A.J’s adoption comment niggled at Lee as he set off for his sightseeing trip. He wasn’t blind; the look in her eyes had said she wasn’t joking. She truly believed that he was adopted. The only reason he hadn’t interrogated her further was because deep down he already knew she wouldn’t tell him why she thought he was adopted. Still, it bothered the hell out of him.
Why would she think he was adopted? Something he’d said? No, they’d never had any conversation that remotely implied he was adopted. Something his father had said? No, Lee couldn’t imagine any situation where she and his father would be talking about his being adopted. Maybe she’d heard it from her neighbors. Susan from the bakery next-door was notorious for making up rumors just so she could have something juicy to gossip about. Yeah, it was possible that that’s where A.J had picked up the ridiculous idea that he was adopted.
The funny thing was that as ridiculous as the idea was, he’d considered it at one point in time. It was when he was in high-school. Back then he was an awkwardly tall, freakishly skinny, shy and smart freshman who had no friends. The perfect victim for bullies. One look at his parents, who had dark hair, brown eyes and were already shorter than him, and the bullies decided that there was no way he was their son. It was their bullying and endless mocking that had started his first round of nightmares.
Bastard, they’d called him. Their favorite theory was that he was his father’s love-child, but Lee had mentally nixed that idea. Mason was fiercely loyal to Victoria. There was no way Lee was the product of an illicit relationship. Which only left one option; he was adopted.
When he’d confronted his parents, they’d immediately assured him that he wasn’t and told him about that dead uncle he was supposed to look like. But now that Lee thought about it; the uncle story was suspect too. If he was a member of the family, how come there were no photos of the man? Did he even exist? Or was he just a figment made up by worried parents to soothe their hurting son?
Jesus H Christ! What the hell was he thinking? Lee gave himself a mental slap. Was he actually suspecting his parents of lying about his birth? Damn, he’d gone off the deep end, hadn’t he?
“A dollar for your thoughts,” Fabián, who was in the passenger seat of the rental they were in, yanked Lee out of his thoughts.
“Huh?” Lee’s hands tightened on the car’s steering wheel as he glanced at his friend.
“You were so quiet I thought you were starting to nod off,” Fabián said.
“Nah!” Lee forced a smile as he turned his gaze back to the road. “I was just thinking.”
“About?” Fabián asked. When Lee only shrugged, he prodded, “Still thinking about whether we should pay that guy’s price.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lee guffawed. “That conman is trying to buy a new house off our movie.”
They’d spent the better part of the last three days touring Virginia, looking for a house to shoot their horror movie. So far they’d found only two houses that could work. Unfortunately, both of them were owned by people who thought everyone in the movie industry was made of money.
Fabián sighed heavily. “At this rate we might have to go back empty-handed.”
“Don’t give up so easily,” Lee said as he navigated the streets of Arlington. “We might find something in Roanoke.”
“Mm,” Fabián agreed but the skeptical look in his gaze said he wasn’t fully convinced.
Neither was Lee. If Lee had a choice, he would’ve been looking elsewhere. There were several other locations that weren’t as expensive and could work for a horror movie of this caliber. Unfortunately, the financier of this movie was Virginia-born and wanted to do something for his state.
“Hey, where are you going?” Fabián suddenly drew his attention. “This isn’t the way to our hotel.”
“Oh, sorry,” Lee apologized as soon as he realized that he’d passed the turn that led to their hotel.
His intent was to find somewhere where he could do a legal u-turn and head back to their hotel but for some strange reason, he found himself driving straight on.
“Lee, where are you taking us?” Fabián asked as they turned into a suburb filled with houses.
Lee didn’t answer, mostly because he didn’t know where they were or why he’d felt compelled to come here. Frowning, he took in their location. There was something familiar about these streets, about the almost-duplicate houses that lined them, about the neighbors milling around. It almost felt like it was a place he knew.
“Are you thinking of checking out a house here?” Fabián peered out the window and pulled a face. “This place looks a little too white-collar for us, don’t you think?”
Yes, these houses were nowhere near what they were looking for, yet this street kept pulling Lee deeper into it. His heart started to beat oddly and a knot started in his stomach. There was just something about this place… The longer he drove, the larger the knot in his stomach grew.
Get out of here, his mind screamed but for some odd reason he couldn’t bring himself to turn the car around.
“Lee, Lee, Lee,” Fabián called out but to Lee his voice was a mere hum, like bees buzzing in his ear, and it did nothing to drag him back to reality.
Up ahead, a house stood smack in the middle of others. There was nothing odd about the house other than the ‘for sale’ sign in front of it, yet seeing it was enough to stop Lee’s breath. It almost felt like a hand was gripping and squeezing his lungs as he drove closer to the house.
Turn and leave, his instincts screamed. Yet, he found himself slowing the car down then stopping.
“Lee, are you okay?” Fabián asked, concern dripping from his voice and the frown now marring his forehead.
“Mm,” Lee offered absentmindedly. Without conscious thought, he opened his door and stepped out of the car to stare at the house.
