A Slow Ruin Read online

  I parked and walked up the mildew-gray brick walkway that had at one point matched the yellow brick house. I gripped the railing as I mounted the porch steps, feeling a dusting of orange rust clinging to my palm. The porch was swept clean, with only a rectangle of discolored concrete where the welcome mat should have been.

  Knocking on the door, I heard nothing but an echo of empty rooms. No sound within. No television blaring against hard-of-hearing ears. No clack of a walker across the floor. Where was he?

  I jiggled the doorknob. Locked. Glancing around me, the place looked abandoned. While well-kept, the grass was yellow and dead, the earth dusty dry. The handmade Adirondack chair that had sat in the same corner of the porch for over a decade was gone. From the state of things, it looked like no one had been home in ages.

  Lawn debris crunched underfoot as I headed to the living room window and pressed my hand against the glass, peering inside. The hardwood floors were bare. The outdated furniture gone.

  I had been worried before. I was petrified now.

  Never had he disappeared like this. And certainly not without telling me. I needed answers, and I wouldn’t find them here. My brain buzzed with questions. The only thing I could do now was head home.

  Unless…there was one thing I could try.

  I rounded the corner of the house heading straight for the back door. I stretched on tiptoes, feeling my way across the alligatored doorframe, through grime, bits of leaves, and dead insects—at least I hoped they were dead—until my fingertip touched cold metal.

  The house key he had forgotten about. I slid the key into the lock, twisted, heard the welcoming click. The door swung open on a warm breeze. I pushed the light switch up with the heel of my hand, but nothing happened. Had his electricity been turned off? That’s when I noticed the utter absence of sound. No purring appliances. No hissing vents.

  “Hello?”

  My voice helloed back at me. There wasn’t a scrap of paper or a ball of dust anywhere, only a tiny cosmos of particles dancing in patches of sunlight pouring in through the bare windows. None of this made sense. My thoughts hit trench bottom as confusion and fear mixed and mingled. This house had always been Fourth of July with colorful banter and explosive laughter. Now it was funeral silent. Where had it all gone?

  As mid-morning sun striped across my face, I knew it was time to go. Cody was probably already wondering…worrying…panicking over where I was. By the time I got home, Cody had passed all three stages straight into anger.

  “Care to explain where you’ve been all morning?” he yelled as I thought I had slipped through the door undetected.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I wanted to run out to visit my dad’s grave, but you were mowing the lawn so I didn’t want to bother you.” So sorry, Dad, to use you like that. It was the only excuse I could think of.

  Cody pulled me into a hug. “Oh, Mare. Now I feel like a jerk for getting mad at you. It’s just…you’ve been gone for hours and your phone was shut off, so I had no idea where you went. And with Vera missing…I don’t know. Guess my thinking’s a little morbid these days. I thought you were dead on the side of the road or something.”

  “Well, as you can see, I’m alive and well.” I grinned up at him.

  “Please don’t scare me like that again.”

  “Okay, I promise.” I pressed my ear to his chest, listened to his heart thump back at me.

  He ran his hand over my hair. “I can’t shake this feeling like you’re hiding something from me, Mare. I wish you’d tell me what it is. Because whatever it is, we can figure it out together.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, held him tight.

  “What if some things can’t be figured out, Cody?”

  What if some things were just too horrible that if they ever came to surface, they’d destroy everything?

  Chapter 11

  Felicity

  I’m freaking out and don’t know what to do. BS warned me. Told me something bad would happen if I wasn’t careful. Guess who wasn’t careful? Me. I should have known not to trust anyone. Not my friends, not my family. They only hurt me. BS told me there’s no way out of this but one. One that will kill me. And I have a bad feeling it’s only gonna get worse. Way worse.

  Things couldn’t get much worse than they were right now. Every breed of worry attacked my mind. Cody wasn’t speaking to me, which was probably for the best after what he did. What we did, if I was being honest with myself. Oliver was angry at me for lying to him about keeping Vera’s journal instead of turning it over to the police. But turning it over meant turning myself in. It wasn’t an option…was it?

