The Haunted Read online

  There was a rally on the field next to the playground, an angry middle-aged man with a megaphone railing against both high taxes and the president to a group of overweight men and women wearing slogan-festooned T-shirts. Claire was tempted to point out that taxes for lower-middle-class people like them had gone down under the current president, but they looked like a humorless bunch, and she was sure the irony would be lost on them. She recalled, a few years back, seeing on the news a self-contradicting placard stating, KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE! The thought of it made her smile even now, and she passed by the edge of the crowd, keeping a wide berth around a red-faced older woman who was shaking her fist in the air and shouting, “I want my country back!”

  When did people get so angry? Claire wondered.

  Maybe they’d always been angry. Maybe her perception that things used to be calmer and more civilized was just plain wrong. But it seemed to her that people these days, even in small towns, perhaps especially in small towns, had lost whatever sense of tolerance had enabled America to forge a unified nation out of the diverse peoples that coexisted within its borders.

  The man with the megaphone was now talking about changing the Constitution so that immigrant babies born in the United States would not automatically be citizens.

  “Yeah!” a man shouted.

  Claire hurried through the park.

  She got to the restaurant before her sister and her friend, who were both late, and got a table. Fazio’s was not only the most popular Italian restaurant in Jardine, but since the introduction of the Express Meal (“At Your Table in Five Minutes or It’s Free!”), it had become the town’s most popular lunch spot, period. The crowds were already starting to arrive, and Claire was lucky she got there when she did, because by the time Diane arrived, and then Janet, several minutes later, all of the tables were taken and the waiting area near the front door was filled.

  They ordered—iced teas all around, small salads and different types of pasta for each of them—and while they snacked on bread and waited for their food to arrive, Diane mentioned that she’d driven by the rally in the park on her way over. “What was that all about?” she asked. “I didn’t hear anything about it.”

  “Political rally,” Claire told her sister. “Patriots who want to take back our country.”

  “Oh, shit.” Diane rolled her eyes. “Was it that anti-Mexican group?”

  “I’m sure they were there.”

  “How can they stand to live in this state?” Diane wondered. “This is America. And they’re in New Mexico? That has to drive them crazy.”

  “There’s a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment out there,” Claire agreed.

  “Anti-illegal immigrant sentiment,” Janet clarified.

  “Come on!” Diane smacked her palm down on the table, and Claire had to smile. Her sister had lost none of her political fervor over the years. “No one’s worried about white people sneaking into the country, or talking about putting up a fence between us and Canada. This is racism, pure and simple.”

  “Not exactly—” Janet started to say.

  “Are you kidding? They’re talking about making it illegal for day laborers to stand in front of the hardware store. They hate Mexicans so much that in order to get rid of them they want to ban work!”

  “It’s to keep immigrants from taking American jobs.”

  “That’s not even a concept you believe in. Do you mean to tell me that if you got offered a job with a company in Italy or Canada or France, you don’t think you’d have the right to take it? Can you honestly say that you would become an Italian or Canadian or French citizen, and then you’d take the job? Bullshit! You’d sign up immediately, because you think you have the right to work anywhere at any time. As you should. As everyone should.”

  Janet clearly disagreed, but she didn’t want to risk Diane’s wrath, so she said nothing. Claire changed the subject. “Anybody hear from Sherry lately?” Sherry was one of their friends who had relocated to Tucson in order to move in with a man she’d met online.

  “No,” Diane said.

  Janet shook her head. “I don’t know what happened to her.”

  The food arrived, and the conversation drifted to safer topics. Claire learned that Janet’s mother was finally going in for hip replacement surgery, and that Diane’s supervisor at the electric company was being transferred to Bernalillo, which meant that if Diane played her cards right, she could be next in line for the position.

  “Congratulations!” Claire told her sister. She held up her iced tea, and the other two followed suit, clinking their glasses together.

  After lunch, both Diane and Janet offered her a ride, but Claire declined, saying she could use the exercise. She waved good-bye to her sister and their friend as the two women drove off, then decided to go home for a couple of minutes and pick up a few bottles of cold water before heading back to her office. Clients always liked bottled water. It gave the appearance of success, which instilled confidence—half the battle in the initial stages of the attorney-client relationship.

  Claire cut through the park again, but the rally was basically over, and only a few stragglers stood around, reinforcing one another’s opinions through heated, one-sided exchanges with imaginary adversaries. She skirted their area, going around a sandy playground where young mothers pushed small children on swings or down slides, and, once out of the park, she walked the three blocks to their house.

  The kids were gone for the afternoon, Megan to her friend Zoe’s, James to the community pool with Robbie’s family. Julian was always home, of course, and Claire shouted a greeting up to him as she walked inside, closing the front door behind her. She had to pee and went down the hall to use the bathroom before heading into the kitchen to grab some cold bottles of Arrowhead to take back with her.

  The laundry basket was sitting on the floor in front of the refrigerator.

