Lineage(117)

The immensity of what he was hearing overwhelmed Lance, and he felt his gorge rise as his heart began to beat faster. His grandfather had manipulated the woman before him into a femme fatale of sorts. Luring the young men, expecting a grand promotion, to their home, when all that actually awaited them was death. Lance nearly stood, unable to be in the presence of a vileness the sort of which sat in the chair opposite him. But he had to know the truth. It was the only possible way that he could extricate himself from the labyrinth of secrets he had discovered.

“So you lured them there and then Erwin killed them? Is that about it?” he asked, no longer able to keep the anger out of his voice. He expected the young nurse to appear at the doorway any moment, concerned with the sounds from within the room, but the hallway remained clear for the time being.

“He didn’t just kill them,” Annette said. “He tortured them. He would sneak up behind them while I engaged them in conversation, and hit them over the head. When they awoke, they would be in the room, lashed to the chair he had built.” Lance saw her shudder, an involuntary movement, and he wondered how a person could subsist in the environment she described, in the presence of evil, without succumbing to madness. “I never went in there while he worked on them. I didn’t want to see. He would emerge, soaked in blood, and tell me it was time.”

“Time for what?” Lance asked.

“To dispose of them. He put what was left—just pieces, normally—in their vehicles and we would guide them down the hill to the lake. So slowly would they disappear beneath the water. Like an animal submerging. He knew the lake was deep there. That’s why he bought the land he did, for the depth of the lake, the capacity.”

Annette reached up with an atrophied hand and rubbed the paper-thin skin of her cheek. She frowned, feeling the wrinkles there. “How long? How long have I been here?”

“Over thirty years,” Lance answered. He watched her absorb the information.

“So long. Half a lifetime, gone.” Her hand drifted back down to the picture of Rhinelander that still sat before her. Lance noticed her attention focus on the face of the young man smiling beside his car.

“What happened to him?” Lance asked, tapping the photograph. Annette remained frozen, her eyes wide, only her mouth moving.

“He was the last. Heinrich was almost fifty by then. His reflexes weren’t as fast, and Gerald noticed him before he could bring the club down on his head. Gerald caught it and sent Heinrich to the floor. He tried to flee, and I was near the door.” The old woman’s breath fell from her dried lips. “The knife was in my hand, and then it was in his throat. Like magic. And he looked at me. The look in his eyes, I won’t ever forget it. Surprised. So shocked at what I had done, and maybe I looked that way too. Then he was on the floor, his blood covering my feet, soaking into my shoes. Heinrich came to me, held me, and told me I’d done well. Saved us. But then I saw Anthony was watching from upstairs. He saw everything. I think it changed him somehow. I think it cursed him.”

Annette looked at Lance, her eyes seeking something from him. Forgiveness? Understanding? He couldn’t hold her gaze for long, and looked down at the desk. He couldn’t give her any of the things that her eyes asked for. She turned from him, shifting in her chair until she almost faced completely away, held in the grip of shame.

“He cut us after that. He had to do something. He knew that he could no longer handle a full-grown man. The tables had turned with time, and he was too slow. I think somewhere inside he loved us, but the other thing that lived in him was stronger. He started with me. He would lock me in the chair and the blade would touch me, at first so gentle, and then horribly deep, until I’d scream for him to stop. And he would, but just barely. I always expected not to come out of that room alive, that he would go too far and then I would be gone. And then one day he took Anthony. I meant to stop him, because I knew. I knew what went on in that room, but I couldn’t, and deep down I was glad. Glad it wasn’t me this time. Glad I wouldn’t have to feel the steel cutting through my skin and hear the patter of my blood as it hit the floor.”

The old woman’s shoulders hitched in a quiet sob, and the revulsion that Lance had felt up to this point eased. He could see the suffering within the shell of the woman before him, and despite her confession, he felt himself leaning forward and reaching toward a bony shoulder. Only then did he notice the single white line extending from beneath the collar of the gown she wore. A scar. He changed the trajectory of his hand and drew back the collar.