with me. Why wasn’t I ever good enough for him? It feels that’s become my life’s mantra.
No, I don’t feel one bit bad for him. He’s the one who shit in this bed and has left me to lie in it every time. Now he can cuddle up with the big steaming pile. “Aiden, look at me.”
Aiden lifts his eyes without speaking.
“Take a long hard look, what do you see?” I give him plenty of time to study me.
The rims of his eyes redden and threaten to spill over. He labors to say the words, “Cold. Empty.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sins of the Father
Harry
I have to take an extra minute leaning on the cab before I can stagger into the house. I throw my keys on the credenza. Like a ritual since Katherine died I regard the pictures in the hallway as I pass. They are covered with enough dust to warrant a visit from Ghostbusters or Merry Maids, maybe both. A sad smile spreads across my face. “Well Katherine, Shayleigh’s really gone off the deep end this time. She picked up where Elise left off.”
I sit in my cracked old recliner covered by an afghan in the worst colors of fall 1975, perusing the first issue of Sanguine Specter . Thumbing through the pages, I’m still shocked at what she drew and the horror of the scenes created by my little girl. Dismay twists my features as a memory locked away in the deep recesses of my mind rattles free. “That’s not possible.”
Some of these other comics she’s working on have a familiarity to them. I’ve seen this before. Dreading confirmation of my suspicions, I slowly approach the closet door in my office.
Stashed behind various decades of old clothes and shoe boxes marked ‘Elise Art,’ on the top shelf, there are boxes of case files sent to me while I was consulting on unsolved homicides for extra cash. I took a lot of odd jobs to help pay for the girls’ braces, Shayleigh’s college, Elise’s rehab, and Katherine’s chemo. This one happened to be the oddest, but the one I enjoyed the most. Putting the pieces together, tracking down the scumbags that were just sick and needed to be exterminated.
I breathe deeply as I take the top off the first box, marked ‘Vancouver Slasher.’ I dig out the files and open the first folder of photos, laying them out on the desk, turning the pages of the each of the four issues of Shay’s comic and comparing the photos to the pages.
Some of these really line up. It’s like she was there; she’s drawing this as clearly as she would any landscape she’s studied. I can’t imagine how she could be connected to this. I rack my brain trying to think if she could have seen these, but I don’t think she’s been to the house other than after the funerals. When she and Elise were kids I kept these files locked up.
I sit for a minute and exhale, lamenting that she won’t come to the house at all. Maybe it’s too painful for her. Moving on to the next file box, I repeat the process, laying the photos out on the desk then looking through another issue, partly relieved to find no resemblance to the scene. I flip through issue four and rip pages from the comic, laying them side by side with crime scene photos. I continue in a frenzy of tearing and comparing into the night and toward the dawn.
Gruesome photos and comic panels overflow off the desk, the two chairs, and nearly cover the floor. I look at the whole thing, feeling the photos closing in on me, squeezing my lungs. So much of her art is a dead ringer for these other scenes. The sound of the pages passing through my fingers is deafening as I go through, ripping out page after page. I have to stop. The madness of it all is taking over, creating tunnel vision. Sucking in a ragged breath and closing my eyes I gasp, “My God, what have I done?”
Greif and shame pull me asunder. Could this have made Shayleigh go off the deep end? Is she a killer?
Chapter Twenty
Hurricane Trish
Shay
Coming to the end of the hallway I see Aiden lying on the couch, lamenting his
No, I don’t feel one bit bad for him. He’s the one who shit in this bed and has left me to lie in it every time. Now he can cuddle up with the big steaming pile. “Aiden, look at me.”
Aiden lifts his eyes without speaking.
“Take a long hard look, what do you see?” I give him plenty of time to study me.
The rims of his eyes redden and threaten to spill over. He labors to say the words, “Cold. Empty.”
“Exactly.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sins of the Father
Harry
I have to take an extra minute leaning on the cab before I can stagger into the house. I throw my keys on the credenza. Like a ritual since Katherine died I regard the pictures in the hallway as I pass. They are covered with enough dust to warrant a visit from Ghostbusters or Merry Maids, maybe both. A sad smile spreads across my face. “Well Katherine, Shayleigh’s really gone off the deep end this time. She picked up where Elise left off.”
I sit in my cracked old recliner covered by an afghan in the worst colors of fall 1975, perusing the first issue of Sanguine Specter . Thumbing through the pages, I’m still shocked at what she drew and the horror of the scenes created by my little girl. Dismay twists my features as a memory locked away in the deep recesses of my mind rattles free. “That’s not possible.”
Some of these other comics she’s working on have a familiarity to them. I’ve seen this before. Dreading confirmation of my suspicions, I slowly approach the closet door in my office.
Stashed behind various decades of old clothes and shoe boxes marked ‘Elise Art,’ on the top shelf, there are boxes of case files sent to me while I was consulting on unsolved homicides for extra cash. I took a lot of odd jobs to help pay for the girls’ braces, Shayleigh’s college, Elise’s rehab, and Katherine’s chemo. This one happened to be the oddest, but the one I enjoyed the most. Putting the pieces together, tracking down the scumbags that were just sick and needed to be exterminated.
I breathe deeply as I take the top off the first box, marked ‘Vancouver Slasher.’ I dig out the files and open the first folder of photos, laying them out on the desk, turning the pages of the each of the four issues of Shay’s comic and comparing the photos to the pages.
Some of these really line up. It’s like she was there; she’s drawing this as clearly as she would any landscape she’s studied. I can’t imagine how she could be connected to this. I rack my brain trying to think if she could have seen these, but I don’t think she’s been to the house other than after the funerals. When she and Elise were kids I kept these files locked up.
I sit for a minute and exhale, lamenting that she won’t come to the house at all. Maybe it’s too painful for her. Moving on to the next file box, I repeat the process, laying the photos out on the desk then looking through another issue, partly relieved to find no resemblance to the scene. I flip through issue four and rip pages from the comic, laying them side by side with crime scene photos. I continue in a frenzy of tearing and comparing into the night and toward the dawn.
Gruesome photos and comic panels overflow off the desk, the two chairs, and nearly cover the floor. I look at the whole thing, feeling the photos closing in on me, squeezing my lungs. So much of her art is a dead ringer for these other scenes. The sound of the pages passing through my fingers is deafening as I go through, ripping out page after page. I have to stop. The madness of it all is taking over, creating tunnel vision. Sucking in a ragged breath and closing my eyes I gasp, “My God, what have I done?”
Greif and shame pull me asunder. Could this have made Shayleigh go off the deep end? Is she a killer?
Chapter Twenty
Hurricane Trish
Shay
Coming to the end of the hallway I see Aiden lying on the couch, lamenting his
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