Closing Costs
Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Also by Bracken MacLeod
Dedication
Epigraphs
I. Nelle
1
2
3
II. Evan
4
5
6
III. Closing
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
IV. Nightmares
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
V. Memory
24
25
26
27
VI. Security
28
29
30
VII. Die of Fright
31
32
33
34
VIII. Phantoms
35
36
IX. Samantha
37
38
39
X. Mack
40
41
42
43
XI. Ascending
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
XII. The Woods
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
XIII. The Cellar
XIV. Costs
63
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Connect on Social Media
Copyright © 2021 by Bracken MacLeod
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: MacLeod, Bracken, author.
Title: Closing costs / Bracken MacLeod.
Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020034159 (print) | LCCN 2020034160 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358334736 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780358540137 | ISBN 9780358540205 | ISBN 9780358335764 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3613.A27395 C58 2021 (print) | LCC PS3613.A27395
(ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034159
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020034160
Cover design by Brian Moore
Cover image © Emily Keegin / Getty Images
Author photograph © Heather MacLeod
v1.0621
for Dallas Mayr
When I was at home, I was in a better place.
—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
No one is more arrogant toward women, more aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility.
—SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, The Second Sex
Where it went was to the basement.
—JACK KETCHUM, The Girl Next Door
I
◆
Nelle
1
TWELVE WEEKS AFTER CLOSING
Home.
It was nice to be home. Nelle Pereira had been looking forward to this long weekend for a while. Work lately had been hard, and she felt like the stress was piling up, ever mounting, until the smallest upsets left her feeling raw and depleted. A mere two days off was not enough to reset her mental reserves. She hadn’t worked up the nerve yet to quit, but was nearly there. Maybe Monday she’d tell Tony she was leaving. Give him enough time to find her replacement; he’d been kind to her, and she didn’t want to leave him in the lurch. And then she could spend more time with her husband doing the things they’d always put off because there was never enough time with school and then work. Never enough money. They could try again to expand their family. They could afford it now. And they owned a home.
Home. The word wasn’t onomatopoetic, but sounded like it could be. The long oh and a soft mmm at the end, both preceded by an exhalation. It sounded like the kind of contented moan a person would make during a lingering, comforting embrace. The word was warm and safe and all the things she adored about being in the house she and Evan had bought just over three months ago.
It was nice to be home.
She lost herself in the sound of the showerhead above and behind her, the rushing patter of water against her skin and the tub and curtain beside. Steaming hot water beat against her shoulders and cascaded down her back as she stood, letting the spray massage her. An unhurried, hot shower was a decadence. But April in Massachusetts could be eighty degrees one day, and forty and snowing the next, and the nights were usually cool. Though today was forecast to be a warm one, Nelle was a summer creature. She soaked in the heat to ward off the chill of the night before and the one to come.
After she shut the water off and pulled back the curtain to grab her towel, she looked at her dripping hands and water-wrinkled fingertips. How long do you have to shower to get pruney fingers? Nelle dried off, stepped out of the tub, and called to her husband, “Sor-ry, bebê! I’m done.” Evan had promised to have breakfast on the table when she got out, but he was used to her Saturday morning hedonism.
She finished blotting her hair and dropped the towel on the floor. Seeing only the hazy silhouette of her body in the foggy mirror, she smiled. She felt good. A little more than good, actually. Her muscles were loose and warm, and she felt pleasantly relaxed from head to toe. She opened the door and peeked out, intending to give Evan an incentive to abandon breakfast for the bedroom.
He wasn’t where she expected him to be, just around the corner in the kitchen by the stove or the fridge. The bright room was empty, sunlight from the window glinting off brushed steel appliances.
She padded upstairs toward the bedroom, careful not to slip with still-damp feet on the hardwood floors. A concussion would not be conducive to seduction. Evan teased her about tracking water all over the house, showering downstairs when there was an en-suite full bath off their bedroom, but the showerhead upstairs was one of those low-water types, so the pressure was weak. On weekends and after exercise, she needed the stronger nozzle from the first floor, and told him that until he replaced the showerhead in the master bath, she’d be taking her indulgence on the first floor, thank you very much.
She peeked into their bedroom. The bed was made, and the room, as empty as it was quiet. Across the hall in the guest room, the setting was the same. Unused bed, unopened curtains, and no life except for the Devil’s ivy plant on the dresser that desperately needed watering. She turned out the light and stepped out into the hall, peeking into the upstairs bath, thinking maybe he’d ducked in there. But then, Evan wasn’t shy about peeing in the same bathroom where she was showering—or doing her makeup, or brushing her teeth—and if he was sitting, the door would be closed.
