Chapter 57
Ingrid remembered her screaming. Her panicked hyperventilating. The way she began darting around the library as if she was searching for something or someone to wake her up and banish the bad dream in which she was locked.
She also remembered Mrs. Leimberger, shouting in her face. Arms holding her, a blanket thrown across her shoulder. Police. Flashing lights and sirens that had come for her after all. That was when she heard Sailor’s and Scoot’s screams. Those were the worst.
The seeds of an unfolding nightmare she couldn’t escape.
In the end they had to give her a sedative—the paramedics who were working in the room—because no one could contain her.
She kept running, screaming incantations.
Calling for Edie, calling the corners, and casting imaginary circles.
All she knew was that she had to do something.
Do some ritual, gather the light from somewhere in this vast house of shadows and sin.
When she felt the pinch of the needle, there were more arms to take her to a bed.
She woke a long time later in her old room, how many hours or days had passed, she couldn’t say. She was wearing crisp, men’s-style pajamas. There was a carafe of water with a glass over the opening. She poured and drank two glassfuls then struggled up to lean against the pile of pillows.
That’s when she remembered the gory X. Two bodies, lying over each other.
Blood, rivers of it, soaking tuxedos and the fine, antique rug beneath them like someone had emptied buckets of it over them.
And they were dead. She’d seen a dead body before.
Edie, gnarled and twisted from the pain of the cancer, skeletal and clenched from her fight. She knew what death looked like.
Both of their eyes had been open, like Edie’s, staring out of blook-soaked faces. Staring at her, she felt. Father and son, Rill and Cas, and she knew … she knew Miles had done it.
He’d done it because of her. To avenge her mother. To prove his loyalty. To help her spell along.
Except she’d changed her mind and told Miles she was going to undo the spell.
And she hadn’t hexed Cas at all. She would never …
Even after she’d begged him not to, Miles had gone and done it anyway …
that’s what she couldn’t understand. But then she realized her mistake.
No. He’d obviously done it even before she’d found him on the synagogue steps, smoking the joint with Boney.
He’d done it, not for her, but for himself, because he’d seen her dancing with Rill.
He’d seen and known what was happening. That he was about to lose her.
She was suddenly overcome with the weight of all of it.
The image of the bloodied bodies. The neat holes in their heads spouting those twin rivers of blood.
Their staring eyes. She felt something rising in her, a swirl of panic and terror.
The same feeling she’d had last night—the urge to run and run, away from the looming horror of what she’d set in motion.
Of what would most certainly be coming back on her.
She could never escape the Law of Three.
She may not have hexed Rill, but she’d wished harm on him.
She’d opened him up to harm, and already she had received the first of the consequences of her actions.
The vortex of horror in her chest moved up her throat, and she was unable to deny the force.
She opened her mouth and an unearthly sounding howl came out.
The door flew open and Mrs. Leimberger, in her usual gray suit, sleek bob, and glasses, appeared.
Her face was shocked and pale. Her glasses slipped down her nose.
“Miss White?”
Ingrid dissolved into sobs and turned her tearstained face away from the woman. “They’re dead,” she moaned into the pillows.
Mrs. Leimberger moved to the bed and was quiet for a moment. “I’m afraid so.”
Ingrid twisted to her, her face wet and red and contorted. “Where’s Sailor? I have to see her.”
Leimberger shook her head. “She’s with her husband. Downstairs. Miss White, please. You have to calm down. You’re not the only one in this house.”
Ingrid absorbed this. “Scoot?” she asked in a more subdued voice.
Another shake of the head. “Mrs. Loeffler was escorted back to the … facility last night.”
Oh Goddess. How cruel. Even Scoot didn’t deserve that …
“The police are here,” the woman said.
Ingrid lay back on the pillows, distraught. Sailor was alone. Yes, she had Jude, but she was without a single member of her family. And it was all because of her. This was Ingrid’s doing.
