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Inside, she shined the intense beam of her LED flashlight up the massive staircase, over the wider lower steps, past the landing and upward to the open railing of the floor above. Illumination splashed on the darkened balusters caused shadows to play on tattered wallpaper.
Her throat closed.
Her chest tightened.
She remembered descending the stairs that night with the strains of “Silent Night” and the winking lights of the Christmas tree guiding her.
“Glories stream from heaven afar.”
Her insides grew cold.
“Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia!”
Oh. God.
Her insides clenched.
Glancing back at the open door, she thought about running back outside, breathing fresh air, escaping the horror of the past. What was the point? Did she really think she could unlock her subconscious so some long-hidden memory would emerge, that she could change what had happened?
The past was the past.
Dead and gone.
She couldn’t alter anything.
Beside her, Tate was moving his flashlight’s beam past the scarred floorboards of the foyer and into the living room.
Kara’s gaze followed the beam across the floral pattern of the faded carpet. The blood had been cleaned, as it had in the foyer and staircase, but she saw the shading in the pattern and in her mind’s eye she saw the room as it had been, the winking lights, the haunting music, the grotesque bodies of her brothers and the blood, all the blood.
“Christ the Savior is born!
Christ the Savior is born!”
Her stomach heaved and she ran outside, down the two steps of the porch, to double over. Vomit rose, her eyes stung with tears as she lost everything she’d eaten that day into the snowy drifts. “Oh . . . oh, Jesus.” She blinked and found Tate beside her.
“We really don’t have to do this.”
“I know!” she snapped, spitting, her mouth tasting foul, her nose filled with the acrid scent of bile. “You keep saying that, but you’re wrong.” She spat several times. Help me, she silently prayed, then, straightening, she let out her breath and glared at him. “Just forget you saw that and let’s go.” Steeling herself, she marched up the two steps to the front porch.
Today she was going to face her fears.
Today she was going to deal with the past.
Today, no matter what she had to face, she was finally and forever putting the ghosts of her past to rest.
* * *
Footsteps?
Voices?
In the dark attic of the big house at the lake, Jonas froze, his gloved hands deep in the bowels of an old console circa 1963. It was a long, sturdy piece that had once housed not only a bubble-faced television but also a stereo with a hidden, deep-set turntable and slots for records, several in dusty jackets still visible. The long console had been his grandmother’s prized possession with its sleek lines and speakers hidden behind panels covered in thin gold cloth. And it had proved to be the perfect hiding place.
All he’d had to do was open the lid, reach inside and unlatch the lock that held the turntable in place. Once released, the turntable, on a huge spring, rose quickly upward, ready to be stacked with vinyl records and leaving below it an empty space, a hidden niche where he’d hidden a fat manila envelope twenty years earlier. He’d half expected the packet to be long gone, discovered either by the police after the massacre or vandals or squatters since. But he’d gotten lucky. The manila envelope, about the same color as the blond wood and fraying fabric of the cabinet, was still where he’d left it hidden by the turntable.
His heart had soared.
Hallelujah! Halle-effin-lujah!