whole room has a dusty, oily air of distress. There's a mirror hanging opposite the doorway, but it's so clouded I can't even see myself. Stalactite-shaped water stains yellow the fleur-de-lis patterned wallpaper. A once-grand estate neglected.

What strikes the most is the bare foreignness of the place. A few pieces, like the velvet Chesterfield sofa and some trendy stacked side tables, look fresh off the showroom floor, but otherwise I'm floored that my parents would even dream of occupying this shabby space. There are no art objects and tchotchkes from our New York apartment. Nothing is familiar. It's like they've quietly replaced another vanished family and taken over their lives.

I might've thought I walked into the wrong house if Mother's shrill voice didn't cut through the gloom just then. "Congratulations, _Cart,_ you've bought yourself a ticket on the Hindenburg with this place." She shortens Father's name like it's a curse word.

In a black off-the-shoulder dress, she teeters on high heels over the step down from the raised kitchen. It's like she dressed for an Upper East Side cocktail party and all she got was this lousy family dinner.

As always, she wields a dirty martini with a single olive.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" I sing through clenched teeth, flashing a nervous glance at Nate. If I concentrate, I can almost imagine a scene where a mother gives everyone warm hugs at the door, kisses on the cheek. A father greets his youngest daughter's fiancé with a firm handshake and a prized seat in front of the Dallas Cowboys on TV. We can all dream of a better world.

But this is reality. Mother hasn't even noticed me. Neither has Father. He sits stiffly in his recliner wearing a flannel shirt and wool socks. He stares into the roaring fire. I've never seen him in anything but a suit, never mind his face unshaven or his scalp completely bald.

He looks like a convict prepped for the electric chair.

Maybe it's the remote isolation of the house, or maybe it's how he's handling retirement. Maybe he's been this way for a while. I don't know. I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen my parents in two years. But over the last few months, people I've run across in Manhattan have pried me for details. Old associates of his:

_What's up with your father? I heard he's been selling off properties, bought some place out in Yankee swampland to hole himself away for good. Is he... not well?_

The truth is, I have no idea. I am not my father's keeper.

"It's a goddamn blizzard out there," Mother continues. "What if we lose power?"

"We'll have the fire, _darling,_ " Father snarls.

"Wonderful. We'll all smell like chimney sweeps." Mother tosses back the dregs of her booze. Her eyes take a while to swim over to us. "Well, who do we have here?" She sashays closer, just about purring.

I was afraid this would happen. Under Nate's geek chic exterior, he cuts a handsome figure, and Mother has always had an eye for prize catches.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am," he says.

Mother plucks the olive from her drink and slides it off the spear with her tongue. "It's _Martha,_ " she says. "Call me ma'am again and I'll put you in a headlock."

Nate laughs and gives me an anxious side-eyed glance. He wants me to laugh and tell him she's just joking around, but I can't. Every time I'm around the Whitmores, they spike my anxiety and scramble my ability to think straight. Which is exactly why I try to keep clear of them.

" _Mother,_ " I sigh. "Could you please?"

Father simmers in his chair, pretending to ignore our visitor. But I know he's listening. He's always listening.

"I – I've brought a housewarming gift," Nate says, ceremoniously sliding a gin bottle out of a paper bag. "It's Dorothy Parker Gin, from a Brooklyn distillery."

Mother grins. "Well, you certainly know your way to a woman's – "

"Dorothy Parker was a Jewish lesbian communist," Father interrupts.

Now I feel downright nauseated. It's like they've carefully rehearsed exactly what they'd say to scare Nate out of my life forever. Why did I think I could handle this visit? Why didn't I listen to my therapist?

"Could you guys give it a rest for five minutes, maybe?" I beg them. "I was hoping you'd at least _fake_ being civilized."

"So who the hell is this Nate?" Father asks.

"Uh, Nathan Catalano, sir."

Father snorts. "Catalano? That Italian?"

"It is," Nate says, and father snorts again. I hold back the dismay. I tell myself I don't care. _I don't care_. I love Nate, and these people will just have to deal with it.

"Well, look who it is, the prodigal daughter!" my older sister, Stella, says. Her voice seems to boom from the rafters. Then I spot her gliding down the main staircase like a runway model, her grand entrance.

She's visiting from Hollywood, wearing the classic celebrity-in-hiding disguise – black yoga pants, Ugg boots, and pink off-the-shoulder sweatshirt.

Not that she's ever been stalked by the paparazzi. She's appeared in exactly one Lifetime movie, three failed drama pilots, and a personal injury law firm commercial.

"Prodigal? Prodigal how?" I ask her.

"Uh, because nobody's heard from you in forever?"

"You know that's not what _prodigal_ means, right?"

Mother moves toward the fire. The floorboards creak under her heels. "You girls... if Alan were here... " she muses.

_Oh, God_. Two minutes.

It took Mother two minutes to say the worst possible thing. The last of my optimism for this evening drops like an unhitched anchor into murky water. So much for the Rhode Island state motto of "hope."

" _Don't you dare!_ " Father bellows at her, leaping up from his seat.

He snatches the Dorothy Parker bottle from Mother's hands and hurls it into the fireplace. The bottle shatters and the fire flares up, casting angry orange light across his face.

"Jesus, Pops," Stella complains.

"I hope you're happy!" Mother screeches. Then she drapes herself across the sofa and throws a forearm over her eyes.

The Drama Queen completes her scene, but I am struggling to hold it together. Today, I have to set myself apart from them, no matter what the cost. Otherwise I'm doomed.
Chapter 3

IN THE KITCHEN, my rage settles a little. But another feeling, a softer disquiet, takes its place. The humming fridge, the dripping faucet – everything seems to chant an evil spell.

An alarming sulfurous smell comes from the stove, but there's a turkey roasting in there, at least. I'm actually impressed Mother has managed to start a dinner without her personal chef.

My eyes move to a closed-circuit television monitor mounted near the fridge. There's movement on the screen. I recognize the scenery, a high angle on the driveway outside, just before the security gate.

An elderly man in a long overcoat shuffles around in the snow, as if looking for something. He's using a long, twisted branch as a kind of walking staff. I step toward the monitor for a closer look, blinking a few times to make sure I'm not just seeing things.

Fat snowflakes drop past the lens, obscuring the view. But he seems to be peering through the bars toward the house – _this_ house. Then, while I watch, he turns his glance upward, into the camera lens, _at me_.

Startled, I shrink back. But I'm being paranoid. There's no way he can see me, no possible way. Besides, he's just a curious neighbor out on a walk, probably. Or a local farmer in search of his lost goat. There's some explanation.

Nate comes in, his hands pocketed, his shoulders raised in a shrug. I turn away from the monitor like I've been caught spying. I'm so mortified by my family's behavior that I can't even look at him.

"I'm so, so sorry."

"You don't have to apologize for them," he says.

"I warned you," I said, busying myself with cranking open a can of cranberry sauce. On the CCTV monitor, the old man is gone, thank God. It's beyond me why Father would even install security cameras way out in the boonies.

As soon as Nate wraps his arms around me, my throat tightens up. I refuse to cry but it's already happening, my eyes going damp and blurry. For years I've been searching for a path through my family's tangled history. I've taken careful steps because I know real pain and suffering lies behind these cracks in their character. I've appealed to their common decency, but there's only so many times a person can walk into the same trap knowingly.

I don't think I can do it anymore. After today, Nate and I can start the rest of our lives. It'll be tough without my family's fortune as a buffer, but we'll be free of the emotional burdens, too. I want to be a teacher, anyway. A trust fund is nothing compared to the satisfaction of helping the kids who need it most.

"I'm sorry I didn't totally get... the extent of it," Nate says.

"Will you still marry me? You can back out if you want."

"Aw, come on, Joanie."

Nate moves to adjust the dial on a countertop radio. Only then do I realize it's been spitting out static this whole time. He catches a distant channel broadcasting a weather update. Widespread emergency conditions. Area residents and visitors are advised to shelter in place.

"That's comforting," I say. " _Shelter._ "

Then the storm overcomes the radio signal again. Nate scans for some hint of music while I wiggle the cranberry sauce onto a china serving plate.

Stella and Mother's bickering drifts in from the other room. At least they've stopped screaming, for now. If I can just keep my distance, distract myself, ignore that overpowering sulfur smell...

Just as I turn to the fridge with the china plate, I feel a tingle, like sweat is running between my shoulder blades. There's somebody else in the room with us. Right behind me.

I turn around to find my brother, Alan, by the doorway. He's wearing the same black suit and tie he was wearing last time I saw him. His pants seams and his haircut are as crisp as always.

The china plate I am carrying hits the floor. Cranberry sauce splatters all over the kitchen, like blood at a crime scene. I can barely keep my knees from buckling.

Nate rushes for me. He grabs my shoulders, steadies me, repeats my name again and again, like waking me from a nightmare.

That noxious burning stench. I can't breathe....

"Joanie, what is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry – I don't – " I can't explain to him what's happening, except that this must be some new magnitude of panic attack – not just a physiological freak out, but full-blown hallucinations as well. I've psyched myself into this, and if I don't find my inner balance, it's going to get so much worse.

Then the doorbell rings. It reverberates like church bells hidden in the walls. The sound of it knocks me out of my stupor. The space where my brother stood is empty now, just like it's supposed to be. Just the way any sane person would see it.

_I am sane. I don't see things that aren't there. If I were crazy, I wouldn't know the difference._

"You expecting somebody else?" Nate asks.

I shake my head. Nobody else should be here.

Especially not my brother, because my brother is dead.
Chapter 4

WHEN I OPEN the front door, the rush of cold air makes me gasp. It's either that, or the stranger standing on the doorstep.

Because let's be honest, he's breathtaking. A strikingly Nordic face, with long blond hair, bangs swept across his forehead. He wears a double-breasted cashmere overcoat and brown suede gloves.

"I'm so sorry to bother you." His voice is like leather – smoky and soft.

I can't speak. It's almost like he's placed a gloved finger over my lips. And I'm still reeling from that freakishly vivid hallucination of my brother in the kitchen.

Maybe I forgot to take my Prozac this morning. This happens when I miss a pill – amorphous shapes in the corner of my eye, phantom sounds. Childhood anxieties seeping up from some deep subconscious well. But never quite as high-definition as this.

See, I _know_ this is the guy I saw on the CCTV monitor a few minutes earlier. Except the one on camera was a decrepit old tramp. The man at our door is none of those things. The stark disparity makes me doubt my own senses – and when you can't trust yourself, what can you possibly hold on to?

"My car ran off the road, just nearby," the stranger says.

"Cripes, man, you all right?" Nate asks. He's suddenly right beside me with his arm draped possessively over my shoulder.

The stranger dabs at a swollen scrape above his left eyebrow. "This? It's nothing," he says. He's not carrying the walking staff I saw him with before. Or thought I did. I catch myself staring at him, but only because I'm determined to steady my vision on what's really there.

The rest of my family has finally noticed our guest. Stella has even set down her wineglass to pay us more attention.

"If I could just get warm for a minute? Use your phone?"

"Hold it," Father says, his bald head reddening. "How did you get through the security gate?"

The stranger sweeps his hand like a carnival barker toward the gate in the distance. It's standing wide open. Another wave of discomfort washes over me. I know I saw that gate slide shut. I'm sure it was closed in the camera feed, too. As sure as I can be of anything right now.

"Damn it, Trish, you're fired," Father grumbles, like his assistant is still around. He plucks a remote fob off a wall-mounted peg rack by the door. The display key for his BMW 7-series is also hanging there, I notice.

Father aims the fob at the stranger. Behind him, the snow falls thick as mist, but I can still see the gate quietly shutting.

Inside my chest, something else locks shut. It's an awful feeling, a premonition I can't explain, a sure sense that we've passed another point of no return. After my overheated mind called up a false vision of my brother, everything else feels hallucinatory, too. Even the people I know to be real – their voices seem to be reaching me from down a long corridor.

"I'm sorry to disturb you on a holiday like this.... " A frigid wind gust snaps the stranger's coat collar upright. The chill slaps me raw in the face.

"Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. Please come in!" I say.

The stranger just about leaps over the threshold, clapping his gloved hands together. He _whoops_ like he's just won the grand prize on a game show. It's abrupt, disconcerting. Not at all what you'd expect from someone who just crashed his car.

"You're all saints," he says. "You won't regret this."

All of us step back in unison, even though the stranger hasn't threatened us in any way.

"Anyone mind if I crawl into that fireplace for a while?" the stranger asks. His laughter resounds in the room for far too long.

Grudgingly, Father leads him over to the fire. Just when I hope the stranger's presence will make everyone act decent, Stella snatches my wrist and breathes her pinot noir breath in my face.

"Why'd you let him in?" she whispers. "We're not a freaking charity. Plus, he's probably a serial killer. The Thanksgiving Day Strangler or something. I bet he'll butcher us all."

Our visitor crouches by the fire. He gingerly pulls those gloves off his hands, one finger at a time. The sight of it makes me lightheaded, like he's removing his own skin.

And when our eyes meet, he winks.
Chapter 5

THE STRANGER TRIES the landline in an adjacent room. We can't call out with our cell phones because none of us gets service here. Case in point: Stella wanders around with hers like it's a divining rod. "Stupid-ass 5G. You don't know what I paid for this!"

"See, I don't personally carry a phone," Nate says. "I just find it so oppressive, you know?"

Father glowers, but thankfully he doesn't call Nate a _brain-dead dipshit,_ even though I _know_ he's thinking it.

I'm trying, unsuccessfully, to remember even one of the positive mind-set techniques my therapist taught me. All I can do is imagine his disappointment at our next session when I have to tell him that I backtracked from months of progress in less than an hour.

The stranger clears his throat to let us know he's back. He's got his overcoat draped over one arm. His black turtleneck is less _Steve Jobs_ than it is _cat burglar_.

"I'm afraid the phone is out," he says.

"Impossible," Father grunts. He shoulders his way into the room he calls _the library,_ even though the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are all completely empty.

At the desk, Father presses the cordless phone to his ear and thumbs the power button a few times. He smacks the phone back onto its base with a muttered curse.

"Listen, you're welcome to stay for dinner – " I offer the stranger, trying to lighten the mood, trying to make the stranger feel at ease among all these tense and judgmental faces, a small act of humanity.