“I’ll send up breakfast.” Mrs. Leimberger moved to leave.
“I want to see her.” Ingrid flung off the covers and swung her legs around to the side of the bed. She felt dizzy; maybe the drugs they’d given her hadn’t fully worn off. “I want to see Sailor right now. Where is she?”
Mrs. Leimberger hurried to her, arms outstretched as if to put her bodily back in the bed. “Oh no, Miss White. You need to rest. To eat. And to let Miss Loeffler—Sailor—do the same.”
“But she’s all alone.”
“She has her husband.”
Ingrid’s body sagged and she returned to her spot against the pillows. “I just want to help.”
Mrs. Leimberger straightened the covers over her. “Soon enough. One step at a time. First, breakfast. And then, the police. They want to speak to everyone. Particularly you.”
She left, and Ingrid lay back, her pulse racing.
She had to see Sailor. Was her friend thinking Ingrid had had anything to do with Rill’s and Cas’s deaths?
Was she somewhere in this house, hysterical, blaming Ingrid like she had with Scoot’s accident?
She had to find out what was going through Sailor’s mind before Leimberger sent one of her minions up with a breakfast tray.
She jumped out of bed and hurried to the door, slipping out into the hallway.
She felt jittery and lightheaded. She was on the top floor, down the hall from the room where she’d first met Cas at Sailor’s engagement party.
Where she’d had that first conversation with him.
A sob made its way up her throat, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it. She didn’t have time to carry on.
She ran down the stairs, keeping close to the wall, listening for any approaching footsteps.
On the second floor, she could hear voices.
The police in Rill’s study on the floor below.
The crime scene investigators. Finding Sailor’s bedroom door, she knocked but there was no answer.
She pushed the door open and peered inside.
The room was dim and in disarray, strewn with clothes and dishes of half-eaten bagels and flutes of flat champagne.
Sailor and Jude must’ve slept somewhere else.
There were four bedrooms on this floor, each occupied by one member of the family.
Sailor might be in either of the other three, though she couldn’t imagine which one.
She slipped down the hall, peeking into Scoot’s room, done all in lavish golds, then Rill’s, with its masculine plaids.
Sailor wasn’t in either. She tapped softly on Cas’s door then slowly pushed it open.
Jude, shirtless but still wearing his tuxedo pants from the previous night, slouched in a chair by the window. He looked up when Ingrid entered the room.
“You just missed her,” he said tonelessly. “She went upstairs looking for you.”
Ingrid ran back up the stairs. At the landing between the floors, she saw Sailor and flew into her arms. The two clung to each other, trembling and crying.
Sailor was in a T-shirt and leggings. She smelled rank, like sweat and alcohol and dirt.
Smeared makeup creased her forehead and ringed her eyes.
She hadn’t even washed her face. She was heaving out sobs and fragments of sentences.
“I can’t … they don’t … why would …?”
Ingrid held onto her as tightly as she could. “I’m here, Sailor. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to find who did this. We’re going to make them pay.”
Sailor finally turned her loose. This close, in the light of the window on the landing, Ingrid could see how puffy and red her face was. How huge dark circles ringed her eyes. Ingrid had never seen her look this destroyed.
“The police want to talk to us,” Sailor croaked.
“I know. Mrs. Leimberger told me. Will we have to go down to the station? I need to go home. Shower and dress and feed Litha—”
“No,” Sailor said, a wild, unhinged look in her eyes. “They won’t make us go to the station. They’ll talk to us here. But Ingrid, please … I don’t want you to leave. I need you. I need you here with me. Can Miles take care of the cat? Can you stay?”
There was a loud bang, like a piece of furniture had been toppled, then the slamming of a door. Startled, Sailor jumped, then burst into a fresh round of hacking, hiccupping wails. Ingrid embraced her.
“Of course,” Ingrid said. “Of course I’ll stay.” She held her friend at arm’s length and looked deeply into her wrecked eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, Sailor. I’ll never leave you.”