It was a one-story, Victorian-style house with a gray, steeply pitched, slate roof and painted a soft green. A low picket fence cordoned the house off from its neighbors and a raised porch led to its white front door.
Nothing odd at all.
Yet something about that house left Lee pulling in shaky breaths.
Fabián exited the car to come and stand beside him. “This one? You think it could work for our movie?”
“No.” Lee shook his head slowly. The house was too vanilla, too normal, yet it left him feeling like he was starring in a horror movie of his own.
As it turned out, their interest in the house attracted attention. A woman emerged from the house next-door, a ready smile on her face.
“Hi, are you interested in seeing the house?” she asked.
No, Lee wasn’t interested. Yet, he found himself nodding. “Yes.”
The woman’s smile widened. “I’m Mary Rowbotham.” Holding her hand out, she edged towards them. “The realtor of this lovely place.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mary.” Lee shook her hand even as his eyes remained on the house. He asked, “What happened to the house that was here?”
The question was so out of the blue and odd that it surprised him. Where had it come from? It wasn’t like he’d ever been to this place before. Or had he?
Mary was just as startled by the question. She blinked. “Sorry?”
“The house that was here,” Lee said slowly. The more he stared at the house, the more certain he became. “There was a house here before this one.”
“There was no-” Mary suddenly paused and her eyes lit up. “Oh, are you talking about the house that burnt down?”
Lee frowned. “Burnt down?”
“Yeah, burnt down.” Mary frowned. “But that was over twenty years ago? How did you know?”
“I don’t know.” Lee was shocked that he was right about the house being different.
How did he know about that?
His gaze swept away from the house to take in the other houses on the street. It halted on one of the houses. That house was so familiar that Lee found himself asking, “Did the old house look like that one?”
“Mr. Barrymore’s house?” Mary studied the house Lee was pointing at. “I’m not sure. I was just a kid back then.” She frowned. “Now that I think about it, that old house kind of looked like that.”
Her answer sent a chill creeping up and down Lee’s spine. How had he known what the burnt house looked like? No matter how much he racked his brain, he couldn’t come up with a clear memory that he’d ever been in this neighborhood or in that house.
Still, everything about it felt too familiar.
He bet that if he walked in Mr. Barrymore’s house right now, the interior would be familiar too. The door would open out into a small foyer that had stairs leading up to the house’s top floor. Next to those stairs, there’d be a door leading into the sizeable kitchen. Straight ahead, there’d be a den adjoined to the dining room. The dining room would have sliding glass doors that led out to a small backyard.
How the hell did Lee know that?
“Have you been here before?” Fabián asked.
No, Lee wanted to say. But he couldn’t. Not when everything seemed so familiar. Also, it was kind of hard to speak when his heart was thumping like it wanted to jump out of his ribcage and his lungs were twisting around themselves.
“This one was put up in its place seven years ago,” Mary continued eagerly as she turned back to the ‘for sale’ house. “But I can assure you that its interior is excellent. Why don’t you come in? I’ll show you around.”
Mary started towards the house. Lee planned to follow her. He wanted to follow her, but for some reason his feet wouldn’t move. No matter how much he tried, he stayed planted on the sidewalk unable to move forward. So he did the only thing he could, he took a step backwards then another and another. Soon, he was by the car again, opening the door, getting in.
The moment Fabián got back into the car, Lee sped away from that cursed neighborhood. The farther he got away from it the easier it was to inhale and exhale until finally he could breathe again.
“Are you okay, man?” Fabián asked, worry written in his frown. “You looked kind of odd back there.”
“I’m okay,” Lee muttered. But he wasn’t. Even though his breath had evened out and the fist locked around his heart had eased its tight grip, his muscles still remained knotted in tension.
Hours later, he lay on his bed wondering what the hell that house had been and why it’d sent him into a tailspin of panicked emotions. Despite his deficient memories, it was clear that he’d been there before. When? When he was younger? The fear he’d felt when he’d looked at the house was eerily similar to the terror that held him in its grip whenever he was having his nightmares. Did that house have anything to do with his nightmares? Or was it the house of his nightmares? The one haunted by the monster.
Shit! Lee sat up in bed as confusion pulsed through him. It felt like there was something he was supposed to remember but couldn’t. By the time morning came, he still hadn’t slept a wink. There were only two people he knew who could clear up some, if not all, of his confusion; A.J and Mason.
Lee left a note at the front desk letting Fabián know that an unexpected emergency had forced him to go home. Two hours later, Lee was back in NYC. His plan was to head to either A.J or Mason’s store and confront one or both of them, but he changed his mind. Something told him that no matter how he pushed, he wouldn’t get the answers he needed from either of them. Not unless he had real evidence that they were hiding something from him.
He spun his car around and headed to his father’s house instead. With Mason being at work, there was no one to open the door for Lee. Luckily, he had his own key. As soon as he stepped into the house, he made a beeline for the bathroom. He lingered at the door for a moment. Did he really want to do this? What if the truth wasn’t what he thought it was? Could he handle it? Wasn’t it safer to live in the cocoon that everyone had built for him?
