“Paige was in your dream?”
“And she was smiling. Something about it was off, though.”
Grant glanced back at his sister sleeping peacefully in the ember light.
Sophie said, “She asked why I wasn’t talking to her. Then I woke up. What do you think?”
“Honestly? Sounds about right considering the day we’ve had. My dreams sucked too.”
“It was more than a nightmare, Grant. I know what a dream feels like.”
“What was it then?”
“Communication.”
“Oh. You think our friend upstairs wants a word?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I promise you I’m not, but would we be having this conversation if it had told you to come up and crawl under the bed?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s what it wants.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what I see in my dreams. It wants me in that room. Under the bed.”
“So it’s talking to you too.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m not going in there to find out.”
“We don’t have to. What if we just stay in the hall? Try to talk to it through the door.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?”
“What’s the alternative? Do nothing while our little world in here continues to fall apart?”
“We’re not doing nothing, Sophie. Tomorrow, we’re gonna track down Janice Williams and find out what happened to her. Maybe that blows everything open for us.”
“And maybe it doesn’t. The clock is ticking. It’s a matter of time before you and I are officially MIA. And what about Don? You know Rachel has already reported him missing.”
“Look, I’m aware of the stakes, okay? But I’m not ready to start chasing dreams. I say we stick to whatever shreds of reality we still have left. That’s where we’ll find our answers.”
“You don’t know the first thing about what’s going on here so don’t pretend you can tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not.”
“Fine,” he said. “What if it is trying to talk to us, and all it really wants to say is ‘I’m gonna torture and kill you assholes.’ Then what?”
“Then we confirm what we already know. And I’d rather know—good or bad—than remain in this state of total darkness we’re in right now.”
She had a point.
It wasn’t the first time.
Their options were exhausted, and the idea of waking up in this house, of spending another day in this prison, was more than he could face. A time would come when it would be too much. When it would break him. He could feel that moment fast-approaching.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll wake Paige.”
“No.” Sophie grabbed his arm.
“Why not?”
“Just let her sleep.”
“This is a big decision. She deserves to be involved.”
“Let’s just you and I go up.”
“Is it because of your dream? Because you think she’s playing some part in this?”
“I don’t know. Just a gut feeling that it should only be you and me.”
• • •
Grant unlocked the bracelet around Sophie’s ankle and gave her a hand up out of the chair.
“No cuffs?” she said.
“No cuffs.”
She lit a pair of candles while he went to the sofa and pulled the Glock out from between the cushions.
He waited until they’d reached the foyer before digging the magazine out of his pocket, driving it home, and jacking a round into the chamber.
Sophie went up first, the steps creaking under her bare feet.
It was ungodly cold and the chill intensified the higher they climbed.
By the time they reached the second floor, it was freezing, their exhalations pluming white in the candlelight.
They rounded the corner and stopped.
The door to Paige’s room stood shut at the far end of the corridor.
Grant could hear the rain drumming on the roof.
The elevated boom-boom-boom of his heart.
Nothing else.
He was wide awake now, operating on sensory overdrive—everything heightened but his diminished sense of sight.
Sophie headed down the hall and he followed.
They passed the small table at the midpoint and continued on until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, the door looming three feet ahead.
Grant kept swallowing, trying to make his ears pop, but they wouldn’t.
Sophie whispered, “Go ahead.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“I don’t know. What are you waiting for?”
“This is weird.”
“Aren’t you used to weird by now?”
“Should I knock?”
She shot him a look. “Take it seriously.”
Grant cleared his throat and took a step forward.
“Is anyone in there?” he said.
They barely breathed.
Thirty seconds passed in silence.
“Guess we have our answer,” Grant said, turning to leave.
“Try it louder.”
“I feel like I’m just talking to a door.”
“Don’t you ever pray?”
“Not anymore.”
“Pretend there’s something on the other side that can hear you. Show it respect.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Get closer.”
He turned to her. “You want to do this?”
Grant stepped up to the door again, so close he could feel the icy draft issuing from the crack at the bottom. He braced himself on either side of the frame.
“This is Grant Moreton. I’m Paige’s brother. She’s the woman who lives here.”
He looked back at Sophie.
She nodded him on.
“Can you tell me what it is you want?”
He put his ear to the door.
Silence again.
No sound on the second floor but the rain striking the roof.
“This is Ouija board shit,” he said.
“Keep going.”
“What do you want?” Grant said, louder.
No answer.
“What. Do. You. Want.”
Grant felt Sophie’s hand touch his shoulder. He was beginning to churn with the first bubblings of rage, a mad impulse creeping in to kick the door in, Glock drawn. Shoot the room to pieces.
“Why won’t you let us leave?”
Nothing.
Yelling now—”Why are you here?”
Sophie grabbed his arm but he ripped free and beat his fist against the door.
She said, “Maybe you’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Are you asleep? Are we disturbing you? ‘Cause you’re sure as hell disturbing us.” He punched the door. “Wake up and talk to me.”
He turned away and started back down the hallway.
When he reached the table, he glanced over his shoulder and stopped.
Sophie still stood facing the door which was bathed in the light of her candles.
“Hey,” Grant said. “You’re my light source. Come on. We’re done here.”
She didn’t move.
“Sophie?”
She looked at him, and then back at the door.
When she shouted, it startled him so much he flinched.
“What are you?”
Her voice raged through the second-floor corridors, and its echo had not quite faded into silence when every light in the hallway blazed on with a retina-burning intensity.
The building rumbled as the central heating kicked.
A ceiling fan above Grant’s head began to whir.
The phone in his pocket vibrated to life.
Sophie faced him, shielding her eyes and squinting against the sudden onslaught of light.
She had just opened her mouth to speak when a noise from below rushed up the staircase and drove a spear of terror through Grant’s heart.
A scream.
Paige.
The Glock was in his hand and he was running before he’d even thought to react, socks sliding across the carpet as he turned the corner, his shoulder crashing into the wall.
He righted himself and bolted for the stairs.
Took them two at a time, his footfalls pounding down the steps.
Five from the bottom, he jumped.
His sock-feet hit the hardwood floor of the foyer and he skidded to a stop under the archway that opened into the living room.
Paige stood beside the recliner holding Sophie’s purse.
She looked bleary-eyed and horror-stricken.