"Oh, God... " Stella groans, much too loudly.

The stranger's attention lingers on my sister. I can't believe it, but there's a glimmer of recognition. He asks, "You're not Stella Regan, are you? The actress? From _Each Night for Love_?"

Stella's hand rises to her throat. She tries desperately to stop herself from melting all over the floor. "You saw my movie?"

"Sure. A couple times. You played a pitch-perfect heiress."

"You know what? I agree, actually. I'm proud of my work," she says. "I don't care how that sounds. A surgeon can brag about a successful heart operation, so why not me?"

"Why not?" the stranger agrees. "I'd love an autograph."

"Oh, you're sweet," Stella says, batting her eyelashes.

This seems like too much of a coincidence. Troubling thoughts begin to darken my mind, thoughts about unhinged stalker fans, and whether Stella might've been right about not letting him inside.

"How much? For an autograph?" the stranger asks Stella, as he takes a clipped wad of cash from his overcoat. It's an inch thick, with a hundred-dollar cover bill.

"Careful, now, you'll make her pretty head explode," Mother says. She's at the drink cart mixing her potions.

"Apologies," the stranger says. "Some stars make you pay."

"Oh, she'll make you pay, all right," Mother quips.

"So are you two sisters?" he asks Mother.

Now Mother's the one striking poses for a nonexistent camera. "Aw, _pshaw_. That one's the sister."

She points to me. The stranger's sudden scrutiny makes me want to hide underneath a bed somewhere. "Of course, the Good Samaritan," he says. "I know this goes against decorum, but could I bother you for a whiskey on the rocks? It's been a rough day."

Mother imitates a smile. "Where are our manners?"

Father lingers by the fire, brooding. I can tell he's on guard.

While Mother tongs ice into a glass, the stranger says, "Let me welcome you to the neighborhood. I have to admit, I started to doubt this property would ever – "

Father snaps to attention. "You _live_ around here?"

"Oh, once upon a time, before I was cast out. But I remember the joy of family togetherness. Once time passes, you lose something you can only get back on the holidays when you're all together again. I'm sorry. I'm oversharing. Grief gives you perspective, doesn't it?"

"Have a cup of cheer," Mother says, passing him the highball glass of whiskey. She's poured three fingers.

The stranger downs half of it in one gulp. "I have a good feeling about you Whitmores. There's a lot of history in this house, and you're going to bring it back to life. When I think of the Thorpe family, what happened – "

"Christ Almighty!" Mother belts out, just after an electronic screech drives into my ears. It's the kitchen smoke alarm.

Stella and Mother dart off, eager for a new disaster. I'm not far behind. Black smoke billows from the stove, filling the kitchen with a noxious stench.

With oven mitts Mother lifts out the charred turkey and tosses it in the sink. She's ululating and flailing her arms over the bird sacrifice like it's some weird Santeria.

Guilt overcomes me, even though I know this is not my fault. But I was the last one in the kitchen. I am here, so I am _responsible,_ just like always.

"Joanie," Mother scolds. "You ruined everything.... "

On the CCTV monitor there's something I hadn't spotted before. A car on the roadside. One headlight is visible. It's some kind of antique muscle car – a Mustang.

I can't believe I didn't notice it before.

The stranger didn't crash his car. He _parked_ it at the end of our driveway.

That's it. I barge back through the living room and storm up the main staircase. I want to be alone. Let them say I'm having a tantrum, I don't care. It's way better than the nervous breakdown I'll have if I stand here with these people for one more second.
Chapter 6

CARTER WHITMORE POURS another splash of scotch. He wants no part of the catfight in the kitchen. He's much more concerned about this fraud who's shown up at their door with some bullshit about a car wreck.

He'll boot the guy, sure, but not before he figures out his angle. Probably a specious real estate claim or maybe an outright blackmailing scheme. Looking for a handout with nothing to sell, like everybody else.

Mercifully, Joanie's lapdog boyfriend _Nate_ excuses himself to follow Joanie upstairs. She only brought the kid along to be provocative, anyway. Used to be, she liked to please her father. At five years old, she'd patrol the lobby of the Fálcon Hotel telling guests, " _Anything you need, let us know!_ "

Granted, that was years before the Turnbull murders stained the Fálcon's reputation and the Whitmore brand. The beginning of the end. The steady slide toward chaos. Eventually, everything goes to hell.

"You've got a beautiful house here, Mr. Whitmore," the stranger says. He's planted himself in Carter's recliner, smugly sipping that drink he insisted on having. "It just has that vintage, familiar feel that puts me right at home, you know? And so serene. Your own little private island, just about."

"As long as the gate stays shut," Carter says.

"Listen, a man's domain is sacred, I know."

Carter narrows his eyes. The way this guy talks is too breezy, too coded. Could it be he's a fruit? Ironic, seeing how he's got all the Whitmore bitches salivating.

"You didn't say how you know my name," Carter says.

"Okay, okay," the stranger says, clearing the air with his hands. "I admit I did some poking around when I heard the house had sold. I can never seem to mind my own business."

"So why are you really here?" Carter demands.

" _The wheel is come full circle: I am here,_ " the stranger recites, gazing off at the ceiling. " _King Lear,_ Shakespeare."

"You think this is a joke?"

Just then Martha blusters out of the kitchen. Carter becomes conscious of the pulse in his left temple. It's like the incessant pricking of a needle against his brain.

"I thought we'd scared you away," Martha tells the stranger. She fans herself with an oven mitt, glistening in a sheen of sweat.

"I'm not easily spooked," the stranger says.

"That's promising." Martha cocks her hip against the back of the recliner, mere inches from the stranger's head. "We haven't met a soul in this town till now."

"New Englanders keep to themselves," the stranger says.

"Do they still burn witches, too?" Martha asks.

Something twists inside of Carter's gut.

Martha's always been generous with her _attention_. Crouched on her haunches beside the stranger, she brushes the bangs away from the wound on his forehead. "We need to clean that boo-boo up," she purrs. "There's bandages in the bathroom."

"What about dinner?" Carter asks.

She bats her eyes at her husband and says, "Turkey's kaput, but I've got some Lean Cuisines in the cellar icebox. It creeps me out down there. Could you be a dear?"

Carter nods. _Sure, darling. Anything for you_.

He regrets tossing that gin bottle into the fire. He could've saved it for this moment instead, picked it up by the neck, and smashed it across the stranger's forehead. What a curveball that would've been.

The stairway to the cellar is steep, its steps precariously bowed. They're original, like so much else about the house. Carter descends them into the musty underground.

There's a deep rumble down here, a _thrum_ like a slow-motion recording of a pulse. It's the nearby Atlantic crashing against the rocky shore.

In colonial times a family named Thorpe won this land from the Narragansetts, not too long after that first Thanksgiving went sour. Their clan graveyard outside boasts ten generations of tombstones, until the sudden end.

Relics have been left behind, like the upright piano collecting dust beside the icebox. Carter doesn't head that way to fetch the frozen dinners. He doesn't give a damn about that.

Instead, he ducks inside a dirt-floor chamber hollowed out from the original stone foundation. He pulls a string to light a bare bulb overhead and kneels beside an antique steamer trunk.

The floorboards complain against the weight of bodies moving upstairs. Down here, Carter feels his soul begin to glow like a coal-fired furnace. He is alone with his dreams.

He opens the latches and raises the lid. The only item inside the trunk is the vintage Browning over-under shotgun, passed down from his father.

The Whitmore gun, a gun with history. Carter can't help but tremble with an almost religious reverence.

He learned to shoot with this Browning, and so did his son. He remembers the swell of pride when Alan blasted his first clay pigeon to smithereens.

Carter had all the love in the world for his children. He remembers Stella gripping his hand as the glass elevator in his office building climbed into the Manhattan skyline. His legacy, his genes, his history wound together with his future.

But time smothers everything. _Entropy_. Even his only son – Lord, how it sickened Carter to consider this truth – _even Alan Whitmore_ let down his guard, and it killed him.

Why did Carter summon his remaining children home today? Maybe out of hope that they could be redeemed, to show them what he's realized – that no matter your sins, no matter the chaos in the world, there is always a route to permanent peace.

He runs his fingers along the gun's checkered fore-end and studies the leaf patterns engraved on the receiver. Then he breaks the action and loads two fresh shells in the chamber.

One night, three decades ago, he broke into the home of a Jew attorney who had poisoned Carter's life in the most personal way imaginable.

He remembers the lawyer's face as Carter raised the gun, _this_ gun. That look of disbelief was the most delicious part.

And afterward, he was never even questioned about the murder.

Not a pillar of society – not a man like Carter Whitmore.
Chapter 7

I HAVE JUST a minute to pull myself together before Nate finds me curled on a guest room bed. Who am I kidding? I'm a mess, and sulking alone makes it worse. I've soaked my sweatshirt sleeves with tears.

"I didn't burn the stupid turkey," I tell him, as if _that's_ the crux of my problem.

"Obviously not." Nate pets my hair to soothe me. I feel like a child who's had a nightmare. _Shh, it's okay. Go back to sleep._ But the stakes in this situation are much higher. I'm a grown woman facing her moment of truth. If I can't stay stable through one family visit, then how am I going to be strong enough to walk out on the Whitmore Freak Show once and for all?

I don't know why I was drawn to this room, but it doesn't help me feel like an adult. It's more of an alcove, a miniature bedroom for a little girl. There's a music box and a milk glass lamp on the side table. On the wall is a painting of a bonneted girl in a garden.

Mother was never one for vintage furnishings. This must've already been here, for years. I can't help but wonder who used to sleep here, and why they've left all these heirlooms behind. It disturbs me in a vague way, like the feeling of being watched by someone you can't see.

"You're still going to tell them, right?" Nate asks.

"Please don't pressure me on this."

"I won't – just, the wedding is, like, a month away."

" _I know,_ " I assure him, though there's so much I don't know. My place in this family used to be clear, before I lost my stomach for business school and took up with Literature and Poverty instead.

I let Nate kiss my cheek, even if his beard feels like pine straw against my edgy nerves. I have to let him try. He's my boyfriend. My _fiancé_. I've made this decision for life.

He lies down beside me on the narrow bed and holds my face in his hands. His lips travel up to mine, and I sense the shift from pity to intimacy.

I want to confess the hallucination of my brother I had in the kitchen. I need Nate to reassure me I'm not crazy, that these minor fugues happen to everybody. I need to depend on somebody else's inner strength for just a few minutes. But his eager tongue wets my lips, and the chance is gone.

"Somebody will hear us," I whisper in his ear. My breath on his skin makes him shiver. His fingertips drift beneath my sweatshirt and across my bare stomach.

His touch tames my anxious nerves and quiets down the chatter in my head, but not quite enough, not here. "Nate, I know you're trying to help... "

"Just let me take care of you. You always feel better."

He pops the button on my jeans and cups his hand between my legs. My hips instinctively arch toward his touch and my breath escapes in a throaty shudder.

Maybe he _could_ erase all this trouble... .

"Feel good?" he asks. I hear the jingle of bells somewhere, like a herd of sheep rounded up at dusk. Or is it goats?

In my mind, ugly faces blur into soft, benign shapes. My mother, my father, my sister – dissolving one by one.

A final face remains stuck in my head. The stranger's. He tilts down his chin and arches his eyebrows, like he's sharing a secret. A _dirty_ secret.

I don't feel Nate's touch anymore, just a numb bloom of mounting pleasure that could come from anyone, even the stranger's –

I grip Nate's wrist and tug his hand away, ashamed.

The slant of hallway light through the bedroom door has widened. I raise my head from the pillow, squinting. As my desire dies down, my vision sharpens again.

I see a girl's pale face. I see her wide, glistening eyes.
Chapter 8

"SORRY TO INTERRUPT," she says.

I jolt upright and bash my head against the sharply slanted ceiling. My eyesight pops like a camera flash and I taste blood on my tongue. _Serves me right._

I button my jeans in a hurry. In a frantic effort to make us look innocent, I nearly shove Nate off the bed. Then I turn the key on the antique lamp.

In the light, the girl's no ghost. She's not a trick of my fragile mind. I'm almost relieved to see that she's flesh and blood, with a constellation of facial piercings, a pleated miniskirt, and skull-and-crossbones patterned tights. All dressed for clubbing and nowhere to dance.

" _Chloe?_ " I ask. "Oh, God – is this your room?"

"Nope!" She bounces into the rocking chair by the door and keeps on bobbing to a faint electronic throb from her earbuds. She twines a thread of chewing gum from her teeth to her index finger and eyes us like she wants the show to go on.

But Nate and I are both sitting upright now, hands planted chastely on our knees. To hide the evidence, he has dropped a throw pillow over his lap.

I want to believe she only poked her head in the room just before I spotted her, that it was too dark for her to see what we were doing. But the truth is undeniable and makes me squirm.

My sixteen-year-old niece was peeping on us.

So blatant, so nonchalant, I don't know how to address it.

"I – I didn't realize you were here," I say.

"Ma tends to forget I exist. Who's the beard?"

"Nate," Nate says with a quick show of his palm.

"This is Stella's daughter, Chloe," I explain to him.

"Way to go, _Nate!_ " she cheers, nudging his leg with her chunky-heel platform shoes. "You scored yourself a Whitmore. But the question is: are you really up for the project?"

"How long's it been, Chloe?" I butt in.

"Five years. I've saved all your birthday cards."

Last time I saw my niece was at Alan's funeral in New York. The day my perspective changed, when I saw that being rich and connected wouldn't save my soul.

Back then, she was a shy kid in pigtails. She still has the pigtails, but on a teenager they're weirdly fetishistic.

I nod at her earbuds and ask, "Is that your phone? Are you getting any service?"

"I wish. It's just my music library. We're still stranded on Cannibal Island." She blows a bubble the size of a golf ball and snaps it with her teeth.

I feel guilty. I could've reached out to her with more than just birthday and Christmas cards, more than following her Instagram account and inviting her to visit me in New York. She deserves an advocate from inside this family.

"I'm sorry if we made things awkward," I say.

