Page 55 of The Whisper Place
“To be fair, people are watching him. That’s not paranoia.”
“Fuck being fair to him. We need to find out what’s happening there.”
I looked at my phone, the woman frozen on the screen.
“We need to find out what happened to Andrea Kramer.”
Kate
The next eighteen months were some of the worst of my life. Ted found ways to torment us that could never be definitively traced back to him. Flowers arrived, lilies rancid in their cloying sweetness. Pictures of us sent from a series of untraceable phone numbers: my mom at work, me at the grocery store, the two of us drinking White Claws on a restaurant terrace. He made anonymous complaints about each of us at our jobs, forcing weeks of humiliating meetings with HR. And he found my only social handle on Instagram, posting as various trolls until I deleted the entire account.
We shrank into ourselves, constantly looking over our shoulders, assuming our every move was being watched. He made us as paranoid as he was. When weeks would pass quietly without any incidents, we questioned our own sanity. Was it happening or not? Had we turned a series of random, bizarre events into a boogeyman? It was exhausting, the constant watchfulness during the day and lying awake in our beds at night, unable to turn off our racing thoughts. Mom started antidepressants and I began antianxiety meds. We met in the dark kitchen at three or four in the morning at least one night a week, silently pulling flour and sugar from thecupboard with zombie-like intent. If we couldn’t think or sleep or medicate our demons away, we could always bake them.
“I’m going there,” Mom announced one Sunday morning over quiche and newspapers.
“Where?” We’d had zero conversation about any trips or errands today.
“His house.”
A cold dread knotted my stomach. I didn’t need to ask whohewas. It was clear from the set of her mouth, the deadness of her words.
“Mom. No.”
“He still has my dough cutter. I want it back.”
We’d forgotten a few things in the rush of getting the hell out of Ted’s house and the dough cutter was one of the abandoned items. It didn’t matter at the time; we could always get new stuff. But Mom hadn’t found the exact model. I bought her a replacement for Christmas, and she never complained about it, but sometimes she still talked longingly about the old one. And more than its handle or weight or sharpness, I knew it was the fact that it was still there, that part of her was still locked in that house.
“We can’t go there.” Even the thought of the place filled me with choking panic, the walls closing in, darkness clawing at me. I went to the window and stood in a shaft of morning sunlight, trying to find my balance in the sudden chaos Mom had thrown like a bomb into our Sunday routine.
“You’re not going, Kate. I am.”
“Neither of us is going.”
She stood up, too. The tendons in her neck were taut, her mouth set, not a hint of backing down anywhere in her slight frame. She faced me, squaring off with a quiet, fierce determination.
“I want my dough cutter back.”
It was insane. Drive over a hundred miles and go back to that psycho’s castle, for a stupid utensil that for all we knew he’d thrown away or burned in effigy by now? I’d rather walk into traffic. But as we faced off across the kitchen, I knew it wasn’t about the dough cutter. It was about everything he’d taken from us, everything he held hostage, taunting us with his ghost stalker messages. And Mom was over it. She vibrated with a fury I’d never seen in her, without one drop of the fear that invaded my entire body. I knew she was going to do this no matter how much I argued or tried to reason with her. She wanted her dough cutter and she was going to get it back.
I forced a breath into my lungs, fighting against constricting, overwhelming panic. “You’re not going alone.”
The house looked the same as it always had. Two sprawling stories, perfectly manicured hedges lining the foundation, the glossy black front door.
His truck was in the driveway. He was home.
We sat in my Mazda a hundred yards down the street, car idling, neither of us speaking. Mom’s gaze was fixed on the house, her jaw working like she was rehearsing what she was going to say. I’d tried to convince her that we should go when he wasn’t home. Try a Sunday morning when he might be at church. Maybe he hadn’t changed his security code. We could slip in, get the dough cutter, and leave. But she vetoed that idea hard. He could get us arrested for trespassing, or worse, catch us in the act and wreak his own revenge. She wanted him to be home, to have it out with him once and for all. I tried to convince her to bring more people. Some of the old coworkers who’d helped us move, a neighbor, or any of the newacquaintances we’d made. I spent a solid half day campaigning for her to ask the movie theater manager she’d been casually flirting with for the last year, but she refused.
“He won’t be himself if other people are there.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t want to see the mask, Kate. I don’t want to be gaslit or feel insane anymore. I need to talk to the real Ted.”
I hated that I understood. She was calling out the monster, and he only showed himself to certain people. For the first time, I was grateful to be one of them. At least I could stand by my mother’s side as she had this out once and for all.
After another minute of gathering herself, Mom looked at me.
“Are you okay?”