  I had weighed that choice on every scale. If turning myself in could guarantee Vera’s safe return, I would have done it. But there were no guarantees, and I wasn’t much use to anyone behind bars. Who would ensure Sydney was properly cared for? Her health was worsening by the day. I could see it in the pallor of her skin, the sluggishness that overtook her by late morning, the whole-body swelling. And Vera, the only one who could save us all, remained gone.

  All of our lives hung on Vera. The worst part about it? I wanted to heft that cross on my own shoulders but couldn’t.

  The first time I came across the letters BS in Vera’s journal, I thought it stood for bullshit. I’d never heard her swear, but by age fifteen I imagined the arsenal of swear words at her disposal. But only after I pored over the entries and dissected them did I realize BS was a person, a friend in the beginning, an enemy by the end. Was BS capable of hurting Vera? At first glance it seemed unlikely. The more I rearranged and analyzed the parts, the more likely it became.

  Top priority: find out who BS is.

  Based on the sheer number of mentions of this elusive BS, clearly it was someone important in Vera’s life. BS showed up on almost every page toward the end. I thought I had known all of Vera’s school friends, but apparently not. Someone not from school? And if not, where had they met?

  It couldn’t be someone online. She knew better. I had jackhammered the perils of catfishing into her skull from the day we handed Vera her cell phone: be alert, be wary, trust no one. That fifteen-year-old girl you met on Snapchat who plays the clarinet, loves biology, and attends private school? In reality she’s a fifty-year-old orthodontist who lives in his mother’s basement and collects used retainers from his victims. Don’t trust anyone to be who they say they are, I repeated again and again.

  Ironically, in all the times I flashed this Warning: Danger Ahead at her, I never once considered myself the danger. But I was not the good person I thought I was. And Vera had found that out.

  For weeks I scoured social media, wondering where my caring daughter was within the apathetic online persona she had created, and how BS fit into her life. I had lost track of the various apps that Vera used, and without her phone, I’d never be able to find out. Instagram. Snapchat. TikTok. The ones I did know about weren’t helpful. There were just too many variables to narrow my search down to two initials. That wasn’t including the apps I didn’t know about. With new ones hitting the market every day, I had no idea what was in with the cool kids. The fact that I used that old-lady phrasing—what’s in with the cool kids—showed just how little I knew about the modern teen or their social media hideouts.

  School was the first logical place I could imagine Vera befriending someone, so I’d start by digging into her latest yearbook. I shivered at the thought of going into the room where we kept them. The creepy library, with its original built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcase that wrapped the entire way around the room. It could have been magical, if not for the past entombed in that room.

  Daunting as the room was, Vera, the bookworm, couldn’t stay away from it, lured by the impressive collection of rare volumes that had belonged to the previous owner, a bibliophile by avocation, a wealthy and powerful literary agent—representing some of the top authors in horror, fantasy, and science fiction—by vocation. The books had come with the house, becau
se the library had remained untouched since the murders; no heirs of the family had wanted them, considering them cursed.

  It happened in the early 1980s. According to the estate manager, it was the custom every Friday evening for the family to convene in the library, where the father would read by firelight a classic fantasy tale to his children, gathered round the hearth, while his wife crocheted. On this particular Friday, a bitterly cold November night, the live-in estate manager bid the family goodnight before taking the weekend off to visit relatives downstate. As he later noted to the police, tonight’s classic was an Unwin & Allen first edition of The Hobbit.

  When the estate manager returned the following Monday morning and found the front door unlocked and the bedrooms unslept in, he immediately began a search of the house, starting, naturally, with the library. The door was closed, which was not unusual, as the library was climate controlled and humidified for the protection of the rare books. When he opened it, he reeled at the ghastly scene before him, and clutched the jamb to break his fall.