She leans forward, takes my face in both her hands. Her fingers are covered in rings and other trinkets. "Hey, I'm not here to judge. Just remember what Smokey the Bear always says: use protection! Don't fuck up like Stella did."

"Chloe, you're not a fu – "

"Not _me,_ Auntie. Your genius sis is pregnant again."

I can't hold back a legitimate gasp. "Does anyone know?"

"Downstairs? Hells no. They'd shit a brick."

"Why? Who's... never mind."

"Who's the sperm donor?" Chloe guesses. "Friend of mine. Well, used to be, till he bonked my ma. Want to know the best part? He's a _black dude_. Oh-ho-ho, I can't _wait_ to see Dumba's face."

She's finally pressed the right button. Not because I care one iota about the race of people Stella sleeps with, but because my sister's holiday news is going to spoil mine. To announce our engagement was the only reason I gambled my emotional health showing up here today. I can't let that purpose get overshadowed. Our relationship, Nate and mine, deserves better.

"Come on, Nate." I grab his hand and yank him upright off the bed. "Let's _have a talk_ with my family."

"See you later, masturbators," Chloe calls out behind us.
Chapter 9

CARTER COMES UP from the cellar refreshed, like he's taken a dip in a cool tide pool. The shotgun is back in the steamer trunk, but Carter likes to think about it being there, loaded.

His sense of purpose has made him stone cold sober. He couldn't care less that the air is choked with the smell of burnt dinner. He won't let anything kill his mood.

But then his ears prick at the sound of Martha's duck-like giggle. It's coming from the bathroom at the end of the main hallway, where she took the stranger to bandage his head.

That was more than ten minutes ago. There's no reason they should still be in there, no good reason at all.

Carter moves toward her voice, lingering a moment at a grandfather clock in the dining room. It has no hands on its face. Another Thorpe heirloom without an heir to claim it. The pendulum hangs motionless. He likes it that way, broken, like time can't touch this house.

Martha laughs again. The bathroom door at the end of the hall stands open a crack, but it seems to widen as Carter approaches. He moves past the yellowed wallpaper, past dim oil paintings of faded seascapes.

He feels his body acutely, the blood rushing through every vein and artery. An intense emotion tightens his muscles, but he can't seem to recognize what it is, like some vital wiring has been cut.

Both of them are in there, the bathroom. The stranger sits on the lip of the claw-foot tub with Martha on her knees at his feet. She's lowered herself, one hand cupped over the stranger's shoe.

Carter watches from just outside the door. The ache in his torso flares up. When he braces his palm against the wall, the wallpaper ripples, or seems to.

And then a tune springs into his head, an old favorite.

_Martha, my dear. You silly girl, look what you've done._

In the bathroom, something goes wrong for Martha. The stranger shakes her hand from his foot like he's shooing a dog. She tips off balance and smacks her elbows on the checkered tile floor behind her. Her yelp is so pathetic, Carter suffers a pang of shame for her sake.

"You bastard," Martha growls as she struggles to her feet. Carter knows she's talking to him, not the stranger. He has interrupted her fun. The door's wide open now.

She strikes a dignified pose, fingers brushing her pearl necklace. But God bless her, her hair's out of whack and her stockings have split a run.

The stranger's face betrays no shame or fear. His belt's buckled and his pants unmolested. Surprisingly, he actually does wear a fresh bandage on his forehead.

"Where are the goddamn Lean Cuisines?" Martha says.

"I'm not hungry," Carter tells her.

"What the hell were you doing down there? I'm starving."

Carter knows her outburst is all smoke and mirrors meant to distract from her indiscretion, but he lets her do her magic. Why not? The earth is buried in snow, and the clock has no hands.

"Go get them yourself," he tells her, deadpan.

"Fine, I will." When Martha huffs down the hall in her stockinged feet, Carter steps aside to let her pass. She's left her pumps in a pile by the toilet.

She's also left the men to settle things, but Carter hesitates. He's beat a housing discrimination case in court, he's talked investors out of millions. He knows how to find weaknesses in other men, but there is no _tell_ in this stranger's eyes. No soul.

There's only the faint, untraceable ping of familiarity, like Carter has known this man before, somewhere. Maybe in those dreams that shock him awake, drenched in sweat. The dreams that make it impossible to sleep again for the rest of the night.

"Martha's an eager beaver. You must be a gratified man," the stranger says, arching one eyebrow.

"I need you to leave," Carter snaps.

The stranger sits up from the edge of the tub and walks over to the bathroom mirror to primp his bangs. "In this weather? I guess you know how risky that would be?"

"You bet your ass."

"Is it because I refused your wife's alternative medicine?"

"Go to hell." Carter speaks the words calmly, _politely,_ though his rage could burst from every pore. He imagines himself bashing the stranger's face against the porcelain sink until every perfectly chiseled feature has been pulverized.

The stranger grins and thrusts out his hand like they've reached a mutually agreeable business arrangement. "Nice to have met you, Mr. Whitmore."

Carter wants this over with, so he grips the stranger's hand. It's feverish, almost too warm to touch. The stranger doesn't look the least bit sickly, but Carter pulls away, repulsed.

He watches the man head off toward the living room. Carter knows he won't actually leave without being forced, but maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe there's even a better way for Carter to reclaim his _domain_.

For now, Martha's voice grabs his attention.

She's been to the icebox and now she's coming back up the cellar steps, humming that same jaunty Beatles melody that flashed in Carter's mind just now.

" _... when you find yourself in the thick of it..._ "

He moves to the cellar door and watches Martha climb. Frozen dinner boxes are stacked in her arms. The overhead light casts her long shadow back down the stairs.

She's surprised to find him waiting for her. She chirps " _Oh!_ " and pauses on the topmost step. All those martinis are making her wobble.

Just then, the overhead bulb sputters out. The house heaves a great exhale as the power grid goes down. White noise gives way to black silence.

"Jesus, Cart, the electric. I told you – "

"We'll be fine, Martha, my dear," Carter says.

Then he shoves her square in the chest.
Chapter 10

WHEN THE POWER dies, I'm practically dragging Nate down the stairs. I'm determined to tell everyone that my fiancé and I will be married at midnight on New Year's Eve, right in the middle of Times Square. I can't wait to tell them that instead of a honeymoon, we're going to sign on for a week of relief work in Haiti, because I've spent too much of my life in the protective bubble of privilege, and I want to give back. And so does Nate.

Let them laugh at us. Let them call us pretentious millennials. We'll get through it.

But then, just as we reach the landing, the sudden hush comes over the house. The electric sconces on the wall go out. Somewhere, Mother squawks. There's a series of thumps like she's bashing her fists against a wall.

I don't think much of it at the moment.

"Lights out," the stranger says, nodding at the fire. "Better feed the flames."

He's alone with my sister in the living room. The very sight of that man ices me over. He's tying the belt of his overcoat back into place while Stella's stretched out on the couch nearby.

For a moment I worry he's harmed her, but Stella's just lounging with a goblet of wine balanced on her fingertips. She's even changed into a high-rising cocktail dress. No more Uggs for her.

"Well, that's just great," Stella gripes. "I could've done Thanksgiving in LA with Zooey Deschanel, but instead I'm going to freeze to death."

"Why didn't you tell me Chloe was here?" I ask her.

Stella shrugs. "Haven't seen her since yesterday."

The stranger grabs the last log from the copper bucket beside the hearth. When he tosses it into the fireplace, the fresh wood flares up instantly.

"It'll get mighty chilly in here pretty soon," Nate observes.

The stranger breaks into a grin and wags his finger. "You, sir, are a bright bulb in a dim universe. This one's a keeper."

Nate's deaf to the stranger's ironic tone, but I'm not. I've had enough of his sly insults and charades.

"You know what?" I demand. "How is it you know so much about us? What are you really doing here?"

"Why, Joanie, you invited me," he says.

"And how do you know my _name?_ "

"Quit being such a nag-hag," Stella tells me.

"You're the one who thought he was a serial killer!"

"Ladies, ladies, there's no need to quarrel over me." The stranger takes a step closer. That sinister way he tilts his chin, like a lion on the hunt, makes me feel like a wounded gazelle.

I've still got Nate's hand clutched in mine. He hardly budges when I try to yank him into position by my side. "Hey, whoa, chill out there," is all he says to me.

I turn back to the stranger. "Hey, Mr. Whoever-you-are? Why don't you tell them about the car you have parked outside? The one that _isn't_ in a ditch? I saw it on the security camera."

"Touché," the stranger says. It's like we've been performing a skit, a game called _the hysterical woman_. My body shudders in the center of all this awkward calm.

"Joan – " Stella begins.

Before she can say another word I snatch the wine goblet from her hand. Half of it spills across the couch and her dress. She sits up gasping, fluttering her hands. " _What the hell?_ "

"How can you guzzle wine in your condition?" I ask her.

She snaps her head back in disbelief. "My _condition?_ "

"Chloe told us all about it, just now."

Stella stitches her brow, darting her eyes between Nate and me. Then she starts to bray with laughter.

I'm the butt of the joke. I can almost feel myself shrinking.

"If I'm pregnant, it was an immaculate conception, considering I'm on a yearlong dry spell." Stella shoots a glance at the stranger, no doubt gauging his reaction. Then it's back to me. "What you need to know about your darling niece is she's a pathological liar. The kid's allergic to the truth. She couldn't tell you it's Thursday if her life depended on it."

I'm doubly mortified in front of this stranger. He has ripped open the walls of our house and exposed all its rotten contents. I turn my face away from all three of them, toward my father, lurking in the shadows of the dining room.

I don't know how long he's been standing there. He has this chillingly vacant look about him, like the house has offered up another ghost.

"Dad?" Stella asks. "What's the matter?"

"Your mother," he says. "I have to find candles. Or a flashlight... "

The atmosphere presses in on me again, suffocating.

"What happened to her?" I ask.

"She had a fall," is all Father says.
Chapter 11

DOROTHY PARKER SAID _cellar door_ was the most beautiful phrase in English. There's no beauty here. I feel only dread as I stare down into the darkness.

From this part of the house I can hear the waves crashing against the rocks outside. As I wait for the swash to quiet down, I try to pretend this day is salvageable. This family, this _life_. But another wave comes along to drown out my peace again.

I have to go down there. No one else will.

My phone is useless for calls, but it works fine as a flashlight. The beam cuts through cobwebs and lights the steps. It's not strong enough to reach the bottom.

I call out to my mother, but the sound just echoes back in hollow answer. I'm afraid she's too hurt to even respond. She needs my help.

Gripping the railing, I start my way down. My light catches the first thing out of place – a box of Thai basil chicken dinner propped between two steps.

I hold my breath to hear other noises. The thrumming waves, the endless rushing wind, the wood under each of my footsteps. The deeper underground, the more the blizzard fades away. I'm blanketed in a thick and mildewy air.

The cone of light from my phone trembles, and the shadows tremble in turn. I can't help it. If Mother is injured, we can't call for an ambulance in this weather. We're on our own. I'm already certain nothing will ever be the same again.

"Mother – please," I beg into the silence.

It's like cold storage down here. My breath clouds my view as the cement floor spreads out before me. Disturbances in the dust, more dented boxes of frozen dinners strewn about. My heart doesn't want to do this.

But I'm pushed onward by my instinct as a daughter, my drive to be decent when others won't. She could be unconscious, or in too much pain to answer....

Then I hear her voice. It comes to me faintly, as if from the other side of a shut door, a whisper through a keyhole.

I can't believe what I'm hearing. She's _humming_. Merrily humming, like this is all just a lark.

As my body freezes in place, the light on my phone times out. Total blackness. I rush to press the light, and it all goes straight to hell. The phone slips from my sweaty palm and clatters on the floor.

I drop to my knees, try to catch my breath, but full panic takes over. My fingers spider over the floor to grab the phone, but there's nothing but grit, and a damp patch I don't want to think about.

The dark is so overpowering I want to curl up and cry all over again. Even through my blind terror, Mother's voice still lingers faintly. It's a jaunty melody, familiar, something from the Beatles.

"I hear you.... " I whisper, and she stops, like a cricket when you've stepped too close.

I catch hold of something rigid but smooth, something warm.

I pull away, and my recoiling hand brushes her sharp fingernails.

My hip smacks hard on the floor, but I still feel like I'm falling through nothing, deeper and deeper into the underworld.

The phone is in my other hand. I've found it somehow, and now it's the easiest thing to click the button, to bring light to this horror. I don't want to see what I must see.

Tiny white balls glimmer all around me. They look like insect egg sacs until I realize what they are. My grandmother's pearls, broken off from the necklace my mother was wearing.

Mother's dilated pupils have blotted out the blue of her irises. Her dead eyes stare into mine.

My scream is primal, like it must've sounded the moment I was born.
Chapter 12

MY THROAT IS hoarse, but nobody has come to help me. I can't think what to do. Mother should be on a gurney, surrounded by doctors with their injections and defibrillator paddles....

Except, she can't be saved. I kneel uselessly beside her, sobbing and shivering. All I can think is she doesn't deserve to be dumped in this place. I want to raise her up to somewhere better, but I can't.

Then comes piano music. Just a few feet away, a two-handed sprinkle of notes like you'd hear in a saloon or music hall. My phone light whips in the direction of the sound.

A piano sits wrapped in cobwebs, yet somehow it just played the first few seconds of "Martha, My Dear." The same song I thought I heard my mother humming.

"Sorry, that was me," the stranger says. His voice is so close, I skitter away from it like a frightened mouse.

He's standing at the bottom of the stairs, far away from the piano. There's no way. I shine my light in his face, but he doesn't wince at all.

"What are you doing?" I demand.

"You called for help, didn't you?"

"Yes, but – "

"Can you believe Charles Manson thought the _White Album_ was apocalyptic prophecy? What a dunce. It's nothing but silly songs for children."

I'm up on my feet now, aiming my phone at him like it's a crucifix. I want to bolt up the stairs, but he's blocking my way.

My head crowds with crazy ideas. Like I'm sure this man has somehow caused my mother harm, even though I was with him when she fell, even though Father saw it happen. In my fragile state, almost any wild theory feels like it could be true.

"She's hurt. We need to get help," I say.

"Oh, Joanie," the stranger says as he moves toward my mother. He takes a knee and presses his fingers against her jugular. After a moment he sighs and shakes his head.