  Claire frowned. Hadn’t she put that away this morning? She certainly hadn’t left it in the middle of the kitchen. She glanced toward the laundry room, but neither the washer nor dryer was on, and there was no indication that Julian had done another batch of clothes. She shook her head. Maybe it had been her. Come to think of it, the same thing had happened the other day. She’d swept and mopped the kitchen floor and thought she’d put both the broom and mop away in the closet where they belonged—yet, an hour later, she’d found the broom leaning against a wall in the master bathroom. Obviously she’d intended to clean the bathroom and had just spaced out, but she was pretty sure she’d put both cleaning implements away. She smiled to herself. Maybe she needed to start taking ginkgo biloba. Or eating more blueberries. Weren’t blueberries supposed to be good for the memory?

  There was the sound of music from Julian’s office upstairs. Loud music. One of those obscure old rock records that Julian, in his geeky way, prided himself on owning. She wasn’t sure why he couldn’t use earphones like everyone else and keep his music to himself, leaving the rest of them in peace, but he insisted on blasting his ancient stereo and subjecting the entire household to whatever he felt like hearing.

  “Turn it down!” she shouted up at the ceiling.

  He obviously didn’t hear her, so she moved to the bottom of the stairs. She recognized the music now. The Men They Couldn’t Hang, a group whose music he’d played incessantly when they’d first started dating.

  “Julian!” she shouted as loud as she could. “Turn it down!”

  The music switched off. Or was turned so low that she could no longer hear it.

  “Thank you!” she called out.

  Seconds later, the back door opened, and Julian came walking through the kitchen. “Were you calling me?” he asked.

  Claire jumped, startled. She glanced up the stairs, then over at her husband.

  He looked as confused as she felt. “What?” he asked.

  “You weren’t upstairs?”

  “No, I was in the garage, looking for a box of old instruction manuals that I can’t se
em to find.”

  “I heard music. From upstairs.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “I heard it.”

  “What kind of music?”

  “The Men They Couldn’t Hang.”

  “I was listening to one of their records earlier this morning.”

  “Did you turn off the record player? Maybe it could’ve—”

  “No, it couldn’t. Besides, I put the record away. It’s not even on the turntable.”

  She looked again at the stairwell, her mouth suddenly dry. “Then someone’s upstairs. Because they just turned it on a few minutes ago, and then switched it off when I yelled to turn it down.”

  “No one’s upstairs,” Julian said.

  “I know what I heard.”

  “We’ll check it out.” Moving carefully, walking quietly, Julian led the way upstairs. The door to his office was open, the room empty. A quick check of the other upstairs rooms revealed that they were empty as well.

  They went back into Julian’s office, and he strode directly over to his stereo. “Huh,” he said, glancing down at the record on the turntable.

  Claire looked down at the round blue-sky MCA label in the center of the black vinyl album, reading the words. The Men They Couldn’t Hang. How Green Is the Valley.

  She didn’t like the unsettling feeling creeping up on her. “How could this happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He seemed genuinely puzzled, though not as worried as she thought he should be. “I know I put that record away.”

  “Then how did it get here?”

  He shook his head, confused. “I have no idea. Maybe I just thought I put it away. Or maybe I … forgot.”

  “But how did it—”

  “I don’t know. I guess I could have left it on before I went outside. There could be a problem with the sound, which is why it got loud and soft. …”

  “Yeah,” she agreed quickly. “That’s probably it.” But she heard the hopefulness in her own voice and realized even as she latched onto that explanation how vague it was and how many questions it still left unresolved.

  She took a deep breath. “You didn’t by any chance bring the laundry basket out into the kitchen, did you?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, frowning. “Why?”

  She shook her head slowly, still staring at the record as a chill caressed the back of her neck. “No reason,” she said. “No reason.”

  Five

  Megan frowned at her iPhone, trying to make sense of the Twitter message on-screen. There was nothing she hated more than those abbreviations made from various combinations of numbers, letters and punctuation marks. Such shorthand had probably been convenient once upon a time, but now using that sort of code was little more than a measure of hipness. Trends these days changed so quickly that she had a hard time keeping up, and when she encountered something unfamiliar, she was afraid to ask what it meant for fear that her friends would laugh at her.

  She wondered whether that was what was going on here.

  MPD L2? 8LIF (XXXQ) DDF: 3907!

  She read the message again, just as confused the second time. She could not even tell who it was from, and finally she exited the screen, deciding to ignore it.

  Sighing heavily, Megan shifted on her bed and stared out the window at the wood shake roof of the single-story house next door. The driveway was empty, and she assumed that the people who lived there weren’t home. But, then again, they never seemed to be home. As far as she could tell, the entire neighborhood was filled with old people and shut-ins. The place was like a morgue, and the only time anyone came out was in the late afternoon, when couples walked their dogs or fitness fanatics jogged.

  She hadn’t seen anyone here her own age.

  She wished that her family hadn’t moved. All of her friends now lived farther away, and seeing them was not just inconvenient; it was downright difficult. That would change once school started, but this summer she felt more isolated and alone than she ever had in her life.

  It was James’s fault. If that little punk hadn’t been such a pansy, they could’ve stayed in their old house and she could be at Kate’s right now, watching a movie or … or … doing something.

