Lisa Miscione - Twice

Again, there was nothing he could say. They both knew he and Dax had had no intention of cuffing Jed McIntyre and putting him back into custody. It was as if, because he’d managed to escape once, Jeff would never be able to sleep again until Jed McIntyre was dead. As long as he lived, Lydia would be in danger. And Jeffrey just couldn’t live with that.

“No matter how you look at it, Jeff, it’s murder. Are you a murderer?”

The word sounded as harsh and as ugly as it was and something inside him lurched. He looked at her face and she was pale and drawn. Her eyes shone with a wetness that licked at her lower lashes. That word on her lips felt like an indictment and he felt a sick shame inside.

“Not yet,” he answered, not meaning it to sound as glib as it did.

She looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between worry and disappointment. The buzzer rang and Jeff got up to answer it. “Who is it?” he called, depressing the talk button.

“It’s me,” came Dax’s unmistakable voice. “And I’ve got a pizza here. Though I don’t know what you two are gonna eat.”

“ The tunnel went down about twelve feet, then out another two hundred, and then split into three separate passages. It’s going to take a couple of men and a lot of man-hours to follow each of them and see where they lead. Not a fun job, as you well know,” said Dax between gigantic bites of pizza. Lydia counted, and it took him a total of four mouthfuls to finish one slice. Jeff had called to order another after Dax polished off three pieces in under ten minutes. “And there was no bloody way I was going down there again. Not after our little adventure today.”

“So why don’t you tell me about this little adventure?” said Lydia, looking at Jeff. “I never did get to hear all the details.”

“It was bloody awful,” said Dax. He ran down the highlights as Lydia watched him, eyes wide. She managed to nibble at her salad a little as he talked, but she’d lost her appetite. She’d been ravenous just minutes before Dax arrived.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you two were full of shit,” said Lydia, when he’d finished. “Did this Rain ever tell you who you saw down there?”

“No,” said Jeff, remembering the specter that had seemed to melt from the tunnel walls.

“I can’t believe people live like that,” said Dax, as though he resided in a clapboard house with a white picket fence, two kids, and a dog.

“It seems like there’s more than one gator in the sewers,” said Jeffrey, thinking about how strange it was that the tunnels beneath New York City held Jed McIntyre and possibly some of the answers to the Ross case, as well.

“So now we know how someone else could have gotten into the building the night Richard Stratton was murdered,” said Lydia, shifting the pieces around in her head.

“Yes and no,” said Dax.

“Right,” answered Jeff, knowing where he was going. “Someone from the inside had to move the dryer, otherwise whoever wanted in couldn’t open the trapdoor.”

“So it had to have been either Julian or Eleanor on the tape,” said Dax.

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Lydia as though she’d already given it some thought. “The person who snuck in there had to be really small to avoid the camera. And someone else had to turn it off from behind the desk upstairs. If the camera was still on, it would have captured the dryer being slid forward.”

“So two people, then?”

“Definitely two people.”

“Eleanor and Julian in on it?” said Dax.

“Or maybe-” said Jeff, looking at Lydia.

She finished his sentence. “The twins.”

Sometimes in love, arguments are better dropped. No resolution is in the offing and to continue belaboring the point inevitably causes more damage than understanding. Lydia and Jeffrey had allowed their disagreement to come to bed with them, and though Jeffrey slept soundly, Lydia lay awake staring at a small water stain that had just made its debut in the ceiling above them.

After Dax left, they’d tried to continue the discussion they’d been having before he arrived. But there was no understanding to be reached. Jeffrey apologized for frightening her, but that’s as far as he went, leaving Lydia with the uneasy feeling that if the opportunity presented itself, he’d do it again. She looked over at his sleeping form and felt an odd distance from him. She felt angry at him, and helpless. She quashed the urge to nudge him awake and fight with him until she felt better.

She was conscious of the street noise from Lafayette below them, cars speeding, the general hum that was a million conversations, electricity through wires, trains rushing through tunnels, whatever combination of myriad sounds. She’d never imagined the parallel universe that existed beneath them. Naturally, she’d heard the stories somewhere in the periphery of her consciousness. But it had never seemed real to her. Now she had to contend with the idea of a netherworld just a few feet beneath her, like the first layer of hell where her nightmare and Julian Ross’s as well stalked. The thought made her shiver.

The hem she’d seen in the video, a dark color patterned with little white hearts, had impressed her as something a child would wear. That was how it came to her mind that possibly the twins had let someone into the building. It seemed a little far-fetched, after she’d thought about it, but not out of the question. The how and why would take some figuring out. She’d see Eleanor and the twins tomorrow. Ford had said he’d work on a warrant to search the children’s rooms and find the nightgown. He couldn’t remember what the little girl had been wearing the night their father was killed. He’d promised to think about it and swing by in the morning to take Lydia up to Haunted.

She thought about getting up and searching the Internet for more information on Haunted. But she felt sleep tugging at the back of her eyes and the thought of putting her bare feet on the cold wood floor beneath her was enough to deter her. She shifted to her side and moved in closer to Jeffrey, his body heat a magnet she couldn’t resist. She closed her eyes and curled up tighter beneath the covers. She hadn’t felt the pain in her side again since earlier in the evening and she’d done a good job convincing herself it was gas or something. She closed her eyes and sleep came for her.

It took her off into a warm blackness. She dreamed that she was on a tiny wooden rowboat with only one oar. In a narrow stone tunnel, the current of a bloodred river swept the boat along and she had to hold the sides to steady herself. All around her she could hear screams, but she saw nothing except the walls of the tunnel and the river beneath her. She placed a finger in the water and pulled it back to find her hand dripping with blood. And at the sight of it, she was torn with the ache of a loss so profound that she felt she might die from it. She didn’t know what was gone, only that it had been so precious and she so unworthy. And then there was the mocking laughter of madmen, echoing against the walls. It surrounded her and she couldn’t be sure whether she was moving toward its source or away.

Haunted, New York was every bit as bleak and even uglier than Lydia had imagined it would be. The gray sky seemed committed to gloom and the trees here had already shed their leaves. Winter branches reached gnarled and high and the ground looked as cold and dead as a grave. Even the weathered and beaten old sign that read WELCOME TO HAUNTED looked as though the sun had never shone on it. Someone had spray-painted RUN WHILE YOU CAN across the top. Lydia wondered if anyone would bother to repaint or replace it.