Blackwood Read online

  Miranda stared at the black plastic, preparing herself for what was inside. Dad.

  Phillips made a noise of interest, and said, "You want to know what the preliminary ME report says?"

  She managed to look away from the shape of her father's body beneath that plastic and at Phillips. The kindness in his face startled her. "What does it say?" she choked out.

  "It says that it appears…" He paused, took a look at her and went on. "That all the visually observable bones in your father's body were broken at the time of death, but that he had no outward signs of struggle or harm. No bruising or cuts. And his blood alcohol level was nearly .18."

  "That's a baseline." She didn't understand the broken bones. How was that possible?

  "The bones must be why Dad said they couldn't determine cause of death."

  Miranda concentrated on breathing. Her attention settled on the body bag.

  "Do you want me to look for you?" Phillips asked. "I can describe him."

  "No."

  Phillips held out a small pot of something. "You should at least put some of this under your nose…"

  Miranda reached forward and opened the bag with fingers that fumbled the zipper. She stopped when the metal teeth hung up at his waist and pulled back the sides to reveal his head. She forgot to try to breathe. The air left her body.

  Her father looked better dead than he had alive. The broken bones mentioned in the report weren't visible, not even in his face, which struck her as odd given the description. His eyes were closed, a mercy she thanked Marlon James for, and so all she had to do was lean over and check.

  She put her hand up to her mouth, even though she saw what she expected to. The snake on her face? Definitely her father's. The skin of his upper cheek gleamed at her, clear as polished glass, as smooth stone, as bleached bone.

  Her feet thumped the floor as she ran, back through the door and into the hall, her body hitting the walls as she kept running, blood roaring in her ears, getting out of there, getting away from the smell and the body and the house where death lived. The warm night air hit her skin like an electric shock.

  You have nowhere to run, she thought, and stopped. Nowhere to go.

  9

  Curses

  Phillips wanted to go after her, but first he had to put back the file and seal up the body bag. Marlon James might not be there, but he wasn't a sloppy man. He'd notice if things in his cold room were disturbed, and given how freaked everyone was about the disappearances even the most harmless change risked being misinterpreted.

  He reached over Mr Blackwood's chest to close the bag, holding his breath against what was surely a god-awful smell. The zipper fought him, and he had to release his breath while he worked it. He waited for the stench to invade.

  But there wasn't any, only the sickly smell of formaldehyde's chemical perfume. That was strange. So was how pale and perfect the body looked, despite all those supposed-to-be broken bones and the lack of embalming fluid to keep the skin from bloating and puffing and discoloring. Phillips removed a handkerchief from his pocket – one of his dad's, a handy tool for breaking and entering – and pressed his hand across the dead man's cheek.

  Phillips had never touched a dead body before; had only ever been in the room with three, two of them relatives. He would rather have done just about anything else.

  The cheekbone was not broken. He checked the right collarbone next.

  It was perfectly straight and intact. Huh.

  He considered doing a more thorough exam, but he'd lingered too long already and the thought of it made him shiver. Or maybe the room's chilled air did. He took the zipper and began to reseal the body bag, pausing when he got to the neck. "You should have been better for her," he told Mr Blackwood's body, and finished the job.

  He tossed the white cloth into a step trashcan with a biohazard symbol on top and turned out the lights. He hoped Miranda hadn't gone far.

  Luck was with him, for once. She sat next to the back door, staring out at the parking lot. She's not crying, that's good. He slid down the wall to join her, and, without thinking, laid his hand on top of hers, where it rested on her thigh. She didn't move, so he left it there.

  "Miranda, I'm sorry."

  "What do you have to be sorry about?" Before he could answer, she said, "Nothing. You've been nothing but nice to me. It's not your fault I'm cursed."

  Curse-bearer, curse-born child. "You're not cursed."

  Miranda lifted her free hand and brushed her hair back to reveal the angry snake crawling up her cheek. "Then what's this? What else makes a birthmark leap bodies?"

  "I don't know, but we'll figure it out. I'm sorry about… bringing you here. I didn't even think of your mom. Her funeral was here, wasn't it?"

  "That was a long time ago." Her words slipped out softly. "That's not even the worst part."

  He raised his eyebrows, drawing a circle on the back of her hand with his thumb. "I'm almost afraid to ask."

  She turned to face him. She was so close he could see the green of her eyes even in the dark. "I was supposed to take care of him," she said.

  "You keep saying that, but it's not true."

  "Yes, it is. My mom wanted me to – it was like I could feel her over my shoulder in there, disapproving. I was the one left to look out for him. And I… I didn't. Maybe I deserve this."

  "Look. He was supposed to take care of you. And–" he beat her protest "–your mother wasn't in there."

