Page 18 of Now You See Him
“I was at a job site, I couldn’t?—”
Tina held up her hand. “I know what you said, but this is the way I remember that day. You came out, you checked the hinges,then we went downstairs to look at the water heater.” She took a deep, unsteady breath. Looking at him now, telling him what happened between them in her hallucination, felt so revealing, but she had to say it, had to tell someone.
“Did I do something?” he asked gently.
“You could say that,” she replied dryly. “The lights went out, and then…well, you fucked me on the concrete floor.”
His eyes went wide. “Excuseme?”
“Then the lights turned on, and you were gone. I went upstairs and saw your text confirming you could come next week, and that’s when I replied saying you’d already been here. And I spent the last week so sure that I have been losing my mind.”
Derrick picked up his coffee and took a healthy gulp of the burning-hot liquid. It didn’t look like the temperature fazed him at all.
“Now your turn,” Tina said. She braced her palms against the counter. “What do you know, Derrick? What have you seen?”
Tina watched his shoulders rise and fall as he took one deep breath after another. He pushed his cup to the side and pressed his fingers to his eyes.
“Damien and I looked exactly alike, dressed the same, even…even shared women, but we were different. Damien had an edge to him that I never possessed. He always reacted. He was angry all the time. I knew the bastard stuck around after he died, but I hoped it was just impressions, not his actual spirit. I talked to a few people, did some online searching, and what we can think is a haunting can just be residual energy, especially if the space was where a lot of emotion occurred. But I’d come here at night to finish up, or check on my crew’s progress, I’d see him, or hear him. Just for a minute. I’d even talk to him and think, ‘This is all in my head.’ I thought I was hallucinating, but I knew I was lying to myself.”
“Then he’s here,” Tina said. She felt the cold prickle at the back of her neck. There was a hum of anticipation that vibrated through her bloodstream. She should be scared, no,terrified, at what he’d been doing to her, but she just wanted answers. She wanted to know what he wanted.
And a part of her was excited. A part of her, the twisted and confusing part that was such a contrast to the good girl that she’d always been, wanted to be fucked like she was being used, like she was a means to an end.
She squeezed her legs again to try and alleviate some of the pressure.
“Derrick, do you know what happened to him? How he died?”
Derrick cocked his head, his eyebrows furrowed at her line of questioning. “He fell down the stairs. It was an accident.”
“No,” she said quietly. Her heart was pounding now. “He waspushed.”
Derrick looked like she’d slapped him across the face. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw it,” Tina said. “In a dream. A, I don’t know, memory of some kind?” She motioned to the basement entrance. “There was a calendar on the door. This room was less open. Dated. There was a small round kitchenette table in that corner. Mail stacked on top of it. The hallway was narrow. Damien got home from his dental appointment early, I think.” She talked him through the rest of the dream. The way he’d walked up the stairs. His clothes. What he’d said. What she’d heard. And then the shadowy impression of two figures pushing him.
Derrick looked pale when she finished. His eyes unfocused. Tina debated pouring him another cup of coffee.
“You didn’t see the man’s face?” he asked. His voice was hollow. The lust in his gaze was replaced with grief. He rubbed an open palm over his mouth. “It had to be Lucia’s lover.”
Tina shook her head. “I’m sorry. Damien hasn’t…communicated with you about it? In all the times you talked and the moments you thought you saw him, did he convey anything?”
There was another long, extended silence.
So he has.
“When my brother got married…well, I thought Lucia was the magic elixir to his anger issues. He seemed happy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and Tina’s heart went out to him. This was histwin. The closest person he’d ever had in his life. Even though she was terrorized by what she’d seen in her dreams, and she knew, instinctively, he’d been the one who fucked her throat in that basement, that didn’t change the fact that she was talking about someone hurting this man’s closest sibling and friend.
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
The lights flickered again. Derrick chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “I think your lights are fine, after all.”
Tina didn’t respond. She just waited, knew there was more to what he wanted to tell her.
He picked up the mug and put it down again, forgetting the pretense of sharing a drink with her. “After Damien died,” he continued, “Lucia looked almost relieved? She seemed to move on pretty quickly. Damien must’ve known something was going on, because his will left her with almost nothing. I thought he’d deed the house to her, but he left it to me. I knew I couldn’t live here, so I fixed it up to sell. Lucia was just as spooked by this place. As much of a fuss as she made over the money, she absolutely did not want this house. Not even when I offered to let her buy it back once I fixed it up.”
Tina felt the briefest warmth at her lower back, that cold blast against her neck, and she shivered before pressing closer to the counter, as if separating herself from whatever breezekept moving behind her. “You saw him for the first time in the basement. Damien.”
“I did.”