He wasn’t upstairs at all. “Evaaaaan. Where aaaaare you?” She went back downstairs and checked the guest rooms down the hall at the south end of the house—still filled with packed boxes, three months after their move. Not there. She searched for him in the dining room. Empty. “Hey, bebê! Where’d you go?” Her voice echoed in the narrow, high-ceilinged room. She listened, hoping to hear him poking around somewh
ere. Maybe a rustle of packing boxes or the record player needle dropping into a groove. But, nothing. The kitchen, dining room, and family room were all open floor plan. If she couldn’t see him in the kitchen, he wasn’t in any of those places.
She crossed back through the kitchen and opened the basement door, the only place she hadn’t checked. He could be doing a load of laundry, right? On a Saturday morning. Of a long weekend. Unlikely, still . . . “You down there?” She listened, but got no reply. She shut the door and returned to the bathroom.
He must be outside.
She dressed in the old camisole top and baggy cutoff sweats she wore to lounge in on weekends. While their house was on the outskirts of town, it wasn’t that remote and there was a limit to her exhibitionism. She didn’t need to give an eyeful to the mailman or some other delivery person she might meet on the front step.
Sure, I can sign for that package. Huh! I don’t seem to have a pen on me.
The morning outside was cool but not cold. Not bad. It had rained overnight, and the air was rich with the smell of earth. The petrichor out in their suburban paradise was different than in the city; there was no bus exhaust or hot asphalt competing with the smell from the patchy grass in people’s postage stamp yards. Here, they lived on the border of a forest reservation, redolent of wet woods and soil. It had been alien at first, but now it smelled to her like life. She took a deep breath and held it. It was nice. Exactly why they’d moved out of Cambridge . . . well, one of the reasons why.
She let her breath out and resumed the search for her husband. His unannounced absence filled her with a creeping unease she knew was irrational, but grew in her gut nevertheless.
She wandered around the side of the house on the forested side of the property, her freshly washed feet getting dirty in the dewy lawn. It felt nice. Who needed shoes out here?
Evan’s car was gone. He must’ve run to the store. Yeah, that was it.
She walked back to the front door, pausing to wipe her feet on the mat before going inside. They were still damp, and she didn’t want to track mud and grass all over the floors.
She strode through the house into the dining room. At the far end, she picked her phone up off of the charging mat on the desk tucked in the small nook and started tapping out a text.
grab some champers while you’re @ the store
After a second, she sent a follow-up.
PLEASE XXOO :^*
She hit SEND and waited. A couple of seconds later, a short blast of music echoed from the kitchen. She followed the sound and found Evan’s smartphone on top of the coffeepot, where he liked to set it when he was cooking. When it went off a second time, she looked at the device like it was a bomb. He takes it with him to the bathroom!
She set her own mobile down and picked his up. Where would he have gone with the car, but without his phone? They were walking distance from the only neighbor they knew, and they were out of town. She tried to recall when Juanita had said she and Colin were headed off for the long weekend. They’d been gone a couple of days at least already. After three months, she and Evan still hadn’t really gotten to know anybody else nearby yet. They’d picked the house for its seclusion. When she and Evan first moved in together, they’d alternately joked and promised each other they’d never move to the country. City people forever. That’s where life is. Never say never. They’d rented in Cambridge long enough that the little forgivable quirks of a first-floor apartment in a “triple-decker” started to become annoyances, and then intolerable drains on their patience and happiness.
Evan had to be at the store. Unless something happened, said the unsteady feeling in her belly.
She entered his unlock code and looked at his texts. Maybe it was his mom? She was recovering from a broken hip and insisted on staying in her house alone, even though she was still unsteady on her feet and using a walker. Her mother-in-law was the kind of person who’d call her son before she dialed 911, even though it’d take him over an hour to get to her place up in Salem. Evan was levelheaded. He’d send an ambulance and then follow them to the hospital. And he definitely wouldn’t have gone without being sure she knew what was happening.
The messages Nelle sent him just a moment ago were top of the list. The next texts came two days ago from their friends, Gen and Jun, about getting together for dinner soon. The most recent message from his mom was days ago. So, Inês was just fine and probably sitting in her BarcaLounger watching serial killer documentaries on the Discovery ID channel. No phone emergency.
No news was good news, but it didn’t help settle her nerves. She set Evan’s phone down and went to the kitchen window to look in the back yard. The view of the tree line and the forest beyond the back yard was nice; she tried to focus on it instead of his absence. Her husband slipping out for a few minutes was not the end of the world. There were a million reasons why he might disappear for a bit. It had to be the store—he’d run out of eggs or lemon juice for the Hollandaise sauce. Since he couldn’t be quaintly neighborly and go next door to “borrow” something with the Darnielles out of town, he’d had to drive to the store.
