Eight

“Every house has one?” I asked, and Luke nodded. “Where?”

“Kitchen. First drawer on the left,” he said.

I flew off the couch, tripping over Luke’s feet. He reached out to steady me, and I flinched. Being sheltered was the last thing I wanted. I wanted confirmation, proof that this town was as messed up as I thought it was.

I yanked the drawer opened and grabbed the book. The same worn cover, same emblazoned title staring up at me. I opened it, trying to find the page I’d just read. I missed—but not by much—and had to scan the next dozen pages before I found the chapter I was looking for.

This one had notes. The name “Joseph” was handwritten in the margin with dates scribbled next to it, each one referencing a specific punishment. Three lashings for not bowing his head during the blessing of the meal. Five for coughing during Sunday services. Eight for wetting the bed when he was six. They’d gone so far as to count the bruises and mark them down like tallies on a score sheet. The more bruises, the bigger the welts, the more favor you were shown from God.

I went to turn the page, mumbling about the other medieval forms of discipline outlined, when Luke snagged the book from my hand and tossed it back into the drawer. “Trust me, Dee. You don’t want to read that.”

“Did you?” I asked.

Luke’s hand was fixed on the drawer, his fingers tightly clenched against the knob as if it might open on its own. “I read enough to know it’s not good.”

“Why didn’t you wake us up the minute you found these? We could have left right then, been miles from here already,” I said, wondering why he’d bothered to waste time reading the damn thing.

“It’s dark out, Dee. Call me crazy, but in the light of day I can see what’s coming at me.”

That fact that he thought something would be coming at him—at us—was messed up and completely in line with my own fears.

I looked up at the ceiling and tried to imagine the kid who lived here. The one who’d been beaten. There were three bedrooms upstairs, or so I’d been told. Luke and Mike had searched them last night. They’d insisted there was nothing upstairs but some beds, and that it was as sparse as the main floor. Now, for some insane reason, I needed to see for myself.

I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Mike and Luke were behind me, each hurling their own set of questions in my direction. Yes, it mattered what was upstairs, and no, I wouldn’t feel better leaving well enough alone. Ignoring their pleas to stop, I headed for the first room on the left.

Luke was right; this room contained nothing but the ba-sics. There was a large bed in the middle with a white quilt covering it. A cane-backed chair sat next to the nightstand, and a pine bureau rested against the far wall. It was bare, not so much as a lamp or a bottle of perfume sitting on it. Even the mirror that should’ve hung above it was missing, replaced with a giant wooden cross. These people weren’t simply religious, they were zealots.

Luke came up behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Slow down for a minute. What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” I said, walking farther into the room.

I opened the closet, half expecting a dead body to fall into my arms. Instead, I saw a row of perfectly ironed clothes and smelled the faint hint of bleach. Shoes lined the floor—four pairs, all the black, tie-up, dressy kind. I backed up to get a view of the wooden shelf above the clothing rod and caught a glint of something shiny. Standing on my tiptoes, I slid my hand across the shelf, hoping to ease it forward. Cursing, I pulled my hand away and brought my finger to my mouth, tasting blood. Whatever was up there was sharp.

“Let me see,” Luke said, holding his hand out for mine.

“No, it’s fine. Just get me whatever is up there.”

Luke didn’t have to stretch to reach the top shelf. He stood back to get a clear view, then grabbed it. He stared at the objects for a second before holding them out for me to see: a stack of shallow metal bowls and what looked like a scalpel. I eyed the razor-sharp knife nervously, then went for the bowls.

“What are these, dog food bowls?” I asked, wondering why somebody would store them with their clothes. From what I knew of the downstairs, there were plenty of other pantry-like closets to store them in. Plus, there was no sign of a dog. No toys, no food, not even a stray hair on the couch cushions.

Luke shrugged. “That’d be my guess.”

“What about the knife?” I asked, curious to see how he was going to explain that away.

“Room looks freshly painted,” Mike offered up. “Maybe they used it to get the paint off the windows.”

I didn’t smell paint—not downstairs, not up here—but okay. I took the bowls from Luke’s hand and set them on the edge of the shelf, then gave them a quick shove to get them as close to their original position as possible. As for the blade, well, I’d let Luke figure out what to do with that.

“I want to check the other closets.”

“We checked the rooms last night, including the closets,” Mike said as I turned to close the closet door. “We checked under the beds too. There’s nothing up here.”

As the closet door clicked shut, the soft thump of wood on wood echoed through the room. I debated whether to reach for the knob again or run. Logic overrode my fear, and I eased the closet door back open. Three hooks lined the inside of the door. Two of them held coats, the sleeves of each hiding what rested on the hook between them.

