Death Falls

“I assumed Kat would help with that,” he said. “Or is this not an official police matter?”

“It’s not,” Kat quickly answered. “I already told Nick he could have full access to our records. But I doubt abduction is mentioned in them, so they likely won’t tell us anything.”

“That leaves family,” Nick said. “Is your father still alive?”

Eric nodded, although he knew Ken Olmstead would be of little help. When Eric was growing up, his father was never there when he needed him. Eric saw no reason why he would start now.

“Or neighbors,” Kat suggested. “Lee and Becky Santangelo are still around. So is Glenn Stewart.”

Of course she would know that. But Eric assumed that, like his father, none of them would be useful. Although the Santangelos had lived across the street his entire life, he barely knew them. His mother had a falling-out with them before Eric could even walk. Their only exchanges were icy stares when their paths crossed while pulling out of the driveway or fetching the mail.

And when Lee was stumping for votes, of course. During election time he was happy to come over and chat. That was politics for you.

Then there was Glenn Stewart next door. Amazingly, Eric knew less about him than he did the Santangelos. His presence on the street was so minimal that Eric usually forgot about him entirely. His house—so tall and rickety—might as well have been empty, just like the one Mort and Ruth Clark used to live in.

“That’s a start,” Nick said. “I’ll talk to them and see what they remember about that night. If we’re lucky, maybe one of them saw something suspicious around Sunset Falls.”

Eric shrugged, something Mitch Gracey never did. Even though Eric was his creator, Gracey was the complete opposite of himself—decisive, hard-charging, certain of everything. For instance, Gracey would already have been pounding on the Santangelos’ door, demanding they spill their secrets. He wouldn’t have remained in the dining room like Eric did, listening to Nick Donnelly move on to the next order of business.

“About this waterfall,” he said. “Where is it?”

Although the question was directed at Eric, Kat Campbell was the one who answered. “Just beyond the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

“You can walk to it,” Eric added, trying to be helpful.

“That’s a good idea.” Nick grabbed his cane and used it to help pull himself to his feet. “Let’s have a look.”

When Kat also stood, Eric reluctantly followed suit. He had no desire to visit Sunset Falls. Even as a boy, he never wanted anything to do with the spot that had shattered his family. But that morning it was unavoidable. Nick Donnelly wanted to see the falls and Eric was obliged to show him. It was where his brother’s existence ended. Hopefully, it would also be the place where the answers to what happened to him began.

FOUR (#u72f506bd-52a9-5a6e-93cb-4f6e5d08dcec)

The cul-de-sac was quiet. Forbiddingly quiet, like a graveyard at night. Part of that could be attributed to its status as a glorified dead end, an afterthought by town planners, which jutted into the woods toward the water. But there were other streets in Perry Hollow just like it, and none of them were this silent, this still, this—

Haunted.

That was probably too dramatic a word to describe the cul-de-sac, but it perfectly summed up the vibe Kat got from it. There was no sidewalk, only high sycamores that towered next to the road, blocking out the bulk of the sun. In their leafy shadows, the street’s four houses looked dark and empty. Their lawns were vacant. Their front porches bare. It seemed to Kat like a ghost town.

She was sure Nick and even Eric Olmstead, who grew up there, felt the same way. The three of them walked down the middle of the street slowly and quietly, as if they were afraid of disturbing whatever spirits might lurk there.

Nick was the first to speak, pointing to a large brick home set far back on the opposite side of the street. It reeked of ostentation, from the curving driveway to the giant brass knockers on the front door.

“Who lives there?”

“That’s the Santangelo residence,” Kat said. “Lee and Becky.”

“Lee Santangelo. Where have I heard that name before?”

“He was a politician. State representative for, like, twenty years.”

Until Eric Olmstead hit the bestseller list, Lee Santangelo had been Perry Hollow’s most famous resident. The highlight of his tenure in Harrisburg was never taking a stand on anything and voting in whatever direction the popular wind was blowing. But people loved him. He was a former fighter pilot handpicked by NASA to train for the space program. His wife was a stylish beauty queen turned homemaker. They were Perry Hollow’s own JFK and Jackie.

Kat remembered how Lee would visit the elementary school each year, giving rambling speeches that encompassed everything from the importance of space exploration to state government. Even as a girl, she had thought him a bit too full of himself, a little heavy on the preening. Other girls disagreed. Even as Lee entered his forties, Kat still heard classmates talk about his sheer dreaminess.

“When was the last time you talked to Lee Santangelo?” she asked Eric.

“We’ve barely said ten words to each other our entire lives. The most we talked was when he’d put campaign signs in our yard every election, despite the fact that my mother always pulled them up and threw them in the street. They didn’t get along.”

“Why not?”

“My mother never talked about it. Which makes me think it had something to do with Charlie.”

Kat shot Nick a glance. Whether he meant to or not, Eric just gave them their first suspect.

They came to a stop again at the next house on that side of the street. About half the size of the Santangelo residence, it was a two-story clapboard. And although the lawn was mowed and curtains were hung in the windows, Kat didn’t need the FOR SALE sign at the end of the driveway to tell her it was vacant. It had that air of emptiness homes on the market often possessed.

According to the sign, the Realtor was Ginger Schultz, a former high school classmate. She and Kat had taken algebra together, and they’d spend the class sitting in the back row giggling and slipping notes. Now that Kat thought about it, a lot of those notes had to do with Eric Olmstead. That he and Kat were once again in the same place at the same time would amuse Ginger to no end.

“Who used to live here?” Nick asked.

“Ruth and Mort Clark,” Eric said with noticeable affection. “My mom actually liked them. They were good people.”

“When did they move?”

Kat, whose job required her to know as much as she could about everyone in town, took the liberty of answering. “They didn’t. They died. Mort sometime in the late eighties. Ruth was in the early nineties. The house has been on and off the market a lot since then.”

“Any particular reason?” Nick asked.

“No idea.”

Eric started walking again. “I’d say it was the street. People know what happened here. Word gets around. It makes the place feel …”

His voice trailed off, but Kat knew what word he had intended to use. It was the same word that had popped into her head earlier. Haunted.

As if they needed further proof of that feeling, Kat turned to the house across the street. Absurdly tall and run-down. The only way it could have looked more haunted is if there had been a cemetery in the front yard. Kat’s gaze started at the widow’s walk on the roof and slid down the house’s façade. The windows were wide and rounded at the top, giving the impression of many eyes staring outward. Some were cracked. Others were missing shutters. The siding—Kat assumed it had once been white—desperately needed stripping and a fresh coat of paint. The front porch was in equally bad shape. Holes gaped willy-nilly in the floorboards and a whole section of railing had broken off. It now lay on the ground, partially hidden by knee-high crabgrass.

“Let me guess,” Nick said, “this one is also vacant.”

“You’d think that, from the looks of the place,” Kat replied.

Nick jabbed his cane in the house’s direction. “Someone actually lives there?”

Kat nodded. “Glenn Stewart. He’s the town’s recluse.”

Other than the fate of Charlie Olmstead, Mr. Stewart was Perry Hollow’s biggest mystery. Kat, who could recognize almost every one of the town’s residents, had never knowingly laid eyes on the man. She also didn’t know too many people who had. In order to see Glenn, you’d have to go inside his house or he’d have to come out. As far as she knew, neither of those things happened very often.

“He was here in 1969?” Nick asked.

“Yes,” Eric said. “But according to my mother, he didn’t leave the house back then, either. He just stays inside, in his own little world. If it wasn’t for the occasional light in the window, you wouldn’t know he was there at all.”