Anxiety was a plague. With unpleasant regularity, Nelle’s imagination darkened banal incidents into sinister preludes of catastrophe. She wished her mind didn’t work like that, but it was what a guilty conscience did. It made you wary of trusted people, apprehensive of variations from routine. It always reminded you that, somewhere, accountability might be lurking.
With nothing else to do but await Evan’s return and the normality he’d bring, she opted to sit down with a novel. Maybe she could sink into something fantastical with a witchy monster hunter.
She turned to grab a book off the pile on the end table in the living room and caught sight of her husband’s gray silhouette reflected in the clearing bathroom mirror. He was in the shadows of the hallway by the guest bedroom. How had he sneaked past her? Why hadn’t she heard his car, or the front door?
“Damn it, Evan! You scared the hell out of me.”
The figure disappeared from the mirror, and for a moment she thought a trick of the light and her anxiety were making her jump at shadows. But then, it wasn’t a shadow. It was a reflection. And it had moved. She saw it.
And Evan didn’t move like that.
The figure turned the corner. She blinked hard at the sight of him. He wasn’t a monster, but a man with a receding hairline, eyes shaded under a heavy brow, and a thin mouth.
He was ordinary. And terrifying.
His face was set in a grim mask of intent that looked like the expression men wore before getting into a fight, or . . . worse. He stepped closer and she tensed, ready to run but recognizing it was too late. He’d caught her. Who are you? and Why are you in my house? passed through her mind, but she couldn’t find the breath to say them out loud. He moved a step forward, and she backpedaled for the front door instinctively, reaching out blindly for the knob. He closed the distance too fast—ready for the sprint while she was still playing catch-up with her own reactions. She screamed, “No!” as she felt his hand on her shoulder. She spun and jammed her fingernails at his face and dragged them down his cheek.
He pulled away, a hand pressed to his torn face, and she stood tall, feeling that this was a moment that could go her way. She could do this. And then he punched her in the stomach so hard her legs gave out. She fell to the floor, not wanting to give up, not wanting to just lie there, but unable to refuse her body’s compulsion to curl up into a ball. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe. Her stomach cramped, and she retched.
The man leaned down and grabbed a handful of her damp hair, pulling her head up. She reached out and dug into him with her nails again. This time, his chest. He let go. As she attempted to scramble away, she kicked at him. Through the thrum of her heartbeat, she heard him curse at her, and then he stomped hard on her bare ankle. He was wearing boots. A fresh jolt of pain bloomed in her leg. Her stomach was still cramping, so she couldn’t get a deep enough breath to cry out.
Her arm bumped up against the big bookshelf, and a couple of books dropped on her head. She snatched one from the floor and hurled it at the intruder, but it bounced off him. He said something hostile she couldn’t make out through panic-dulled ears.
He leaned in close, and she began to kick again, hoping that one wild heel might catch him in the stomach or the balls. Give her a small interstice of time to get on her feet, get ahead, get away. Her struggles amounted to nothing as he grabbed her hair again and yanked her hard around, wrenching her neck. She felt faint. He shoved down against the side of her head, pinning it to the floor. She felt the press of something hard against her cheek. It stank like a machine—oily and mean. He said something. She didn’t respond; his noises didn’t mean anything to her. They sounded like the grunts of some beast—something feral that wanted to rip her open with its tusks—a wild pig snorting fury and snot.
“Shut up,” he repeated. This time, the words got through. She hadn’t realized she was sobbing. Not until he told her to stop. “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll shoot you in the face.”
Shoot me. It’s a gun. He has a gun pressed to my face. Ohfuckohfuck-ohfuck!
He pressed the barrel of the gun harder into her cheek. She yelped and tried to twist her head away, and he bore down with his other hand. Stars exploded behind her eyes. In the moment, she saw an image of herself at work. Not standing over the body of someone she was preparing for a memorial, but on the embalming table. Her boss, Tony, standing over her with eyes red from crying and holding a trocar, ready to insert it into her body and drain her. He’d work diligently to repair the bullet wound in her face. The broken skull and powder burns would make it difficult, but he was a professional and would try, and cry, and she would be dead forever, never knowing what happened to her husband.
The image faded as the intruder eased up on her head. Not enough for her to move, but the pain receded somewhat. “I don’t want to shoot you. Are you going to be a good girl?” he asked.
She didn’t believe him. If he didn’t want to use his gun, he wouldn’t have brought it into her home. He wouldn’t have shoved it in her face. Still, she went limp and quieted herself; struggling wasn’t doing anything. “Y-yes.”