Out of the Darkness Read online

  She made Steve and herself lunch. She wasn’t hungry. It was something to do to appear normal. Matt started to follow her with his empty plate, but when Steve motioned for him to stay, Matt returned to his chair.

  Steve talked to the agent, then said, “Hold on a minute,” and covered the receiver with his hand. To Matt, “How’s your real estate law?”

  Matt’s convoluted path to becoming a literary agent started with his law degree and first job with a firm specializing in copyright law.

  Matt shrugged. “If it’s a standard real estate contract, it shouldn’t be difficult.”

  Steve flashed him a thumbs-up. “Can you have it sent over today?…Great! I’ll call my bank as soon as I get off the phone…Yes, tomorrow at three will be fantastic. Just put a map in with the paperwork…Wonderful, see you then.” He hung up and clapped his hands. “Sami!”

  She stuck her head out of the kitchen, alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing!” He laughed. “Tomorrow at three we sign the papers. They’ll send them over today so Matt can look at them. Can you get me my address book? I need to call the bank and arrange for the money to be wired.”

  She retrieved it, wondering if buying the property would make the situation better—or worse.

  “What clause were you trying to get them to drop?” Matt asked.

  “They changed their mind when I offered them more money. The agent isn’t stupid—that meant a larger commission.” Steve took the address book from Sami. “Thank you.”

  He looked at Matt. “Apparently, the owner wanted to keep the right of first refusal to get the property back. They said the owner usually insists on owner financing instead of purchasing outright. I offered them extra to take the clause out. If Sami ever wants to sell, I want her to be able to do it without any restrictions.” Steve located the number and dialed, leaving Matt to chew on his friend’s peculiar wording.

  If Sami ever wants to sell. Not we—Sami. As if Steve somehow already sensed he was losing her.

  Steve finished his calls and relaxed on the couch, the medicine taking effect. Sami set his sandwich on the coffee table and pulled it close enough he could reach it. Pog eyed it, drooling, until she ordered the dog back to the kitchen.

  “Thanks, babe.” Steve caught her hand, squeezing it.

  Matt swallowed a wave of jealously and thought Sami winced. She obviously didn’t want Steve touching her.

  Steve missed it entirely. “A courier will bring the contract by this afternoon. You can go through it, and we’ll all go to their office tomorrow for the signing. This is great!”

  Matt thought Sami looked like it was anything but great.

  “That’s good they can do it so quickly.” She was a good actor. That almost sounded normal.

  Steve picked at his sandwich. “If you guys don’t go soon, the afternoon rains might start. Better get going.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Matt changed into jeans. Sami was grooming Jeff when he reached the barn. “What the hell was that about?” he asked. “Wanting us to take a ride? How is that supposed to help us act normal?” He took the brush from her and finished while she caught Mutt.

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t my idea. He seems bound and determined to send us on errands alone together.” She tied Mutt and started grooming him.

  Matt saddled Jeff and adjusted the stirrups. “I feel like I’m going to jump out of my skin around him. Maybe I should take off after you sign the papers tomorrow. I can get a room in Tampa—”

  “No!” Her ferocity startled him. He looked at her over the horse’s back. “You are not leaving!”

  “Sweetheart, I can’t stay here forever. And I do have business in Tampa.”

  She shook her head violently. “I will not stay here alone in this house with him, do you hear me?”

  “Calm down.” Matt worried about her, concerned she couldn’t pull off the charade. “Give everything a few days to settle. You’ll feel better.”

  “I won’t feel better until the divorce is final.”

  “Sam, you said you could do this.”

  “I didn’t know how hard it would be.” Her eyes glistened, and she angrily brushed the back of her hand across them, throwing the curry comb into the box, spooking both horses.

  “Sam!” The force of his voice startled her. “Sam,” he said again, gently, “you can do it. I have faith in you.”

  She studied him for a moment before reaching for another brush. “I hope you have enough faith for both of us.”

  * * * *

  She led the way to the main road before turning north toward the campground. They let the horses race, and in a few minutes it was easy to forget Steve dozing on the couch at home. She showed him the lake. Matt charged ahead down the hills and up again.

  “That’s fun!” He laughed, patting Jeff on the neck. “God, these are great trails!”

  She led the way to the top of the ridge where they enjoyed the view. “Be careful of the cable,” she said, pointing it out.

  “That would be nasty to get tangled in. I’m surprised they haven’t removed it.”

  “Bikes probably don’t have any problems with it.”

  The surface of the lake lay still below them. With few bikes in the park, the sounds of birds and the breeze stirring the trees provided a soothing soundtrack.

  “Why did you let me go?” she quietly asked.

  “What?”

  She turned in the saddle to face him. “Why didn’t you fight for me to stay?”

  Matt looked away. He’d asked himself the same question on too many sleepless nights. “You wanted me to promise you something I couldn’t at the time. I didn’t want you to leave, but I wasn’t going to lie and tell you what you wanted to hear just to keep you. If you wanted me to fight for you…I’m sorry, but I’m not a mind reader.”

