Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chapter 6

As Grant stepped inside and pushed the door closed after him, Paige turned and headed up the staircase that launched out of the foyer.

“Where you going?” Grant called after her as the steps creaked under her footfalls.

“To get decent for my brother.”

A live jazz album that sounded like Miles Davis played softly from a Bose system in the living room. He caught the scent of essential oils and candles. The air was further laced with incense and the good, spicy smell of cedar burning in the fireplace.

Straight on, a hallway ran parallel to the staircase before feeding into a kitchen. An archway on the left opened into a formal dining room whose rough-hewn table—covered in envelopes and paperwork—appeared to serve the purpose of a desk rather than a place where people actually sat down to eat.

Grant hung his coat on the rack and walked through the archway on his right into the living room. There were candles everywhere. A leather couch against the far wall facing the hearth. A bookcase. Bottles and glassware glimmered in the back corner in the light of the flames—a wet bar. Along the mantle, sprigs of garland peppered with white Christmas lights made for the only decorations in an otherwise seasonally indifferent room.

As orphans, they had gone without, but even in the leanest of times, Paige could always bring a touch of class to whatever miserable living situation they found themselves in. Wild flowers poking out of a glass Coke bottle, the walls of a motel room draped with birthday streamers cut from newspaper; it amazed him what she could do with nothing. Now, he saw the maturation of her gift in the design choices she’d made. The house was old, probably pushing a hundred years, but she had accentuated the early twentieth-century crown molding and sconces with contemporary decor. The living room furniture was upholstered in black leather and sat low to the ground. Beyond the rear doorway, white-lacquered kitchen cabinets gleamed beneath recessed lighting. The only things that hadn’t been renovated were the floors and staircase—dark walnut worn smooth from a century of use. Grant wondered what kind of money she made to be able to afford such a place. But that was Paige. Whatever she did, she threw herself into it, and as much as Grant hated the life choices she’d made, damn if he wasn’t a little bit impressed.

One of the lower steps creaked. Grant returned to the foyer as Paige appeared around the corner, now dressed in something far warmer and modest—a plaid pajama top and bottom. She had let her hair down, and it fell a few inches past her shoulders. At thirty-six, those once pure and shimmering platinum locks were showing streaks of dishwater.

She’d definitely aged in the five years since their last disastrous rendezvous—a botched intervention attempt in a Motel 6 on the outskirts of Phoenix, last in a fifteen-year string of attempts to save her life. Seemed like ever since Paige had turned sixteen and dropped out of high school, she’d been on a mission to kill herself. Frankly, he was shocked that she hadn’t finished the job by now. Despite their estrangement, the threat of that next-of-kin notification phone call was a fear that never left him.

Paige had been so scantily-clad when she first answered the door that Grant hadn’t allowed himself to really look at her. Some things, a brother shouldn’t see. But now, as she cruised toward him in wool-lined slippers into the firelight, it struck him how thin she was. Borderline emaciation. The long-sleeved pajama top seemed to swallow her, and her face tapered from her cheekbones down toward her chin at angles so sharp they didn’t seem natural—the shape of her skull shining through.

Using for sure.

“Place is incredible,” Grant said.

“The rent certainly is.”

It occurred to him that he’d missed his chance to inspect her arms for needle-marks when she’d been wearing the short-sleeved kimono.

Bad detective.

“How long you been in town?” he asked.

“A year.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“But I’ve only been in this place two months.”

Grant stepped toward the small fireplace and held his hands to the heat.

“Want a drink?” she asked.

“Love one.”

She padded over to the wet bar, moving like someone with barely the strength to stand—a nursing home shuffle.

“Still a scotch man?”

“For life.”

He watched her reach for a bottle of Macallan. The lowlight stopped him from determining the age.

“Neat? Rocks?” she asked.

“What year?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Jesus. Then neat.”

She made a generous pour. Brought it over. Out of habit, he lifted the glass and inhaled. It was a gorgeous nose but flattened by the occasion.

“Seriously,” she said. “How’d you find me?”

“Dumb luck.”

“Facebook?”

“Yep.”

“My profile is only a pair of eyes.”

“But they’re your eyes.”

Grant sipped the whiskey.

Miles Davis was blistering through a trumpet solo.

The fire popping.

He looked down at his sister, a good six inches shorter than he was.

No idea what to say.

He raised his glass. “Some of the best I’ve had.”

Paige just stared at him and nodded.

Grant looked around the room as if it were his first time seeing it.

“No tree?”

She shook her head. “Think I waited too long. You have to do that kind of stuff early in the season. Before you lose the motivation.”

It was Grant’s turn to nod.

“This is weird,” she said

“I know.”

Another sip. His cheeks flushing.

“Do you visit Dad?” she asked.

“Not enough. Every few weeks.”

“I went once when I first moved back from Phoenix. That’s all I could bear. You think I’d be used to seeing him like that by now.”

“I was just there this afternoon. They had Christmas ornaments up. Slit your wrists depressing.”

He flinched inside. Shouldn’t have put it that way.

Grant could feel the scotch already beginning to soften his knees. He moved toward the couch. A mattress and blanket had been shoved underneath it. Did she fuck her clients down here by the fireside? Right on this floor where he was standing? He pushed the thought away.

“I want you to know that I thought about contacting you,” Paige said as he lowered himself onto the cushion.

“Wish you had.”

Grant sipped his drink and watched the fire.

Through the window at his back, he could hear the rain falling on the hedges.

“I do have one favor to ask,” Grant said.

She grimaced.

“Relax, it’s not a big deal. I just haven’t eaten since lunch and this whiskey is going to my head in a hurry.”

“You want me to make you something?”

“How about I make us something. Are you hungry?”

She smiled, and for a split second, it was like a window into the Paige of old. A break in the armor. “You mean like your world famous grilled cheese?”

“I have a confession to make. It’s not actually world famous.”