Chapter 24

A HOWLING WIND WOKE me from out of my daydream. I felt a cold draft against the right side of my face. Looking over my right shoulder I saw that one of the double-hung windows had been left open. Not wide open, but open enough for me to feel the breeze.

Shifting myself to the window, I reached out with both hands, closed it. That’s when I noticed that the old lock had been sheered as if someone had tried to force the window open from out on the porch.

I had no choice but to investigate.

Outside on the porch I went to the window and discovered that it had, in fact, been tampered with. Jimmied. Kids, teenagers. It was the first thought that entered into my head. Locals looking to do a little partying.

But then if that had been the case, there would have been beer and liquor bottles tossed all over the living room floor; maybe even the charred remnants of a fire in the fireplace.

But the place was clean. No sign of foul play, least of all a group of teen partiers.

I made a mental note to call the carpenter to repair the window. I turned and started for the front door to lock it back up. It was then that I spotted the photograph. A black and white photo with a white border that was lying on the porch floor as if it had slipped out of somebody’s pocket not ten years ago, but just this morning.

Bending at the knees I picked the picture up.

I felt the floor beneath me shift. The image was of Molly and me. We couldn’t have been more than twelve years old at the time the picture was taken. In the photo we had our twin faces up so close to the camera lens our lips were practically pressed up against it. We were playing for the camera, laughing, smiling, really hamming it up for the photographer.

But this is not what robbed me of my breath and my balance.

The real shock was this: the image in the photo was identical to the one I had seen inside the basement art storage space of Franny’s house. The same one his mother said he’d painted back when he was still in his early twenties.

Had Franny been in possession of this photograph? How would he have gotten hold of it? Did he plant it here purposely for me to find it? If he did, how did he know that I would be coming here?

I sat down onto the porch floor, my back pressed up against the clapboard wall. I became convinced that Michael had been right all along. It wasn’t Whalen who had me spooked.

Franny was also doing a pretty good job of it.

Autism or no autism, Franny was playing with my head, my emotions. Somehow, I got the distinct feeling he knew all about Molly’s and my secret. Somehow he’d managed to invade my head, grab hold of my memories. Now he was toying with me, dangling me by strings like a puppet.

Sweet, old brilliant Franny.

I stood up, shoved the photo in my pocket, and took a three-hundred-sixty degree look around. My fear replaced itself with anger. Was I being followed? Stalked? Did Franny have something to do with it?

I needed answers and I needed them now.

First I locked the door. Then making my way down the porch steps, I jogged my way across the lawn to the Cabriolet. But before opening the door, slipping behind the wheel, I took one last look at the field and the thick woods that covered Mount Desolation.

“Up yours!”