The House of Memory (Pluto's Snitch Book 2) Page 12

  “You caught their eye,” he whispered.

  “Unwanted attention. They don’t look friendly.”

  They stood up and left before we passed the table. One man turned back, and his gaze drilled into my back as I went to the ladies’ washroom. When we left the restaurant, I was relieved to see they were gone. A driver assisted Reginald and me into the backseat of a running car, and in another moment we were off. We’d be at the hotel in twenty minutes. I only had to sit up straight and act proper for a short time. Mostly I wanted to kick off my shoes, slump across the seat, and let Reginald take charge of getting us back to our rooms. The day—and my visions—had taken all the starch out of my spine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  We traveled the same winding river road that had taken us to Carmichael’s Catfish Cabin, only this time the sun had set and the trees felt crowded too closely to the red-clay road. Frogs chorused beside the road, a sound that traveled in waves. It would swell and fall away, only to pulse loudly fifty yards down the road. I’d never heard the amphibians so loud, almost ominous. Though I was tired, I was strangely tense. The car’s headlights cut a path of light through the thick night, and the driver took his time, navigating carefully. Staying in the middle of the unpaved and narrow road, the driver took the hairpin turns with care.

  The nature of the road hadn’t troubled me in the daylight. Now, though, I found myself holding my breath and squeezing the edge of my seat as we spun around a curve, the headlights cutting over the shallow slough of cypress knees and green scum.

  “The river’s been up due to heavy rains the last few weeks,” the driver explained. “At least the road’s dry enough to navigate. Last week it was a different story. Several cars got stuck and had to be pulled out. Not good for business at Carmichael’s.”

  Reginald chatted with the driver, who’d left the family farm north of Tuscaloosa to make his fortune in town. Driving hired cars was the first step in his plan to own his own car business. I liked his ambition and the careful way he kept his gaze on the road even as he talked.

  “What brings you to Tuscaloosa?” he asked.

  “We’re investigators,” Reginald said. “We’re looking into the disappearance of several young women in this part of the state.”

  “I heard about those three girls missing from Marthasville. Not hide nor hair of them found. Like they walked off the edge of the earth.”

  “We’re investigating a young woman from near Montgomery and one in this area. I wonder if these disappearances could be related to the missing girls you mention.”

  “Couldn’t say. All I know is teenage girls were there one minute, and then they weren’t. Pretty girls. Maybe sixteen or so. None of them known to be wild, but that’s what the rumors are—that they took off to the city, lured by the idea of being a flapper.”

  “Thanks for the information. I’ll check in with the local law enforcement and see if the cases might share a link.”

  “I heard—” The driver’s sentence was cut short when headlights blinked on fewer than a hundred feet in front of us. The vehicle was in the middle of the road. It had been sitting with the lights off. The motor roared into life, and the car came at us at full speed.

  The driver cried out and wrenched the wheel to the right. The road was too narrow, and the tires caught in the ruts. The driver threw his weight against the wheel in an effort to keep the car on the road, but it was too late. The vehicle swung first right, then left, the lighter back end fishtailing as it careened down the embankment and smashed into a big tree only a few feet from black water.

  I was thrown out of the backseat and onto the floorboard of the car. I had no idea what had happened to Reginald or the driver. The only sounds were the hissing of the car’s engine and the hum of mosquitoes that came at me like an invading army. And limbs snapping and crackling as someone came down the bank.

  “Did it get ’em?” a male voice asked.

  “They hit hard enough to push the tree over.” There was satisfaction in the second male’s voice. “Would ya look at the blood. They won’t last the night, and nobody passing’ll see the car down here.”

  “Maybe we should finish ’em off. You know, like he said. That woman don’t look dead.” Hands reached into the backseat, grabbed my ankle, and tugged, hard. “She’s breathin’, but she won’t wake up. Musta hit her head. I say we get a stick and kill ’em.”

