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I bite back a gasp when I see the walls. Gruesome drawings of animals cover nearly every inch of the walls. The innards of dogs, cats, horses, birds and more are drawn with hyperrealistic detail. Pictures that would make sense in an anatomy text but on the walls of a bedroom look like the backdrop for a horror movie. These drawings weren’t here before Eve died. Nola is ape-shit crazy, I think as I back out of the room and down the stairs.
Instead of going out the front door I decide to go through the kitchen and exit through Nola’s back door in case my dad wandered into her backyard. The floor is damp with large muddy footprints. The footprints of someone who scuffed along with some difficulty. The footprints begin at the back door and end at a rug at the edge of the basement steps.
The door to the basement is standing open and a dim light glows at the bottom of the stairs. “Nola?” I call. “Nola, are you down there?” No response.
Like an invisible string is pulling me forward I move down the steps. The basement is as cluttered as ever, but I notice immediately that something is different. A table is pushed aside to reveal a pocket door, slightly open, with a wedge of light peeking through. Step by step I pick past the swollen garbage bags and overflowing boxes and bins and up to the door. “Anyone there?” I ask. I slide the door open and look inside. A heavy stainless steel table sits in the middle of the room. A small shape, covered with a sheet lies at the center of the table. It’s the size and shape of an infant. Instinctively my hand goes to my hip in search of my sidearm. Of course it’s not there.
I move toward the table. The only sound is my breathing and the crackle of electricity from the overhead florescent lights. With trembling fingers, I reach for the sheet. I pull it away and it flutters to the floor like a feather to reveal a metal tray lined with surgical tools. Scalpels and scissors and glinting silver tools with hooks and sharp points that I don’t know the names for but look terrifying.
I step backward, at once relieved and horrified. I need to find my dad and it’s clear he’s not here. I turn to leave and in front of me a cat sits as if sleeping on a shelf just above my head.
Heart pounding, I slowly move forward. The cat remains still. I don’t see its chest rising and falling. I reach my hand out to touch its tawny fur. Its jade eyes snap open and it swipes at my arm, taking a claw-full of my skin with it. I turn and trip, slamming into a tower of plastic bins beneath the stairs.
The bins crash to the ground, plastic cracking and the contents tumbling out. Glass Christmas ornaments shatter at my feet and cheap plastic garland wraps around my ankles. But there is something else that catches my eye, that renders me rooted to the spot. A human skull lolls back and forth on the concrete floor surrounded by what looks like human femurs and ulnas. I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
I watch as the skull rolls to a stop at my feet. I lower myself to one knee to get a better look. Careful not to touch any of the bones I peer down at them. There’s no way to know how long they’ve been down here. They’ve been cleaned well. There’s no sign of blood or tissue left behind but an odd odor emanates from them.
“Nola, what have you done?” I whisper to myself. I thought by aligning myself with Nola I was protecting my baby and Shaun from what I had done decades ago but instead I’ve joined forces with the devil.
I have to get out of here. I retrace my steps, with one hand holding my belly and the other slapping at the lights, I head back up the stairs. I fall twice, banging my knees on the hard wooden steps. Once at the top, I pause, trying to catch my breath. I try to tell myself that there has to be a logical explanation. Nola is a doctor. It makes sense that she would have bones, right? She’s a vet though. I’m not an expert, but even I could see those bones were human.
My next instinct is to call for backup, to get Francis here so we can process the scene, but then I stop. I entered Nola’s house as a private citizen, not as a police officer. Technically I’m trespassing.
But I can’t unsee what I’ve seen in this freak show of a house and as a good cop I have a duty to report what I’ve seen to an on-duty police officer. But I can’t deal with this now. I need to find my dad and I don’t want Nola to have any idea that I was in her home. Once I get my dad home safe and sound I will figure out what to do next.
Using my shirt, I wipe away the smear of blood on my arm from where the cat scratched me. I stare down into the dark basement and try to steady my breathing. I don’t want to go back down there, but I have to. I hurry down the steps hoping that Nola won’t come back and find me here. I do my best to sweep up the broken ornaments and replace the items, even the skull and bones, back inside their bins. I think of the makeshift surgical setup she has in her back room, the anatomical drawings that cover her bedroom walls, and shiver.
I scan the basement and when I’m confident that I’ve covered my tracks, I head back upstairs. I step from Nola’s house and warm rain strikes my face. I need to find my dad. I don’t know what to do, where to go. The street is deserted.
Suddenly I hear shouts. Moving as fast as my heavy stomach will allow, I sprint over to the Harpers’ yard.
“Stay there! Don’t move!” I hear someone yell. It’s not the order of a police officer to a perpetrator telling them to freeze, but of a person begging someone to stay still for their own safety. I bang through the gate and race through the yard, the wet grass soaking the hem of my pants. By the time I reach the far end of the yard that opens up to the bluffs, I’m soaked, struggling for breath. I have a stitch in my side.
Cam points a flashlight and through the wobbly beam of light and from about twenty feet away I see my dad teetering at the edge of the bluff. Nola is standing just a few feet away from him.
“Dad,” I cry and move toward him but Cam pulls me back. At his touch a spasm of disgust runs through me and I yank my arm away. “Dad,” I say again, taking a tentative step toward him. “What are you doing out here?”
My dad turns, barefoot and dressed in his pajamas. He squints through the glare of the flashlight and seems surprised to see me. “I’m waiting for Charlotte,” he says. A scruff of beard has sprouted on his face, giving him a neglected air. I want to weep. He looks frail, lost. His eyes shift from me to Nola. A crease forms between his eyebrows. “I know you,” he says.
“Dad, it’s the middle of the night,” I say, taking another step toward him. “And Charlotte’s in the hospital. She had a bad fall, remember?”
“I’m supposed to give her an update on the case. Every week I do. I’m supposed to give her an update,” he insists.
“She’d like that,” I say, inching toward him. “But Charlotte’s not out here. You’re all wet.” He looks up, noticing the rain for the first time. “Come toward me.” I stretch my hand out to him.
“No, I’m supposed to talk to Charlotte. But don’t worry, Maggie, I found it,” he says. As he takes a step backward the ground beneath him begins to crumble.
“Dad,” I scream. “Don’t move. Stay right there. I’ll take you to Charlotte. I promise.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m going to wait right here.”
Out of the corner of my eye a shadowy streak bolts toward the bluff and rams into my dad, causing them to vanish from the flashlight’s glow. Next to me, Joyce screams and for a second I think they have both fallen over the edge of the bluff. Cam whips the flashlight left and right, searching for where my dad and Nola landed, scanning the rocky ground and finally coming to rest on a knotted heap of limbs.
I dart toward them, drop to my knees, jagged points of rock biting into my skin. “Get off, get off!” I shout as I pull on Nola who is atop my dad. She peels away from him, breathing hard. My dad is lying on his back staring up at the black sky, unseeing. For one terrifying moment I am reminded of Eve’s eyes the night we found her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” I ask, searching for any sign of injury.
Nola gets to her feet. She is sopping wet and her dyed red hair is flattened against her head and she is slick with mud. I look up at Joyce. “Call an ambulance.” This order seems to bring my dad back to us and his eyes clear.
“No, I’m fine,” he says, slowly trying to sit up.
