Page 42 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow

Thirty-Three

A whimper bubbles up in me, and I rock there, telling myself I’m wrong, Josie isn’t dead.

Not dead? With that wound?

Then I’ve lost my mind. It snapped when my aunt disappeared, maybe even before that.

Yes, this is the answer. Gail was right—I killed those animals and chopped them up, my father’s dark side finally bubbling to the surface.

The rest has been a fever dream, where I’m wandering around the property alone, scenes playing out in my head, and now I’m imagining Josie is …

Josie is dead. She is dead, and I am here, awake, lucid.

“Josie?” My voice comes out as a whimper.

This cannot be happening.

First Gail, who had only tried to help me. Now Josie, who’d done the same. Funny and clever and lonely Josie, making me feel as special as a shy first grader who catches the attention of the most vibrant girl in class.

Josie.

I drop to my knees beside her. I stare at her beautiful face, always so alive, every expression writ large, from her joy to her worry to her fury.

Josie, exploding with decades of repressed anger toward her father and hurt, too, because he’d proven to be everything she’d always feared, and she was finally going to stand up to him and make him tell the truth and—

Rage creeps in as my gaze rises to Smits, holding his daughter’s hand and saying her name.

Josie. Sweet Josie. His only child. Maybe the one person he’d actually loved. And he’d killed her. As much as he loved her—adored her—he still would not back down and just tell her what the hell he did with Ben. He fought knowing she had a loaded gun—

“Get away from my daughter.”

Smits is rising, his voice a rasp.

“Get the fuck away from my daughter, you twisted piece of Payne shit.”

“What?”

“You and your family. You’re all alike. Lording it over us, using us, making us kill people for scraps of what you already have. A little bit of luck, that’s all we ever wanted. Enough to get by, while you hoarded the rest for yourselves.”

“I had nothing to do—”

“You’re a Payne,” he spits. He’s on his feet now, and I get to mine, very aware of Josie’s gun near his feet.

“You came back, and I played my role. The Smits role. I looked after you. I let my own daughter come here when she wanted to get to know you. I thought that was good. The next generation. Give you time, and then I’d tell you the truth, and you and Josie would take over, and it would be the way it used to be.

Do you know what that makes me?” He lunges toward me. “A goddamn fucking fool!”

I stand my ground, watching the gun, ready to run if he reaches down for it. He doesn’t. Even in his grief, he knows better.

“You did this.” He jabs a finger at Josie.

“As sure as if you pulled the trigger. You are your mother’s daughter.

Your fucking sainted mother, who screwed me in every way possible.

A coldhearted bitch who didn’t give a damn about me.

Not about you either. She pulled me in by claiming she wanted to protect you, and I got that.

I wasn’t a dad yet, but Liz and I were trying, and I desperately wanted a child, and when I had one, I knew I’d do anything to protect her.

But it was never about you. It was about making sure your mother didn’t get sick.

She bonded you—her only child—and then took all the benefits.

All of them, aimed toward saving her from her family curse.

” A harsh laugh. “All that work, and she’s in a care home at fifty, already losing her mind. Serves her fucking right.”

I can’t respond. Can’t move. My blood runs cold, not at the revelations, but at the certainty that, finally, he is telling the truth. His daughter is dead, and he no longer cares enough to lie.

“You staged those dead animals,” I say. “You said my mother told you about Austin tormenting me and you—”

“I didn’t do that.”

“But you staged the hatchet and bloody gloves. The wet clothing. You wanted leverage, in case I didn’t go along with your plan to take over the nekkers.”

He only sets his jaw.

“And Austin?” I say, though it’s not Austin I care about. It’s someone else, and a truth I can see, cold and bright in the dark. “What happened with Austin?”

“Your mother found him, trampled by the horseman. I wanted to drag him into the lake before anyone knew, but she said no, we had to use him for the ritual that night. So I hid his body. Only your dad, out looking for the brat, found him … and then you found your dad. I think he knew. Suspected anyway. He had some inkling that your mother was responsible, and he was burying Austin to protect her. You told your mom, who told me to handle it. And she told me how to handle it.”

“Kill my father,” I whisper. “Make it look like suicide.”

“That’s the kind of woman who whelped you. She murdered your father and wrote that note and destroyed his memory, and he hadn’t done a damn thing to deserve it. He was trying to protect her by burying that brat.”

I sway, the earth threatening to open under my feet.