  She was silent for a few minutes. “I almost walked out of the church before the wedding,” she admitted.

  He met her gaze. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Steve needed me. I didn’t think you needed me.”

  “I didn’t need you. I wanted you.” She said nothing. “Sam, I’ve always loved you, I told you that. I didn’t want anyone but you. You’ll never know how hard it was for me not to speak up when the preacher asked if anyone had objections.”

  They sat there for a few minutes. Sami broke the silence. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For wasting so many years.”

  He touched her hand. “It’s what you needed.” He gently turned her face to his. Leaning in the saddle, he kissed her. “I am a complete person. I don’t need someone else to make me whole. Steve did. I won’t deny you probably saved his life. But I want you by my side. I want you to be my wife. I think that’s more important, to be wanted, not needed. If you want me to fight for you I will, but you have to tell me that’s what you want.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I want.”

  * * * *

  An hour into the ride, they turned west and followed the park’s outer fence south. She pointed. “That’s the back road to our house.” They continued south.

  “Where did you hear the voices?”

  She stiffened, her whole body tense. “We’d have to go back to the cemetery and start from there.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “I don’t want Steve to see us.”

  “Steve’s probably zonked out on the couch.”

  “Yeah, but if Pog sees us, he’ll bark.”

  “Good point. Is there another way?”

  “Let’s backtrack from the day-use area. I need to pick up the mail anyway.” She urged Mutt into a canter. Matt followed. At the gatehouse, Matt held her reins while she dismounted and went inside.

  It took Sami a few minutes to find the trail. Once she did, she remembered the way. They located the clearing.

  “I don’t see anything,” Matt said.

  “Neither did I. It’s what I heard.”

 
They dismounted and stood there listening while the horses grazed.

  Nothing.

  From the distance, they heard traffic sounds on the interstate, and one of the few bikes in the park. No screams, no crying.

  “I guess it’s too much to expect it to happen when we want,” Matt said, swinging up on Jeff’s back. “Can you show me the cemetery?”

  She led the way.

  * * * *

  Steve watched them ride off. Hopefully he’d have at least an hour.

  It looked like they tried to arrange the desk close to the way he’d had it. He appreciated it, but he had a mission.

  He logged into his computer and found the file he had open when he passed out. He wanted to know if he’d truly gone crazy or if it had been a fever-induced delirium. The file was as he remembered it, except without references to Sami and Matt.

  He let out a huge sigh of relief and closed the document. Then, he started to delete it, and noticed the last save time in the details.

  That morning.

  His finger paused in midair. The time was early, before Sami arrived at the hospital. It could have been her.

  Or Matt.

  The familiar rage buzzed. He closed his eyes against it. No, he wouldn’t do this. He would not give in to it.

  Out of the darkness, he heard the voice.

  Poisonous whore!

  “No!”

  Gonna teach you and those kids a lesson!

  Steve slammed the laptop shut and backed away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. God, he needed a drink! He tasted the whiskey…

  No!

  He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it. No. He never drank whiskey before.

  No.

  But it tasted so good all the way down.

  “No!”

  The desk—but it wasn’t there. What was it about the desk? There was something…

  He tried to put his finger on it, bring it into focus, and couldn’t. So many hours shut up in here, so many lost hours. Time he couldn’t account for.

  Like when he’d been drinking.

  The basement!

  The thought gave him hope. He started down the hall, then hesitated.

  What was in the basement?

  He thought long and hard. Something in the basement…

  Jesus, I’m so confused!

  He turned back to the stairway to the second floor. He put a steadying hand on the banister and looked up the stairs. Well aware of the pain it would cause, he slowly mounted the steps, one at a time. Midway up he paused, expecting something…but nothing happened.

  In the master bedroom he stood in the doorway and studied the room. The bed was made, missing the pillows on his side, the iron frame looking as it normally did. The third dresser drawer was minus the knob. He spotted it on top of the dresser and picked it up, thinking he might fix it.

  A vision hit him. She tripped and Matt caught her. Sami standing there in her yellow Sandusky T-shirt, the one they got at the park two years earlier when they went for the weekend, the one she liked because it was so huge on her. They looked at each other and she kissed him…

  Steve’s eyes snapped open and he dropped the knob.

  “No!”

  Good drugs combined with a very overactive imagination.

  He would not give in to this. It wasn’t happening.

  Steve backed toward the doorway. He needed to lie down on the sofa, and go to sleep.

  A vision appeared, a naked woman with curly red hair, tied to the bed, fear in her eyes—

  “No!” He squeezed his eyes shut. “It is not there. It is not real!” Steve opened his eyes and the vision had disappeared. He let out a breath. Just really good drugs and a really vivid imagination.

  Instead of going downstairs he went to the guest room, where the door stood ajar. Nothing out of the ordinary here either. Matt’s things lay on the dresser. Loose change, his Ohio keys, a couple of grocery store receipts.

  No visions.