No. He firmly turned the doorknob. He’d take the truth any day over safety built on lies.
Once in the bathroom, he walked over the sink and grabbed his father’s toothbrush.
FIVE DAYS LATER, Lee sat in his car staring at the document he was holding with wide-eyed shock. It couldn’t be true. No, it wasn’t true. The test was inaccurate, a lie. He was his father’s son. There was no way their DNA didn’t match. They were father and son.
Still, the words on the document he was holding couldn’t be denied.
The test he’d requested a few days ago said that the probability that he and Mason were father and son was less than one percent. They were not father and son. Heck, they weren’t even related.
For a brief moment, Lee considered marching in and requesting a second opinion. Unfortunately, the lab he’d used was well respected for its accuracy and rigorous testing. They’d likely performed several tests on the DNA he’d provided and confirmed the results without a doubt before sharing them with Lee.
Mason wasn’t his father.
Maybe I should do a test with mom’s DNA, Lee mused as shock raced through him.
No, he immediately decided. The process was too complicated and invasive. It would likely require an exhumation, and he wasn’t interested in putting his mother through such a violation just so he could confirm what he already knew. That he wasn’t her son either.
Lee drew in a shaky breath as he crumpled the paper in his hand. The cornucopia of emotions racing through him was so intense that he had to close his eyes. It felt like he was standing with his back to a high cliff watching his fake past rush towards him. He was adopted? He didn’t want to believe it, but the truth was staring him right in the face. He wasn’t his parents’ son.
He wasn’t sure how he drove away from the lab and got to a local bar without causing an accident. But as soon as he got there, he asked for the strongest drink they had. By his third shot, the truth began to sink in.
He was adopted.
He was really adopted.
Along with the truth tumbled in numerous questions. Though right now it felt like his world was falling beneath his feet, being adopted wasn’t that big a deal. If his parents had told him years ago, he would’ve been shocked just because they’d always treated him like their biological child. However, he definitely would’ve gotten over it quickly.
So why had they hidden it for so long? Lee suspected that had he not found out for himself, his father would never have told him. If it were up to Mason and Victoria, Lee would’ve likely lived his whole life thinking that he was their biological son.
Were they afraid that he’d go look for his birth parents? Who were his birth parents? How had his adoption happened? Was he even from Saint Louis like his parents claimed? And how did A.J know it? Would she even tell him the truth if he asked? How much did she know anyway? Was she part of his past before his adoption?
For each question he asked, another one joined the line until it felt like his questions were queued up and waiting for someone to answer them. Who? His father? A.J? Lee wanted to race straight to his father and confront him. But along with the panic came worry. Should he even tell his father that he knew he was adopted? How would he explain that he knew without revealing that he’d stolen Mason’s toothbrush? That he didn’t trust him enough to just ask him?
Christ! Lee blew out a heavy breath. This was so complicated.
He needed to think. He needed a moment to come up with a plan that would allow him to get the answers he needed without hurting his father.
Night found him still at the bar, drinking and thinking. Given his state of mind and the alcohol in his system, driving himself home wasn’t an option. After talking with the bar’s management to let them know he was leaving his car behind, he took a cab to his apartment. The cab dropped him off in front of the building, and he took the elevator up to his floor.
As soon as he entered his apartment, he turned on the lights and tossed his jacket to the couch. He crossed the hallway and headed for his bedroom. But just as he turned the doorknob the hairs at the back of his neck rose.
It was hard to describe the odd feeling that suddenly suffused Lee’s senses; it was almost as if his subconscious was warning him. He turned to glance behind him but there was nothing there so, warily, he turned the doorknob. Right before he opened the completely, he heard a sound behind it. It wasn’t a loud sound, just a low shuffling sound but it set the alarm bells ringing within him.
Heart in his throat, Lee pulled the door to him with the knob, then with all his might shoved it back to the wall.
“Oomph!” There was no mistaking the groan that rent the air. There was someone in his bedroom.
Lee slammed the door back into the intruder again before rushing into the room. Though the room was dark, he could see the large man wedged behind his door. Before the man could recover from the pain of the door slamming into him, Lee cocked his elbow and smashed his fist into the man’s face. Knuckles cracked into flesh with a satisfying crunch.
“Oh!” The man cried out as he covered his face with his hands and doubled over.
Lee only took a second to turn on the lights before coming back to grab the intruder by the neck of his shirt and drag him out into the open. In a split second, Lee recognized the large, burly man as the same bodyguard who’d come with Casper to A.J’s store.
His arm cocked to deliver another punch, Lee demanded, “What the hell are you doing here?”
But he never got his answer.
He was glaring at the man when he heard a sound behind him. However, before he could turn something heavy met the back of his head. Pain. Excruciating pain. It ricocheted from the back of his head to every nerve that was capable of feeling pain.
Then it went dark.