  Her eyelashes fluttered shadows on her pale cheeks. "How do you know?"

  Phillips closed his eyes for a moment, finding it hard to believe he was about to talk about this with someone besides his mom.

  "I would have heard her. There aren't any spirits on Roanoke Island that I can hear right now. Another weird thing. Because usually, I can't not hear spirits here. Usually, they're everywhere, saying everything. All the time."

  He watched her reaction, his doubt telling him she'd think he was crazy.

  "The voices you hear – they're the voices of dead people?" She gave him a suspicious look. "How did you know about the funeral home stuff? About Marlon's TV?"

  "You think that was…" He squinted at her. "Not a bad guess. But no, the spirits aren't helpful at crime that I can tell. Don't you remember the Bela prank?"

  She shook her head, curious instead of looking so lost, which made him feel better. He released her hand to put his over his heart as if she'd mortally wounded him. "You weren't a fan? Not even a little bit?"

  "Of what?" A slight smile edged her lips up on one side.

  "My masterpieces – the things that got me sent away? During my brief Bauhaus-wannabe goth phase at thirteen I broke in here and then lettered the sign with the viewing times for Bela Lugosi."

  "You are the weirdest person I've ever met."

  He made a little bow. "Finally, you're beginning to appreciate my genius."

  She laughed, but then the weight sank down on her again. Her shoulders actually fell with it. He was done with that.

  "No," he said.

  "What?"

  He picked up a stray gravel off the sidewalk and tossed it toward the parking lot. "This isn't you, this defeatist 'oh, I'm so cursed' stuff."

  "How would you know?"

  He didn't care if he'd gone too far. He was right. "I just know. The girl I met in eighth grade was stronger than this. She wouldn't let some birthmark break her."

  "I'm not broken…" But she let it trail off. She got up, and he worried she might run away again… until her hands balled into fists.

  "You're right," she said. "I'm being one of those frakking girls in distress. Frak."

  He got up, loving her Battlestar Galactica cursing. He'd looked up the reference while he was waiting to wake her. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

  "I'm going to find out what happened to my dad. And get this stupid snake off my face. It's ruining my looks."

  "No, it's not."

  "What?" She grinned.

  He almost took the l
ast step toward her, but the sound of a siren in the distance stopped him. Time to go.

  "We'd better get out of here."

  "Does that mean you'll help me?" she asked.

  "I already am," he said.

  Back in his yard, Phillips held Miranda's hand as she stayed close at his side. The shadows thrown by the trees in the security light – thankfully not motion-activated, or he'd have had to climb it and take care of that – poked around them like the long fingers of invisible people. The house remained dark and quiet, and Phillips relaxed. He'd been concerned about leaving her dog behind. Even an obedient dog, happy to be somewhere soft and warm, was capable of whining and waking parents.

  Miranda whispered, "Did we make it?"

  They climbed the steps onto the porch, and he stopped in front of the door to look at her one last time before getting some sleep.

  "We did." He smiled. "I never get caught."

  She rolled her eyes. "You mean you always get caught."

  "I was trying to back then."

  She rolled them again.

  He decided to press his luck. "Goodnight," he said, leaning forward–

  The porch light flared to life, sending them both stumbling back like vampires at daybreak.

  "Oh god," Miranda said, miserable.

  "Don't worry, I'll take the blame," Phillips said.

  "But I like your mom and now–"

  "I'll handle it." Phillips put a hand on her arm, and opened the screen door. "It's not my mom. She doesn't do dramatic."

  Her expression said which parent it was made little difference, but when he held the door open she walked through it.

  His dad loomed in the front hallway next to the light switch, the night-black circles ringing his eyes giving Phillips a second's pause. But Miranda's head was tilted down in the universal posture of shame, her feet rooted to the floral carpet. Given what she told him earlier about having to look out for her dad, he bet she'd never had to deal with being in trouble.

  Thanks for murdering the mood, Dad.

  "Miranda, I need to speak with my son."

  Miranda said, "It's my fault–"

  "It's OK, Miranda," Phillips interrupted. "You don't have to take the blame. It was my idea. Go get some sleep."

  She flew up the steps. He heard twin clicks as the guestroom door opened and then closed.

  "Where were you?" his dad asked.

  Phillips shrugged. "Out."

  "Do we have to do this, son?" His tone was close to exasperation, the dark circles like a lost fight.

  Phillips walked closer to his dad. They were the same height. That was new. Phillips asked, "Do you have to be such a drama king? You couldn't have waited five minutes?"

  Without a word, his dad made his way to the darkened living room, where he sank into the couch. Phillips followed, and noted the bottle of whiskey and short – empty – glass on the table. His dad was drinking. That was also new.