  Steve felt stupid. What did I expect? He pulled the door shut behind him and went to the guest bathroom. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  He walked in and used the toilet. Washing his hands, he turned to look for a towel and spotted the glass on the floor behind the tub.

  * * * *

  Matt shivered when they entered the clearing. He felt the air almost perceptibly change. “Do you feel that?” he asked.

  She nodded. “It feels like the house did before Julie did the first ritual.”

  “I wonder if it always felt like this, or if whatever was in the house is now out here?”

  “Better out here than in there.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, but we don’t want it going back into the house, either.”

  “Good point.”

  “Any idea where the well is?” he asked.

  “No. Not sure what it’s supposed to look like.”

  They picked a trail and slowly worked their way back to the house. They crossed another access road that was little more than a firebreak and spotted a forestry pickup truck parked a few yards away.

  “Hey, let’s ask him,” Sami said.

  “There’s no way it could be that easy.”

  Tom Jenkins was dragging a fallen tree limb off the path when they rode up.

  Sami introduced Matt. “Tom, I was wondering about something. I’ve been doing research on the house’s history. Do you know where the old well is?”

  Tom removed his gloves. “Why on earth would you want to know that?”

  “Research. I’d like to see it, if possible.”

  Tom looked from Sami to Matt and back again. “Not much to see,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of years making sure no one knew where the damn thing was. Too many people wanting to hunt down mysteries. Some people are downright gruesome, like those idiots who think Charles Manson’s a neat guy.”

  “Tom, I assure you, we won’t advertise the location.”

  He considered. “I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm to show you. It’s not far. Follow me.” He climbed in his truck, and they trailed him nearly all the way to the main road. He parked and motioned to an overgrown trail where several large branches blocked the way. “I did that deliberately, on the other end, too. This trail got too close. Trail goes unused long enough, it gets overgrown. People don’t ride it because they always have to duck or get swatted off their bike, or stuff grows in the trail and hides it. You can’t go in on horseback. Tie them to my bumper, they’ll be okay. We’ll be right back.”

  They followed as he picked his way around the makeshift blockade. A deep layer of pine needles and leaves blanketed the trail. Small saplings had sprouted in some places. In others, palmetto bushes were taking over, forcing them to pick their way around. In a few years, the trail would be totally erased.

  “The cemetery is that way.” He pointed. “About one hundred yards. Keep an eye out for snakes, there’s rattlers in the park.” He climbed around another, much older, blockade of branches, and pushed his way through a palmetto thicket. They came across a cluster of three very tall slash pines, larger than most in the park. About eight feet up, each tree bore a blackened, V-shaped gash. “Cat marks,” he explained. “Turpentine. They used to harvest the pitch from the trees, sort of like they do to get maple syrup up north. Run by the mine when it was still here. There’s not many trees left in the park with cat marks on them. These trees are old.”

  The three trees bordered a small, bare depression. Tom knelt and brushed away a deep blanket of pine needles. Beneath it lay a crude concrete disk, a loop of steel rod embedded in the top.

  It looked heavy. Sami wondered how they’d get it open. Maybe Julie won’t need to get into the well.

  “Probably two hundred pounds, at least,” Tom said, answering Sami’s unspoken question. “Head office wouldn’t let them seal it permanently. Groundwater studies, they said. Had to keep it accessible. Not that anyone’s opened it since they laid the cover. My grandfather oversaw it himself.”


  “When was that?” Sami asked.

  Tom scratched his chin. “Within a year or two after Lisa Prescott was killed. Right around in there sometime.” Matt helped him re-cover the well. “Like I said, not much to see.”

  “Thank you for your time, we appreciate it,” Sami said, untying the horses back at the truck.

  “No problem. How’s your husband?”

  “He’s home from the hospital. He’s still in pain, but that’s to be expected.”

  The ranger nodded. “Give him my best. Well, have a good day.” He drove off and they mounted.

  “That was easier than I thought,” Matt quipped, following her to the main park road.

  “Sometimes, the easiest solution is the obvious one. Can you remember how to get back there?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  She nodded. “I think so. I can look for those trees.” She turned and pointed behind them. Sure enough, Matt spotted the tops of the three trees.

  “Good idea.”

  A frazzled-looking young woman in a small compact car pulled alongside them on the main road. “Can you help me? I’m looking for the Corey residence.”

  “I’m Samantha Corey. That little car doesn’t like the dirt road, does it?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t think I’d make it, at first. I hope getting out is easier. Can I give you the paperwork?”

  “Sure. It’ll save you having to drive to the house.” The girl handed her a thick, heavy, legal-size manila envelope.

  “I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” They watched the girl struggle to turn the car around. Luck smiled on her, as it was a fairly firm stretch. She made it.

  Sami tucked the envelope into her backpack and checked the time. “I didn’t realize how late it was. We’d better get back.”

  * * * *

  Steve stared at the glass. No problem. Sami liked to soak in this tub. Nothing unusual about that. She probably brought it up here and forgot it after her bath.

  He picked it up. It looked like watery orange juice.

  He sniffed. Curious, he tasted. Orange juice, soda water, and—