"I'm truly sorry," he tells me. "I used to work in hospice care. It was my sad duty to usher souls to their places. One side or the other. You come to recognize the signs of death."

"We have to get her upstairs," I tell the stranger. I don't want to leave him alone with Mother, but I can't spend another second down here, either. Halfway up the stairs, I scream for Nate.

This time he comes running right away. Stella and Chloe crowd behind him at the head of the stairs, all of them squinting down into my light.

"Come down here, _please,_ " I beg.

Nate glances back at my sister and niece like he needs their permission. Then he takes careful side steps down the stairs. When he's close enough, I bury my face against his scruffy neck. I want to hide against him forever.

"She – I think she broke her neck," I say. "She's dead."

"Oh, God, Joanie... ."

"You have to get her upstairs. She can't be down here."

He holds me by my shoulders at arm's length. "You want me to... carry her? Upstairs?"

"We'll get a sheet. We'll wrap her up," I say.

I hear the gritty floor crunch under the stranger's shoes.

"Let me help you," he says. "Nobody can hurt her now."
Chapter 13

CARTER WHITMORE IS dreaming. A foot-deep crust of snow buries the floor, glacial sheets of ice line the walls. His daughter's frozen corpse sits propped against the dresser, still in her confirmation dress. His son is on the floor, and his wife –

No, this is not his family. This is not his house.

"Dad... Dad... come on, snap out of it," Stella says. Her face is so close it's like she's sucking the air from his lungs.

Here in the master bedroom the snow hisses as it smacks against the glass of the French doors. Carter has let himself get lost in that sound.

"They're bringing her up. They'll put her on the bed," Stella says. She talks with the condescending hush of a funeral director. Nobody's making accusations because nobody understands what he did. Nobody knows he pushed his wife.

Even Carter doesn't quite believe it. He wants to think she stumbled and bumped her head, that she'll wake up any minute.

When Joanie steps into the room, all his half-awake senses sharpen. He remembers. It was Joanie who went into the cellar, and he let her go, knowing what she'd find.

If somehow he could keep his girls in this house forever, if he could insulate them from the storm, if he could purify them and love them again like when they were kids – then maybe they could be saved.

But things fall apart. Time corrupts. These women aren't the daughters he remembers. They're strangers.

Two pallbearers carry Martha's corpse into the room. She's wrapped tightly in a white sheet, tucked away from view.

Anger strikes with such force he almost bites through his tongue. He knows these men, these home invaders. Joanie's boyfriend and the stranger, who's gotten his hands on Martha's body after all.

He even _winks_ at Carter as he lays her out on the bed. Like there's a secret between them.

The wind seeps through old seams and makes the curtains billow. On the dresser, a huge model merchant ship seems to rock on those pitched waves of air.

Carter can feel it, too, a presence around them, a watchfulness. He could almost believe that it started when Joanie let the stranger inside, but the truth is, it's been here all along. The stranger has visited this house before.

In a way, he's been at Carter's side for the past thirty years at least, even if he couldn't be seen. He even stayed at the Fálcon Hotel, on more than one occasion.

It's the same familiar air that Carter felt when he first stepped into this house. Time is a vicious circle, and now the house is having its way with the Whitmores, just like it did with the Thorpes.
Chapter 14

IN THE DINING room, Stella and I are seated at the table, wrapped in heavy quilts and shocked silence. The stranger's here with us, like a doorman stalling for his tip. "Please leave," I tell him.

Earlier, I would've chased him off with a hot fire poker, but now he's helped to carry my mother's body.

And yet my suspicions are pricklier than ever. Even if he hasn't wronged us exactly, he's laying his hands all over our private grief. Quietly menacing us.

"I wish I could go," he says. "But I'm afraid the security gate won't open when the power's out."

"Isn't there some kind of manual override?" I ask Stella. She just sniffles and dabs a tissue at the swollen red flesh under her eyes.

We should've been eating dinner by now. Mother had set six places across the red silk tablecloth. Fine china, crystal wineglasses. The cloth napkins are origamied into swan shapes.

My heart heaves. She couldn't have known Nate would be coming, so she must've meant the sixth setting for Alan. In honor of him, maybe, or out of habit.

Mother and I will never have a reconciliation. We'll never come to understand each other.

"There's also another matter," the stranger says. He's yellowed by the light from the five tapered candles in the candelabra I found. "I hate to bring it up in this circumstance, but my pocket money seems to have gone missing."

"You've got to be kidding me," I say.

"Would that I were... " With a clownish frown, he pulls his coat pockets inside out to show us they're empty.

"How much?"

"Ten thousand dollars," he says.

" _Come on..._ " I want to grab that candelabra and hurl it at him, but I'm emotionally exhausted. I can hardly will myself to move.

"Have I – angered you?" the stranger asks expectantly.

"We had a tragedy, and you're just going to plow on ahead with your little con game? You made a _point_ of showing us that money before, just so you could extort us now. We're not stupid. Go get the police, break down the gate for all I care."

I stop myself from saying anything more. There's a line I'm afraid to cross. We have no idea how dangerous this man could be.

Where is my fiancé? Why isn't he here to back me up?

"You know what?" I say, throwing up my hands. "Just forget it. We'll find your money, and then we'd like it _very much_ if you'd be on your way."

"I'll wait by the fire," he says.

I've never felt more relief to see someone leave a room.

When the stranger is out of earshot, Stella says flatly, "It's Chloe. It's just the kind of thing she'd do, the little bitch, pick somebody's pocket in the middle of a tragedy."

"You honestly _believe_ him?"

"I'm just saying, it's her modus operandi." The way she's talking all of a sudden, it's like she's removed the grief-mask she's been wearing.

"Why don't you ask her?" I say.

"Because I don't _care_. Our lives are turned upside down, and this is totally inconsequential. I'm going back upstairs to be with Dad."

"He said he wanted to be alone," I remind her.

She flips the quilt dramatically over her shoulder, just like Mother would've. "I just want to ask," she says. "Why _did_ you show up here?"

"Because Father asked me."

"And here I thought you'd ditched us for good, but I guess you've _reconsidered,_ now that there's a fat and juicy inheritance dangling on the line."

"I didn't come here for money," I say through gritted teeth.

"If you haven't noticed, Dad has lost it. Look at this place. He's moved into a tomb. And now, with Mom – " she pauses, "... somebody needs to be sure he's making the best decisions for this family."

"Knock yourself out," I tell her. "I'm sure you'll be very convincing."

She straightens up, nostrils flaring. "There it is. You think you're too good for us. Fine. But don't forget, you're a Whitmore, born and bred, and there's nothing you can do about it."

With that, I'm left alone – except I feel anything but alone.

The temperature dives fast enough to make me gasp. It's not the air, but an inner chill, like frost in my veins.

I have to get out of this stifling atmosphere, but there's nowhere to go. Trish's warning makes sense to me now. This house gets under your skin. It forces your mind inward, awakens your worst delusions.

My dead brother, Alan, is seated across from me. His waxy hands rest on either side of his plate like he's waiting for the meal to be served. He's dressed in his funeral clothes.

"Go away.... " I whisper. "You aren't real."

There's a noise like the ticking of a bomb. It's the pendulum on the grandfather clock, swinging back and forth. I'm sure it was dead a moment before.

Alan doesn't disappear this time. He watches me with that empty regard. No recognition, no words of love, just a blank accusation of the dead against the living. Under the force of his gaze, I can't move, can't breathe, can't blink. My body temperature seems to dive, like every moment in his presence drags me deeper into the afterlife realm he comes from.

The candlelight fails to illuminate his face. He casts no shadow on the wall. I could reach out for him, but I'm too afraid to discover that he's really there, flesh and bone. Because then I'd know I've fallen into an abyss I'll never be able to climb out of again.

"Say something, then," I tell him. "What do you want?"

He says, " _The only way out is down._ " His voice doesn't come from his mouth. It drifts in from that same _other place_ where I heard Mother's humming.

And then Alan is gone, and I'm losing my mind for sure.
Chapter 15

MARTHA REST ON the master bed. Carter has pulled back the sheets so he can see how perfectly death fits her features, like a queen in her sarcophagus. Her mouth is finally shut.

"Dad?" Stella says. He hadn't heard her come back in.

"Is that man still here?" he asks her.

Wrapped in a blanket, she approaches where he's kneeling at the bedside. She's shivering and her breath frosts the air. It will get worse, this cold. It will overcome them all.

"He's downstairs," she said. "We tried to make him leave but the gate won't open. I just wanted to come up here and check on you. I want you to know I'm here for you, Dad. Whatever you need."

Carter looks down at Martha again. Once, he was in love with how his wife could conquer anything, a business luncheon, how she'd kick the legs out from under men who were otherwise invincible. He'd forgotten all that until now.

"You came to tell me how much you love me," he says.

Stella puts on a tender face, but Carter can see straight through to her soul. It's in the eyes. The truth is, she's always been a wooden actress. The poor girl's only show-business asset is the beauty Martha passed down to her.

That, and the favors Carter's called in over the years.

"I – I love you very much?" she asks.

"Convince me, as if your life depended on it."

She glances around the room like she's searching for an audience. "I don't know what you want me to say. You've always given me everything I wanted. You opened doors for me.... "

"You're describing _gratefulness_. What about love?"

"Dad, come on. I know – because of what happened – we're just reeling. All of us. Maybe you feel like we don't care about you, but... I've loved you more than I've loved any man."

Stella kneels beside her father and pulls him into an embrace. The muscles in her arms and her back don't quite release their tension.

Where did it go wrong?

Whatever he gave his children, they lost.

"What about Joanie?" he asks.

Stella breaks away with a harsh intake of breath.

"Joanie's too busy throwing around accusations. Otherwise she'd be up here with us. She thinks that guy is like some deranged fan of mine trying to fleece us for money or something."

Joanie's sharp like her brother. Either one of them might've found a way to stop this spiraling chaos, if Carter had known how to guide them. The way they turned out, it's all his fault.

Stella, she can't even book her own plane tickets. She's been blind to the truths that have defined her life. He's let _himself_ be blind, but that's all over now.

"The stranger came here to punish us," Carter says.

"Dad, what are you talking about? What did he do?"

"Your mother tried to fellate him in the bathroom."

"Oh, God! Why did you – " Stella tosses her head like she's tasted a bitter fruit. She throws off her blanket so she can free her arms to make sweeping gestures at her dead mother. " _Why the hell did you tell me that?_ "

"Because it's the truth. She's always been a whore."

"Don't," Stella begs. "Just don't. Not now." She gathers up one of Martha's lifeless hands and lowers her brow against the knuckles.

"I'm sorry," Carter hears himself saying.

"You can't _besmirch_ her and just take it back!" Stella shows him her tear-soaked face. For once, he isn't certain whether she's pretending, or not.

"Somebody like her, you simply can't tame," he says.

"Dad, don't... "

"Did she ever tell you who your real father was?"

Stella winces, turning away her face. She absorbs the pain like it's something familiar, something she's been preparing herself against for years.

"Did she ever tell you how he died?" Carter asks.

As if to interrupt him, Martha heaves a ragged breath of air. Her hips lurch off the mattress. Stella flings herself away from this sudden horror, but Martha's hand locks hers in its grip.

Even Carter can't believe what his eyes are showing him.

_Martha is alive_.
Chapter 16

MARTHA'S EYES SWELL. She gags and grunts and coughs saliva, but her neck is broken. She can't speak. She can't sit up or do anything but desperately grab.

Stella throws herself against Carter. She muffles her horrified wailing against the collar of his flannel shirt.

But Carter can't look away. He watches Martha with fascinated disgust. She's reaching for him. Even from five feet away she's grasping in vain. Her eyes accuse, and he is guilty. He feels her suffering like it's his own.

He draws his hand along the back of Stella's skull, petting her hair. He shushes her gently, and her tense body begins to ease. Years ago, he had a black Labrador. It was just like this, waiting for the injection to take effect.

He slips his thumbs along Stella's jawline. He brings them together just under her chin. A miniature steeple.

He knows he is her father. He believes it in his heart. Thirty years ago he fired a shotgun into a lawyer's face, and that face ceased to exist. All its filthy claims were revoked. But that man was just a sperm donor. Just Martha's _indiscretion_.

Stella doesn't fight against his tightening grip. His palms press into the flesh of her throat. It's almost as if she understands why this must happen, why this was always meant to happen.

Even Martha calms. She watches with a quiet reverence.

Stella's face swells red and her eyes swim in their sockets. She's struggling, finally, tearing her fingernails into his wrists, grunting.

If he were a stranger, maybe she'd gouge out his eyes, kick him in the crotch. But it's like she doesn't want to hurt him. It's like she believes she doesn't have to because he'll relent. He'll say he was only testing her trust in him.

Her thorax crunches under his thumbs. The sensation makes him queasy, and he wants so badly to stop. This is so much worse than Martha. There is nothing more intimate than killing this way.

Stella's body slumps into a heap on the floor. His hands ache. His body shudders so intensely, he fears he's having a seizure. Lightheaded, he braces himself on the footboard of the bed. But soon the clouds part again.

"Did you really expect it to end any different?" he asks Martha. Her eyes keep darting. They see him, they don't see him. The human part of her mind may not even be alive anymore.

He opens the nightstand drawer. The only contents are a handful of dried rose petals left behind by the ones who died in this house, and a letter opener.

He takes the letter opener by the hilt. The metal is cold like it's been kept in the freezer. The blade is sharp. Etched on the hilt is the Fálcon Hotel logo, the only souvenir he's kept from that godforsaken place.

Martha finds her last ounce of strength. She grunts in some kind of frenzied code. Her fingers touch his shirtsleeve, but she's too weak now to grab hold of him.

It's a miracle she survived her fall. She's come around, praise God, and she deserves this moment of cosmic justice, another chance. Carter knows, of course he knows.

He punches the blade into her heart.
Chapter 17

THE KITCHEN'S NO help for my nerves. Smoke still lingers in the air, and when I twist the faucet to splash water on my face, liquid sludge coughs out instead.

Also, I'm hearing voices. A low mutter and a childish chirrup of a laugh. This is all too much to bear. I rush through the mudroom and the doorway, out onto the back deck, where the blizzard is causing whiteout conditions.

