“God, slow down—”
He was already out of the car, heading for the front door. He rapped on it hard before he’d even looked for a doorbell button. When he spotted that, he jammed it with his index finger.
Charlotte wore a worried expression as she watched from the car. She reached for the coffee and took another sip.
Paul knocked on the door again. And for a second time, he rang the bell. No one came to the door. Charlotte watched as he peered through the window in the door, using his hands as a visor to get a better look. His shoulders slumped. He turned and walked slowly back to the car.
“What?” Charlotte asked as he settled into the passenger seat.
“I looked inside. The house is empty. Cleared out. Not a stick of furniture. They’re gone.”
Charlotte gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry.”
“You could find out, right?” he said.
“What?”
“Who owned the house? And where they went? Do you know the agent who had the listing?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“If you can get a name, wherever they’ve moved to, I could call them.”
“Sure,” Charlotte said. “I could do that.”
Paul frowned. “You don’t sound crazy about the idea.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“What? What is it?”
“I said I would do it.”
“I can tell by your voice you don’t want to.”
Charlotte said nothing for several seconds, then shifted in her seat so she could look at her husband more directly. “The thing is,” she said, her voice softening, “maybe where the typewriter came from doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“The only way it would matter is if we were to accept that — I don’t even know what to call it — there was some kind of supernatural or psychic or whatever connection between the typewriter and anyone who might have used it. And Paul, I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t make any sense.”
“You saw the message,” he said, bristling. “You saw those words. We weren’t dreaming when we saw them. They were there, on that piece of paper.”
“I know.”
“And I can’t find anything to suggest someone got into the house,” Paul continued. “I mean, yeah, Josh has a key, and maybe Hailey has a key, for all we know, but that shoe, Charlotte. That shoe, I’m pretty sure it hadn’t moved.”
“I know,” she said again.
“So what’s your solution, then?” he asked her. “If nothing else makes any sense, how the hell do you think those words got on that page?”
She looked away, turned the key, and started doing a three-point turn on Laurelton.
“Answer me,” Paul said.
“I wonder, and I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I wonder if it’s possible there’s one other explanation,” she said.
“What?”
“Did you ask Dr. White if it was possible to be partly asleep and awake at the same time?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “She said maybe.”
“So think about that.” She guided the car out of the neighborhood and headed toward her office.
“Just spit it out,” he said.
“If you could hear something that really wasn’t there, maybe you could do something you have no memory of.”
“Oh, fuck,” he said, turning and looking out his window.
“You stayed downstairs a long time last night before you came up to bed. Maybe you nodded off before you joined me. Or maybe you got up in the night and I didn’t hear you.”
“You think I typed that note.”
“All I’m saying is that you need to consider the possibility.”
He didn’t speak to her the rest of the way. A block away from her office, she said, “Look, I’ll run you home. You don’t have to get a taxi.”
“Just fuckin’ drop me off anywhere.”
“Please, I never meant to—”
“Save it,” he said.
She pulled into the parking lot of the real estate agency. Paul got out without saying another word and slammed the door.
Twenty-Five
“I’m sorry, I don’t have an appointment,” Paul said later that morning to Dr. Anna White. “I know I was here only yesterday.”
Anna had a surprised look on her face when she found him at her door — everyone had to ring in now, no walking straight into the waiting room — looking distressed. “Paul,” she said, “I’ve got someone coming in five minutes, but what’s wrong?”
She invited him in and guided him into her office.
“Sorry to just show up,” he said again.
“What’s happened?”
He hesitated. “Let me ask you something, and I need you to give me a straight answer.”
“Of course.”
“Do I strike you as someone who could be totally delusional?”
“What’s brought this on?”
“I’m pretty sure Charlotte thinks I’m losing my mind.”
“I don’t believe that. Why would she?”
“Something really strange has happened and I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Just tell me.”
So he told her about finding the sheet of paper in the typewriter with the message written on it.
“I see,” Anna said slowly.
“I don’t like the sound of that ‘I see’ very much,” Paul said. “My theory is, well, it’s pretty out there, but I think Charlotte has one that’s a little more down to earth.”
Anna nodded slowly. “That it’s you? That you typed it yourself?”
Paul nodded slowly.
“Do you think that’s possible?” she asked.
“No,” he said quickly. But then he bowed his head, and added, “God, could it be?”
“Talk to me about that.”
“Charlotte has never heard the typing in the night. I’m the only one. I mean, yeah, I suppose it’s possible I dreamed it, even though it seemed very real.”
“Okay.”
“But a message in the typewriter, that’s totally different. That’s something you can hold on to. It’s concrete. Charlotte saw it just as clearly as I did.”
“Let’s try to look at this logically,” Anna said. “If we accept the fact, as I do, that there are no spirits or supernatural forces actually at work in our world, except in the movies and in the pages of Stephen King novels, then we have to consider that the stresses you’ve been under are manifesting themselves in creative ways you may not even be aware of. And you have, in the last week or so, made a conscious decision to revisit the circumstances of Kenneth Hoffman’s attempt to kill you.”
“So I typed that note and don’t even know I did it.”
“I think we have to look at that as a possibility.”
Paul ran a hand over his mouth and chin. “Charlotte and I had this entire conversation yesterday about the dry cleaning that I have no memory of. There are texts I don’t remember sending. And, of course, those typing noises in the night, before an actual note showed up. But composing a crazy note and not remembering it, that’s something totally...”
“I could do some research on it,” Anna offered. “People have done some amazing things while sleepwalking. A lot more than walking. People have been known to get in their cars and drive around with no memory of having done it. I think if someone could do that, typing out a few words is not such a stretch.”
Paul let out a long breath. “Well, whatever I’m doing while I’m asleep is making me crazy while I’m awake.”
Anna looked ready to ask something but was holding back.
“What is it?” Paul asked.
“Is your house secure?” she asked.
He nodded.
“So you don’t think it’s likely that someone could have entered the house and put that note into the typewriter.”