In the Dark of the Night

And all those people bought, which meant her shop had to be ready for the onslaught of antiques buyers, which meant she needed Ellis’s help.

So where was he? She knew he hadn’t told her of any plans to spend the night at Adam Mosler’s place, because he knew perfectly well she would have said no.

And that, she decided, was precisely why he hadn’t asked. But if he thought that by not coming home he was going to get out of helping her unpack the five crates of furniture that were waiting in the back room of the shop, he was dead wrong.

Carol picked up the phone and dialed Adam’s number.

Cleve Mosler answered on the first ring with the kind of ragged hello that told her that he, at least, had had too much to drink last night. But that, fortunately, wasn’t her problem. “Hi, Cleve,” she said, trying to mask her disapproval of Adam’s father with a voice that was a little too bright. “It’s Carol Langstrom. Sorry to bother you so early, but does Ellis happen to be there?”

“Nope,” Cleve Mosler said. “Adam came home about two this morning, and he and I are going to have a little chat when I get home from work. But he came home alone, and he’s still asleep.”

“Okay, thanks.” Carol hung up the phone, the first pangs of real worry beginning to sprout in the back of her mind. Adam came home at two in the morning? Had Ellis been with him? And if he was, what had they been doing?

Drugs?

Absolutely not. At least not Ellis.

A girl?

There’d been no evidence of a steady girlfriend. Not yet, anyway. At least, not that she knew of.

Drinking? She started to dismiss that possibility, too, then revised her initial “no” to “maybe.”

But even if he’d been drinking, where would he have gone? Probably not back to Adam’s house, because Cleve Mosler was the kind of drunk who was quite capable of taking a swing not only at his own son, but at anybody who happened to be there when he got angry. And, despite his own habits — or maybe because of them — Cleve Mosler wouldn’t tolerate even a hint of alcohol on his son’s breath.

Carol took a sip of coffee as she tried to decide what to do next. Other than his friendship with Adam Mosler, Ellis had never given her anything to worry about. In fact, he was the kind of boy any mother would be proud of; he worked hard, and at least until now had always told her where he was going and with whom.

So for him to not call and not come home was totally uncharacteristic.

Which meant something was wrong.

Thoughts of an accident occurred to her. But if something had happened — something that could have put him in the hospital — someone would have called. And it was the same if he and Adam had done something that would have gotten them in trouble with the sheriff. Maybe in Milwaukee or Madison a teenage boy could get in trouble without anyone calling his mother, but not in Phantom Lake. In Phantom Lake, no news was definitely good news.

Then where was he?

Two possibilities came to mind: his father’s house, or Chris McIvens’s.

She picked up the phone again, but before she dialed, she caught a glimpse of the clock — she was now going to be late opening the shop.

She’d call Chris’s house from work.

She finished her coffee, then wrote a note for Ellis in case he came home before she found him. Call me the minute you get home!! She underlined the six words three times, stuck the note to the refrigerator with a woodpecker magnet, put the eggs back in the refrigerator, wrapped up the sausages, rinsed her coffee cup in the sink, then grabbed her purse and keys and went out the door.

But as she drove the few blocks to work, her feeling of worry kept growing, and no matter how much she told herself that nothing was wrong, that Ellis was just being a typical irresponsible teenager, deep in her heart she didn’t believe it.

Ellis just wasn’t the kind of boy who would have taken off for the whole night without calling her.

If he could have called, he would.

Something had happened.

Something bad.

Chapter 19

AS SOON AS his mother left with Marci, Eric began loading breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. Meanwhile, Kent, who had gotten there just after Merrill and Marci left, picked up the telephone and dialed Tad’s cell number. “Hey, you okay?” he asked when Tad answered on the first ring.

There was a moment’s hesitation before Tad said, “I guess,” and an even longer one after Kent told him to come back to Pinecrest. “If you guys want to go into that room again, go ahead,” he said just as Kent was about to start the “Can you hear me now?” routine. “But every time I go in there, I have nightmares, and after the last one, I’m not sure I want to know anything more about what’s in there.” “Don’t you even want to find out why we’re having nightmares?” Kent asked, but Tad didn’t take the bait.

“No,” he said, his voice taking on a desperate tone. “I just want them to stop. Call me when you want to do something else,” he finished, and hung up before Kent could argue with him.

Kent clicked off the phone and set it back in its cradle. “He’s scared.” Eric shrugged as he rinsed the last plate and put it in its slot in the dishwasher. “Maybe he’s right — maybe we ought to leave all that stuff alone.” Kent’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Are you kidding me? We don’t know the half of what’s in there.” “Yeah, but —”

“But nothing!” Kent broke in. “So Tad’s scared. Does that mean you have to be, too?” He paused, looked straight at Eric, and played his trump card: “C’mon, Eric — you turning into your mother?” Kent knew he’d ended the argument even before Eric spoke.

“Okay,” Eric said, “but if it gets weird—”

“It’s already weird,” Kent shot back. “That’s what’s so great about it.” Eric added soap to the dishwasher, set it running, then followed Kent across the lawn toward the carriage house. But as he walked, his eyes kept moving back to the spot where they’d gone into the woods.

The spot where the bloody cudgel still lay in the brush.

He tried to tell himself that it didn’t mean anything — that they didn’t even know what the heavy stick might have been used for. Maybe it hadn’t been used to hit a human being at all — maybe someone had clubbed a rabbit, or a beaver or something. Yet even as he tried to reassure himself, he knew that it was something else, that however the bloody weapon had come to be there, it had some connection to their dreams.

And some connection to the hidden room in the carriage house.

First, the scalpels.

Then someone had left Tippy’s mutilated body at the sheriff’s door.

Now the bloody club…

But it didn’t have anything to do with them — it couldn’t have anything to do with them.

They’d been asleep.

Or had they?

Now he was remembering the time they all lost whenever they went into the hidden room. The time that had passed as quickly as if they’d been asleep. Yet they hadn’t been asleep.

What if last night—

He put the thought out of his mind, unwilling even to think about what it might mean. They’d all been at home, in their beds, asleep. Whatever had happened in the woods had nothing to do with them.

And besides, the stuff in the hidden room was just that — stuff! Old stuff that Hector Darby had probably collected because he was as crazy as his patients.

“I think I’m starting to figure out why Darby collected all this stuff,” Kent said as they came to the carriage