Moving the coats aside, I saw a tiny piece of rawhide that held a slab of wood in place. I fingered the cord briefly before picking it up. It was heavy, polished, and beautifully crafted, but there was no mistaking what it was: a paddle. The same one mentioned in the book. The same one used on whatever kid was unlucky enough to live here.

I turned it over and saw the inscription. I read it once to myself, then again out loud:

I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who,
after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.
—Luke 12:5.

It wasn’t the quote that scared me, but the name. Luke.

I let the paddle fall back into place and turned to Luke. “Did you find that yesterday?” I yelled. “Did you see that when you searched the closets?”

Mike stayed silent, his eyes looking everywhere but at me. Luke shrugged, and that was answer enough. They’d found it. Ten bucks said that was why Luke had searched the other houses. He’d left me asleep in this messed-up place so he could wander around and see if the other houses held the same bizarre stuff.

I shoved my way past Luke. I wanted to know what other things were hidden up here, see exactly what else they’d found and not told me about.

The other two bedrooms were nearly identical to the first. The only difference was they both held twin beds instead of a full. Same frames, same pine bureaus, same insanely creepy cross hanging on the wall.

I checked the closet in the first room, making sure to inspect the inside of the door. No hooks on this one and hardly any clothes. Two pairs of pants and a handful of white shirts were all that hung in there. There weren’t even any shoes.

Mike put out his hand to stop me as I moved to the last of the three bedrooms. “The closet in there is pretty much empty. Nothing but some clothes. I swear.”

I shot him a glare, one that I hoped let him know how little I believed him. “Yeah right, Mike. Like the first one was? ‘There’s nothing there, Dee.’ Sure, nothing but a surgical knife and a paddle used to beat kids. What are you going to tell me next? That the insane manual we found in the kitchen is nothing more than an overdue library book?”

Mike went to fire something back, but Luke cut him off. “Let it go, Mike. If she wants to check the rest of the closets, let her.”

I turned back to Luke, a little bit of my anger easing as I saw the apology in his eyes. Like always, he’d only been trying to protect me. It hadn’t worked, and now he’d let me take control, knowing full well that I needed to see for myself what we were dealing with.

I scanned the room, my gaze landing on a folded-up sheet of paper lying on the floor next to the dresser. Half of it was stuck behind the bureau, and I had to tug it free.

It was creased, as if it had been crumpled up and tossed aside. I laid it on the dresser and smoothed it out. The paper was thick, and at the very top was a seal. A gold cross. I squinted to make out the tiny inscription: Purity Springs. Est. 1856. I kept reading, the fancy script making the letters more prominent. A few lines in and it became clear what it was—a death certificate, complete with a name, birth date, occupation, even marital status. What it lacked was a date of death.

I cringed when I saw the name, my mind flashing back to the book I’d found in the kitchen drawer. It was as if I still held it, could feel the worn pages in my hand, smell the ink and years of use pouring from its pages. The name—Joseph—was written in the margin of that book. That same name was written here, neatly typed on a half-completed death certificate.

I’d never seen an actual death certificate before, but my gut told me that most people didn’t leave them lying around their house … in their bedroom of all places. “Who the hell is Joseph Hawkins?” I asked.

“Is that what I think it is?” Mike asked, snatching the paper from my hands. “And why isn’t it dated? You think this guy’s already dead?”

Luke leaned in and stared at the morbidly disturbing piece of paper. “I didn’t see that last night. Honest, Dee, I didn’t.”

Didn’t matter whether he’d seen it or not; it was there.

I inched backward, my stomach twisting as the first wave of bile rose in my throat. “We can’t stay here. These people aren’t right. I don’t care if I have to walk two hundred miles to the next town, I’m not staying here.”

I ran out of the room and down the stairs, not waiting to see if Luke and Mike were following me. Luke caught me on the bottom step and put his hand on my arm to silence my quickly rising panic. “Dee, wait.”

“I’m not staying,” I said, my voice cracking with fear. “I’m leaving. Now!”

“We weren’t planning on staying,” Mike said.

I turned toward Mike’s voice. He had my shoes and socks in one hand and a worn brown coat I’d never seen before in the other. I shuddered at the thought of putting on that coat. I couldn’t help but wonder who it belonged to, if the owner of that coat was on the giving or receiving end of discipline.

“I’m not wearing anything that belonged to these people,” I said.

“The snow may have stopped, but it’s colder than yesterday,” Luke explained as he took the coat from Mike’s hand and held it out for me to put on. “And we’ve got a long walk.”

I yanked my shoes and socks from Mike’s hand and jammed my feet into them. Mike’s jacket was sitting by the front door, draped over a heating vent, sucking up warmth. I grabbed it and shoved my hands through the sleeves, then stepped outside into the early morning light. “If you’re so worried about the cold, then you wear it.”