The house on Winslow Street is the definition of derelict. It’s owned by the City, which means they don’t need a warrant to search it. Axel doesn’t know why they don’t just tear it down. It’s unfit for human life, this dilapidated shack with the leaning walls. It looks as though a great gust of lake-effect wind barraged through, and the house is crumpling in on itself to brace for another. A woman died here, Axel knows. She fell on the ice and split her skull on the asphalt. His eyes flick to Kole on his right. The sergeant stares at the ground as though he can still see the stain.
Axel, Riley, and Kole approach the house. Fletcher mans the perimeter with patrol officers Jiminez and Matlin. Kole inches to the front and they divide into a V, like a formation of birds flying south for the winter. They wait, holding their breaths and listening. Axel stares hard at the house and the house stares back. The windows on either side of the door resemble empty, far-apart eyes. The doorway is a mouth open in a silent scream. A ragged sheet hangs from a corner, twirling languidly. From a few blocks away, he hears the muted klaxon of a car alarm and the waves crashing against the pier. There’s a low roar, too. It mingles with a sibilant hiss sometimes, and he knows it is only the incessant score of Black Harbor. It used to scare Chloe at night; she was convinced it was some monster lying in wait, and she wasn’t wrong. He knows the haunting air belongs to Forge Bridge, which isn’t far from here, its rusted rungs and railroad ties groaning and whispering, beckoning people to its edge. Closer, he hears frantic scratching and skittering. Cockroaches in the walls. They might be the only reason the place is still upright.
Axel draws his gun and hears Riley do the same. Kole carries his 9mm at his side, index finger resting against the slide. It’s the first thing they teach at the academy: only put your finger on the trigger when you’re going to pull it.
Kole sets his foot on the bottom stair. A piece breaks off. Rotted. He continues on up, muttering, “Jesus Christ, this place is just a bunch of termites holding hands.”
Axel’s heart pounds against his rib cage as he prepares to follow. What if Chloe’s here? What if she’s been hidden away in this vile, decrepit place all this time, right under his and Rowan’s noses? Guilt shreds his insides. How could he ever forgive himself? How could Chloe ever forgive them for not finding her, for not spending every minute of their waking lives turning over every brick and leaf and stone until she’s home?
He’s trying to. God knows he is. He might very well have gotten somewhere with Libby Lucas before this bend in the road diverted him off course. She collected Madison Caldwell’s teeth the night of her murder. It’s weird and it’s creepy, but it isn’t a crime. And she’s a juvenile. Even if he charged her with obstruction for not sharing this information earlier, no detention center would ever hold her. Besides, she is more valuable to him outside than in. She can work on Reeves Singh while he keeps his sights trained on Cutler.
Once he finds out what this lady is doing with Sari Simons’s backpack.
Kole tosses a quick glance over each shoulder. Axel locks eyes with him and nods. When Kole turns around again, he points his gun at the hollow doorway. “Police!” he shouts. And again: “Police! Come out with your hands up!”
Nothing. The only movement is the grey sheet, still twirling. As it moves, Axel can see a faded yellow stripe of spray paint. A gang symbol maybe, or something Wiccan. Kole walks up another stair, then two more. “Police!” he shouts. He’s standing on the porch now, just six feet in front of the cavity.
Suddenly, Axel sees them. So dirty that they match the sheet, are two bony feet. “Nik!” he whispers.
Kole pauses, and Axel knows he cannot turn around, cannot turn his back to the entrance.
“Look down!”
Kole does and skips a step back. Her skinny silhouette is now made plain to them. Once Axel sees her, he cannot unsee her, this skeletal thing reaching, reaching—
“Police, stop!” He trains his gun on her. His finger grazes the trigger.
The movement stops. A breeze blows the sheet just enough to reveal a pair of eyes glowing wild and bright and hungry in the pitch of the hovel. “No harm,” she says. Her voice crackles, like a record that’s collected dust from disuse. “Arrêter,” she says, though the word is whisper-quiet. Slowly, she places her hands on top of her head and retreats inside.
Kole follows in her wake, leading Axel and Riley into the leaning structure.
Her name is Celeste Cyzon and she’s from Montreal, according to her profile in Onyx. She’s been in Black Harbor for ten years, the past four spent either in and out of group homes or homeless. At forty, she looks much older; the deep creases in her forehead and fine lines around her mouth are those of someone twice her age. Her skin is reminiscent of a tanned hide, callused and copper-colored, though it’s lost its richness. Icy-blue eyes and naturally pouty lips tell Axel she must have been beautiful before whatever cataclysm brought her here to the house on Winslow Street. It had to be something momentous, he knows, because you don’t just wake up one day and find yourself wearing rags and squatting in an abandoned house of horrors.
He wonders what lies in the gulf that separates him from her. How much time do you have to spend brokenhearted and destitute to lose yourself completely? Thinking of his pathetic makeshift bed sprawled on the third floor of the lighthouse, he realizes that perhaps it’s not a gulf that separates him from the Pumpkin Lady. Perhaps it’s more of a gully, like the one Madison Caldwell’s body was found in.
