Free Satan's Mirror by Roxanne Smolen Page A

hell?” the woman said, zooming in.
    “A trick of the light?” said Harris.
    “This has stunt written all over it.”
    Emily dabbed her smarting fingers, remembering Joey’s scarred face. What was his part in all this?
    Two more police officers entered. One was the curly haired man she’d met when first arriving in Saint Augustine.
    “There’s no one in that house,” he said. “We checked every room.”
    “Quite a few rabbits, though,” said the other. “And we found this.” He dropped Dan’s camcorder on top of the desk.
    Emily had forgotten about it. She sat straighter in her chair, swelling with hope. This would show them. No one would think she was involved in a hoax after seeing what she had seen. The woman hooked the camcorder to a firewire cable attached to her computer, and then settled back to watch.
    The video was grainy, but her crew could clean it up. It showed Weeden Street lit by quaint streetlamps and the walkway to Vanessa’s house, then switched to her as she followed the path along the fence. The shot faded to black when Dan entered the shadows between the properties.
    There came a blink. Light flared, and Emily saw herself standing before the staircase. She looked petrified. After a moment, she climbed toward the second floor. Dan swept the camcorder upward and caught a glimpse of shining, red eyes. When he reached the landing, he showed a rabbit hopping away.
    With dreadful slowness, he followed Emily through a door. She crossed the room, stepping over a pentagram laid out on the floor. The video crackled and jumped. Interference, she thought, remembering what Dan said about electromagnetic fluctuations. She saw herself hold the ELF meter to the disturbance on the wall—but Satan’s Mirror was blurred. It had the look of a blot-out, like a botched erasure.
    It didn’t matter. They would still hear the devil’s voice—and as if on cue, the devil told her she was fragile.
    With a pang of loss and sorrow, she saw Dan’s face as he set the camcorder on the floor. The camera angled upward, flooding the doorway with light. Emily walked into the shot, looking into the hall.
    The quality of the video worsened. Emily heard garbled screams, saw flashes of herself fighting to grab something. Occasionally, she saw Dan’s foot or leg held high in the air. It would have been laughable had she not been there, had she not known what was happening.
    With an audible pop, the video sharpened. It showed Emily scrambling from the floor and running out the door. For several minutes, the camcorder continued to run, showing the doorway of the silent room. Then the police came in and switched the thing off.
    Emily closed her eyes. Part of her wanted to plead with them to take a second look, to see past the flickering images to what truly happened. But a larger part knew what her reaction would be if she’d been shown such a video.
    “Hoax,” said the older officer, echoing her thoughts.
    Harris returned to the desk where she sat. “There are more microdrives in your backpack. Anything on them?”
    She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “Extras. Dan gave them to me to hold. You can keep them if you want. You can keep everything.”
    She hid her face in her hands. A high-pitched sound escaped her—like the mewling of a kitten. Stop it! She bit the inside of her cheek.
    “I don’t think we’ll need them.” He put the disks into her bag, and then slid the phone her way. “You’ve been read your rights. By law, you’re entitled to a phone call. I’ll leave you alone for a moment.” He walked to the desk where the video was on replay.
    Emily sagged. She never felt so tired, so alone. With trembling fingers, she punched numbers into the phone.
    Ross Devine answered groggily. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.”
    “Boss,” she said, her voice quaking, “we’ve had some trouble.”
    She could almost hear him sit up in bed. “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “Dan is gone.