Page 56
Story: I'll Be Waiting
The hairs on my neck rise. A male voice drifts from somewhere in the house.
Anton?
It’s male, but too soft for me to tell anything more.
The voice continues in that whispering undercurrent, just distinct enough that I can follow it. When I reach the basement door, I stop, pivot slowly, and then twist the handle.
Locked.
The voice comes again. It’s farther down, near the back of the house.
I keep following it until I’m approaching the breakfast nook.
There’s a light on in there. A wavering light.
The voice has stopped, but it soon starts again, something between a whisper and a rumble. Undoubtedly male. Undoubtedly not Anton.
Brodie Kilmer?
What if he’s been in our basement this whole time, with a key to sneak up at night.
No, if any of us thought there was an actual chance Brodie Kilmer was still in the house, we’d have taken the door off its hinges to check.
Maybe we should have done that anyway.
I take one careful step toward the breakfast nook and then stop as I see the figure seated at the table. It’s Cirillo, still dressed in his golf shirt, but with his hair messy enough that he looks as if he rolled out of bed. He has glasses on, suggesting he usually wears contacts.
He’s at the table, with all of his equipment. With the photos and mementos.
With my husband’s ashes.
For a moment, even though he’s facing my way, he doesn’t see me. He’s too engrossed in what he’s doing.
Somebody staged that newspaper in the dumbwaiter and lured me in with the creaking of the pulley. Somebody who’d dug deep enough into my background to uncover my past.
Who would be looking into me like that?
The guy I’d hired to contact my dead husband. The researcher who had to be sure I wasn’t some crank out to embarrass him.
So… after setting up that newspaper, he’d now be openly sitting in the breakfast nook talking aloud, where I can find him and wonder why he’s awake?
I can understand Cirillo researching me, but what would be the point of staging that newspaper?
What would be the point ofanyonestaging it?
I think back to what I experienced.
A newspaper article… just like in Jin’s story about his grandmother.
Dripping blood… just like in that story about Roddy and Sam.
I heard a rope in the pulley… but there isn’t a rope on it.
I saw blood dropping and felt it hit my cheek… but my cheek is clean.
I’m losing it.
I roll my shoulders. No, I’m not. I’m on edge after the séance, and I imagined the article on Patrice and Heather and the dripping blood, because I just dreamed ofthatséance.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56 (Reading here)
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134