I watched Ellie from the stairwell that day. There was a mirror on the back of her door, and I saw her reflection, and I prayed and prayed she would cut her hand. But the first time her hands would become covered in blood did not happen until just a few hours ago.
8
Maeve
She wished she had her cards, pretended to feel their comforting touch, and tried to visualize their words, the typeface, the colors, but a clear image wouldn’t form in her mind. It was like trying to grab hold of a stray dog, running out of reach when she thought she had it cornered. Anxiety always took form of a dog: her dog as a child, slipping its collar and dashing away from her, never to be seen again. But she had to let it go. Let it all go. If she wanted to get out of here alive, she had to let go of everything in the past. Let herself become someone new. Close the door on everything that had once hurt her.
“You’re a good person,” she whispered. “You’re a good person. You’re a good person. You’re a good person.”
The footsteps retreated from the cellar door. Maeve emerged from the stack of crates she’d used for cover, slicing her hand on an open pair of shears.
“Shit! Ow!”
She covered her mouth with her good hand and stared at the ceiling. The footsteps didn’t return. Quietly, she found the stack of old towels and wrapped one around the cut. Whoever was up there was not someone she wanted to meet. She turned back to the dark passage. Not wanting to be followed, she concealed the door behind her, then started down.
The stone floor and walls, illuminated by the old torch she’d found hanging on the wall, were supported by wooden beams that reminded her of the uni-sponsored trip to the Parisian catacombs, when she got separated from the group and was later found, crying of course, by a tour guide as her coach was about to leave. The memory didn’t help. Nor did the memory of Callum sitting next to her on the ride back to the hostel, giving her a warm croissant he’d bought for her while the group had waited for her to be found. In the catacombs, her only company had been the skulls lining the walls and the whispering she swore that she’d heard and confessed only to Callum.
The passage was short and ended in a set of stairs that led up to a door similar to the one in the cellar. A terrifying thought formed in her mind—what if she was still in the cellar after all? What if the door and passageway had been an illusion brought on by stress? Her panic worsened when she found the door locked. It was true. She’d lost it. A full-blown hallucination. Even her newfound strength was only an illusion. Then she remembered the key in her pocket, the one that had been in the door on the cellar’s end. She stopped hyperventilating and stuck the torch under her armpit. Then, with her uninjured hand, she fumbled the key into the lock. The door opened.
The room was an empty shell of a once grand ballroom. A row of boarded-up windows spotted the wall to her right while drop cloths lay on the floor, giving the impression the dancers’ bodies had disappeared, leaving piles of clothes behind. Her footsteps echoed to the high ceiling as she crossed the floor. She found another door to her left, but when she tried it, it was locked. Further down, she tugged at the boards covering one of the windows, but they were nailed tight. She reached the end and turned around, which was when her light caught a flash of white. When she’d first entered, she hadn’t looked behind her. Now she couldn’t look away.
From this distance, it was difficult to make out what she was seeing—something covering the back wall, like peeling wallpaper. As she stepped closer, she noticed images. They were pictures. Pictures tacked to the wall. At first she didn’t recognize what they were of. Another few steps, and they came into focus.
It was them. Pictures taken over twenty years ago: Hollis, Ellie, Oliver, Lorna, her. Some contained Callum. Others did not. And then she noticed other pictures. Ones from not so long ago. Pictures she recognized from her Facebook page and Ellie’s. Pictures of Hollis in his police uniform. And pictures that were not from online. Pictures that could only have been taken by someone on the street. Ellie walking out of Top Shop. Oliver smoking against the side of a pub. Hollis leaving a football pitch with a young woman who shared his stocky frame. Maeve kneeling in the park, talking to strangers’ dogs.
“Holy shit.”
On the floor below, what she had mistaken for another drop cloth was a sleeping bag. Alongside it, empty tins of food. A broken bottle of Drakkar Noir. That’s what she’d smelled from the cellar. Plus dirty clothes. And notebooks. Notebooks of all shapes and sizes scattered around the floor. She picked one up. A journalist-style Moleskine, mostly filled in small, blocky handwriting. Some of the words were in a shorthand she didn’t recognize and there were names, too—Landry, Catherine Marcus—that meant nothing to her. She dropped the notebook back onto the pile and chose another, spiral bound with lined paper. This was filled with a completely different but also unfamiliar handwriting, a slanted feminine script. The font was so narrow, she could only make out a word here and there. But two that leapt out at her began with big, looping C’s that appeared over and over.
Caldwell.
Callum.
Lorna
A bubble of blood escaped Caskie’s lips.
“Don’t . . . don’t do it. Juh-juh . . . en—”
His body slumped forward. Blood dripped onto his jeans. Lorna waited for his head to bounce upward. For one final gasp of life. For his breath to pierce the air. But it was over. He had choked on his final words.
Ellie stared at the corkscrew in her bloodstained fist. With her clean hand, she brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek, then placed the corkscrew on the bar. Exchanged it for a wineglass.
“Mind if I have a drink?”
Her hand shook, the red wine slopping up the sides of the glass. The rim trembled as she pressed it to her lower lip.
Lorna pictured herself flying at Ellie, knocking her to the ground, the glass shattering against the floor. But her brain had disconnected from her body. It shouted commands, but she remained as still as Caskie.
Ellie tipped the glass back as she finished the last of the wine. With a cocktail napkin, she dabbed the corners of her lips, ignoring the blood drying on her right hand.
“What. The. Fuck,” Oliver said.
Ellie twisted the napkin in her fingers.
“He knew my name.” She pinched her eyes shut, adding lines to her forehead that hadn’t existed twenty years prior.
“My maiden name. He knew the nickname ‘Hunt the—’ You know. And he knew the Caldwell Street address.”
“He didn’t say that. I don’t believe you.” The words floated from Lorna’s lips before she had the chance to stop them. Her body was rebooting, but not all the processes were working.
“He said he was trying to help. That he knew what happened at 215 Caldwell Street. About what happened to Callum. He mentioned Callum by name and said that was why he’d come. He’d been lying to us all along.”
“You killed him,” Lorna said.
“He was planning on killing us! Look. Look at his hand. He’d got one free, see? I turned my back to him when I couldn’t bear to listen to him anymore, and when I turned back around the ropes were coming undone and he was going to run at me, so I . . . I . . .” She waved her hand, then resumed tearing the cocktail napkin to pieces. “It was self-defense.”