The icy snow drives against my face. The air feels as frigid as the atmosphere of a distant planet.

I'm outside, free of that madhouse, but there's still nowhere to run. The deck hovers over a sloped beach of jagged rock stretching down toward the sea. It's a fatal jump – or at least bone-crushing.

_The only way out is down,_ I think.

So this is where Nate has been. He's leaning over the wood rail, watching the waves crash, kicking tufts of snow over the edge. Like he's deciding whether he wants to make the leap.

"Dude, what are you doing out here?" I ask him.

"Sorry – got a little crazy in there, you know?" He's acting weird. I figure it's the cold, but he keeps throwing shade at a potted arborvitae bush in the corner.

No, it's not the bush he's eyeing. It's Chloe, hunched against the cedar plank wall behind it, her sweatshirt hood draped over her head.

Now I see. The voices I heard in the kitchen were theirs.

"Want some?" She offers me the roach she has pinched between her fingers. "Had to smuggle it on the plane."

"That's the last thing I need right now."

Chloe shrugs, takes another toke of her weed.

Nate's eyes are bloodshot. He winces like I'm going to slap him, even though I've never done anything like that. This crap doesn't even deserve my anger. I'm just... _disenchanted_.

I don't know why I brought him here today. He was meant to be the bright side of a dark day, the antidote to my father. But it's all twisted around now. Nate just wanted to meet the family, but now he's been pulled into the black hole of tragedy I've tried so desperately to escape. How stupid of me to think we could be freed from it.

It's almost like my mother died to spite us, to ruin us. I hate to think like that, but it's the only way I can wrap my head around how quickly and irrevocably we've been damaged. I came here to tell them I was starting my own life, with Nate. But we've scared him off forever. I can sense it, even if Nate himself doesn't realize it yet.

The wind whips into my face, and Nate turns to me. "We're not, like, partying," he explains. "We're just chilling. Just decompressing, you know. I've never – never dealt with anything like this before."

"It's fine," I tell him. "I don't care."

"By the way – congrats, you two," Chloe says. "Just make sure you get a pre-nup, Auntie Joanie. This guy strikes me as a shyster."

"You _told_ her?" I ask Nate.

He makes a show of being guiltless. "I swear," he says. "I didn't breathe a word. She just... "

"Figured it out," Chloe brags. " _Wise beyond my years._ "

The wind's so vicious, the three of us have to huddle together to be heard. I don't want to be this close, but Chloe shivers and tucks herself against me. I put my arm around her.

"How's Dumba holding up?" she asks. _Dumba_ 's what she started calling her grandfather back when she was two years old.

"He's upstairs, sitting with Grandma."

"Aw, man," she says.

Looking at her, I can almost see the kid through all that snark and mascara. This girl has just lost her grandmother, yet everybody wants to harp on her lies and alleged pickpocketing. It doesn't seem fair.

There's hope for Chloe, and from now on I'll make sure she knows it. I'll do all I can to rescue another soul from this family.

"I'm sorry you had to be here for this," I tell her.

She takes another drag and shakes her head. "I'm not surprised, to be honest with you. It's this house. This house is out to get us."

Nate presses a fist to his mouth. I don't know if he's unnerved or if he's trying not to laugh. Even now, the house looms around us, its sharp gables jutting every which way like an impossible puzzle.

"Have you – felt something – in the house?" I ask Chloe.

"Hell, yeah," she says. "How can a history like that not leave a stain, you know? A _psychic residue?_ "

"What do you mean, Chloe? What happened?"

"You seriously don't know?" She pulls back her hood to show the ominous cast of her face. I sense the trap, but I can't wiggle away from it now.

"I can't believe they didn't tell you," she says. "It's the whole reason Dumba got this house for a steal, why no other suckers wanted it. The same blue bloods owned this place for like fifty generations until ten years ago. Thorpe. Stephen Thorpe was the guy's name. Family massacre – I read all about it. Wife, two kids. That room where you two were snuggling earlier? That was the little girl's room. Her daddy killed her in there."

For effect, Chloe slowly draws her finger in an arch along her throat, from one ear to the other. The gesture's so vivid, I feel like I've witnessed the murder firsthand.

"Are you serious?" Nate asks.

_No, she isn't._ She's spinning a tale to get a rise out of us, just like before. This whole scenario sounds like an imagined riff on the murders at the Fálcon Hotel, those dark spots on our own family history.

But I don't have the nerve to confront her outright. Not now, after everything. So I ask, "Why – why would Dumba buy a house like that?"

"Right? What the fuck's going on in his head?" she asks.

I can't even look at her right now. My eyes are drawn instead to something no less disturbing. A darkened window on the second floor. The _little girl's room,_ according to Chloe.

I could almost convince myself I see a child staring back at me from behind the glass. For a moment, I'm gripped with a paralyzing horror.

There _is_ someone there, but it's just my sister.

For once, I want to feel relieved, but a fresh dread sets in as I look at her. Stella isn't moving. She's just _displayed_ there, arms at her sides. There's a disturbing emptiness in her stare.

Just like with Alan.
Chapter 18

I'M BACK INSIDE, but the stranger is nowhere to be found.

There's only a pile of smoking ash in the fireplace. Suddenly, the house feels like a labyrinth with a hundred hidden turns for the monster to hide behind.

My jaw shudders, even when I try to hold it tight. I'm much too wary now to hope he just walked out the door. Getting rid of him won't be that easy.

Nate and Chloe are still outside. I came back in to check on my sister, who was supposed to be sitting vigil with our father, but was instead chillingly looming in a window, staring at us.

Now I'm sidetracked by the stranger's disappearance. Should I call a warning out to the others? Should I scream into this grief-stricken silence? What would I even say? _The Thanksgiving Day Strangler is loose in the house?_

The grandfather clock still ticks in the dining room, but I hear nothing else. My weird vision of Stella has got me dancing on the brink of a meltdown already. I'm convinced the stillness around me is poised to give birth to something awful.

And I think I know where it will come from.

Because a flickering light bleeds through the open crack in the library door. There shouldn't be a light in there at all.

I _really_ want to ignore every stupid impulse to push that door open. You don't go exploring in a place like this. You don't invite evil with open arms. But that's a point of no return that I already blew straight past.

The doorknob is warm to the touch. It brings life back into my near-frozen hands. As I push, the room reveals itself to me. The candelabra I left in the dining room is now on the desktop in here. Melting wax has maimed the candles out of shape.

Someone moved it here. Someone is baiting me. That sudden clutch of the stranger's _presence_ makes me want to run away.

But the room is empty. Nothing but the candelabra and the cordless phone unit. Its wire loops down and snakes across the floor toward a wall jack, but it never arrives. The other end lies severed next to the baseboard.

Before I can stop myself I'm kneeling down to inspect the frayed end of the wire. There's no doubt it was ripped from the wall. On purpose, to cut us off from the world.

A cold blade of fear stabs my heart. I want to reverse this discovery, I want to forget it, escape it, because now that I know, I'm _marked_.

And there _is_ someone here with me.

I bolt upright so fast the blood doesn't quite reach my head. Woozy, I brace myself against the desk and let this new hallucination take over. I can't resist anymore.

It's Mother. She stands beside an empty shelf, still as a marble statue, and her eyes are just as solid white. She's barefoot and wearing a plain white nightgown from some long-gone era.

I squeeze my own forehead, hoping I'll pressure the vision away. But my mother only gets more _there_. I can't deny what this is called. I can't do it anymore.

This is a mental breakdown. This is _insanity_.

They'll pull me out of college, toss me in the psych ward at Bellevue. They'll shake their heads and whisper – _What did you expect? She's a Whitmore. It's in their blood. Look at what happened to the brother. The only way out is down._

Mother's pale lips are mute, but an understanding passes between us. She's calling to me across a channel my five senses can't reach.

She turns toward the bookshelf behind her and sweeps her slender white fingers across imaginary book spines. I catch the musty odor of old paper.

She's humming again, or I imagine she is. But the melody is laced with a primal, animal noise, a whimper of distress. The bleating of a goat. I can't pretend it's anything else.

I have to chase this madness away. I snatch the candelabra by its base. Hot wax drapes over my fist but I don't spare a second for the pain.

When I raise the light overhead, the shadows turn and waver and Mother flits away. She's gone, dispelled.

The candlelight shows a random smear of tracks across the dusty floor just where she was standing. Not her bare feet, which have left no mark, but the definite stamp of shoe prints. The pattern makes no sense. The prints seem to veer toward the shelf, where they vanish completely.

I bring the light closer, blending my tracks with the rest. It only takes a cursory search. One vertical stretch of trim is attached to the wall by hinges. You'd only notice if you were looking for them. If you knew to find them there.

I take hold of the trim and pull it toward me. Nothing happens until I hold my breath and yank with a little more force. Somewhere in the wall, a mechanism disengages.

I leap back, certain that the whole eight-foot shelving unit will collapse on me. But it only creaks away from the wall an inch. Because it's exactly what I hoped it wouldn't be.

It's a secret doorway.
Chapter 19

ALL I CAN see at first is dark. The fake shelf creaks open and I thrust the candelabra ahead of me, into the opening. That sulfur stench is so pungent here, this hidden space must be the source of it.

My terror runs way deeper than simple fear for my safety. It's like the opposite of a blessing, like I've unlocked a world where more than my body could be harmed.

I should never have found this place, but I was _led_ here by the dead soul of my mother – to warn me, to punish me, I don't know.

What's becoming crystal clear is the presence of evil forces in this house, just like I was warned. It's not my mind playing tricks on me. _I'm not crazy_. The understanding should've given me strength, but it made me all the more terrified. I had a chance of overcoming my own illusions, but what hope did I have against the spirit realm?

As I pull the door farther open, the shelf gets wedged against the floor. It's barely wide enough for me to squeeze inside, but I can't push it any farther.

I can't do this at all, to be honest. I can't convince myself to go in there. Not when I imagine the door locking shut behind me, a gust of underground air blowing out the candles...

I have just enough nerve to reach my arm inside and illuminate the space with candlelight. Even then I'm petrified that someone will grab my arm and yank me in.

From what I can see, it's just a closet lined in brick, barely big enough for a person my size to lie down in either direction. The bricks look ancient, like this room has been hidden here since the house was first built.

A voice cuts through the dead quiet and makes me yank my arm from the opening. But it's not nearby. It's just Chloe laughing in another part of the house.

The damage is already done. I've scraped the candelabra against brick and knocked one of the candles out of its socket.

My stomach drops when I realize what's happened. The candle hits the closet floor, but it doesn't go out. It burns there amid a clutter of what looks like flammable shreds of paper, or something else. Scattered rat dropping?

I don't have time to think this through. I can't reach the candle from out here, and blowing on it might only spark a fire that would burn the whole house down.

I hold my breath like I'm going underwater and push through the thin gap. The floor under my shoes is some weird terrain both rugged and slippery, but it's not until I crouch down and pluck up the candle that I realize.

There's no paper, no feces. The floor is covered in candle wax. Piles and puddles and singed wicks, all of it long dried solid. I can't guess how many candles have been melted onto this floor. Dozens, at least, but probably hundreds.

My frantic breath sounds like it's caught in a jar. I don't know what I've found in this rotten heart of the house. Someone was lured here, over and over again, or maybe trapped here. Endless hours of melting, dripping wax.

When I stand back up, the single candle pinched in my fingers illuminates the back wall. There's some kind of graffiti scraped into the brick. It's ragged and childlike, the size of a car tire, but whoever did it took his time cutting deep.

I recognize what I'm seeing from a cultural anthropology course I took last year. Witchcraft and Magic. It's a pentagram, an encircled five-pointed star turned upside down.

This one has a crude sketch of a goat head laid over the pentagram shape. A memory brushes me like a cold hand in the dark: this isn't a benign Wiccan pentacle. This is the Mark of Satan.

"No, no, no. _Way too much,_ " I plead.

I am through with this closet, this house, Rhode Island.

I step back from the devil goat scraped onto the wall by God knows who. A patch of floor goes off kilter under my weight and the sudden shift in balance slams me against the brick.

The candle shudders. I'm sure it's going to go out, but by some miracle it stays lit. That's how I can see the disturbance I've made below me. The shifting floor has broken a seam in the wax. It's a perfect square.

A secret within a secret.

Now, my desperate need to _know_ has killed my caution. Every instinct tells me not to do this, but I fall to my knees and dig into the wax with my fingernails. My heart pounds and my fingers pry, and then the trap door opens.

Underneath is not a passageway to Hades. There are no corpses or writhing snakes or petrified missing girls with ball gags in their mouths. It's just a small compartment, like a safety deposit box.

Inside is a desiccated bouquet of roses, still blood-red. A mangy teddy bear with both its eyes plucked out. A revolver that looks old enough to have been used in a Wild West shootout.

I pick up the gun and tilt it toward the light. There are bullets loaded into the chamber.

The sight of them is like someone else's trauma lashing out at me from the past. I can't explain it, but it's all part of this house. That story Chloe told me, the one I thought was a lie...

Underneath the other mementos is a framed picture, turned upside down. The matte backing is speckled with mold. Even as I reach for it, I know I'm Pandora unleashing her demons.

Glass shards drop away, exposing the raw portrait underneath. It's damp and moldy, but I can make out the faces of a little girl, a boy, a frail woman with eyes that pierce right into me, like an accusation.

It's a family of four. My thumb swipes the mold from the father's face. _Stephen Thorpe,_ I remember Chloe saying.

He grins, chin tilted down, blond strands of hair cut across one eye. Seeing him, I'm shoved to the far side of the reality I've always believed. I have nothing to cling to.

Stephen Thorpe, the stranger, hasn't aged a day.
Chapter 20

CARTER ALMOST COLLIDES with Joanie on the landing. She tumbles up the stairs and drops so heavily against him that he thinks she's fainted, except her eyes are alert and buzzing with terror.

If she knew what he did to her sister, she wouldn't be rushing to his arms. It can't be him she's afraid of.

It's something else. _Someone_ else.

She thrusts an object in his face, insisting, " _Look at this! Look at what I found!_ " Maybe she thinks there's some way out, if only she follows all the clues.

