House Rules: A Novel Read online

  Maguire tenses in my hold. “My girlfriend’s gone missing. I pay your salary, and you won’t even do your job and investigate?”

  Technically, if Maguire is a student, he’s not paying my salary, but I am not about to press the point. “Tell you what,” I say, releasing him. “I’ll take one more look around.”

  I wander into the master bedroom, but clearly Jess Ogilvy hasn’t been sleeping there; it is pristine. The master bathroom reveals slightly damp towels, but the shower floor is already dry. Downstairs, there’s no sign of disorder in the living room. I walk around the perimeter of the house and then check the mailbox. Inside is a note, printed from a computer, asking the postman to hold the mail until further notified.

  Who the hell types a note to the postman?

  Snapping on a pair of gloves, I slip the note into an evidence bag. I’ll have the lab run a ninhydrin test for prints.

  Right now, my hunch is that if they don’t match Jess Ogilvy’s, they’re going to match Mark Maguire’s.

  Emma

  I don’t know what to expect when I go into Jacob’s room the next morning. He slept through the night—I checked on him every hour—but I know from past experience that he won’t be expressive until those neurotransmitters aren’t raging through his bloodstream anymore.

  I called Jess twice—on her cell, and at her new residence—but only got voice mail. I’ve sent her an email, asking her to tell me what happened at yesterday’s session, if there was anything out of the ordinary. But until I hear back from her, I have to deal with Jacob.

  When I peek in at 6:00 A.M., he’s not sleeping anymore. He’s sitting on his bed with his hands in his lap, staring at the wall across from him.

  “Jacob?” I say tentatively. “Honey?” I walk closer and gently shake him.

  Jacob continues to stare at the wall in silence. I wave a hand in front of his face, but he doesn’t respond.

  “Jacob!” I grab his shoulders and pull on them. He topples to the side and just lies where he has fallen.

  Panic climbs the ladder of my throat. “Speak to me,” I demand. I am thinking catatonia. I am thinking schizophrenia. I am thinking of all the lost places Jacob could slip to in his own mind, and not return.

  Straddling his big body, I strike him hard enough across the face to leave a red handprint, and still he doesn’t react.

  “Don’t,” I say, starting to cry. “Don’t do this to me.”

  There is a voice at the door. “What’s going on?” Theo asks, his face still hazy with sleep and his hair sticking up in hedgehog spikes.

  In that instant, I realize that Theo might be my savior. “Say something that would upset your brother,” I order.

  He looks at me as if I’m crazy.

  “There’s something wrong with him,” I explain, my voice breaking. “I just want him to come back. I need to make him come back.”

  Theo glances down at Jacob’s slack body, his vacant eyes, and I can tell he’s scared. “But—”

  “Do it, Theo,” I say.

  I think it’s the quiver in my voice, not the command, which makes him agree. Tentatively, Theo leans close to Jacob. “Wake up!”

  “Theo,” I sigh. We both know he’s holding back.

  “You’re going to be late for school,” Theo says. I watch closely, but there’s no recognition in Jacob’s eyes.

  “I’m getting in the shower first,” Theo adds. “And then I’m gonna mess up your closet.” When Jacob just stays silent, the anger Theo usually keeps hidden rolls over him like a tsunami. “You freak,” he shouts, so loud that Jacob’s hair stirs with the force of his breath. “You stupid goddamn freak!”

  Jacob doesn’t even flinch.

  “Why can’t you be normal?” Theo yells, punching his brother in the chest. He hits him again, harder this time. “Just be fucking normal!” he cries, and I realize tears are streaming down Theo’s face. For a moment, we are caught in this hell, with Jacob unresponsive between us.

  “Get me a phone,” I say, and Theo turns and flies out the door.

  As I sink down beside Jacob, the bulk of his weight sways toward me. Theo reappears with the telephone, and I punch in the page number for Jacob’s psychiatrist, Dr. Murano. She calls me back thirty seconds later, her voice still rough with sleep. “Emma,” she says. “What’s going on?”

  I explain Jacob’s meltdown last night, and his catatonia this morning. “And you don’t know what triggered it?” she asks.

  “No. He had a meeting with his tutor yesterday.” I look at Jacob. A line of drool snakes from the corner of his mouth. “I called her, but she hasn’t phoned me back yet.”

  “Does he look like he’s in physical distress?”

  No, I think. That would be me. “I don’t know … I don’t think so.”

  “Is he breathing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he know who you are?”

  “No,” I admit, and this is what really scares me. If he doesn’t know who I am, how can I help him remember who he is?

  “Tell me his vitals.”

  I put the phone down and look at my wristwatch, make a count. “His pulse is ninety and his respirations are twenty.”

  “Look, Emma,” the doctor says, “I’m an hour away from where you are. I think you need to take him to the ER.”

  I know what will happen then. If Jacob is unable to snap out of this, he’ll be a candidate for a 302 involuntary commitment in the hospital psych ward.

  After I hang up, I kneel down in front of Jacob. “Baby, just give me a sign. Just show me you’re on the other side.”

  Jacob doesn’t even blink.

  Wiping my eyes, I head to Theo’s room. He’s barricaded himself inside; I have to bang heavily on the door to be heard over the beat of his music. When he finally opens it, his eyes are red-rimmed and his jaw is set. “I need your help moving him,” I say flatly, and for once Theo doesn’t fight me. Together we try to haul Jacob’s big frame out of his bed and downstairs, into the car. I take his arms; Theo takes his legs. We drag, we push, we shove. By the time we reach the mudroom door, I am bathed in sweat and Theo’s legs are bruised from where he twice stumbled under Jacob’s weight.

  “I’ll get the car door,” Theo says, and he runs into the driveway, his socks crunching lightly on the old snow.

  Together, we manage to get Jacob to the car. He doesn’t even make a sound when his bare feet touch the icy driveway. We put him into the backseat headfirst, and then I struggle to pull him to a sitting position, practically crawling into his lap to fasten his seat belt. With my head pressed up against Jacob’s heart, I listen for the click of metal to metal.

  “Heeeeere’s Johnny.”

  The words aren’t his. They’re Jack Nicholson’s, in The Shining. But it’s his voice, his beautiful, tattered, sandpaper voice.

  “Jacob?” I cup my hands around his face.

  He is not looking at me, but then again, he never looks at me. “Mom,” Jacob says, “my feet are really cold.”

  I burst into tears and gather him tight in my arms. “Oh, baby,” I reply, “let’s do something about that.”

  Jacob

  This is where I go, when I go:

  It’s a room with no windows and no doors, and walls that are thin enough for me to see and hear everything but too thick to break through.

  I’m there, but I’m not there.

  I am pounding to be let out, but nobody can hear me.

  This is where I go, when I go:

  To a country where everyone’s face looks different from mine, and the language is the act of not speaking, and noise is everywhere in the air we breathe. I am doing what the Romans do in Rome; I am trying to communicate, but no one has bothered to tell me that these people cannot hear.

  This is where I go, when I go:

  Somewhere completely, unutterably orange.

  This is where I go, when I go:

  To the place where my body becomes a piano, full of black keys only—the sharps and