My father was a good man. A decent man. A wonderful father who loved me and absolutely did not kill anyone, and I knew that. In my soul, I’d always known, and I’d betrayed him by letting my mother convince me otherwise.

My grandfather had been right.

I want to scream at that. Scream hysterical laughter.

The old bastard had figured it all out. Found the letters.

Linked them to those old stories of the horseman, legends passed down as family lore.

He’d realized they were true and my mother was at fault and my father died for nothing, and what had he done?

Let me be raised by a monster. Let me give up my dream of med school and live in squalor to help a woman who didn’t deserve it.

Sent me here, to face the truth … or die trying.

You fucking horrible bastard. If you could die again, I’d kill you myself.

No, I’d drag his sorry ass here and let the nekkers take him.

I look down at Josie’s body, and my rage at my grandfather evaporates.

Josie is dead. Gail is dead.

And Ben?

“Ben,” I croak. “What did you do—?”

Smits snarls and lunges, sending me falling back.

“Ben Vandergriff? Who the fuck cares what happens to that waste of fucking cells. He let his brother climb out the window and run off, and then it all went to fucking shit. Do you know that, girl? This is all Ben Fucking Vandergriff ’s fault, because he was a lazy good-for-nothing brat who sat on his porch smoking a joint while his brother escaped.

The kid came here, and he hurt you after dark and died for it.

Then you found your father burying him, and that was the end.

Everything gone to hell. Your mom came back once for another sacrifice, but it was already too late.

She wasn’t here often enough. The magic had ended—for both of us.

I was stuck here as a fucking sheriff, and she lost her fucking mind. Because of Ben Vandergriff.”

“You feel guilty,” I whisper as it hits me. “You see Ben, how much he’s suffered, and you feel guilty.”

“Why would I feel guilty?”

You do. Deep in that twisted brain, you feel guilt, and you don’t know what to do with it.

He continues, “It’s his fault and yours.

You were a stuck-up brat who couldn’t handle one little boy with a crush.

You got scared, and the horseman came, and then you saw your father burying the kid, and it was all over.

If Ben had done his job and you hadn’t been a snotty brat, everything would have been fine.

But what happened to Ben? Was he punished?

No, he got this cushy caretaking job that I asked for.

If I’d gotten it, I could have kept up the magic, but no, your grandfather forbid me to come out here and gave the job to the dumbass teen who let his brother die. ”

Smits steps toward me. “If it weren’t for you and Ben, my luck wouldn’t have gone south.

My daughter would have had the money to go to a real school and move away to a real job and not be lying…

” His voice breaks. “Lying in the fucking dirt. Where you should be. Where Ben Vandergriff is going to be.”

He smiles, an ugly, teeth-baring thing. “Ben will be reunited with his brother. As soon as the nekkers come for him.” He looks up. “As soon as it’s full dark.”

I turn and run.

“Had enough, little girl?” Smits shouts after me. “Maybe I can’t touch you, but I can make damn sure you go to prison for the rest of your life. Killing your aunt, Josie, Ben … Guess it runs in the family!”

I’m not fleeing to the cottage. I’m finding Ben. Smits said that the nekkers would take Ben when they came at full dark. That means he isn’t dead. Not yet.

Smits has put Ben somewhere to be taken by the nekkers. Not killed by the horseman, because Ben never hurt me. Instead, Smits must be using him as a sacrifice, following the ritual in the book. Ben is out here, on the property, probably near the shore, immobilized and waiting for the nekkers.

Waiting for full dark. Which is coming fast.

I race for the lake and burst out of the trees, hoping to see that it’s lighter here. It’s not. The sun has fallen below the horizon, and its light is sliding from the world.

“Ben!” I shout.

If Smits left him awake, he would have gagged him, but if Ben hears me, he can make a sound. A muffled cry. A kick against driftwood. Something. Anything.

I run blindly along the shore, knowing I need to slow down and search properly, but I can’t. The sun is gone. The moon is out. Ben is here, somewhere, about to suffer the same fate as the others, dragged into the lake to become a nekker, like his brother.

He didn’t do anything, I want to rage. He has done nothing except suffer for what happened all those years ago, with Austin, and he did not deserve that either.

He is blameless. But so was Josie. So was Gail. So was my father.

So was everyone dragged into the lake. All those people that Smits killed for my mother.

He also murdered my father. On my mother’s orders.

I can’t process any of that. Focus on finding Ben. Get to Ben before—

A shape rises from the water, less than a hundred feet away. A figure, a little shorter than me, huge eyes fixed on me as he bears down.

Austin.