The Haunted

married, and even to her this felt emotionally like a separation. Her anger toward Julian only emphasized that feeling. She was furious at him for continuing to put himself in danger, even as she was afraid for him—and worried that the decision was not completely his.

But all of this she kept hidden from her children and her parents. She had to be strong right now.

Megan and James were in the two small guest rooms at the back of the house, which meant that she would have her old bedroom back. It was her mom’s sewing room now, but there was still a twin bed against one wall, maintained for emergencies, and Claire brought her own luggage in and closed the door. She sat down hard on the bed, taking a deep breath, thankful, for the moment at least, to be alone. She had never been even remotely religious, but this entire situation had caused her to examine her core beliefs in a way that she hadn’t since …

Since Miles died.

Claire looked out the window at the gradually lightening sky. What did happen to people after they passed away? It seemed pretty obvious that lives were not merely extinguished, that some of them, at least, lived on in another form. But nothing about that implied a coordinating higher power, though she wished it did, and the idea of an anarchic afterlife filled with ghosts trying to return to the order and comfort of this world left her feeling low. She thought of Miles, wondering, for what was probably the millionth time, what had happened to him after death. She had always liked to think that he was still with them, hanging around. The idea had been consoling to her, but it was no longer, and when she considered everything going on at their house, she thought that maybe she preferred for him to have simply stopped living. The idea made her depressed, and she was grateful when Megan and James pushed open her door and came into the room.

“Are you going to work today?” Megan wanted to know.

“I have to,” Claire said.

“Can we stay here at Grandma and Grandpa’s?” James asked.

“Of course,” she told them. “You can even invite your cousins if—”

“No!” they both said in unison.

“Okay. But I don’t understand why—”

“No!” they repeated.

“Fine.”

She moved her suitcase to the floor by the foot of the bed, and together they went into the kitchen, where her mother had already started making French toast for breakfast.

Julian met her for lunch at her office, and the meeting was surprisingly awkward. It was as though they were actually separated, and though, after the fight they’d had this morning, such a feeling was understandable, it still made the encounter stilted and odd.

He brought Chinese takeout, which they ate at her desk, and of course they talked about the kids. She told him that both Megan and James were upset, but that being at their grandparents’ house rather than home seemed to make them feel more secure. He was glad of that and seemed relieved, as though it was something that had been weighing heavily on his mind, but when she broached the idea that he should sleep tonight at her parents’ house as well, he quickly changed the subject.

As it turned out, the police would not clean up the loft, but they recommended a cleaning service in town that would wash floors, scour walls and remove all traces of blood from the site of a murder, suicide or accident. Julian had contacted them earlier this morning, and they were scheduled to come by in an hour. He had no idea how long such a process would take, but he’d been assured that with the steam cleaning and chemical solvents they employed, the loft would be spotless.

“And after that, you’ll come to my parents’,” she said.

There was a long pause. “I’m going to stay.”

“Still?” The anger was audible in her voice. “Why?”

He shrugged, as though it was something he could not explain and perhaps didn’t understand himself. Claire felt chilled, and she looked into his eyes, searching for a trace of anything unfamiliar, wondering once again whether he had been contaminated or corrupted by whatever was in that house.

“Julian—” she began.

“I don’t know why.”

“Doesn’t that scare you?”

He shrugged again, and what frightened her more than anything was the realization that she knew of no way to get through to him.

Shortly after he left, she received a call from one of the school district’s attorneys, wanting to talk settlement in the Cortinez case. She switched easily to lawyer mode, grateful for the distraction. She’d done a pretty good job of laying out her case for them at the hearing, if she did say so herself. She’d kept a few big guns in reserve, just in case, but she’d always thought this could be settled without a trial, and she’d purposely spelled out her best and strongest arguments in the hopes that they would see that if they took this all the way to trial they would lose. Apparently they had seen it, and after hanging up, she called Oscar and set up a meeting with the district and its lawyers for tomorrow at ten.

It seemed weird, doing such prosaic work when everything at home was so crazy, but it was also calming, in a way, and it kept her from dwelling on the events of the previous night and the impossible situation in which she now found herself.

On her desk was the stack of books and monographs Oscar had given her, the raw material of his curriculum. She was convinced there was a connection between those atrocities of the past and the violence that had happened at her house, though the exact linkage remained elusive.

Soon she wouldn’t need to worry about it anymore. Soon the house would no longer be theirs, and someone else would inherit all of the responsibilities.

But could she do that, in good conscience? Could she fob off the house on some unsuspecting sucker when she knew the horrors it contained?

She began sorting through Oscar’s materials, finding several monographs and one book that she had not yet read. There was work still to be done on her few pending cases, and she knew that should be her priority, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a short break and … look. Glancing over at the clock, she decided to give herself a half hour, and she picked up the book, flipped to the back and started scanning through the index, thinking that there were probably a lot of details that even the most exhaustive historical accounts left out.

Twenty-six

1855

Kit Carson dismounted from his horse, filled with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. He looked around at the cluster of adobe buildings, wooden corrals and barns. He had heard of this village but had not thought he would find it, as, to his knowledge, it existed on no map. Both as a scout and an Indian agent, he had come across rumors of a community built where the land was cursed, where murder and death were the consequences of occupation and where, over the years, countless massacres had taken place. It had seemed to him that such a location would be of invaluable strategic importance. If it was charted and known, enemy combatants could be led to this site, assured of imminent destruction. But he had come to believe that this place was merely a myth, a folktale created to frighten travelers in the territory, and it was only last week, when he ran into Utah Pete by the Rio Grande, that he discovered that San Jardine did indeed exist. Pete gave directions, even drew him a map, and, along with the other Utes camping along the river, insisted that the Mexicans who populated the village needed to be exterminated.

Kit’s own wife was Mexican, so he wasn’t necessarily disposed to agree with such a sentiment, but in order to obtain the directions to this place, he gave his word as a government agent that he would assess the situation, and he had brought with him a couple of Ute soldiers and a raft of volunteers. It was a small concession to make if the rumors about the location turned out to be true.

The volunteers had remained behind at the camp this afternoon, but the Utes were with him, and when he