  The entire family was dead, shot execution-style in the torso. Their bodies were arranged on the floor with their arms and legs spread, feet touching, to form a crude star shape. Upon each of their faces an open book, seemingly randomly chosen, had been laid. Despite his revulsion, the estate manager’s curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked under the book resting on the father’s face. The murderer had taken a trophy—the right eye; he had done the same with the other victims, the investigation later revealed.

  The estate manager had picked up the library telephone to summon the police when he heard a plaintive wail, and looked up to see the family cat, perched upon a shelf beside a bust of Edgar Allan Poe, tail puffed up, pupils gigantic with fright. It was later determined the cat had been shut up in the charnel house all weekend, and had likely been the only witness to the murders. And when it had gotten hungry it had…

  Suffice it to say, the tabloids went into gory detail about this grisly aspect of the case, which remained unsolved. Nothing had been stolen, not even a single priceless book. The bizarre clues became the subject of countless sensational articles, books, and documentaries. But the killer remained at large and had not struck again, to anyone’s knowledge—at least not in the same confounding and gruesome manner.

  The parallels to my family were inescapable…mother, father, three kids…a cat that acted possessed. I tried not to think about it.

  The horror that lived in the library was how we afforded this renovated monstrosity of a home in excellent condition on six private acres. When no one else would touch it, we stole it. You folks got the deal of a lifetime, our agent congratulated us. Under Pennsylvania law, he was under no obligation to divulge that a death had occurred in the house, much less a mass murder. But he didn’t need to; just about everyone in Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh especially—of a certain age was aware, at least to some degree, of the horror that had transpired. Oliver and I certainly knew from the umpteen stories we’d heard since our youth, and we weren’t about to pass up this opportunity of a lifetime. We should have known that living in the Execution Estate would have its downside. Like the ever-present sense of watchful eyes beyond the grave. Or the rooms we gave extra distance to. Rooms like the library.

  The two flights of stairs moaned as I mounted each step slowly, stealthily, on high alert for any ghosts wandering the hall. Inching down the hallway with Vera’s journal tucked under my arm, I thought I saw a stooped, wizened figure in a drab olive-green wrap creeping toward me. I gasped and took a cautious step backward before I realized it was only my reflection in the full-length mirror on the far wall. I didn’t like the woman I saw, old and worn—resembling more a slovenly maid than the grand lady of the house. A woman with arms thickened from carrying three babies, hands chapped from endless chores. My brown flap of hair, striped with gray, desperately needed a trim as it limply framed my face, curled around my ears. Not that I had ever been a beauty queen, but the lines spoking my eyes hid any vestige of my youth.

  Wasting no more time than necessary, I speed-walked to the bookshelf where we kept the yearbooks dating back from kindergarten onward, organized by year. While Vera hadn’t officially finished tenth grade, the school mailed me the yearbook, with a kind note that the whole school was praying for her safe return home. The administration had even passed the yearbook along to Vera’s classmates for her friends to sign. I appreciated the kind words and thoughts and prayers back then, back when I still had faith that God answered prayers.

  I wasn’t sure the yearbooks would offer much help, since the kids had been learning remotely for half the year and few pictures had been submitted. But I hoped to at least find a name and face that possibly matched BS’s identity. The books were at knee height, so I leaned down to read the years printed on the spine, running my finger across each once. At the end of the row, I immediately noticed a telltale gap where the newest yearbook should have been. Had I misplaced it, like I did my food and coffee? As spooky as the library was, it just hadn’t jumped off the shelf on its own (I hoped).

  Moving on, I pulled out the yearbook from two years ago, pre-COVID, back when life and school still resembled normalcy. With legs folded, I sat on the hard floor, set Vera’s journal aside, and flipped through the yearbook pages, my own high school memories loitering in the background. Starting with Vera’s ninth-grade class, I searched every BS name in her entire grade and came up with no hits. Perhaps she’d known the person before starting high school and he or she was in the grade below her. I doubted my shy little Vera would have befriended someone in a grade above her, but I’d search the entire school if I had to. By the second page of tenth graders, I found a Brittney Sawyer, a Brandy Shoemaker, and a Blythe Sampson. No boys had the initials, which was both a curiosity and a relief.