  “We tamper with them now, it’ll be clear someone killed ’em. This way it looks like an accident. They ran off the road and died. Best to leave it alone and let nature take her course. Let’s get out of here before another car comes along.”

  The sounds of the two men scrabbling up the bank encouraged me to remain perfectly still. In a moment a car motor revved to life, telling me they were leaving. I waited another moment and then pulled myself off the floorboard.

  “Reginald?”

  A moan was my only answer. The night was so black I might as well have been bundled in a spool of velvet cloth. I couldn’t see anything. I reached over the seat and felt for Reginald, who was leaning against the dashboard. “Are you hurt?” I asked, trying to rouse him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Someone ran us off the road. They were going to kill us, but they left.”

  A flick of a cigarette lighter illuminated a bloodbath in the front seat. The driver had split his forehead open on the steering wheel, and blood covered his legs and the seat. “He’s really hurt,” I said. “Are you injured?”

  “No, I’m okay, I think. Just banged up a bit.”

  My knees were bleeding profusely, and my skirt was badly torn. One heel had broken off my shoe, but I had no serious injuries.

  “Climb up on the road and flag down the first car that comes along.” Reginald was out of the car and on the other side, trying to ascertain the driver’s injuries. “Hurry, Raissa. This man is seriously hurt.”

  Using tree limbs and roots, I managed to get up the bank to the road. It seemed like hours before I saw vehicle headlights coming from the direction of the catfish restaurant. I had no idea which direction our attackers had gone, and I could only hope it was not them returning to the scene.

  I stepped into the middle of the road and began waving my arms frantically. I’d picked out a spot to jump to in case the car didn’t slow. To my great relief, the car slowed and finally stopped. The headlights blinded me, but I heard the door open and footsteps on the road. “Are you hurt?” a man asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We were run off the road. Our driver is seriously injured. Could you find a telephone and call for a doctor and an ambulance?”

  “Yeah, sure,” the man said. “Johnny, give me the torch and then take the car back to the restaurant and call for an ambulance. I’ll stay here and help these people.” He put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “My name is Rupert.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.” I wanted to cry, and I fought the emotion down.

  “Show me.” He took the light from his friend’s hand and snapped it on. The yellow beam, much dimmer than the car’s lights, cast about the woods, showing the damage to the earth and underbrush caused by the car’s descent. “You can stay up here and wait for the ambulance,” he said. “How many are down there?”

  “Two. Reginald’s okay, I think. It’s the driver who was hurt.” I didn’t even know his name. I’d never asked.

  Rupert started down the bank. When he heard me scrambling after him, he turned the light back on me. “Stay up on the road. There are snakes and alligators down here. Just stay up on the road and wave the ambulance down if it comes.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t have the heart to argue.

  Rupert and Reginald discussed what to do. Since the driver would have to be brought to the road, they decided to do it. He was unconscious, but there was no guarantee his spine or brain wasn’t critically injured. Leaving him at the bottom of the ravine wouldn’t help him either.

  Slowly the two men made their way to the
road, carrying the driver’s limp body. When they placed him on the narrow verge, I felt for a pulse and found a weak one. He was still alive. I used Reginald’s shirt to press against a wound in his upper chest to stanch the flow of blood. And I silently cursed the ambulance for being slow.

  Reginald told Rupert what had happened as the minutes slowly ticked by. I said nothing, but I thought of the two men in the restaurant and the steely way they’d looked at me and Reginald. Were they in the car that had wrecked us? I couldn’t be positive, though I strongly suspected.

  At last I heard the winding wail of the ambulance. Lights cut through the darkness, and the red light bounced off the thick tree trunks. Once they arrived, it was only a matter of minutes before the driver was loaded and the ambulance departed. The sheriff of Tuscaloosa County was another matter. For an hour he probed the wreck, examined the tire marks in the road, and grilled Reginald about what had happened. Once again my observations and thoughts were unwanted. Females were prone to hysteria and unreliable. The sheriff didn’t have to say it; he showed it.