  In two years, she’d have her driver’s license, and none of this would matter so much. But until then …

  Her iPhone beeped, and Megan picked it up off the bedspread next to her, hoping it was a message from one of her friends.

  I C U

  She frowned. There was no sender name, no address.

  That was weird.

  The phone beeped again as another message came in.

  I C U Megan

  That was not just weird. It was creepy. Instinctively, she looked around. No one could possibly be watching her here, but she felt as though she was being spied upon, and she had a sudden need to make sure no one could see her. Carefully, she peered out the window again, checking the side yard of the house next door. Spotting no one, she shut the shade and moved to the other window, overlooking the front yard. Staying back in the shadows, so as not to be visible, she scanned the street, the sidewalk, their front yard, the yard across the street.

  Nothing.

  She shut that shade, too.

  Turning around, Megan looked through her open doorway into the hall. It seemed more shadowy than it should, particularly for the middle of the afternoon. “Dad?” she called.

  “What?” His reassuring voice answered her from across the hall, and she relaxed, the tension in her muscles dissipating.

  “Nothing!” she said gratefully. She turned back toward the center of the room. With the shades drawn, it was as dark as it could get during the daytime, and she was about to turn on the light when the iPhone beeped in her hand.

  She looked down at it.

  IL C U 2NITE

  In one movement, she switched off the phone and threw it on the bed, crying out as she did so and shaking her hands as though to rid them of slime.

  “Everything all right in there?” her dad called.

  Staring at the phone on the bedspread, Megan thought about telling him, wanted to tell him, but she knew how he got, and she knew what he’d do. He’d take away her phone, which, as far as she was concerned, would punish her, not protect her.

  It was better to keep quiet.

  “Megan?” He poked his head in the doorway.

  She forced herself to smile at him. “I’m fine, Dad. There’s nothing wrong. Everything’s fine.”

  Her father had met his deadline and successfully completed his most recent project, so, for the first time in a long while, their family went out to dinner to celebrate. Megan was in the mood for Mexican food, while James wanted to go to Fazio’s because they had pizza, but, as always, their parents were the ones who got to decide, so they ended up at that lame hippie health-food restaurant Radicchio. That was bad enough. But what made it worse was the fact that Brad Bishop was sitting with his dad two tables over. She ignored him, and he ignored her, but Megan knew he saw her, just as she saw him. It was impossible to be cool when you were with your parents, and she settled for acting bored and above it all, as though she’d been forced to come here. She tried not to look over at Brad but couldn’t help glancing up at him periodically. Each time she did, he seemed as bored as she was pretending to be.

  Dinner lasted way longer than it should have. Service, as always, was poor, and one of their parents’ friends stopped by to chat, which made her want to sink into the floor with embarrassment. Luckily, Brad and his dad left soon after, and while they passed directly by her family’s table on their way out, neither she nor Brad acknowledged each other.

  It had been light out when they arrived, but it was dark when they left, and Megan wondered what time it was. It seemed like they’d been in that stupid restaurant for hours. “Great celebration,” she said sarcastically.

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Her dad was either genuinely oblivious or pretending to be oblivious in order to antagonize her, but she refused to tak
e the bait and engage him. Instead, she opened the door of the van and got in.

  A few blocks later, near the park, the van’s headlights illuminated a yellow sign at the side of the road: SLOW CHILDREN PLAYING.

  “Look out for retarded kids,” she told James.

  “Megan!” her dad said sternly.

  “That’s what the sign says.”

  “I see one!” James announced.

  “James!”

  The two of them giggled.

  They arrived home a few moments later. Her parents never let her keep her phone on when they were out in public doing family activities, so the first thing Megan did when she got inside was turn on her phone and check for messages. There was one text she’d missed, and she immediately announced that she’d be in her room and headed upstairs, not wanting James or her parents to see the message. It was probably from Zoe, and for her eyes only.

  There was a split second of hesitation as she reached the top of the steps—

  IL C U 2NITE

  —but then she heard the sound of James’s footsteps coming up the stairs behind her, she flipped on the hall light, and all was normal. Walking over and into her bedroom, she turned on both the ceiling light and the lamp on her desk before closing the door and checking the text.

  ?*#%$&?!

  It looked like those symbols that were strung together in order to depict obscenities in comic books.

  Maybe it was Zoe, she thought doubtfully, although it didn’t make a whole lot of sense and didn’t seem like something the other girl would send.

  Megan pressed her friend’s speed-dial number, but Zoe did not answer right away, like she usually did, and after six rings there was a message, Zoe talking in a subdued, dispirited voice: “I cannot use my cell phone right now. If you wish to speak to me, please call my home phone.”

  Megan dialed her friend’s home phone, and Zoe’s mom answered. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mrs. Dunbar? This is Megan. May I speak to Zoe?”

  “Oh, Megan! How are you? Hold on a sec; I’ll get her.”

  Zoe came on the line, and there were a few moments of awkward innocuous chitchat until her mother left the room. “Okay,” she said finally. “What’s up?”