The Unearthed: Book One, The Eddie McCloskey Series (18 page)

“Sta
y
close. And don’t do anything unless we tell you to,” Tim ordered.

Jackie grunted. He was going to do whatever he thought was necessary to find his son.

Jackie followed Tim into the house. Behind him, Eddie, Stan, and Moira filed in. Moira shut the door and flipped the deadbolt. A few minutes ago he’d been all testosterone. But now in the quiet of the locked house, he began to feel fear.

Tim switched on the digital recorder. “The time is now one fifteen. We are in the foyer and are proceeding upstairs into Billy’s bedroom.”

Tim led the way and stopped at the foot of the stairs. He took the first one slowly, keeping his eyes angled upstairs.

Then Jackie heard it.

A soft moan.

“Did everybody hear that?” Moira asked.

“I believe that noise came from the master bedroom.” Tim continued slowly up the stairs.

More moaning now from the bedroom. It sounded like a woman enjoying sex.

Jackie worried it was a recording of Talia.

“Step aside.” Jackie nudged Tim him with his hand. He wanted to get there before everyone else in case it was something he didn’t want them to see. He bounded up the stairs.

Jackie threw open the door to the master bedroom. Part of him expected to find Talia in bed with another man, but he knew that was crazy because she was out front right now. Still, he couldn’t shake that image from his mind. He pictured her writhing under another man, her legs squeezing his sides, her face contorted in ecstasy.

He looked at the bed.

It was unmade, the sheets askew and the pillows scattered haphazardly across the bed. But it was empty.

The moaning ceased as Jackie stepped into the room. His eyes searched but saw no signs of a third party—clothes, shoes, wallet, keys. Jackie looked under the bed. He checked Talia’s dresser and then scanned his bureau. He checked the master bathroom, flicked on the light. The toilet seat was down.

Tim was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. “Jackie, we need you to turn that light off in there.”

Jackie had heard him but wasn’t processing anything. He stared at the bed.

Tim turned to the others. “Go ahead to Billy’s room. I’ll wait here with Jackie.”

Jackie couldn’t tear his eyes away from the bed. His mind kept playing games with him. He saw her now, naked, straddling some other man. Her back was to him, and he could only make out the man’s scrawny legs, kicking up and bouncing each time she moved her body. She turned her head, not to look at him, but like she always did when she was about to climax. And her eyes were squeezed shut, and her mouth was half open, and he could hear her. He watched her body twitch, and she fell over the man, her body loosening. She stayed there, breathing heavily.

“Jackie—”

“You don’t see it, do you?”

“I don’t see anything except a bed.”

The phone rang.

Tim jumped. Jackie was almost too numb to be shocked by it.

Tim was closer and picked it up.

“Hello?”

Jackie waited.

Tim hung up the phone. “Nobody there.”

It rang again.

Tim let it ring a few times, then answered. Again it was clear to Jackie nobody was answering Tim hung up.

The phone rang again.

“Let me try,” Jackie said.

Tim got out of his way.

Jackie walked over to the nightstand on Talia’s side of the bed and picked the phone up.

“Hello?”

At first, he couldn’t make out the voices. He heard talking. A man and a woman. They were speaking softly, as if they didn’t want someone else in another room of the house to hear them. He could not hear the man’s voice as well as the woman’s voice.

But it had to be Talia.

“…an see you…t sounds go…” (soft laughter) “…yum…ou bet…ohhhhh…”

The phone was hurting his hand and Jackie realized he was squeezing it hard enough to break it. He wanted to throw it across the room. But a larger part of him wanted to hear.

The man’s voice, this time a little louder, “…eet ass…ow what I’m goin…yeah, bab…”

Jackie knew the voice, but he couldn’t place it. Was it someone from the office? Talia had always been a flirt. Ironically that had been part of the attraction in the beginning—she came on so strong. At the same time, she was one to come very close to the line, and they had argued about it before. Many, many times.

The man’s voice was young-sounding.

“...ming home …”

The two lovebirds hung up.

Jackie dropped the phone and sat on the bed.

Tim asked, “What did you hear?”

“You’ll hear it later. It’s all been recorded.” He just wanted Tim to leave him alone.

“Is it anything we need to know to do our job right here and now?”

Jackie shook his head.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Tim moved toward him.

“No. Let’s talk to Billy and find my son.” He stood up, his resolve coming back to him as he followed Tim out of the master bedroom, down the hallway and into Billy’s room where the others had already set up.

Eddie was sitting on the corner of Billy’s bed, the EMF detector out in front of him. Stan stood in the corner of the room, in front of the TV. Moira had taken a seat on the beanbag chair catty-corner to Stan.

Jackie sat on the bed next to Eddie, just where he would have sat with Billy.

Tim remained in the doorway. “We have moved to Billy’s room, and are all set up. Is there anyone in this room?”

He paused.

“If there is anyone in this room, please make your presence known to us. You can make a noise, or you can move in front of Eddie or Stan.”

Eddie said, “Up to three mGs.”

“I want you to make Eddie’s detector go up further if you can.”

“Spiked to six,” Eddie confirmed.

Jackie watched the meter with Eddie. He felt some small measure of hope. If they could only make contact …

* * * *

“You can speak to us if you’d like,” Tim said. “We won’t be able to hear you, but we might be able to pick up your voice on this recorder.”

Strangest investigation of his life. Contact with spirits usually took several hours, and often entire evenings passed without anything at all. But here, it was coming easy to them.