  With three top choices to narrow down, I had no idea which girl it could be. Brittney, wearing glasses and a modest turtleneck, appeared the most likely match—the kind of wholesome, bookish girl Vera would gravitate toward. Brandy, with tidy rings of blonde and flawless makeup, proudly thrust her perky breasts toward the camera, plastered-on smile exuding mindless enthusiasm. She had to be a cheerleader. Definitely not Vera’s crowd. Next up was the incongruously named Blythe, who looked anything but cheerful and pleasant. Purplish-black hair styled in bat wing bangs. Extravagant vampiress eyelashes framing lime green eyes. Matte black lips curled in a seductive smirk. Pentagram hoop earrings and spiked choker. Matching leather and lace top. Clearly this girl was making A Statement—though I wasn’t sure what it was. One glare from Goth Girl would have sent Vera running. Brittney, it was.

  What now? I had a teenager’s name, but not her parents’. Or her address. Or any other information about her. How did I find out who her parents were since teenagers’ names weren’t listed online? I knew this because I had searched; kids’ information was locked up tight. And even if I was able to locate Brittney’s parents, could I show up unannounced at her house and ask her what happened to Vera? I had no idea what I was supposed to do with this tiny morsel of information…if it was even that.

  I could present this information to the cops, but they’d want to know how I came up with Brittney as a potential lead. It wasn’t like I could say her name suddenly came to mind after six months. And turning over the journal to the cops, well, I already decided that wasn’t an option. Maybe Vera could advise me. I opened her journal back to the place where she first mentioned BS, back when BS was a friend while Mommie Dearest was becoming the enemy. Her words were so angry at me. Unforgiving. Vengeful.

  BS is the only friend I have. The only person I trust. I used to think my mom was that person, but all she does is lie and hurt people. One day it’ll catch up to her. I hope it hurts when it happens. She deserves it. At least I have my art and BS now.

  Her art and BS. I wondered if they had met in art class. My gaze skipped between yearbook and journal and back again, page after page, leaping between pictures and words. Then
I stalled on a yearbook page. There was my beautiful daughter, easel in one hand, brush in the other, surrounded by smiling faces. All but one. The girl standing beside her. Goth Girl.

  Below the picture was a caption listing their names:

  …Vera Portman, Blythe Sampson…

  So BS was Goth Girl. I hadn’t seen that alliance coming. It was a hard friendship to make sense of. Vera was a band nerd, a bookworm, a goody-goody. Blythe looked like a rebel, a reject, a troublemaker. But maybe that’s what attracted Vera to her polar opposite in the first place—someone different. Someone who made her feel alive. Once upon a time I could understand that. Once upon a time I lived it, I was that Good Girl Turned Rebel. But I was more reasonable now. Perhaps Vera had found her rebellious streak after all. I just wished it wouldn’t have cost everyone so dearly.

  In the upper corner of the page was Goth Girl’s doctorly scribble:

  Thx for being my biotch. U always got my back, and I always got urs. If u ever need help with u-know-what, I’m here for u. Ur gonna survive, and I’ll be the biotch standing with u. – BS

  Seeing the words sent a wave of sadness through me. A tear trickled down my cheek, falling onto the page, turning Blythe’s note into a swirl of ink. It broke my heart that Vera felt the need to hide this from me. What else had she been hiding? And what was you-know-what referring to? What was Vera trying to “survive”? I couldn’t stomach the thought that my daughter kept secrets—monstrous ones she needed to survive—from me. Sure, every kid keeps certain things from their parents. Like a phone call snuck in after bed on a school night. Or the money missing from Mom’s wallet to buy that cropped top she forbid you from wearing. Or a secret belly button piercing. But this sounded so much more ominous than smoking a joint at a party she snuck out to attend.