Chapter Fifty-Two
Amber
Standing on the steps to Marion Roberts’ home, I’m surprised to see her son, George Roberts, answer when I knock on the front door.
“C’mon in,” he says, evidently expecting me. “Mama’s in the back.”
Following Declan’s brother, we pass through a narrow breezeway attached to the kitchen, then the dining room, the living room, and what he calls the television room.
Good lord, this is a long house.
We finally emerge onto a back porch where Marion Roberts—an average-size woman with graying curly hair and pastel-blue eyes—sits rocking back and forth in her favorite wicker chair.
“Welcome, Amber, is it?” Marion asks, and a wave of confusion sweeps over me.
“Oh, don’t worry a bit. Kent called George and said you might be coming by.
My Georgie came down to wait for you. He seems to think you’re a particularly troubled young lady.
” Marion’s as blunt as they come. Her father never wasted time with fluff, and neither does she.
“So, what is this craziness about you and my Declan?”
“Gee, I don’t know where to begin. I’m trying to find out as much as I can about your son, Declan.” I find myself unexpectedly flustered as I stammer.
“Well, okay then. You’ve come to the right place,” Marion says with a smile. “There’s nobody who knows more about Declan than his mama. What is it that you want to know?”
“I won’t waste your time with any of the small stuff. I’m sure you’re a busy woman,” I reply. “I don’t know what has happened, but lately I’ve felt like I’m missing something, like something isn’t—”
“You know what might be a good idea, Amber?” Marion interjects. “You should go down and take a look at my boy’s room. I bet you’ll find all you need to know down there. I’ll have Georgie show you.” She gives a quick nod and George motions me back into the house.
“This way,” he says, guiding me back through the previous rooms, across the breezeway, passing the door I entered through, and out into the garage.
The Roberts have lived in this home for more than four decades.
The tall house was built when a local contractor purchased and leveled the orange groves where the village of Felicitas now sits.
As the only multi-story home in the neighborhood at its inception, it sits back from the street in a dark corner of the world.
It’s also the only home with a quasi-basement hidden beneath its foundation—a space Declan converted into a bedroom as a teenager.
The air is chilled and it’s easier to watch movies at night with everyone else sleeping two floors up.
As a bonus, it gave Declan the illusion of living entirely on his own.
Standing in the middle of his makeshift bedroom, it’s easily the perfect place to be if you want to be left alone.
I enter by descending a set of wobbly wooden stairs beneath a rusted metal door in the center of the garage floor.
The room remains pitch-black when George closes the door behind me.
I estimate the light switch must be about ten feet away.
However, even when I flip it on, the cold, damp space feels irrefutably spooky.
“Hello?” I call out, but no one answers.
This was a stupid idea, Amber.
For a moment, I consider retreating. But, despite my gut telling me I should go, I decide to look around.
The bed is neatly made, but the linens look old and grimy, like they haven’t been changed in quite some time.
Turning my attention to a nearby bookshelf, old pictures of Declan, some high school trophies and an empty glass are all covered in a layer of dust. I grab one of the photos and wipe the grunge from the glass to find a baby-faced Declan, no more than ten years old, smiling in a new baseball uniform standing by home plate.
He was a cute little shit.
The thought trips me into imagining how our children might look. Will they have his little butt chin? His big pearly eyes? His somehow stupidly cute misaligned front tooth? Just the one, though.
Taking a step back to see what else I can find, I hear a dull click, followed by a light shining from around a corner to my right.
My initial thought is George must be messing with me.
However, as I look about, I realize there are no other windows or doors through which he could have gained access.
There’s a small vent on the far wall ahead, about a single foot wide and another foot tall, but there’s no way he’s fitting in there.
That can’t be George.
Growing more concerned, yet still not deterred, I quietly step forward, turn the corner to my right, and find a sole television sitting on the floor in the corner with the screen lit by a snowy glow.
“What in the...” I whisper to myself as I move across the room.
As I approach the TV to turn it off, the volume jumps from a subtle noise to a blaring roar—the static like shish kabob skewers stabbing my eardrums. I press the power button to silence the noise, but nothing happens—it won’t turn off.
Instead, I rip the power cord from the wall, returning me to the eerie silence of a cold and damp cellar.
When the pain in my head subsides, I try to make my way back up the stairs.
What the???
I bang my fist on the door when it stubbornly refused to open.
“Hello!” I call out. “Open the door. Let me out.” Still, it doesn’t budge.
Heading back down the stairs, I rush to the vent.
“Hello. Somebody help me,” I shout. “I’m trapped!” I can only hope the duct leads somewhere other than an outdoor air conditioning unit.
At the young age of seven, my best friend was a ginger-haired, freckle-faced, bony little girl named Terri Biffle.
Her family moved into the house next door a couple of years earlier, and with a few other children on the block, we became friends by circumstance.
Nevertheless, we ran back and forth, rolled around in the dirt, and played with toy tea sets like all sisters do.
My father entered his name into a drawing for a new refrigerator-freezer, the kind with self-sealing doors, at the local hardware store, and he won.
It was a very exciting moment for him. The delivery men carried the new appliance into our home, and at the request of my mother, removed the old lever-locking unit, leaving it on the curb for trash pick-up.
The day after the new fridge was installed, Terri and I were playing Hide & Seek.
I was a ninja-grade hider, while Terri was a less than stellar seeker, especially with her undiagnosed Attention Deficit.
On that particular day, my hiding spot was so good, even the police couldn’t find me.
Poor Terri felt terrible about her lack of seeking skills.
It wasn’t until the garbage men came by the next day that anyone discovered where I had gone. When the man at the back of the dump truck opened the old refrigerator on the curb, checking for dead animals or broken items, he found seven-year-old me curled up in a ball inside, barely breathing.
I hate small spaces to this day.
Starting to feel claustrophobic in Declan’s subterranean bedroom, I pace back and forth across the chilled space, still occasionally shouting.
It’s possible he forgot about me. Right?
My palms are sweating, and I can’t help thinking this is all part of some sick plan to take me hostage and eat my bits for dinner.
Is this even Declan’s room? Is this even Declan’s family? Is Declan even Declan?
I shake my head when tears begin welling in my eyes for the umpteenth day in a row.
Stupid woman.
But then I hear the muffled sound of doors closing above, and footsteps nearing the metal doors.
“Sorry about that, Amber,” George says from the upper landing. “The door locked when I closed it. I have to go get the key. I’ll be right back.”
I’m relieved. I’m not going to be cut into a million pieces and fed to Marion and her cats. Anxious, I turn off the light and start back up the stairs, and again, a light clicks on behind me with the obnoxious sound of eardrum-shattering white noise.
How is that even possible?
I unplugged that damn thing. Nobody has come or gone. Nevertheless, I turn around and dart back down the stairs and around the corner, where I find the snowy TV glistening in the dark.
I didn’t plug that back in. Did I? No, definitely not.
Determined not to spend another moment at the Roberts’ house, I sprint back up the stairs, where George is opening the door.
“Get me the fuck out of here,” I spew, pushing by him in haste.
I trudge back across the garage, into the breezeway, out the front door, down to the curb, and into my rental, where I turn the ignition and peel out.
Fuck those people.
Two miles down the road and I slow down enough to find my cell phone among the disarray of my purse. I brandish the smartphone like a winning bingo card, earnestly commanding the device to call Declan.
DAMMIT!
Voicemail.