  At last we were released to go back to town. Our rescuer and his friend had waited and kindly offered us a ride to the hotel. I was relieved when Reginald borrowed the phone at the front desk and called the hospital to check on the driver. He had been treated and taken to a room. His left arm and a set of ribs were broken, but it was the head injury that had the doctor concerned. Reginald was told to call back in the morning.

  “Let’s go to our rooms,” Reginald said. “I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Me, too.” I followed him to the elevator and this time didn’t protest the creaky machine. I didn’t have the energy to climb three flights of stairs. Once we were at his door, he pulled me inside.

  “Let me get some things. I’ll be down to stay in your room.”

  “Do you—”

  He didn’t let me get the question out. “Someone tried to kill us tonight. They sat in the road waiting for us to come along, and then they deliberately ran us off the road. You heard them say they expected us to die.”

  I nodded.

  “You can either stay here with me, or I’ll give you a chance to bathe and clean up and I’ll come down to stay in your room.”

  I nodded again, still in something of a daze. “Thank you. Come down in half an hour.”

  “Your reputation may be ruined, but at least you’ll be alive.”

  “I have no use of a reputation.” I forced a smile. “I’m a writer. Scandal becomes me.”

  I left and hurried down the hall to my room. When I opened the door, I knew something was off immediately. My suitcase had been moved, the folded clothes slightly rearranged. It wasn’t much of a change, and had we not been nearly killed, I might have attributed it to the maid tidying up. But someone had gone through my things. To what end, I couldn’t say.

  I locked the door, drew a hot bath, and allowed myself a soak. When some of the tension had left my body, I dressed and waited for Reginald’s knock. Despite the awkwardness, I was glad for him to share the room with me.

  He arrived dragging a bundle of bedclothes. He wore his slacks and undershirt, his hair still wet from his own nighttime routine. “I’m barely standing, but if you see something tonight, promise you’ll wake me.” He spread a blanket and pillows on the floor beside my bed.

  “I’ll step on you if I get up,” I teased. “Thank you for staying with me.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He reclined on the floor while I took the bed. I’d assumed awkwardness would keep us both awake, but I nodded off after only a few moments and found myself standing at the top of a stone stairway that went down, down, down below the surface of the earth into darkness. Far in the distance a single light burned.

  With great reluctance, I stepped down into the darkness, my feet instinctively finding the steps, my hand tracing along the cool stone wall. I was compelled to descend. My legs trembled, and my breath was shallow and constricted, but still my feet moved step-by-step into the darkness. Above me hung a ceiling of arched beams and stones. When I finally came to the single, burning light, I was deep underground. In the glow of the light, I read the words engraved on a high arch: Introieritis terram mortuorum. Caute procedere.

  I was entering the land of the dead and had been warned to proceed with caution.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Latin and the mythology of the underworld were familiar to me. After all, I’d named my detective agency for the lord of the underworld. Pluto ruled the dead and also judged a man’s sins. The dark god ruled the land across the River Styx guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, who prevented the dead from leaving.

  I’d learned the myths from my father in many a happy reading hour as I’d sat between my parents, drinking in their love of stories and knowledge. The capture of Persephone by Pluto/Hades had been one of my childhood favorites, because my parents had shaded the story toward romance and true love rather than rape and abduction. I knew that now, and I thanked them for their kindness.

  Spring was Persephone’s gift to the world, a promise of renewal, rebirth, and a season to grow and prosper to offset the sadness of death and winter. Life, death, life—the endless cycle.

  As I stood at the portal to the land of the dead, I fully understood the terror of Persephone’s abduction. To be dragged from light and life into this place of darkness and death would be the ultimate journey into fear. I wanted to turn back, but I couldn’t. There was something here, in this terrible place, for me to learn.