Poor Joanie believes there's a life to go back to. She doesn't know the world outside is already dying. He envies her and he pities her. His feelings can't be reconciled anymore. Not after what he's done.

What she's showing him is a framed picture that looks like it's been dredged out of a swamp. He has to hold her wrist to get a good look at it. When he realizes what he's looking at, a gush of dread rushes through his system.

He has seen this family in his dreams a hundred times since he moved into this house. He knows them. The Thorpes. The mother, the daughter, the son – all of them except the blond-haired man who stands behind them all.

The stranger. Stephen Thorpe, the man who went crazy and killed his family, right here in this house, ten years ago. Except...

"Where did you get this?" Carter asks.

"In the library. There's a secret room behind a shelf, and a trap door, under all this melted candle wax. Chloe told me a story about a murder – "

"I know," he tells her.

It's like a slap to her face. She blinks at him, dumbfounded.

"You knew? And you _moved_ here?" she asks.

Of course, because the house called to him. And that secret room in the library called to him, too. Woke him from a sound sleep his very first night under this roof. Since then he's spent hours in that room melting more wax onto the floor, waiting for some sign. Some reason.

While that trap door was under him the whole time.

Clever girl. There might've been hope for her once. But now? How could he explain to another person, even precious Joanie, what it means to awaken to the empty struggle of life?

If he jabs the letter opener into the soft flesh under her chin, she might not even sense the pain before she's dead. For her, for his natural daughter, he'll be merciful.

Joanie's eyes flit to the weapon in his hand, like she can read his thoughts. But the danger doesn't register with her. How could it? He's her father, and he's here to protect her.

"We have to find Stella. I think she might be hurt. I think – "

She stops cold because her eyes have locked on something in the hallway upstairs behind him.

"Why don't you tell her, Carter?" the stranger says. He has appeared at the top of the stairs. The way he presides over them, like he's claimed ownership, or _reclaimed_ it.

"Leave us alone!" Joanie cries. "We know who you are."

"Come on, Cart. Put the kid out of her misery already."

"No... " Carter shakes his head. The fury screams inside him like a silent alarm. He wants to dispel it. He wants to buy Joanie's simpler version of the truth, if only for one more minute:

_After a decade in hiding, Stephen Thorpe has returned to his house to menace the family that replaced the one he killed_.

Her story makes so much sense, it could even explain Martha and Stella's deaths. It could offer Carter Whitmore a defense.

If only it were true.

"What's going on? You know him? You knew about him?" Joanie asks. She's beginning to understand. Nothing evades this girl for long. She's backing down the stairs, unwilling to take her eyes off either of the men looming above her.

"Aw, come on, Cart. You're no fun," the stranger chides. "Joanie, what your father won't tell you – "

"He's not Stephen Thorpe," Carter snaps.

Joanie glances back at the portrait she's holding. She flings it over the railing as if it's caught fire. She's struck off-balance, like Martha when she took that final tumble. When you can't trust your own eyes, you're lost.

"What are you talking about?" she begs. "It's _him...._ "

"Thorpe killed himself the same night he murdered his family," Carter tells her. He doesn't mention that Stephen Thorpe slit his own throat right after he killed his daughter – his youngest, most trusting victim.

"Then who... ?" she says, pointing toward the stranger.

"This man – this man, he's... " Carter can't put it into words.

"Would you believe I'm his _evil twin?_ " the stranger asks.

Joanie gawks for a second, then shakes the ridiculous idea out of her head. She spins on her heels and rushes down the stairs, hitting every third step on the way.

Time is speeding up again.

Carter grips his letter opener. He knows what he must do.
Chapter 21

MY LEGS CAN hardly carry me into the living room. I stumble, clutching for furniture too far out of reach. I hear myself whimpering like a wounded dog.

I have to run. I have to get help.

Into the kitchen, to the back deck, to Nate...

But I feel dizzy. The doorway into the kitchen keeps shifting out of place. And that whimper, it's coming from somewhere else, not me.

A child with a hand pressed over her mouth – that's what it sounds like. And a low, apelike grunt. My head is so crowded with ghosts I can't trust my own senses.

Especially what I see when I lurch through the kitchen door. Chloe's body is tossed like a meat slab onto the butcher block counter. Her head hangs over the edge, her face wrenched with pain, her body convulsing.

Nate's trying to save her. He's right there, tending to her, steadying her hips, he's...

Chloe bursts out laughing. At me.

Her bloodshot eyes bore into mine as Nate keeps thrusting. He doesn't even realize I'm here. The last sturdy scaffolding of my life topples over.

"Nathan... "

"Oh, God," he whines. " _Joanie..._ "

He brings his hands together at his crotch, backing away from Chloe. I want to avert my eyes, but there's the burnt turkey, the shattered china and drying cranberry muck, the dead black CCTV screen.

Chloe's laughter makes something snap in my head. A literal _crack_ like my ears are underwater. Of all the vulnerabilities in my armor that this house might've tested, it chose the weakest. It corrupted Nate – or, really, it found the depravity lurking inside of him and teased it out. It has trapped him and trussed him and hung him on display.

There is no way out through here. I step back, but the riser between the kitchen and living room is an unexpected drop. I grab for anything that will keep me upright....

... but I'm caught. A fierce heat radiates from the hands that steady my shoulders. His lips against my ear, Stephen Thorpe whispers, "You _deserve_ this."

The scream welling up inside me breaks loose. I want to dive out of his reach, but all I can do is crumple to the floor.

His rolled-up sleeves show intricate tattoos that snake all over his forearms, strange creatures so entwined I can't make anything out. They seem to slither across his flesh.

"You want to hurt them," he says.

"I don't." I spit the words at him.

"Don't lie, Joanie. Wrath is the easiest sin to read." His smirk could be pity; it could be amusement. Embers reflect in his eyes – except the hearth is behind him, and the fire is dead.

"You killed my mother.... "

"A lie and you know it," he says.

I grasp the edge of a credenza and get back on my feet. There's a table lamp within reach. I snatch it by the base and swing it at his smug and deceitful face.

Thorpe rears back. The electric cord snaps taut, yanks the lamp from my hand. It's still plugged into the wall.

"Oh, Joanie," Thorpe says in mock disappointment.

From out of nowhere, Nate throws his full weight onto Thorpe's shoulders. He's like a rabid animal, growling and snapping and tearing at Thorpe's shirt.

I've never seen Nate this way and it sickens me – even while I'm eager for him to lay the stranger out, pin him to the floor, make him surrender.

Their struggle only lasts a few steps. Nate yelps as Thorpe twists his beard in one hand. What happens next is too swift for my eyes, but it ends with Nate flat on his back and groaning.

Thorpe turns his attention back to me. His reflection in the clouded mirror is dark and distorted, an inhuman shape my brain can't register. I'm falling apart. I don't have the strength to fight, not with my faith shattered, not after Thorpe threw Nate like you'd toss a scarecrow.

But then, behind him, my father appears. His bald and ruddy head glistens with sweat. He gnashes his teeth, ready to strike, and I feel a new rush of hope. Thorpe catches my gasp, but it's too late for him.

Father jabs the letter opener though the turtleneck, into the soft flesh behind his collarbone. Thorpe winces and slaps at the wound like he's been stung. He pivots toward Father, chuckling. "Yikes," he says, "Watch it there, fella – "

Father shanks him twice more in the gut, grunting each time. I feel each stab like a vicarious electric charge.

Thorpe doubles over with an "oof." It's like he's being play-punched by a child. He coughs out a wheezy laugh, shaking his head at this inconvenient turn of events.

"Die, already," Father says, and stabs again.

Thorpe raises his bloody index finger as if to call time out. But he stumbles away from my father, weaving drunkenly toward the furniture.

I'm on the brink, both hands clasped over my mouth. The pain he must be in, it's far more than I can watch, but I also can't look away.

Finally, Thorpe slumps into Father's recliner. He breathes a heavy sigh and lifts his scotch glass from the side table. He takes one last gulp before his arm goes limp. The glass shatters on the floor.

Thorpe saves his final glance for me, stares deep into my soul. And then his eyes go blank.
Chapter 22

I COULD ALMOST hug my father, but he's trembling and he's drifted somewhere far away in his head. All I can do is grab the oven mitt Mother left on the couch and wipe away the blood spatter on his face.

Chloe breaks the silence. "Holy shit, you guys... "

I can't even despise her for what she just did with Nate. Not after I've watched a man get stabbed to death.

Never mind. I want to feel gushing relief, I want to belt out a survivor's howl. But there's a weight still pressing on my chest, suffocating me. Even with Thorpe lying dead.

It's this house. Evil seeps through the cracks. Bad spirits take shape in the halls. Bad desires stir in the bedrooms.

I won't be free until I'm gone from here.

Father's BMW display key is on the peg by the door. When I grab it, Father doesn't complain or even ask the obvious question: _How will you get out?_ He's too deep in shock for that.

"Wait, where are you going?" Nate asks, still half-dazed.

"To get the police," I tell him.

"Would somebody tell me what the hell is going on?" Chloe asks. "Where's Stella?"

"The police will sort this out," I say. I can't bring myself to tell her about the apparition in the upstairs window, what it probably means. I can't even tell myself.

I hurry through the breezeway, into the garage. Dusk peeks through the narrow carriage house windows, but it's hardly any light at this hour.

I tap the mounted button a dozen times before I realize the problem – no power, no automatic door.

" _Shit._ "

"Let me help you, Joanie," Nate says. I didn't invite him along, but here he is. He brushes past me, down to where my father's hundred-thousand-dollar luxury car awaits. Just the sight of him makes me want to retch, but nobody else is offering any help.

Fine, I don't care. I'll occupy myself by futzing with the ridiculously complex control on the display key.

Nate yanks the overhead emergency handle to disengage the garage door from the track, then lifts it by hand. Winter rages into the garage with such force, he stumbles back a step.

A knee-high wall of dense snow blocks the way. Enough to stop the car from getting through entirely. Right about now I'd gladly trade my father's fancy car for a junker pickup truck with four-wheel-drive.

Something I do on the display makes the BMW start – and then roll forward without me inside it. I yelp and lunge for the door as the car noses itself deep into the snow. Then it stops. Like it's possessed and screwing with me.

"Take me with you, please," Nate begs, hands in prayer.

"Go to hell."

"Look, I know I messed up. I was stoned, and with everything else that was happening, I lost my bearings, and... "

"And what, you accidentally fell into her? _In the kitchen?_ You didn't even have the decency to get a room. Oh, and, she's sixteen years old, Nate. _Sixteen_. Five months ago you would've been on a sex offender's list."

He says something else I can't hear over the relentless wind. He's still praying at me, giving me puppy eyebrows. The pathetic behavior makes him even more sickening to me. But I take a breath for clarity. I've seen two deaths today. Life's too short.

"After today, I never see you again. You understand?"

Inside the car is like a womb, lit all around with strips of ambient blue light. In the passenger seat, Nate shivers like he's been rescued from an icy shipwreck.

"I want you to know you broke my heart," I tell him. Already there's a film of snow on the windshield I have to brush away with the wipers. The wet blur in my eyes I have to wipe away with my sweater sleeve.

I clip my seat belt into place.

Trish said I was the _good one,_ the white sheep of the family. I want to believe that's true. I want to believe the nastiness that runs in the Whitmore blood has passed me over. Because if I carry this family with me, there will be no such thing as a clean getaway.

A field of white stretches between us and the black metal gate rails. I don't know if this car will make it through. I don't even know if I can stay on the driveway. But I have to do this.

"You deserve better than me, Joanie," Nate admits.

"Wish you'd told me that when we met."

"Can I ask you something?"

" _What?_ " I growl.

"How are we opening the gate?"

"I'm gonna smash it down," I say, and I grab the gear shift.
Chapter 23

THE CHILD HAS gone upstairs to look for her mother. Carter can hear her wailing up there, like she's screaming through layers of bulletproof glass. Calling for _him_. "Dumba, hurry, please!"

_Dumba_ – like he's some kind of imbecile.

Chloe has found Stella. She thinks there is something to be done. There is. In the end, they will all come to realize. He hears the ticking. He's set the clock moving and only he can make it stop.

But first Carter grabs the stranger's ankles and drags him off the chair. The weight strains his lumbar muscles, but he works through it until the head smacks the floor with a satisfying _thump_.

He wants to sit in _his_ chair, wants to be done. Not just yet.

When Carter reaches the master bedroom, dusk has settled outside the French doors, and now the shuddering light of a candelabra is all that holds back shadows.

Must be the girl who brought that candelabra up here and set it hastily on a side table. She's collapsed on the floor beside Stella's body, holding her dead mother's head in her lap.

When she sees her grandfather, she swats away the tears like they're a nuisance. Her eyes glisten in the candlelight. She wants Carter to love her, but she's a stranger to him, even more than her mother ever was.

"He killed her," the girl says. "She's dead."

"I had to stop him from hurting anyone else," Carter says. He speaks to her like he's lulling a baby to sleep.

"You had to do it," she says. She casts a slight glance at him, ever so subtle, then her eyes flash to Martha on the bed.

Carter has been careful. He's pulled the comforter over his wife's body to hide the stab wounds, but her blood has begun to seep through the fabric.

And Chloe has noticed.

The dying embers in his belly are stoked once again.

Chloe lifts Stella's lifeless head from her lap and stands upright, smoothing out her skirt. She hikes her chin, flares her nostrils, and steadies her shivering. Clever girl.

"We have to decide what to tell the police," she says.

This girl is even more than a stranger to him. She's alien, the way she dresses, like Halloween, the way she talks, so cold, so steady, so _knowing_. Or maybe Carter understands her all too well.

And he has already done what he set out to do. He's bent time into a circle. He's come to this place to reconcile the lawyer he killed, the Turnbull murders, the Thorpe family massacre, and he's done. What the universe has asked of him is complete.

"I have a confession," Chloe says. She pulls her cell phone from the waistband of her skirt. A fold of cash falls to the floor. Hundred dollar bills. She takes no notice of that.

"My phone works," she continues. "When everybody else was bitching about coverage, I – I thought it would be funny to play along."

She offers the phone to him. It glows in her hand like a gem, and her face is lit with such soul-baring intensity that Carter almost can't endure it.

