“So, Penny,” said Samantha. “We’re having some guests, and the bigger project of cleaning, organizing the place—it’s a bit too much for me alone. Matthew’s not the biggest help. Would you be willing to come on for a few weeks, at least, for just a couple hours a day? Maybe longer?”
“Of course, Mrs. Merle,” she said, with a deferential nod. “I’d be happy to.”
“Please, call me Sam.”
They settled on money quickly, Samantha offering what she thought they could afford, and Penny agreeing, even though it wasn’t much.
“First thing tomorrow, then, Sam?”
“Perfect.”
After Penny had left, Samantha sat a moment, puzzling over what she’d read, the things the woman had said. She made a grocery list, wondering about the strange gathering of guests that were coming to the house—why? Because of Avery March’s missing sister? No, something more than that. And whose idea had it been? Hers? Avery’s? Matthew’s? No. Then she had a silly thought, one that she quickly quashed.
It is Merle House who wants everyone to come back. And we are all just doing what it wants.
Stop it. All this talk about old houses and haunted lands had her losing it.
She knew better than anyone that the really scary things were often right out in the open. Sometimes sleeping right beside you.
She was gathering up her things when her phone pinged with a text from Matthew.
Hey, it read. Is Jewel with you?
3.
Matthew watched as Samantha tore up the drive in the Jeep and came to a skidding stop in front of the house. She climbed out of the car and came to stand before him.
“Did you find her?” she asked, breathless.
“No,” he said. “Her stuff is gone. Her bag, her phone. I’ve been calling her. It just goes straight to voice mail.”
Samantha gave him a look he couldn’t read and stormed past him, jogging up the steps. He followed her through the house, up to Jewel’s room.
He was worried, but he wasn’t panicking. The fact was that Jewel had done this before—sneaked out, gone off with friends, once with a boy, without telling them. It was an act of temper, of defiance, and she was plenty angry, especially at him, at their new life. It was like her to do something like this.
Samantha wouldn’t think so. But Matthew knew Jewel in a way that Samantha didn’t, couldn’t. He knew Jewel because they were just alike. It was the main reason that they didn’t get along. She would do things just to hurt him, just to scare him. That kind of behavior wasn’t in Samantha’s DNA, so she didn’t recognize it in her daughter.
“She’s done this before,” he said, standing at the door, while Samantha sat at Jewel’s desk, flipping through papers, her sketchbook, then picked up her iPad.
“What is this?” she asked, her voice taut with concern.
He came to stand behind her. Open on the screen was some kind of online Ouija board. Spelled out across the top was the word basement. Something cold moved through Matthew.
“It’s just some stupid online thing,” he said with a dismissiveness he didn’t feel.
He hadn’t been down into the deepest recesses of the basement since they’d returned. In fact, he hadn’t been down there since that game of hide-and-seek—so many years ago now.
He stared at the iPad. What had Jewel been playing with online? Had she gone into the basement? A kind of frightened paralysis took hold.
Samantha took her own phone out, dialed, and put it on speaker.
“Leave a message. I might even get back to you.” Jewel’s too-cool recorded message was tinny over the phone speaker.
“Jewel, call me immediately when you get this message.”
It was Samantha’s no-bullshit tone. Ignore it at your peril.
Then she tapped on the screen of her phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He felt like he was standing in poured concrete that was solidifying around his feet. Fear shut him down, made him stupid. He sank onto Jewel’s bed. He was sixteen again, clueless and afraid. Maybe he’d always been sixteen, had never grown up at all.
“I downloaded that tracking app on my phone,” said Samantha. “I can see where her phone is. I can access its camera and its mike.”
Spyware? That was a step beyond even what he had, the app that let him see all her texts and social media activity. He wouldn’t have thought his wife had it in her.
She waited a beat, then: “I can see where yours is too.”
He stared at her. Her face was still and pale, all the glow, all the laughter and love that always lit up her skin and her eyes gone.
“I know where you were that night,” she said. “The night I told the police you were with me.”
“Sam.”
“Shut up, Matthew,” she said so sharply it startled him. Those were not words she said often. “Just shut the fuck up and help me find our daughter.”
She held up the phone, and his heart stuttered.
The pulsing blue dot was deep in the woods behind Merle House. She was at Havenwood.
Samantha accessed the camera. They both leaned in over the tiny screen, but there was only a kind of jerking darkness. Then the mike. At first it just sounded like static. Then, as they listened, they heard quick, light footsteps. A labored breathing, the rushing sound of wind.
“Can you talk to her on it?” asked Matthew.
Samantha just shook her head. “Let’s go. Do you know how to get out there?”
Of course he did. He just nodded.
The doorbell rang then, sending deep alto chimes echoing through the whole house. Samantha was already on her way down the stairs before he even got up from the bed. On the landing he heard voices.
When he got to the foyer, there was a man and a woman standing with Samantha. It took him a second to register who it was.
His old friend Ian—and behind him Claire. They’d come.
