The Unseen

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The three of them refused to budge from the room, in case the pool “became active” again, so they were seated stiffly in the embroidered straight-backed chairs with the pool of water at their feet.

“We both feel you should know,” Laurel looked from Katrina to Tyler. “There’s more that’s gone in this house than we knew going into this investigation. There was a murder/suicide here—a sister and a brother, Caroline and Paul Folger. Paul Folger was discharged from the army because of paranoid delusions—he suffered from schizophrenia. The family kept him here instead of institutionalizing him….” She glanced at Brendan, who was pointedly not looking at her. “They kept him in this house for fifteen years, until the sister killed him and herself on the same day.”

She looked from Tyler to Katrina. They were watching her, Katrina with a blank and unreadable look, Tyler with a faint smile. He raised his eyebrows, as if inviting her to go on.

“The Duke group who came here in 1965 did so after a report of poltergeist activity. It was an experiment—the one that we’re duplicating. It ended… badly. The researcher in charge of the investigation died, and as far as we’ve been able to determine, at least two of the student participants, maybe all three of them, suffered severe mental trauma.” She paused to let that sink in, and looked again from Tyler to Katrina.

“I’m sorry for my part in bringing you here, because I feel strongly that we don’t know enough about what we’re dealing with and we need to terminate the experiment and leave this house.” She looked around at all of them. She could feel Brendan bristling beside her, and Katrina’s contempt, rolling off her in waves. Tyler was studying her, a thoughtful, curious gaze.

“This guy… this researcher—,” he began.

“Leish,” Laurel supplied.

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Leish. You mean the guy who wrote that article?” Laurel nodded. “How did he die?”

“We don’t know that. But he died in the same month as the experiment.” Laurel could hear the agitation in her own voice.

“And then what happened?”

“Well, the lab was shut down, and the files were sealed. They were only recently opened, in fact.”

Tyler leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked intently at Laurel. “I don’t think I get it. Those things happened—when?”

Brendan spoke before Laurel could. “Over forty years ago. Both of them.”

Tyler barely glanced at him, his attention was completely on Laurel. “So you’re thinking—we’re in some kind of danger from that? Forty years later?”

Laurel found her certainty wavering, just as when Brendan had asked the same question. It did sound far-fetched when anyone said it aloud.

She looked at the reflection of the group in the cloudy mirrors on the walls.

“Is this because of that trauma imprint you were talking about?” Now Tyler did look at Brendan.

“It’s one of the theories,” Brendan answered. “That an imprint of trauma—an echo—can remain in a house.”

“And it could hurt us?” Katrina was taking her cues from Brendan; her voice fairly dripped condescension.

“I have never read or seen any proof of that. Ever. We wouldn’t be here if I thought that,” Brendan assured her.

“So what do you think got imprinted, Dr. MacDonald?” Tyler asked. “Are you saying that the murder/suicide got imprinted on the house and somehow caused someone else’s death? Or caused someone else to go nuts?”

I don’t like the coincidence, Laurel thought.

“It is a creepy coincidence, I guess,” Tyler said, and hearing her own thought voiced, she started, staring at him. “But it was forty years ago. Could an imprint last that long, Dr. Cody?” he said, turning to Brendan with that fake, interested-student look.

“It’s a paranormal theory,” Brendan said. “There’s no proof about any of these things.”

Laurel again felt caught in an undertow, mocked, and helpless to do anything about it.

“Well, seems to me that in the interest of science we should be staying right here and doing our job,” Tyler said, with exaggerated seriousness. Without budging an inch, Katrina gave the impression of having moved even closer to Brendan. “Especially with what we’ve seen this afternoon,” Tyler added disingenuously, giving Brendan an obsequious look, completely false. “We can’t possibly abandon the mission now.”

The three of them looked up at Laurel from their chairs, united. Laurel stood quietly, then dropped her head. “All right.” She turned and walked from the room.

Just as she reached the archway, Tyler said behind her: “Where did they keep the brother, by the way?”

She stopped and looked at him. “I don’t know, Tyler.” She moved out of the room, inwardly flinching as she had to pass through the arched doorway.

As she climbed the stairs, Tyler’s question echoed in her head. “Where did they keep the brother?”

“I don’t know, Tyler.”

In the entry beside the staircase, she stopped and looked out on the garden.

But don’t you?

Laurel walked down the upstairs hall, now nearly dark in the deepening twilight. But instead of going into her room, she continued on toward the middle room with the narrow door. Brendan’s room.

Paul Folger’s room.

She reached out for the knob—then there was a flicker of white in the corner of her eye. She spun around—

And gasped at the sight of a pale figure standing in the dark of the hall. Katrina stepped forward. The blond girl looked Laurel over disdainfully.

“Why don’t you just leave, Dr. MacDonald? If it’s bothering you so much? Why don’t you just go? Why stay? Just go.”

Laurel was breathless from the venom in the girl’s words.

Why don’t I? I will.

So she packed. She stalked past Katrina, back to her bedroom, where she slammed the door behind her like a teenager and stood in the middle of the floor. The sun was sinking behind the trees outside, darkening the room, and she switched on the light.

Without giving herself time to talk herself out of it, she strode to the clothes cabinet. The door was shut and as she reached for the knob, she froze, suddenly overcome with trepidation, an almost paralyzing fear that she’d open the door and find… something—her clothes on the floor again, some other sign of derangement.

And what if they are? she told herself impatiently. What difference does it make, now? You’ll be out in fifteen minutes. Just pack up and go.

But she literally had to force her hand from her side. She twisted the knob and pulled open the door.

Her clothes were lined up on hangers, perfectly normal.

She pulled her suitcase off the floor, opened it on the bed, and grabbed an armful of clothes.

Downstairs she stopped in the archway of the great room with her suitcase and looked in on them without stepping through the doorway. They were lined up at the monitors, now looking at footage of themselves seated on chairs watching the pool.

Laurel cleared her throat. “I’m going now. If anyone wants to come with me, I’ll wait.”

The three of them simply looked at her, with no discernible expression.

She turned with her suitcase and went to the door.

Outside, twilight was darkening the sky between the tall spikes of pine trees. The cold, spicy smell of sap was in the air. Brendan followed her out into the drive. “Laurel, you can’t drive in the dark. How will you even find your way out of here?”

She ignored him and got into the Volvo, beside Tyler’s Maserati.

The car wouldn’t start.

She sat in the driver’s seat, with Brendan standing outside. She turned the key over and over again, but there was nothing but clicking. Brendan peered through the window from outside, tapped softly on the glass.

She put her head on the steering wheel. They’ve sabotaged the car, she thought wearily. They’re not going to let me leave.

Brendan opened the car door. “Come on,” he said. “Get out.”

Defeated, she pulled the key out of the ignition, slid out of the car, and stood. To her surprise, Brendan took the key from her, got into the car. He turned the key in the ignition and it started immediately. He got out and held the door for her, but as she moved past him he caught her hand and held it. “Please don’t.” They stood in the dark, not moving, not looking at each other. She could feel his breathing, could feel his heat in every cell of her body. “At least… stay tonight.”

And she knew that no matter what, she was staying: she was caught, and it was not the house that had caught her.

When Laurel finally stepped away from him and turned toward the house, Katrina stood framed in a window of the great room, watching them.

She didn’t talk to anyone on her way up the stairs, just went to her room and stayed there. But when she heard them going up the stairs she slipped back down herself and checked all the doors.

Locking someone out—when in all likelihood whatever they had to fear was already in.