"There's no issue with calling out," she says. "You can tell them what Stephen Thorpe did, or whatever you want to say."

Her bow draws so sweetly across his strings. The sound of it clears his mind and offers him a vision of a life to come. A tropical island with crystal water, music, endless warmth.

He has money to buy himself a decade of heaven at least. She's showing him the way out of this nightmare. She's trying to save her own life.

"Why should you be any different from the rest?" he asks.

Her breath quickens. There's a hitch in her resolve. The phone slips from her hand and she doesn't even flinch when it breaks open on the floor.

"I hated my mother," she says. "I'm glad you killed her."

She smiles to show that she's on his side. There is no need to euthanize her like the others. She's already a dead soul walking, and she isn't his child to judge. She is not his blood.

"I love you, Dumba," she says.

He grabs the candelabra. The first strike hits her skull like a spade against rock, and Carter keeps digging.
Chapter 24

I STOMP THE gas with all the hope I have left. The car is my heart and it's roaring, ready to burst.

The tires dig through the snow. They're rooting for solid ground, getting nowhere. I push harder, locking my knee, but time seems to slog. An emptiness grows in my chest. Even nature is fighting against me.

Then, with a satisfying _chomp,_ the treads strike gravel. Nate slaps his hands on the dashboard. We're fishtailing, then we're not, and the car bursts out like a bull from its pen.

I'm almost outside myself, watching the speedometer leap, watching this bad-ass rip across the yard, guided by instinct alone.

I crouch forward. Snow crashes against the undercarriage. My hands twitch with delicate adjustments, keeping us on target.

" _Joanie... Joanie..._ " Nate warns, but I won't listen. I need the momentum if I'm going to push through to the other side.

The house shrinks behind me. I've snapped whatever invisible chains have tried to hold me back, drag me down. I push away my fear of a shattered windshield, glass in my eyes, my chest impaled with an iron spike.

An alarm goes off in the cab. My toe slips across the brake. Just one quick pulse of hesitation, and I'm already crushing seventy miles an hour. I'm in the zone.

But the brake has its own mind. The speedometer drops. The car just drifts like it's on skis, and I feel suspended in a dream. A sudden soft pillow fills my face with powdery air, and then it's gone.

We're stopped. I never even heard the impact, but the car's front end is smashed against the gate. Digital readouts flash red.

The air bag powder's in my throat, making me cough.

Nate moans. He's got his head tilted back, his hand cupped over his nose. A thick strand of blood drips between his fingers. His seat belt is unbuckled and his air bag didn't release.

I see what's happened. Some kind of automatic emergency braking has deployed, and I hit the gate at a fraction of the speed I meant to.

Some rails are bent, some still vibrate from the impact, but it's still totally intact.

"Nope," I decide aloud. I wrench the gearshift into Reverse. All I need is twenty feet of space and I can try it again. I won't be beaten. This time, I'll ignore the impact alarm, I won't touch the brake, and the car will do what I want, damn it.

But fate isn't with me. The accelerator flops under my shoe. Something clanks under the hood and dies.
Chapter 25

CARTER'S SHOTGUN IS loaded with two shells. He scoops up four more and pockets them, then traces the contours of the gun with his fingers.

The basement is black. It's warmer down here, almost cozy.

Chloe's dead, and Stella, and Martha. They couldn't survive in what the world had become. They're better off this way. But his heart aches, knowing how they couldn't accept that truth.

Joanie's going to be the saddest of all.

He's climbing toward the gray light at the cellar door when the music starts. He stops to listen to the Thorpe family piano. It's down in the darkness playing Martha's song.

_See what you've done..._

Carter squeezes shut his eyes and wills the music away. It means nothing to him now. It's just a stupid song about a dog.

Just then, the floorboards creak. Carter crouches, alert. It could be Joanie and her boyfriend, but he hasn't heard them come back inside.

Like a soldier, he pivots into the living room with the shotgun at low-ready. The room is like a mausoleum, nothing in motion but dust motes and frost crawling across the windows.

A prickle of anticipation bothers the base of his neck. His pulse beats on the fingertip he holds against the trigger. He moves at a crouch toward the recliner, toward...

The stranger's body is gone.

Nothing but a smear of blood on the floorboards.

Carter swivels at his hips, sweeping his aim across the empty room. A bolt of pain in his spine makes him snarl. The walls close in, the borders of this world collapse. He can feel it.

The stranger stands with one arm stretched across the fireplace mantel like he's posing for a photo. Like he's been there all along.

His turtleneck is soaked from the stab wounds, and the blood loss has left him pale as the snow outside.

Carter steadies the gun sight as best he can. From this short distance, he won't need perfect aim.

"I killed you," Carter says.

"Actually, you conjured me. It was you who invited me, really. Sorry it took me so long to show up."

"You should be dead."

"Probably. I'm just chock full of cute parlor tricks. Check it out.... " He holds his fingers like he's got an invisible wand, then flicks his wrist.

A sudden drop in oxygen steals Carter's breath. The dead ashes in the fireplace roar to life. Deep-blue flames, almost white.

"Eh? They don't call me the Angel of Light for nothing!"

"What are you?" Carter asks.

"Pleased to meet you, I hope you guess my – "

Carter pulls the trigger twice in quick succession. The double blast rips through the stranger's torso and gouges two pitted craters into the stone behind him.

The noise rattles Carter's brain. Everything is a blur.

For a moment, the stranger leans over with his hands on his knees. He's gasping, coughing. When he stands upright again, his turtleneck is nothing but tatters.

He runs his hand over the pristine flesh of his abdomen.

"Damn," he says.

Carter shouldn't be able to hear him through the tinnitus, but the voice comes from inside his head, where it's always been.

Carter breaks the shotgun's action against his forearm and plucks the two spent cartridges from the breech. He's got four more shots, but he's not going to waste them on something that isn't even human.

Something that could never die.

Instead, he turns for the door, for the last child.
Chapter 26

I'M OUT OF the car when the gunshots sound. One right after the other. I crouch and listen, holding the driver door like a shield, but the house looms dark and silent.

"What the hell was that?" Nate asks. His nose drips blood as he scrambles around the impact site, testing the bent gate rails for some way to squeeze through.

I close my eyes to find my center calm. Then I trudge through the knee-deep snow, back toward the house that isn't done with me yet. Back to my family.

"Joanie, where the hell are you going?"

"I can't just – " My voice falters when I see my father.

He stands in the open front doorway. It's getting dark and the icy snowfall assaults my eyes, but I'm sure it's him. He's holding a shotgun lengthwise across his stomach.

Fear strikes me harder than the blizzard wind. My understanding begins to slip. Stephen Thorpe is dead, so there's no reason for Father to arm himself. No reason for him to take the gun out here, where there is only us. Only me and Nate.

Maybe he's going to blast open the gate lock. That's what I try to tell myself, but it's weak. It doesn't explain why he's fired that gun already. It doesn't tell me where Chloe is.

Nate yells, "Joanie, here!"

He's climbed onto the car hood to get better leverage against one of the two stone pillars that border the gate. The single working headlight stretches his shadow upward, but he's still not quite tall enough to reach the top of the pillar.

I see his thinking. If he can climb over the gate, we're out.

Father stalks toward us, hunched and stonefaced. There's no recognition in his eyes. I want to deny everything my instincts are telling me, but my body won't let me.

"Joanie!" Nate screams again. "Hurry!"

The car hood is slick with melting snow. I try to climb but my shoes just squeak across the surface. My fingers are too numb to grip. My face still stings from the friction of the air bag. And this storm – it's like nature itself fights against us.

Nate pulls me up. I grab the cold and gritty pillar like it's driftwood in a shipwreck.

"Hoist me up, come on!" Nate says. He's already climbing on my shoulders, his weight bearing down on me. My toes press against the pillar, but even the slightest shift will throw us both.

All at once, the pressure on my body lifts away. For a second I think Nate's fallen, but he's scrambling onto the pillar top. It's no bigger than a stool seat up there. He wobbles, but he's made it.

His nose is broken, his knees are scraped raw. Twenty minutes ago, he betrayed me with such casual cruelty that I never want to see his face again. But when he reaches for me, it's like the hand of God.

Father's stopped behind the car. He watches. White breath spews from his lungs. For one merciful second, I believe he wants us to escape this place.

But Nate doesn't have that faith. He pulls back his hand.

"No, Nate – _please_!" I scream, my fingers outspread.

"I'm sorry," Nate says, and then he's gone.

I lose my footing and slam against the car hood. Flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me. All I see is gray sky and a swirling chaos of snow.

On the far side of the fence, Nate plows toward the main road. The snow is too deep to run, but he's lunging, leaping, whatever he can manage.

In a swell of forgiveness, I want him to get away....

But Father slips the shotgun barrels between the bars. The explosion turns night back to day. A ragged sphere of red opens between Nate's shoulders, and then he's gone. Swallowed by the snow.

The crows in the trees take flight.

My father turns the gun on me.
Chapter 27

I TUMBLE OFF the hood, away from Father. The snow envelops me in cold white nothingness, stings my eyes, fills my mouth.

This is no way to die. So close to freedom, and this man who's supposed to protect me above all others...

" _Daddy!"_ I scream. _"Don't – please – don't!_ "

I sound the way I feel – like a helpless child. Even on the ground I'm falling. All my safety lines are cut, all my security lost.

Crouched on the passenger side, I can't see my father. I can't hear his movements. He has one more round in that gun before he'll need to reload.

_That gun._ He kept it, and he brought it here. He's coming around the back of the car. If I stay crouched here, he'll kill me.

"Don't be afraid!" he says. "This is a gift."

I dive back onto the hood and roll across. My muscles burn, they don't want this, but it's happening. Father shoots again. An eruption of glass rains over my head as I drop back into the snow.

I run, back toward the house. There's nowhere else to go. I'm convinced he shot me but the pain doesn't come. My legs slog through the wet snow like a slow-motion nightmare.

He'll take five seconds to reload, maybe less. If I look back, I'll surely fall, and he'll have all the time he needs. But I don't want to die the way Nate did.

I'm one leap from the doorstep when a snowdrift rushes up on me like a wave. Just as another gun blast rips open the sky. I'm not hit, but I can't find the strength to stand. I crawl the last few feet to the open door and collapse inside.

Once the door is shut and locked, I'm struck with indecision. All I can hear is how my panicked whimpers echo in the room.

My mind leaps a dozen ways. The lock will buy me a minute at best, the windows won't hold at all. Father has at least one more shot. I have to defend myself. Find Chloe, Stella. I have to scream. I have to live.

One thought tears through all the rest: _the revolver_. In that secret compartment with the portrait of the Thorpe family, right where I left it.

There's no time to worry about whether it will work. I rush toward the library. Only later will I realize how strange it is to feel warmth as I pass the blue wall of flame in the fireplace.

It's not dark inside the library. The room is awash with the glow of a hundred candles, though there are no light sources I can see. So much light, I have to raise my arm to shield my eyes.

The shelves are stocked floor to ceiling with books – ancient leather-bound volumes with rusted metal clasps, the titles long worn off by time.

In the center of it all stands the stranger.

"Looking for this?" he asks, with a shrug, like it's all a lark.

He's aiming that revolver at my face.
Chapter 28

WITH A FLICK of his wrist, he spins the gun by its trigger guard and catches it backward. He's offering it, jiggling it like bait.

"Go on, take it. It's yours. Finders, keepers, right?"

"You were dead," I say. "And these books... "

The stranger rolls his eyes and leans back against the desk. "Yes, all the world's forbidden knowledge. You used to be able to get it in just one bite, but those were the good old days."

Behind me, the locked front door rattles. Then my father slams his body against it. I cry out, the noise is so violent.

"Wolf's at the door. Better arm yourself, sweetie."

"You're not Stephen Thorpe," I say.

"My names are legion, but you win the prize, Joanie Baby, because Steve Thorpe ain't one of them.... "

"He brought you here. Conjured you. In that room."

The false bookshelf is still open, just as I left it. I can't see the goat's-head pentagram inside, but I will never forget how it was scraped into the brick by some deranged hand.

Father slams the door again. He's growling like a rabid dog.

"Shoot first, ask questions later," the stranger says. "You have to protect yourself, Joanie. I can't intervene."

A swell of despair rushes up inside me. The stranger is everything I feared he would be and so much worse. But what he offers, it's the only way out I can see.

"You're not fit to cast stones, Joanie Whitmore. You're fallen, just like the rest of them. Remember, I can see into your heart."

This man, this demon, he knows every dark note I've ever sounded. My pride, my anger, my lust. He's prying me open, digging his claws into the core of my being.

" _Take the fucking gun, Joanie!_ " he screams. The light in the room wavers a moment, lengthening our shadows, reddening his face.

I step forward and snatch the gun from his hand. My eyes bore into his. I don't look away from the flames I see burning inside his head, even though I'm struck through with fear.

"There," he says. "That feels better, doesn't it?"

Father throws himself against the door again. This time it splinters open. Momentum tosses him inside and sprawls him out on the floor.

I'm already scrambling up the steps to the second floor. There's as much rage in my heart as terror. A voice in my head demands I hold my ground and empty this gun into my father before he figures out where I am.

_Kill,_ it says. _Kill the man who gave you life_.

I'm not ready to listen. I want a chance to think, someplace to hide, but I know damn well this house will not protect me.

"Joanie!" Father's caught me in his sights and he fires.

The staircase railings disintegrate behind me. My left leg is yanked by a vicious force. I sprawl, half on the landing, and I kick for a foothold that will stop me sliding back down the stairs.

Pain sears through my foot, all the way up my calf.

I've been shot.

Voices seep out of the woodwork. Some of them I know – my mother, Stella, Alan. But some are darker, more distant. Murdered Thorpes, and even farther back, strange accents, languages I don't recognize, Native chants.

Generations of dead all calling in chorus.

I have to crawl up the last few steps. My desperate drive to live gets me down the hall – that, and the voices guiding me through the dark.

Every second, the pain in my foot gets sharper, hotter. My already snow-soaked shoe is stained through with blood. It's too dark for me to see the damage, and that's a blessing. I'd probably pass out.

_Joanie, can you hear us?_ the voices call from the bedroom.