Axel looks around. Wax is hardened to the floor, petrified into wraithlike fingers reaching toward chalk pentagrams and shattered crack pipes. There are needles and wads of tinfoil with blackened ends, crumpled cans of malt liquor and a fogged bottle of vodka. Dried-up condoms look like a snake has shed its skin and could still be slithering about. Strange enough, there are no pumpkins.
Not a single grinning face.
“No English,” Celeste repeats for the third time since they entered her dwelling.
“¿Hablas español?” asks Kole.
She shakes her head.
“They speak French in Montreal,” says Riley.
At the mention of her home, Celeste’s eyes brighten. “Oui,” she says. “Yes.”
“Hold on,” Riley commands both Axel and Kole. She marches out of the house and down the stairs. Her footsteps dissipate then, returning less than a minute later when she reappears with the young, blond twentysomething that is Officer Matlin.
“She took French in high school,” says Riley. “And she’s a lot closer to it than any of us.”
Kole squints at Officer Matlin, and Axel suspects they’re thinking the same thing: she looks barely old enough to hold a beer, let alone a perimeter.
Officer Matlin acknowledges them both with a polite nod, then crouches to meet Celeste at eye-level. “Parlez-vous…?”
Celeste is hunched over a pile of what appear to be random things—half-melted candles and fast-food wrappers, a tattered red scarf, and a baby doll missing an eye that reminds them all of Sari Simons—but Axel knows these are probably all of her earthly possessions. The backpack leans against the stroller, which he observes has a cracked wheel.
Celeste tilts her head. The movement is jerky, like a bird, and Axel wonders how long it’s been since someone has spoken her home language to her.
“We’re here to help you,” Matlin enunciates slowly. “Um … us”—she taps her chest and motions to Kole, Axel, and the two officers—“help you.” She gestures to Celeste. “Um … je suis là pour t’aider … I think. Me help you. Oui?” She nods, prompting Celeste to do the same.
She does. Her eyes narrow, though, and she tilts her head again. “Pourquoi?”
She looks scared, Axel thinks, and suddenly, he is afraid of her scuttling away. Matlin must sense it, too, because she hastens to the point and gestures to the backpack. “Le sac,” she says. “Belongs to you?”
Slowly, Celeste nods. But then her brows knit and she chews her lip.
“Tell her it’s okay,” says Riley. “We’re not going to take it from her. But ask how she found it.”
Matlin speaks what must be calming words, because Celeste appears to relax. Axel feels his own heart rate slow now that it seems their best lead isn’t about to dart out a window.
“Vous découvrez … le sac? How did you find it?” Matlin presses on.
Axel uses the voice memo app on his phone to record the conversation. With the little French she knows—which is more than the rest of them combined—Matlin may only be catching every third or fourth word. They can send the recording for translation.
Celeste tells them that she went to the Compound last night. “She said she likes seeing the costumes,” Matlin translates. “The flickering lights. The energy.”
Axel can see it. For someone who lives a rather hermetic life, this time of year must provide ample entertainment. He can also see what Celeste is not saying, which is that she probably also goes there to scavenge. All those kids teeming about means discarded candy and dropped belongings, maybe even a dollar bill or two skittering across the flattened grass.
“She was walking around the back of the building, when, through a split in the wall, she saw a hand on the ground. Lights were flashing. She went to investigate, and discovered the body of a young girl.” Axel catches “les yeux,” which he knows to be “eyes.” She discovered the body with the eyes already cut out, then.
“What time?” he asks.
“A quelle heure?”
Celeste thinks. “Um … je ne sais pas.” She shrugs and proceeds to tell them it was sometime at night.
“And le sac?” Riley asks, tilting her head toward the JanSport backpack with the cosmological print.
Celeste stares at Riley like a child about to be punished for wrongdoing. She lowers her gaze, then, and mutters something to Matlin.
“What did she say?” Kole leans in.
Matlin turns away from Celeste to regard Axel, Kole, and Riley. “She says the dead girl didn’t need it.”
Silence settles. It’s heavy as a weighted blanket, but cold as a covering of snow.
Axel crouches beside the young patrol officer, so he stares at Celeste eye to eye. “Did you see anyone else?” he asks.
“Autre personne?” relays Matlin.
They wait. The silence settles heavier. It feels like the roof is caving in, the ceiling coming to rest on his shoulders. Axel watches Celeste intently, and finally, she nods. Then, she takes off her pilled cap to reveal a scalp of close-shorn hair. Flecks of silver sparkle in it. She points to her temple, then to Axel, and back to her temple.
“Me?” says Axel, to which she shakes her head. “A cop? A man?”
She nods.
“Okay, a man.”
She taps her temple.
“With grey hair?” Axel turns to Kole and sees the shadow that passes over the sergeant’s face. It’s because he knows Axel had him, just as he knows he made him let him go.
Cutler.