“Oh my God.” Mark slid his plate onto the kitchen counter and pushed off.
“What?” Selma frowned at them both.
“You sound like my grandmother, that’s what—a stereotypical old-world Italian.”
“I’m not trying to suggest that she’s into something she shouldn’t be into,” Selma said, focusing her attention on Lucas, trying her best to ignore Mark’s disparaging comparison. “But we saw you guys not that long ago. Last summer, right? It’s just such a drastic change and a little disconcerting. I just have this feeling.”
“Of what?” Lucas asked.
“I guess it’s just this sense of . . . almost fear?”
“Fear. Huh.” He peered down at his pie. If Jeanie was afraid, they were in the same boat, because Lucas was terrified. This whole thing—the house, Washington—was supposed to make everything better. But then a guy sitting in a prison cell snapped his fingers and everything was worse. Snap. Here’s hope for the future. Snap. Never mind.
“I heard about you and Caroline.”
Selma’s voice suddenly grated on his nerves. His aggravation began to bubble again, threatening to spill over in an ugly, angry tirade that neither she nor Mark deserved. So what? he thought. You heard about me and Caroline. So fucking what? That was the thing with friends; the moment a major disaster struck, they didn’t know when to keep their mouths shut. They always wanted to help, always wanted to talk it out.
“Great.” He continued to peer at the table, trying to keep his frustration in check.
“I don’t mean to pry, Lou, you know that,” Selma said. “I just thought that maybe . . .”
“Maybe it’s my fault, right?” His gaze darted up to her face. Selma blanched at the razor edge in his voice.
“It’s not your fault,” Mark cut in. “She wasn’t saying that.” He gave his girlfriend a hard glance.
“I wasn’t saying that,” Selma verified. “Lou, I swear.”
“Hey, it’s fine.” Lucas lifted a single shoulder and let it slump a second later. “Why shouldn’t it be my fault, right? I screwed up my kid. I screwed up my marriage. I screwed up my fucking life. We don’t need to beat around the bush.” He smirked, shook his head. “After all, we’re all friends here.”
The kitchen went silent.
Lucas stared down at his hands, imagining that both Mark and Selma had vanished, leaving him to stew in his own pissed-off misery.
No such luck.
“What happened at Lambert?” Mark asked.
The question set his teeth on edge. “The fucking guy stood me up.”
“Why? What was his reason?”
“He doesn’t need a reason.” Lucas felt his lip curl over his teeth. “You can talk a bunch of people into suicide by poisoning, but don’t worry: your right to privacy will stay intact.”
“What bullshit,” Mark scoffed. “Leave it to the system. You going to try again?”
“What choice do I have? I mean, other than digging my own grave around the back of the house.”
“You’ve got nothing?”
“Not anything a person with half a brain and an Internet connection can’t find on their own in old articles and reports. There are a couple of guards at Lambert Correctional that may be able to help, but the guy I talked to seemed kind of reluctant. I’m guessing they can only tell me so much before losing their jobs. What am I supposed to offer them in compensation? A thank-you in the acknowledgments, a sorry-I-got-you-fired?”
Mark frowned at the floor. Selma chewed on her bottom lip, then gave both men a pained sort of smile. “I think I’m going to head back.”
“Okay, I’ll see you at home,” Mark told her. She leaned into him and gave him a quick kiss before crossing the kitchen, stopping just shy of Lucas’s chair.
“Everything is going to work out.” She gave his shoulder a squeeze. “Come out to the city soon?”
“We will,” Lucas said. “Thanks for the car.”
“Of course.” She gave him a wink, gathered her things, and stepped across the living room to the front door.
She left Lucas and Mark in silence. The clattering of Mark’s plate scraping against the bottom of the sink punctuated the quiet.
Eventually, Mark cleared his throat and leaned against the counter again.
“So, I’m going to ask you this once,” he said.
Lucas glanced up, apprehensive. “Oh, here it comes,” he murmured.
“Well, if you’d offer up some information now and again . . .” Mark countered.
“Offer up what?”
“This house. What’s the story? This isn’t what I think it is, is it?”
“Which is what?” Lucas was playing dumb, but he knew exactly what Mark was getting at.
Mark sighed. “You know how you said that any idiot with an Internet connection could look this stuff up? Well, guess what.” He tapped his chest. “This idiot has an Internet connection and looked it up. I put in the address, found articles about a congressman and his kid, found out that kid was . . .” He paused, shot a look toward the living room, lowered his voice so that Jeanie wouldn’t hear. “. . . that some satanic cult slashed the kid up. In this very house, Lou. And, surprise surprise, the dude in charge is now sitting in Lambert, asking you, and only you, to take a meeting with him.”
Lucas said nothing.
“God, Lou. Is that what you meant when you said you had a deal out here? You agreed to live in his house of fucking horrors?”
“It’s a house, Mark. It’s got walls and a floor. It’s just a place to live in.”
“Right. Like Amityville was just a house.”
“Amityville was a hoax.”
“So you’re saying you don’t believe in any of that stuff?” Mark asked. “Not a single shred of belief in your whole entire body? Because you might want to mention that to Jeanie. I went upstairs to see what she was doing, and you know what I found?”
“A girl with a black eye?”
“Books,” Mark said flatly. “A lot of books about shit twelve-year-old girls don’t normally focus on. Parapsychology? Ghosts? She had them spread all over her bed.”