“Let’s switch out,” Stan said to Eddie. It was easier to carry on a dialogue with the K-2 meter than the EMF detector. Stan and Eddie exchanged the two items.

“Okay,” Tim began. “Since we can’t hear you, we’re going to ask you yes-and-no type questions. To answer, you just have to make the lights on the meter in Eddie’s hand activate. Twice for yes, once for no.

“Do you live here?” Tim asked.

Yes
.

“Are you one of the Moriartys?”

Yes
.

Eddie jumped in before Tim could follow up. “Is your name Billy?”

Yes
.

“Billy Moriarty?”

Yes
.             

“As in William Moriarty?”

Yes
.

“Ed—” Tim said.

Eddie shot Tim a hard look. “Let me run with this.”

Tim didn’t feel comfortable relinquishing control to Eddie right now. On the other hand, Eddie was good with children.

“Go for it,” Tim said. “And be careful.”

Eddie paused for a beat. Then he addressed the room. “Can you speak to us? So we can actually hear you?”

No
.

“But you can speak to Billy Rosselli?

Yes
.

“Why can you speak to him? Because he’s a kid?”

Yes
.

“Ed, you’re feeding him the answers,” Tim said. He was still worried. The last time Eddie had run with something, not more than an hour ago, they’d gotten locked in the house.

“Tim, we don’t have time to follow the Constitution. We’re talking to a spirit, not interrogating a suspect.”

Tim opened his mouth but Jackie spoke up first.

“Tim, please let Eddie continue.”

Tim realized his fists were clenched. He unballed them and gestured for Eddie to continue.

“Do you know where Billy Rosselli is?” Eddie asked.

Yes
.

“Is he okay?”

No
.

“Is he hurt?”

No answer.

“Is he hurt?”

No answer.

“You’re going to answer me.”

Tim folded his arms. Intimidation rarely worked with spirits.

“Where is—is he alive?” Eddie continued.

No answer.

“Is Billy Rosselli alive?”

“Is my son okay?” Jackie screamed, shooting off the bed and yelling at the middle of the room.

No
.

“Did you do something to him?” Jackie shouted.

No
.

“Jackie, we need you to stay calm—” Tim started to say.

“You fuckin’ calm down. This is my son!”

“Jackie,” Eddie began. “You have to trust us. Trust me. I’m going to help you.”

Jackie’s body untensed. He wiped under his eyes and nodded at Eddie.

Eddie gave it a moment, then he stood. “Okay, if you’re not going to answer us, we’re not going to talk to you. Everybody out of here.”

Tim saw what Eddie was doing and he liked it.

Jackie said, “Hold on a minute.”

Eddie shook his head. “The only power this spirit has over us is what we give him. We don’t play his games, he’s got nothing.”

Tim nodded. Everybody else seemed to get it.

“Let’s get out of here,” Eddie said.

The meter blinked.

“You want to talk?”

Yes
.

Eddie sat back down. “Because we’re not here to fuck around, you get it?”

Yes
.

“Is Billy Rosselli alive?”

Yes
.

“Is he near here?”

Yes
.

“Can he see the house from where he is?”

No answer.

“Last time, can he see the house from where he is?”

Nothing.

Then everything.

The phone rang, there was noise in the kitchen, there was moaning from the bedroom. The whole house seemed to take on life. Noise emanated from the walls around them. Billy’s sketch pad shot off his desk.

“Everybody out of here!” Tim said.

“Where’s Billy?” Eddie had to shout over the din. “Where is he?”

“Don’t push him, Eddie!” Moira screamed.

A loud crash downstairs. Jackie shouldered his way out of the room.

“Jackie, wait!” Tim ran after him. He nearly killed himself going down the stairs.

Tim found Jackie standing in the kitchen, slack-jawed.

He turned to see what Jackie was looking at.

He saw the vague outline of the boy from earlier in the family room. The boy pointed at Jackie and screamed. The sound was crippling. Tim grabbed Jackie to pull him away. As he did he realized the boy wasn’t pointing at Jackie. He was pointing at something behind Jackie.

Tim saw two luminous figures in the kitchen. A man and a woman. At first glance, it looked like they were drunk and dancing.

They might have been drunk, but they were not dancing.

It was the Moriarty parents. Something in the man’s hand glinted. It was a knife. Tim’s eyes followed the blade as it shot down its murderous arc. He couldn’t look away, not even when the blade buried itself in the woman’s gut.

A third form, almost as tall as the father, suddenly appeared as if it had just entered the screen. It crashed into the father. John and William grappled with each other.

Tim realized the boy had stopped screaming. He took his hands off his ears and watched in muted horror. He sensed the rest of his team behind him. Eddie came to the front and watched silently.

“John.”

Talia was in the kitchen now. She must have had her keys on her because Moira had flipped the deadbolt earlier.

“John.”

Tim watched as Jackie turned and looked at Talia, then put his arm around her, before turning back to watch the Moriartys.

Tim saw the mom on the kitchen floor, crawling toward them, pleading for life. She stretched her arms out and pulled herself across the tile. Inch by bloody inch. John Moriarty landed a heavy blow on his oldest son’s head. William slumped to the ground, dazed.

“John—” Talia said, hugging Jackie tight.

Siobhan Moriarty crawled across the floor toward them. Her left eye was a bloody mess, her right obscured by matted hair. She left a trail of dark blood behind her.