floor to begin with and been knocked into sight. Whatever the reason, Eileen saw it now.
She crouched, claiming the folder and undoing its fastener. Then she tilted it downward, spilling its contents.
A spray of photographs fell to the floor.
Eileen picked up the topmost photo, a glossy 3x5. At first, she didn’t understand what she was looking at. Once she did, she couldn’t believe it.
She threw the photo down and picked up another, and another.
The shots were candids, taken some distance away from the subjects—across the street, through a window, from a modest height. The subjects were Claire, Murphy, and Eileen. Claire in line at the post office, tapping on her phone. Murphy standing in her school bus line at Emmet Middle. Eileen outside Safeway, loading groceries into a customer’s trunk.
More shots, varied in angles but the same in general content: the Sullivan sisters, living their daily lives, unaware of the lens that captured them.
Eileen dropped the last of the photos. She felt exposed, stripped naked before a pair of leering eyes. She felt scared, like a child awoken at night. There was no adult here to turn on the light, open Eileen’s closet, and tell her the monster wasn’t inside. She was alone in these castle ruins with the reality that someone had been watching her.
What had Mr. Knutsen told her, in his office?
Do you know, he found out about you by way of private investigator.
This was how Patrick had discovered them, known they were his nieces. He’d had a stranger track them down and take photographs.
Only then did Eileen remember the nightmare, with its the walk along the coast, and the beach house turned blood red.
In an instant it became clear.
She was inside the red house.
She had been here before.
That unexplained trip to the coast, the day of flavornado. Their mother had brought them here. To Rockport. How had Eileen not seen that? The truth was obvious. Mom had brought them, as what? A failed attempt to explain?
As she stared at the scattered photos, Eileen noticed the clipping—a cut-out bit of newspaper. She picked it up, turning it over from a butchered article to the true piece of importance: The Unholy Trinity. Her unholy trinity, paired with the caption, “Local young artist Eileen Sullivan displays work at Emmet High Arts Show.”
Her painting. Her heart. Cut out.
“Leenie?”
Eileen shouted, turning so fast from her crouch that she fell to the ground. She stared at the ghostly figure standing over her.
It was Claire. She was breathing fast, and she’d brought in the cold from the open front door. A cut ran along her left cheek, ending in a deep bruise beneath the eye.
“W-what the hell?” Eileen choked out.
“I had an accident,” Claire said, touching a hand to her face. “I was running back.”
Eileen looked to the photographs, and this time so did Claire. She drew closer, kneeling beside Eileen and picking one up.
“Jeez,” she said, three photos in.
“It’s messed up,” Eileen said. “Knutsen said Patrick used a PI. It makes me feel … naked, kind of. Unsafe.”
Claire looked up and said, “Where’s Murphy?”
“In the parlor, sleeping.”
Casting down the photos, Claire swept out of the room. Eileen couldn’t follow, though. For the moment she couldn’t move.
Seconds later, Claire shouted, “EILEEN!”
That’s when the feeling returned to Eileen’s legs, along with a warm and nauseating fear. Using the couch, she heaved herself to her feet. When she reached the parlor, she found Claire throwing blankets and pillows aside, revealing a bare couch. No Murphy there.
“But she was …” Eileen shook her head. “I don’t—”
“She’s gone.” Claire’s voice was ice. “Weren’t you keeping an eye on her?”
“Wasn’t I—you’re the one who left the goddamn house!”
Claire was shaking her head, fast. “Doesn’t matter.”
Eileen called, “Murphy? MURPH.”
She looked to the grand staircase, the piano, the windows, the hearth. No sign of her sister. How long had she been gone?
And what if those photographs weren’t the work of Patrick Enright’s PI?
What if they’d been taken by … Mark?
And if he’d been able to follow them, stalk them, without their knowing it, then who was to say he couldn’t be doing the same exact thing now?
Eileen opened the cabinet doors of the sideboard. She was in search of a hiding place, somewhere Murphy could have contorted herself. She had stowed away on the ride here. Maybe this was another one of her weird-humored tricks.
There was no Murphy inside.
There was, however, a scrap of paper on the floor, nearby. Eileen’s gaze hooked on the name—a bold subtitle that read, JOHN ENRIGHT.