No, that didn’t make sense—Walt was the one to have suggested the meeting in the first place, and now he was almost half an hour late. JD tried calling Drea’s home phone again. Nothing. He had a bad, bad feeling. His boots clanged against the metal as he jogged back down to the parking lot. Seeing no sign of Walt, JD made the split-second decision to pay the Feiffers’ a visit. He needed to hear what Drea’s dad had to say.
The feeling of unease only got worse as he drove up to the Feiffers’ house, his heart hammering in his chest. The place had seemed run-down yesterday, but when JD pulled into the driveway it looked as though it was on the verge of collapse. No one answered when he rang the bell (though he hadn’t expected anyone to), and when he leaned over the stoop railing to peer into the front window, he didn’t see any signs of life. Everything was still. Lifeless.
A sense of foreboding flickered in JD’s stomach. The front door was locked, so he made his way around to the back door, which swung open. There was no sound in the kitchen except the faint buzzing of an invisible fly.
He knew instinctively that it was useless to call out, but he did anyway. An itching sense of fear tremored through his whole body. “Mr. Feiffer?” There was no one here. Nothing. No response.
Except for a sudden, loud, shattering crash just to JD’s left. He jumped; his neck stung from twisting it so hard and so fast.
Jesus.
But it was nothing. A plate, slipping from the top of a pile of dishes in the sink and breaking into a hundred pieces on the Feiffers’ tile kitchen floor.
His hands were sweating. He palmed them on the back of his jeans. JD moved through the kitchen, conscious of the tiny sounds his sneakers made on the squeaky linoleum. Just before he crossed into the living room, he grabbed a frying pan off the counter. Just in case.
“Mr. Feiffer?” he said again, pushing through the door onto the matted carpeting. Every hair on his body stood up straight.
The smell hit him first. Stale. Not yet rancid, but something like a trash can—like coffee grounds and wet newspapers and a dog’s breath mixed together. He gagged, brought his hand to his nose.
Oh god. The reeking odor of the place was making him delirious as he stepped cautiously down the hallway—he almost thought he heard the distant sound of shrill laughter. He tightened his grip of the handle of the frying pan.
Another step.
Another.
“Mr. Feiffer?” he tried one last time. “Are you—”
But the words were ripped from his throat.
Because there was Walt Feiffer.
Sitting upright in his recliner. Eyes open, but unseeing. His face red and twisted and completely frozen. Pinned to his shirt, right above his heart, was a red orchid.
“Oh shit. Oh my god, oh shit, Mr. Feiffer, oh god.” JD’s voice sounded wild and strangled even to his own ears.
Walt Feiffer was dead.
JD stumbled backward into the hall, his legs like heavy blocks he had no control over. And then a wave of dizziness hit him and he hunched over, gagging. He was on his knees now. His face was burning from the feeling of having to puke or cry or in some way get what he had just seen out.
Another one dead.
He heaved, trying to catch his breath in the wretched air.
Slowly, his breath started to get to normal. He tried to steady his mind. What do I do what do I do what do I do . . .
Call the cops. Of course. Of course.
Unable to take his eyes off the body in front of him, he called 911. It seemed to take forever for someone to pick up.
“I’m calling to report . . . a man. A dead man.” JD ran a hand through his hair. “Sixty-one Hanover Way . . . Yes, I’m certain he’s dead. . . . Yes, I’ll stay here.”
He hung up and headed down the hall toward the front door, avoiding the living room entrance. Just then, a figure—in the window. There. Someone’s face. He could have sworn he’d just seen eyes, shining against the glass.
Had Mr. Feiffer been murdered? Was the killer still here?
“Get out of here,” he told himself. “Get the hell away.”
But he knew deep in his blood. He knew what kind of killing this was.
This was the work of the Furies.
There was no longer any doubt: The Furies were real, and they had done this. That awful red flower bloomed just next to Mr. Feiffer’s heart, like an enormous spot of blood.
He’d missed his chance.
Mr. Feiffer was gone. And with him, JD’s chance of learning about the banishment ritual.
Drea was gone.
There was a good chance that Em, too, would soon leave him.
Gone.
He had to talk to her. Had to find out who—or what—was doing this.
JD stumbled to the front door and opened it, taking deep, grateful breaths of fresh air. He collapsed to a seated position on the stoop.
It wasn’t until the police cruiser pulled up that he started to think about what he would say to them. JD stood up and steadied himself.
“Drea Feiffer, Walt’s daughter, was a friend of mine,” he told them when they asked. “I’ve been visiting Walt now and then. Just checking in. He’s been having a tough time. When I came by today . . . this is what I found.”
“Had he seemed different to you at all recently?” A female officer named Breton was talking to him while her associates milled around inside.
JD stared at her. “His daughter just died. Yeah. He seemed different.”