Starter House(64)
“I don’t know yet.” She’d found 571 Forrester on her Internet searches: she’d found maps, the property taxes they paid, their school zone, a list of nearby homes for sale, even some beautiful pictures before and after renovation on Grey and Associates’ website, but nothing about its history. No help there. How wide was Drew’s reach? They had to get away from Forrester Hills before he caught them—she saw it again, his hands on the steering wheel, his foot on the gas pedal, accelerating her into a house, a tree, another car. In a crash, the airbag might kill the baby. She shifted the seat belt: lap belt low on the hips, under the belly; shoulder belt around the belly, under the breasts. She slid the front seat as far back as possible, getting every possible inch between airbag and baby. “Let’s go to that new hotel by the airport. Skyview.”
As Lacey reached the corner of Forrester and Forrester Hills, she saw a sheriff’s cruiser coming the other way. So they’d come for Lex and Theo. She was glad Lex had already taken the baby home.
Could Drew walk in Harry’s house? Harry had a picture that looked like him, so most likely he could; it was not as safe a sanctuary as Lex thought. Not a good house for his baby either. As she turned, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The cruiser stopped at Harry’s house. The late sunlight cast reflections of the surrounding houses and trees onto the windows of Lacey’s house, and she could see nothing but a tossing chaos of other windows and other doors, masked and revealed by the rushing leaves.
Chapter Twenty-eight
AS THE NEW GUY, Eric volunteered for the Saturday shift on call. So far, it had been quiet, but it would pick up by late afternoon and spike around four A.M., after closing time, which estranged husbands considered the perfect time to repossess or vandalize their almost-exes’ cars. He expected calls from the detention center, bail bondsmen, incoherent clients, and counsel for the party of the second part. What he did not expect was Sammie Vandermeijn, with her hair in a new, shorter bob and bright orange bangs, appearing in his office door on her day off to announce, “Oh my God, Eric, do you know what you did, you bought the Halliday house, and now you’re living in it!”
“You know it’s Saturday.”
Obviously, she knew it was Saturday. She was wearing a turquoise tracksuit and no makeup at all. “I’ve been hearing about that place my whole life, and I’ve always wondered if any of the stories are true. And you’re living in it. The Halliday house. That is so cool.”
“Sammie,” Eric said forcefully. He had to stop her babbling and get a clear answer out of her. “What are you saying? What’s wrong with my house?”
“It’s haunted. I didn’t recognize the address at first, but it’s the Halliday house for sure. I used to go there Halloween night with my cousins and throw eggs at it, after trick or treat.” Sammie shook her head and laughed at her past self. “The things kids do. Awful things. We never thought about the people who were living there, how hard it must have been to clean up. ’Course, eggs are more expensive these days, so maybe you won’t have it so bad.”
“Sammie, please. Sit down and tell me. Sit.” He gestured at the clients’ chair.
She had written up her discovery in a tidy memo, and she handed it over the desk and waited as he read. “Are you sure this is the same house?” he asked once.
“Sure I’m sure. County tax records don’t lie.”
On the ninth of April in 1972, a high school history teacher named Andrew Halliday had come home, and for reasons never made clear he spent the afternoon murdering his family, beginning by drowning his baby daughter and finishing the job by shooting himself. Whenever he heard one of these stories, Eric wondered why the angry parent didn’t save everybody a lot of trouble and pain by starting with himself. Somehow they never did. The children were Andrew Junior, James, Matthew, and Dorothy. The wife was Dora Rakoczy Halliday.
“Does this have something to do with Harry Rakoczy next door?” he said.
“She was his sister.”
“And Lex Hall?”
Sammie snatched the paper from under his hand. “Didn’t I put that in? I pulled up the title search to find out how Lex Hall got hold of the house. And he inherited it from his parents. Andrew and Dora Halliday. He changed his name from Halliday to Hall, but he’s one of them, all right. He’s the one who got out alive.”
“There was another kid who wasn’t home?”
Sammie seemed disappointed. He sympathized. Dropping a bombshell wasn’t nearly as much fun if you had to stand around afterward and explain the bang. “There were four kids, three boys and a baby girl. Andrew Junior, James, Matthew, Dorothy. Nice normal family, but you know that’s what the neighbors always say.”