  Phillips eased into a chair opposite his dad. The only light was filtered through the curtains and came from the security pole outside. Phillips imagined this as a dim Turkish prison, with his father playing interrogator.

  "Have the feds showed yet?" Phillips asked.

  His dad's head came up. "A few hours ago. To assist, not to take over. Yet."

  "It is a missing person's case."

  "Is it? I don't know, Phillips." His dad sighed. "Listen, I know I haven't ever wanted to talk about this before, but–"

  "I know about the birds and the bees, Dad. Also, about sex. I've been at boarding school in Kentucky, not a monastery."

  "I don't care about that – not right now." His dad paused. "Except you don't hurt that girl any more than she's already been hurt."

  He waited for a response, and Phillips nodded. "She needs my help."

  "That's fine, but we need to talk about you – your gifts. I know my mother had them too. I tried like hell to pretend she didn't, but it wasn't hard to miss the stream of women who showed up at our back door so she could talk to their dead or help their daughters. I didn't want that for you."

  The curtain behind his father had a sheen to it. Turkish prison with artful drapes.

  "But you want it now?" Phillips asked.

  "I want to find these people and get them home. This whole town – an emptiness like the one that's here, it will kill us all. It'll kill this island."

  Phillips didn't have any love for the town. Or any hate for it, really. Except for the way they'd treated Miranda, and she was in this up to her temple.

  "I can't hear anything right now, but I'll work on it tomorrow. I'm going to be helping Miranda–" Philips held up a hand to cover his father's protest "–find some answers. Those answers are the same ones you need. I think."

  "Do you have any idea what's going on here?"

  "No clue. But I'm going to find out, because if I don't Miranda's the next to go. Or something bad will happen to her. I don't know what exactly, but something."

  His dad leaned forward and poured a drink, downed it in one shot. He had on his cop face, thoughtful.

  "But her old man didn't vanish, he died. He was killed. A mystery in itself, since he was a sad drunk. Harmless. But he didn't vanish."

  Not harmless to Miranda. "I told you I don't know how, but it's connected. Get the autopsy done on him as fast as you can."

  "The university can't do it until Monday."

  "Use the feds, then. Convince them somehow. You need to know what killed him."

  Phillips waited to see if his dad would believe him for once. Trust him. The drapes swayed as the air conditioning kicked in.

  His dad nodded. "There's one more thing. Mom… your gram… when she died, she left a letter for you. I was supposed to give it to you. But I kept it."

  He held something out to Phillips. A cream envelope, gram's stationery with her initials on the front. The envelope was wrinkled, like it had been worried over.

  He didn't want to take it. His dad held it closer.

  "Your mom doesn't know about this, but I guess now I'll have to tell her. I didn't want this for you, but I don't think it's up to me anymore."

  Phillips didn't have a choice. He took it, halfway expecting a lightning strike. But the earth didn't move, the voices didn't clamor at his ears. His name was written across the back in his gram's small neat handwriting. He put the envelope in his pocket.

  His dad said, "You'll let me know anything important?"

  "Of course."

  "Go get some sleep."

  Phillips practically leapt to his feet. His father had never talked to him like this, like they were almost equals. Like he didn't blame Phillips for hearing spirits.

  Then he ruined it. "Don't think I'm not going to tell your mother what you were doing out there. Don't hurt that girl, Phillips. I mean it. She's been through enough."

  • • • •

  Miranda bolted back to the guest room, pressing the door quietly closed before Phillips busted her on his way upstairs. She'd known Phillips thought her family was connected to the disappearances, but hearing him tell his dad was different.

  He really did want to help her. And he thought she was next. Where were the vanished people?

  Miranda closed her eyes. She didn't want to go anywhere besides the one place she couldn't – off the island. Blackness waited inside her eyelids. The snake crawling toward her temple throbbed.

  She was so tired.

  Miranda pulled off her jeans and slid into bed next to Sidekick, blushing when she considered the porch. Phillips had been about to kiss her. And then the porch light, and his dad…

  She groaned and pulled the covers over her head. How would she face Sara? Who had let her stay in this nice house, who offered her turkey sandwiches and bubble bath?

  When she closed her eyes, her father's too-pale face swam before her. So instead she studied the ceiling, painted the pale blue of a spring sky. She remembered Phillips' reassurance that her mom wasn't watching, but the truth was: she wanted her watc
hing.

  Miranda rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, waiting until her father's face faded and left only darkness.

  The Island

  The waves heaved against the shore in muted attack. Sand refused to shift and trees held still and inland streams flowed slow, soft. The island listened for the crash and roar of the coming storm. Craved the sound, the fury.