Chapter 52 Jacob

52 JACOB

NOW

Jacob asks Dembe for another favor—to stay at his house with his children as he drives to Darcy’s. It’s a lot to ask, but it’s only a mile away, and Dembe knows this is important.

He pulls up at the gates and enters the code, then heads up the driveway to the front of the house. For a moment, he wonders if he should check Darcy’s computer in case she has Shelley downloaded on it. He was still living here when the program was developed, which is how she knows about it.

He heads straight to the old shed at the back of the garden, a space he hasn’t frequented for as long as he can remember. He never had time or interest in gardening, and so the space is unfamiliar to him.

He is surprised to find the old door locked, but the key is where Charlie said it would be—under the birdhouse at the right-hand side.

The shed is about eight feet by ten, a rotting structure inherited from the previous owner that they never got around to replacing. He finds cobwebbed gardening tools, and a galvanized potting bench with empty plant pots and—bizarrely—a jar of toothbrushes on the shelf. He stands for a moment, feeling foolish. Most of the equipment looks like it hasn’t left the shed in years, including an old, folded-up paddling pool that he vaguely recalls blowing up one summer for the boys. It is mossy with age, like most of the objects in here.

Casting a glance over the room, his eyes settle on a metal locker in the far corner. It looks new, and he wonders when it arrived here. He tries to imagine Darcy installing it, and for what purpose. There’s more than enough storage space in the double garage—why carry such a heavy object out to the far corner of the garden?

It’s locked; he feels around for a key, giving up with a loud curse when he touches a large spider and sends it galloping across the floor. He pries the metal doors open about an inch, then pulls again, feeling the metal give. Darcy will know he’s been in here now, and he won’t have a rational explanation. She’ll probably set her lawyers on him. But fuck it. He lifts one of the old shovels and brings it crashing down on the lock, flinging the doors open.

A noise escapes his mouth, somewhere between a gasp and a groan. An icy shiver crawls up his arms, coming to rest in his stomach. Were it not for what Charlie told him, he wouldn’t believe what he is seeing. He wouldn’t believe it has anything to do with his ex-wife.

Inside the locker, settled in rows as neatly as priceless jewelry, are dozens of tiny skulls: those of birds, rodents, a small fox. He reaches inside, feeling nauseous, to lift a black scarf, and there he finds more: rib cages, femurs, wishbones, all cleaned and arranged with the precision of an archaeology display. The glass jar of small toothbrushes on the potting bench suddenly makes sense, as does a stainless-steel scalpel he finds glinting on the bottom shelf of the locker. And the smell he dismissed as wood rot…

A ringing sound makes him jump, catching his hand in the metal doors. He staggers backward, falling heavily to the floor.

His phone vibrates in his shirt pocket.