  I walked beneath the portal, the entrance to the underworld, and in the distance I heard the slow clanging of a chain. My literary friend, Mr. Dickens, and his ghost of Christmas past came to mind. Would I encounter a being with a litany of all my past mistakes? I inhaled raggedly and listened. Was it the chain that held Cerberus to his guard post?

  What was coming to greet me, dragging chains?

  A part of me knew I was in a dream, one I couldn’t awaken from. But the sensations of dampness and entombment were so real I feared I might pass out or simply die of fright. If I wanted to probe the world of the dead, I could not let fear turn me into a craven coward.

  I descended more steps. All noise faded away. I came to a corridor. Far in the distance, human figures moved about. I heard the rush of water, a fast-flowing stream. I had a choice. I could descend deeper, or I could walk toward the black-clad figures in robes and cowls to discover what manner of creature they were.

  Turning from the stairs, I walked toward the figures. They scurried away, hiding in the shadows, as afraid of me as I was of them. Or so it seemed. The hallway cleared, leaving only the sound of water coursing by. When I came to the river, I stopped. The ebony waters were swift and treacherous, but a mossy stone bridge offered safe transport to the other side. If I crossed, could I return? Had I died without knowing it?

  Those questions did little to bolster my courage.

  I sensed a presence behind me and swiveled to find a hooded child. Or at least I assumed it was a child. His features were blank. No eyes or nose or mouth. “Who are you?”

  “The future.” Though he had no mouth, he spoke clearly. I could not look away from the terrible blankness where a face should have been.

  “Why am I here?”

  “To remind you of the journey.”

  I didn’t understand, and a sense of panic made me want to flee, to go back the way I’d come before it was too late. If death was this eradication of the individual, a blank entity, doomed to a subterranean existence, I couldn’t endure it. I wanted sunlight and flowers. I wanted paradise, not darkness.

  “I am waiting for the future,” the child said. “It is the spinning wheel of fortune. An ending, a new beginning. The goddess Fortuna rules here.”

  A clay vessel intricately carved with designs and filled with rods appeared at his side. He drew out a rod and unrolled a piece of parchment, which read: Parvulus enim privilegium. A child of privilege.

  “And thus my journey begins agai
n.” He dropped the rod and stepped past me, walking the way I had come. Before he disappeared from sight, I started after him. I would not be trapped alone in the underworld.

  He stayed ahead of me, and when I finally left the shadows behind and stepped back into the sunlight and the living, there was no sign of the child-shaped figure. Someone was tugging at my arm, though. Shaking me, calling my name.

  I opened my eyes to see a worried Reginald standing over me. “You were struggling in your sleep.”

  I sat up, aware that I was in my hotel room. I took a deep breath, trying to shake off the strange dream that had wrapped around me so intensely that I’d felt buried alive.

  “I’m okay.” And I was. Just shaken. So much for sleep. “I’m sorry I woke you, too.”

  “What happened?”

  I told him about my journey beneath the crust of the earth to the place of the dead. Instead of laughing, he sat on the edge of the bed, thinking. “A child with a blank face. Like an undeveloped child?”

  I nodded. “A child waiting for . . . wanting a future.”

  “Do you suppose Camilla is suffering from some self-punishment?” Reginald danced around the question he wanted to ask. “Maybe the trip to New York was more than a lark. Maybe it was to see . . . another kind of doctor. The kind that can’t be found in Montgomery.”

  I knew instantly what he meant. A formless child, a young woman so intensely under her mother’s thumb she’d never admit to a mistake. Desperation drove people to madness. A trip to New York City with Zelda, where an anonymous doctor could be found, might have had an alternative purpose. Subconsciously, Camilla might blame the man she loved for such a tragic predicament. “We must ask David if Camilla’s been pregnant.”

  “Yes, but until we get back to Montgomery and see him, let’s catch another bit of sleep.” Reginald yawned as he settled back on the floor. “If it wasn’t a premonition, then it was just a nightmare. See what you remember in the morning.” He reached up and grasped my hand. “I’m here for you.”