There's a small light to guide me there. I limp inside to find that it's a single candle overturned on the floor. Its flame is somehow still glowing.

_Come to us, Joanie...._

They're all here. Mother on the bed, Stella and Chloe on the floor. Their bodies lie like mannequins, twisted and discarded. My family is a hellish tableau of corpses.

Their voices linger in the frosted air, and now I understand.

They don't want to protect me, they don't want to help.

They've lured me here to join them.
Chapter 29

TIME IS A downward, backward spiral. Carter was there at Joanie's birth, and he will send her off to death. She'll see. She'll understand why it has to be this way.

He finds her slumped on the floor with her back against the funeral bed. She's still alive, gasping small gulps of breath. She's tortured by her fear while the rest of them lie at peace.

"Why?" she cries, her chin puckered and trembling.

He wants her to understand, but words never explained a thing. She has to _feel_ that this place is where they were always meant to arrive. This house, this room.

"Aw, come on, Cart. Tell her. Tell her why you have to kill her." The stranger is a silhouette framed in the glass doors. He is just a shape – he can be anywhere in this house he wishes.

"Because we can't be redeemed," Carter says.

Joanie shakes her head, _no_. She points a revolver at him with her trembling hand. A sudden tremor of doubt passes through Carter's mind. Where did she get a gun?

"That's right," the stranger tells her. "Don't think, just shoot."

Carter should leap out of the doorway, but something won't let him move. Maybe it's pride, of all things. Pride in Joanie, that she'd manage to survive this far. That in the end, she'd be more clever than her father, more deserving.

What she doesn't realize is this: she's just playing the role that this stranger has designed for her. This has been the stranger's game from the very start. He's always been whispering betrayals with his serpent tongue.

Tonight, he shouts, " _Shoot him, you dumb bitch!_ "

The stranger's voice floods the room from every corner. It submerges Carter's head in noise. He aims the shotgun at his daughter, even though it's empty.

"No... " Joanie says. She lets her arm fall into her lap.

She won't shoot. After all this, she won't.

Carter doesn't know if she's a saint or a fool.

"Oh, for Christ's sake... " the stranger groans. He's a sudden tempest of frustrated rage, flailing a dozen limbs and screaming in a thousand dissonant voices at once.

He has failed to tempt her.

The glass panes in the French doors all shatter at once, and the storm sweeps in off the sea, invading the bedroom. A blanket of electric static drapes over Carter's body and all the lights come back on.

The stranger isn't dressed in Stephen Thorpe's skin anymore. He's found a much younger form, the spitting image of Carter himself, when he was a youth. Except for the gaping wound that barrels straight though his right eye socket.

It's Alan Whitmore. Carter's only son.

He wears the same suit he was buried in.

Carter drops his gun. The Whitmore family gun. The same gun Carter found lying next to the corpse of his twenty-year-old child. His son, another victim of that age-old family curse, that creeping and all-enveloping emotional darkness that no amount of money has ever been able to buy away. His only male heir, a suicide.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Alan asks as he lifts one of his mother's dead hands. He gazes down at her with a beatific smile.

It's the boy's real voice. Joanie recognizes it, too. She drags herself off the floor, sobbing from the pain of her gunshot wound. But when she sees her brother, it's like she expected him all along.

"It's not real," Carter says.

"Father, do not forsake me, your only begotten – " Alan starts in a mocking tone.

" _Shut up! You're not my son!_ "

"I came to take you back with me," Alan says. "All of you."

Carter has to cover his eyes to be rid of this horrendous vision. His throat is so tight he can't breathe, and his heart is being crushed inside his chest.

He knows damn well where this devil wants to take him.

"Joanie can come, too. You're all invited," Alan says.

" _No..._ " Carter pleads. His dead lay about the room, but whatever mercy he thought he delivered them was a lie. Hell has taken them all.

"Here's your chance to break the line forever, Pops. We'll all go down together." Alan spreads his upturned hands and raises them like a conductor bringing the orchestra to crescendo.

Around the room, they start to whisper. Just the faintest chant, and in some language Carter doesn't know. Latin, maybe, or older. First it's Martha in the bed, then Stella and Chloe. Their pale lips move in unison.

Joanie slaps her hands over her ears.

"Don't listen to them!" she yells.

But Carter listens. He is the receiver and the instrument. He reaches out for his last living child. She cowers, but she's backed herself against a wall. There's nowhere left for her to go.

"Please... " she begs.

But Carter knows what he must do.
Chapter 30

_COME WITH US, come with us, come with us.... _

A thousand demon voices fill my head. Even with my hands crushed over my ears, I hear their chant grow louder and faster.

My father comes toward me with his face twisted in distress. He brought us all here to be punished. For our bitterness, our bickering, our greed and lust and lying, the devil will take us.

I tried so hard to be someone else, to set myself apart...

But Father wants me dead, just like the rest of our family. I brace my back against the wall and lift myself up onto one leg. The pain is so intense, I'm only partly conscious. My eyesight seems to be frosting over.

I press my hands into his chest, but I'm too weak to hold him back. My throat won't form the words I need to beg for my life.

He clutches my head in both his hands. He's so stricken with tremors he could self-combust, but his hands are steady and firm, just like his eyes.

"You're the only one who knows better," he says.

Then my father lets me go. He steps past the line of broken glass. Out on the balcony, the wind ripples his flannel shirt.

"Dad... " I say, but my voice is so weak. He can't hear me.

The stranger sits on the edge of the bed wearing the face of Stephen Thorpe again. One leg crossed over the other, he picks glass pebbles from his pant leg and contemplates Father like he's a painting in a museum.

"Pay attention," the stranger says. "This is the best part."

In an instant Father is gone, over the edge. My stomach drops like I'm the one who's falling. I limp and lunge through flashes of pain, out onto the balcony. The wind tries to throw me over, too, but I grip both hands on the railing.

Far below, Father's body lies draped across the rocks. He's a broken shell. The sea waves crash and spit and roar at him from the foot of the slope, and I've never felt more alone in all my life.

In the bedroom, the voices of the dead have gone quiet.

I turn back to the stranger. "You did this to them," I say.

"I _helped,_ " the devil says with a shrug. "I am what I am, as the Good Book says. Let me tell you a little story about eternity.... "

I won't listen to another word. He'll twist my mind, he'll seduce me with promises and dreams, just like he did to Father. And then he'll kill me, too – I'm sure of it. He'll finish what Father wouldn't.

I almost lose faith, but then I realize the power has been restored, and the gate outside will work. If I could get through, if I could break free from the sorcery of this house, maybe then I'll outrun the devil, too.

I take a few tentative steps and grab for the revolver I've left on the floor. The gun won't hurt him, I know. I just want to keep him from getting it.

The devil, of course, has already guessed what I'll do. He twists my sweatshirt in his hand and yanks me upright. " _You silly girl, look what you've done,_ " he sings into my face.

I scream till my throat is raw. I scream against all the evils he's provoked in my family. But I don't deserve his punishment.

I'll scream out my innocence while he engulfs me in flames.
Chapter 31

BUT THE DEVIL doesn't drag me to hell.

Instead, he has a fit of wheezy laughter. He makes a show of releasing my sweatshirt, like his game is no fun without a chase.

I will fight to the end, even if I have no hope.

I hobble out of the bedroom with my wounded foot dragging limp behind me. The devil guffaws like this is all a slapstick routine.

With the lights back on, I see the smeared red footsteps I left on the staircase. Every step down the stairs is torture. I'm shivering and nauseated. I could pass out and fall, break my neck like Mother, and this house would have me after all.

Instead, I keep going. The splintered front door creaks on its hinges. The snow is already reaching over the threshold.

I take the security remote from the peg where it hangs.

The devil comes down the stairs at a leisurely pace, whistling to himself. I'm a rabbit struggling in his trap. This torment pleases him.

Outside, the weather fights to cut me down. I want so badly to lie in the snow and fall asleep forever, but a force of will keeps me moving toward the gate.

I hobble around the derelict BMW, propping my hands against it for balance. The gate ahead is more than just a gate. It's a doorway between hell and the world I left behind.

I press the remote button. The gears come to life and the gate begins to rattle open. My heart leaps at the sight... until a bent rail jams the works after only a few inches.

It hasn't opened far enough.

I can't accept this. I throw myself against the narrow opening and push one leg through, one arm, but that's as far as I can go. I'd have to crush my ribcage and skull to fit them through.

The devil strolls into the red glow of the BMW's taillights. "Uh-oh," he says when he spots me on the verge of escape. He picks up his pace, reaching out his hands like claws.

I shove at the gate with all the strength I have left. Metal groans and scrapes and my arms feel like they'll snap. The devil's sharp fingernails scrape across my cheek....

... and the gate gives me one more inch. It's enough, and I collapse into a dreamlike mattress of snow. _I'm through._ The sound from my throat might be a laugh or a cough or a cry.

The devil sticks his face through the gap, snarling like a rabid dog. Behind him, the house is nothing but a few lit windows in a field of darkness. I want to believe that's a sign of hope, of salvation.

_I'd like to believe._

But the devil mocks me. He puts on an exaggerated frown and says, "Did you really think you'd get rid of me that easily?" As I watch, he wraps one hand around a rail. Then he gives it the slightest tug.

The gate flies open with an ear-splitting screech. Damaged bars bend and snap and fling out into the night like they're nothing but plastic.

I'm already up on my one good foot, limping, crying, begging. I've been a fool. There is no escape from the devil in this world.

There's something in my path almost blanketed over with snow. The dead body of the boy I thought I loved. Nate. I can't stop, not now. I'm fleeing for my own life, my own soul.

Headlights cut through the gloom ahead. I raise my arm against the glare, but I don't look away. It's the vintage Mustang I saw on the CCTV monitor earlier. It has flame decals burning along its sides. The devil's ride.

The rest of the world is buried in winter, but this car sits clear and dry. Every snowflake that falls on its surface heats into instant steam.

I nearly collapse against its hood. An insect buzz takes over my head – exhaustion, blood loss. I feel like I'm floating away from the earth. Somehow I manage to drag myself to the driver's door and pull the latch.

When the door swings open, a rush of sulfurous heat wafts against my face and snaps me back to full awareness. Long enough that I can fold myself inside the car, pull the door shut, and slap the lock button down.

The devil comes down the driveway, waving at me like a stranded motorist. He's dangling something in his hand....

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm stealing his car. I'm getting away. All I have to do is reach for the ignition, but it's empty. No key.

The devil's at the window now. He jiggles the keys from his fingers, taunting me. Making it clear I never had a chance against him. The door lock pops up. I lean back and drift into dark....
Chapter 32

AND I WAKE up falling into an abyss.

My right hand grasps something, the passenger armrest. I'm still in the Mustang – not falling, but speeding down a wooded road. The overhanging trees form a tunnel, and the snow swirls like ash from a fire.

The devil is my driver.

" _No! Lord, please help me!_ " I cry out.

"Oh, give it up, already," the devil grumbles.

The twists and turns on the country road jostle me back and forth. Somehow, the Mustang's high-beam headlights seem to dispel the snow. I can't help but think of the Red Sea parting.

I grab for the door latch. I'll throw myself out of the car before I'll go where he wants to take me. But the door won't open. The lock button and window crank are missing.

" _You can't have me! I don't deserve this!_ " I scream.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep it down."

We must be going a hundred miles an hour, burning past speed limit signs for a quarter that speed. Any sharp turn could make us skid off the road and smash into a tree, a stone wall. There's no seat belt. I'll be thrown through the windshield.

But something else happens. We pass mailboxes, a storage facility, a flashing yellow caution light – signs of civilization. There's a welcome placard but I can't read the town's name.

The devil begins to downshift, and we're easing back into a reality I recognize. A village center takes shape among streetlights, everything closed except the bars. By the time we hit the town traffic circle, we're driving at a normal speed.

We stop in the middle of the street. The falling snow closes back in on the car like a theater curtain. The engine rumbles. The devil sets his eyes on the highest point in town – a white church steeple topped by a cross.

"Beat it," he says, without looking at me.

"What? What is this?"

"It's your stop, Little Miss Goody Goody, High and Mighty, Saint Joanie. Police station's a block down, but this is where you get off. I'm not driving past _that_." He sneers at the church.

"What am I supposed to – "

"Your pops went nuts and executed the clan. You survived, and a friendly passerby picked you up. Do I have to spell it all out?"

My mind won't quite arrange these details. I try the latch again, and this time the door pops open. I press my injured foot down through the slushy snow, expecting a crippling surge of pain. But there's nothing.

Baffled, I pull up my blood-soaked pant leg. Everything is still drenched red, but when I wipe my fingers across the skin, there's no wound.

"A parting gift," the devil grumbles, nodding at my miraculously healed gunshot wound. "I'm a gentleman, if nothing else. Anyway, you would've died innocent, and I can't have that, now, can I?"

When I lean out the door, he snatches me below the elbow. The startling heat of his grip makes me wince.

"I gotta give it to you, Saint Joan," he says. "I thought you Whitmores were a package deal. Tonight you win, but I'll be watching, waiting for you to slip. _You've been warned_."

I wrench my arm away from him. "It's Thanksgiving," I tell him, "so I guess I'll thank you for showing me what's at stake. From now on, nothing's going to drive me harder."

Satan chews on my words. They seem to leave a bitter taste.

"Kiss my ass," is all he can say before he yanks the gearshift and peels off. The door slaps shut. Black smoke spews from the muffler. He bolts down the street like a one-car drag race, headed straight past the church.

But the Mustang never gets there. It vanishes through an unseen crack between this world and the one where the devil dwells.

Where he took the rest of them, but has not taken me.

The night chill makes me shiver, but my journey's only a few more steps. I brush away the char lines his fingers made on my sweatshirt. He might be gone, but he's left behind his mark.

He will be with me, watching – but he won't have my soul.

As long as I heed the warning.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Epub ISBN: 9781786531650

Version 1.0

Published by BookShots 2017

Copyright © James Patterson

Cover photography © Shutterstock

Cover design © Blacksheep

The BookShots name and logo are trademarks of JBP Business, LLC.

James Patterson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published by BookShots in 2017

BookShots

The Penguin Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

www.penguin.co.uk

BookShots is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781786531643

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaBook