The Cellar Read online

  The Cellar

  Peter Fugazzotto

  Copyright © 2018 by Peter Fugazzotto

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Also by Peter Fugazzotto

  The King Beneath the Waves

  The Witch of the Sands

  Black River

  Five Bloody Heads

  Into Darkness

  Alien Infestation

  The Rise of the Fallen

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Free Book Offer

  About the Author

  1

  They called me a hero.

  For what I did that day. They say I prevented the death of countless lives. That I destroyed a monster. That my actions would never be forgotten.

  But I'm no hero.

  Never have been. Not even sure I was on that day. Not the word I would use to describe myself.

  Not the word anyone used when they talked about me.

  They had other words for me.

  Bastard.

  Cold-hearted son of a bitch.

  Bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking lawyer.

  Coward.

  But never hero.

  Especially not where it counted. Not for Bridget. Not for Liz. Not really for my friends.

  I don't really know what happened that day. Yes, I can recall all the facts. The girl. The Sandman, if that's what we're calling him. Our time in hell. I can recount everything in detail, the musty odor of the cabin, the four of us arguing, the snapping of branches beneath my boots, the dark steps leading down into that black heart of a cellar, the screams, everything down to the last drop of blood. Can't really get it all out of my head, and maybe that's part of the problem. It's grabbed on to me like a parasite.

  I should be moving on. I should be picking up the pieces, healing, getting my old life back. But that's gone now, isn't it?

  I didn't decide I was going to be a hero on that fateful day. I wasn't like Tug, a war hero. Much as one could be. Twenty-one gun salute and all. I didn't boldly decide on a course of action and follow it. Nothing like that at all.

  I was more like Jay. The guy who gave in. The weak one. The poor sap who made the wrong choices.

  Do you know how close I was to shitting my pants when I heard the slow steps of the Sandman? Or how I almost kept running through those woods and never came back into the house for the others? Wasn't like I heard the shrill scrape of his blades as a call to action. I never turned on a switch and decided to become a hero. I just did what I had to do. I had no choice that day.

  Heroes are supposed to make choices, right? Sacrifice something.

  Would I do the same thing again? If I could replay that nightmare of a day, would I have again crawled out of the safety of the woods and back into hell? Would any sane person do that? After what I had seen? After what the Sandman had done to the others? After what he had done to me?

  Even thinking about it again, my bowels are loosening, my tongue is getting sticky, my hands trembling. It's over, but it's never over, is it?

  Some of the scars aren't the ones that make the children hide in their mother's skirts. Those invisible scars are the worst. They are the ones that never heal.

  The Sandman is gone. The horror is over.

  But it's not finished. There is one thing left that I have to do. I have to find Bridget. She had nothing to do with any of this. Not a single thing. But I need to find her. Be the father that she needs. Fight through the pain and the fear and hold her tight, never let her slip away again, because she needs me. I need her.

  And because there are monsters out there and heroes need to slay monsters.

  2

  Where do I begin the story? Not with the Sandman. Not even with the text message from Tug that started the ball rolling. Because then you won't understand the real story.

  It has to begin before the text that buzzed through on my cell phone. Not too far before though because who wants to hear the pathetic story of my life?

  I'll start with the morning of the text and Bridget because then you can at least see what kind of man I really was. Not what the papers made me out to be. You'll be able to see just how far away I was from being hero.

  You need to see the truth about me.

  3

  That morning, the morning Tug sent me the text message, I woke late, half past seven. I had woken an hour earlier but was lulled back to sleep by the warmth of the sheets, deceived in part by the lazy sun of early fall. I had dreamt hard, something about being at a French restaurant and how they kept getting my order wrong. The dream was filled with my growing rage. But it was dream that could have simply been another day in my angry life.

  When I woke it was with a start, gasping, sitting upright, the sheets jerking up with me. "Fuck, I'm late. Goddammit."

  Liz pulled back at the sheets, covering up her bare breasts and shoulders. The patch across her face hid her eyes, blocking out the light. "Sleep in."

  "You can do that." I swung my legs out of the bed and threw the sheets back at her unmoving form. She'd sleep as long as she could. Lazy. "I can't. I have to be at the courthouse. Some of us actually have to work."

  Normally I would have put on my trainers and sweat suit and headed over to the CrossFit box and powered through my Workout of the Day. Put the young studs to shame. I could eat more pain than they could. No time today. Not with getting up late and an early court day. That bastard Judge Petersen always set his court dates with me as early as possible as if he were trying to catch me off guard. Not today.

  After my shower, I was surprised to find Liz in the kitchen, at the island, hunched over a cup of coffee. She looked washed out, a pale r
eplica, without her make up.

  "We need to talk," she said. Her eyes were puffy. She should have taken the time to put on some makeup.

  "Don't have time this morning. Petersen is trying to pull a fast one on me." I ripped two bananas off the cluster and slung them onto the counter. She was staring at me. Wouldn't take her eyes off me. "I really don't have time. Not this morning."

  "Never do, do you?"

  "Your shiny new electric car didn't pay for itself, did it?"

  I poured my coffee into my travel mug. I had enough time to enjoy my first cup here but I wanted it without a spoonful of nagging. Better to drink it on the road. Relax for a bit in the parking lot before facing Petersen.

  Liz stirred another spoonful of sugar into her cup, and then lay the wet spoon on the counter. I eyed the pool of dark liquid. She continued stirring. "The principal called yesterday about Bridget," she said.

  "That new prick? Does he know how much we give at the annual auction? You deal with it, okay." Coffee stained the marble next to the machine. How hard was it for Liz to be more careful? I attacked the splotches with a sponge. "If she doesn't get her grades up, we take away her car, her phone, whatever." The stains were not coming out. I'd need to clean it later. I tossed the sponge into the sink, scooped the bananas into my shoulder bag, and picked up my coffee.

  "It's not her grades."

  "I. Don't. Have. Time."

  "Skip, you need to make the time. They found her with this." Liz had laid a plastic bag on the counter.

  I picked the bag up and shook it. Inside it several syringes. "That's all? Just the syringes. No drugs?"

  She nodded.

  "Not illegal for her to have syringes. No drugs they can't do anything. A tongue lashing for sure. Scared straight." I could not contain the laughter bubbling out between my lips. "Finish out this year and then she's off to college. Out of our hands. Not our problem."

  "She's doing drugs, Skip." Liz chewed her lower lip. The corner was raw, bleeding. She couldn't help herself. Gnawing at herself. "Last year it was the marijuana, and you know that didn't stop. We should have done something about it then. We've let things slide.."

  "Kids are going to experiment. At that age, it's normal. Hell, pot's practically legal. If we're suddenly steering clear of drugs, then I'm going to have to say adios to all my best clients. And you'll have to figure out how to pay for all your crap."

  "We're losing her."

  I saw everything at once. Like that flash before you die. But it wasn't my life. It was Bridget's. And it wasn't so much the real memories as it was photos as if those captured images had somehow imprinted my life with her. That photo of the toddler her in a giraffe bib holding a chicken leg, barbecue sauce on her chubby cheeks. Bridget standing wide-legged over her pink bike, her hair ballooned from the wind. That team soccer photo when she crossed her eyes. The beach in Mazatlan, too much skin exposed against the sand, so grown up, next to her mother.

  And in all these photos, these memories, I never saw a single photo of me and Bridget together. As if I had never been there.

  "She's your daughter. She's drifting away."

  I fought the urge to turn my wrist and check the time. Petersen would ream me. He had been waiting for this moment for years. Publicly humiliate me. Get back at me for all the cases I stole out from under his watch with a technicality. Take it out on my client. Lose me money.

  "Fine," I said. "I'll do something."

  A minute later I stood in front of Bridget's door. My chest heaved slightly, my breath louder than it should have been for a short stretch of stairs. I was in better shape than that.

  She lay behind that door. My daughter. Some creature half formed from me. My strengths, my weaknesses. Who knows what she had inherited but she was of my blood. She was closer to me than any other person living on this planet. A piece of me. My legacy.

  And she was slipping away. Had been for years.

  I raised my fist, and then stopped.

  My chest tightened.

  I didn't have time today.

  I wasn't ready.

  Later. I'd deal with this later.

  4

  Petersen stared down at me from the judge's bench. I sat next to my fidgeting client Park while a gentle murmur streamed through the courtroom behind us. Petersen broke his gaze for a second to look at the clock on the wall again. His forefinger tapped on a pad of paper. But I could hear it: the muffled annoyance.

  He had thought to get some quick justice.

  Tables turned.

  My phone vibrated in my suit pocket.

  He stared right at me. I smiled. I took out the phone and checked the screen. Tug. Calling at this hour. He better not be in the drunk tank again looking for a favor.

  I slipped the phone back into the pocket of my suit, pushed a wide smile at Petersen, and then slowly turned my wrist to look at my watch even though I knew what time it was. I glanced over my shoulder at the courtroom door and then back to Petersen's glaring eyes.

  He slammed his gavel on his bench. "Counselors, approach."

  I pushed away from the table, rose slowly, brushed imaginary lint from my lapel, shot my cuffs, adjusted my tie, and then with one final sweeping glance over the court room joined Sterling, my opposing counsel, at the bench.

  Petersen's whisper sounded like fire. "Where the fuck's your witness, Mr. Assistant District Attorney?"

  Sterling's neck splotched above his collar and a blood rash painted his cheeks. He wet his lips several times before responding. "I spoke to him yesterday. Right before he was getting off work. Everything was good. He should have been here an hour ago."

  "This is the second time." Petersen drummed his fingers.

  "Let me step out for a quick call." Sterling lifted a finger, winking. "Third time's going to be a charm."

  Peterson slammed his palm on the desk. "Time's up. You don't need three strikes. Without the witness, you have nothing. Withdraw the charges."

  "What? I can't..." Sterling wheeled towards me, spittle flying from his trembling lips. "You cold-hearted son of a bitch! You had something to do with this. You tampered with my witness!"

  After that it was chaos. Petersen screaming. The bailiff tearing Sterling from me. The wailing of the victim's mother. The laughter from Park, my client.

  I returned to Park's side. He winked at me. "Sometimes loose ends just gotta be tied up. With piano wire."

  My phone vibrated in two quick successions again. A text. I ignored it. Fucking Tug. He could sit out this bender.

  Petersen's banging gavel eventually returned the order and silence to the courtroom. Sterling, cuffed, withdrew the county's charges. Park shook my hand so hard I though his tattoos would slip off his skin and onto mine. Then he was gone in a swarm of his crew. I swear I heard bottles clinking even as they strode out through the doors.

  I wondered if Park would send me a text to come to his club again tonight. Champagne. Girls. Way too young. Lines of coke. Way too long. The last time had been a haze. Steps in the wrong direction. Not what the good father and husband should be doing. But, I wanted a taste again. I deserved it. I deserved to be rewarded for the things I did, for the path I chose, for the lowlifes I represented.

  Life was too short not to taste one's desires.

  I was in the hall when my phone vibrated again, but I could not even get my hand into my jacket before the victim's mother was in my face. Short, pudgy, another Korean. Her son should have just paid the protection money.

  "You did something." She poked a finger in my chest.

  I flagged at one of the sheriffs down the hall.

  "My son." She almost melted under her own words. Tears suddenly streamed down her cheeks. The sheriff had put himself between us. "Do you have no heart? No children?"

  I brushed off my suit lapel where she had touched me. "Ma'am, in this country, a man is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I'm sorry for your loss. But, right now, my client is not guilty."

  She clenched
her fists, slipped out of the sheriff's embrace, and landed a glancing blow on my shoulder that bounced against my chin. "Not guilty but he killed my son. You know the truth! Cut his throat. This country is a sickness. You are a sickness!"

  By this time a second and third sheriff came and peeled her hands from my suit. All eyes were on me. As I stumbled away, the crowd of people in the hall stepped away from me as if I were infected, contagious, as if contact with the defense attorney would spread what was wrong with me to them.

  The mother's words should not have bothered me. I was only doing my job. For our system of justice to work, we need a balance. Men and women have to be proven guilty, not just accused. Otherwise we would descend into chaos.

  Yes, my job was unsavory. Yes, Park was likely guilty. He was certainly a bastard and a small time gangster but even in our most private of meetings he swore his innocence. I had to believe in that. I did.

  That's why the mother's words should have just slid off me, and I should have been chuckling as I headed back to my car. But instead, I could not breath and stumbled into the bathroom, past the shocked look of a juror washing his face, and slammed through the door into a bathroom stall.