The Follower Kate Doughty (general ebook reader .txt) 📖

had ever talked about preserving the house—besides the follower—were Mrs. Armstrong and Mr. O’Donnell, the leader of the historical society. And if Mrs. Armstrong is a member . . .

The facts are adding up for Rudy. It makes sense in a way that Steve just . . . doesn’t.

She knows her way around the house. She had been alive when the murder happened. She is the right age to have been Glenarm’s daughter.

“But—how would she get in? We have the alarm system; we’ve locked it every night,” Cecily says.

Rudy doesn’t realize that he’s drumming guitar fingerings on his desk until Cecily’s words make him freeze. She’s right. That’s the one thing that none of his theories had been able to get around: the alarm system.

“Kids! We’re about to head out.”

His dad’s voice breaks Rudy out of his reverie. He and his sisters run downstairs.

Rudy notices that his parents are dressed in their finest business attire—the same dress and coat from the soiree. Somehow, they look different in it. They stand closer to each other. Rudy knows that none of this meeting will be scripted.

“You guys look nice,” Amber tells them.

“Yeah, good luck,” Cecily adds. Rudy hears how nervous his sister sounds, but his parents don’t seem to notice.

“We’re expecting a lowball,” his mom says. “So we need to put our best foot forward with the negotiations. It’s in the city, so we’ll be out until late, probably back around maybe eleven or twelve. Are you sure that’s okay with you guys?”

“We’ll be fine,” Rudy answers for all three of them. This could be their last chance to sell. Last chance to try and salvage something from this nightmare.

Rudy’s eyes stray to the tapes, still on the kitchen island where he’d left them yesterday. For one desperate moment he wonders if he should stop his parents from leaving. If he should tell them about Regina. But then he glances at his sisters’ faces. Amber looks so hopeful. Cecily looks so nervous. They need this to be over. He can’t let a stray remark about their realtor stop his parents from ending this.

“Sit tight, you guys,” Mrs. Cole says. “Maybe you can—pack things out of that awful turret room, or clean out the upstairs a bit, get rid of all that junk hiding up there. With any luck, we can start preparing to move soon, and the sooner the better.”

The Range Rover purrs out of the driveway.

But something sticks in Rudy’s mind. Junk hiding up there. Junk. Hiding up there. He walks over to the cassette and turns it in his hand, fingering the delicate spools as he thinks.

And then, a line from the tape that he’d almost forgotten: one floor, two floor, three floor, four—

He sets the cassette down. The clack of plastic meeting countertop feels so far away.

“The fourth floor,” he says.

“What?”

“The fourth floor,” he repeats. “What if . . . what if the alarms hadn’t gone off because no one was breaking in? What if they were already inside?”

“What are you saying?” Amber asks. “You mean the turret? There’s no way someone could hide up there.”

But it’s Cecily who answers. The bandages cast her face in shadow as she whispers. “The attic. You think someone’s been hiding in the attic.”

For a long second, no one speaks. It’s not the silence of shock, or of incomprehension. Collectively, Rudy and his sisters listen for any noise coming from upstairs, for all the creaks and groans they’d written off as just the house settling.

There is only silence.

“Steve’s mom said that Regina was at the old folk’s home today,” Rudy whispers. “Remember?” She should be gone. The triplets should be alone, if she’s away . . .

The early-afternoon sun is streaming through the windows. It is too light out, too nice for them to feel such dread as they walk up the staircase, holding their father’s tools. They stand beneath the attic door, looking up at the string.

They all know that it’s locked. It’s been locked this entire time.

“Maybe there’s no one up there,” Cecily says. But as much as Rudy wants to believe her, he’s convinced that he’s right—he has to be. It makes too much sense; it’s the only thing that slides all the other pieces of evidence into place . . .

He scans the ceiling, but Amber walks down the hallway, pausing at the dumbwaiter.

“What are you doing?” Rudy asks.

“It’s something that Jada’s aunt told me,” Amber whispers. “That they used to play around in the dumbwaiter . . .”

And just like that it clicks into place. Rudy follows her over and opens the dumbwaiter. It’s a thin shaft, for sure, but wide enough . . .

He sticks his head in and looks up. The shaft continues past the third floor. Higher. To the fourth.

“Rudy—”

Rudy ignores Cecily. He takes out his phone light and shines it overhead. And there, in the wall of the dumbwaiter, is a series of holes. One out of every few bricks lining the shaft has been removed to create a sort of makeshift ladder. He reaches upward and feels the indent in the wall, the wide pocket. His blood goes cold.

“We’ve found her,” he whispers. “We’ve really found her.”

Amber and Cecily poke their heads into the shaft and look up at the ladder. For a moment, they are silent.

Rudy decides he needs to be the one to go first. He hands Cecily his phone. Then he sticks his hand into the shaft, trying to ignore the darkness below, trying not to feel the cold wind echoing up from beneath him . . .

One hand on the ladder, then two. And then, for one minute, his legs are free before they catch in a groove just below the entry point for the dumbwaiter.

Rudy takes a deep breath and climbs. The holds are better than he expected them to be. He is reminded in a strange, twisted way of pool ladders carved into concrete.

He hears his sisters start their climbs below him.

And then he arrives at the dumbwaiter door to the fourth floor and pushes it open. In the graying light of a