Hate House

By John C. Foster

Reclusive investigator Megan French is lured from isolation by a mysterious client who wants her to investigate the infamous Hate House. Too late, she discovers Hate House isn't a job, it's a trap. Gaslighted and manipulated, French is caught in an elaborate revenge plot seeking to unbalance her mind before framing her for a horrible crime. 

 

As French unravels the plan, she uncovers a wider world of the ultra wealthy who treat people as nothing more than pieces on a game board.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Encyclopocalypse Publications
• Release date: May 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224786688

Book preview

Chapter One

I want you to investigate Hate House.

Low beams clawed through the murk to pick out the gate and she feathered the brakes until the big Chevy Suburban halted on the muddy road. The gate was rusted iron, taller than head height. A fence in the same state of disrepair disappeared into the mist on either side.

It was interesting to be outside again, talking to people in person instead of over the internet. Unnerving as well.

She had expected it would be like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to be out in public, right? But she missed her apartment. The well-worn path between desk and kitchen for snacks. Weather was something that happened to other people beyond the window glass, as fake as images on her TV screen.

Two heavy chains secured the gate, each with its own padlock. She had received the key to one in her briefing packet. Her counterpart would bring the other, trust was nowhere in the equation.

Hate House indeed.

Shifting into park she left the engine running and dry swallowed her Lexapro. Being out in the world gnawed at her like a plague of invisible mites. She brushed a strand of red hair from the steering wheel, wondering again how she hadn’t shed herself bald. The doctor said it was anxiety.

No shit.

Ready or not. She climbed out, boots splashing onto the unpaved road. She checked her phone. Her counterpart was late. The cell signal was tenuous and she decided not to call him. Let the first point be hers.

The air was heavy enough to muffle sound and she was glad for the headlights, though dusk had yet to descend. A breeze might bring her the clean scent of the sea, but here she wallowed in the smell of brackish marsh. Generations of dead clams gave off the sulfurous stink of hard-boiled eggs, amplified by billions of dead crabs and whatever else once lived in the swampy rivers that wound from land towards the Atlantic.

I want you to investigate Hate House, her employer had said in their first and only meeting.

Why is it called Hate House?

It’s the Versailles of Hate houses. The Empire State Building.

He was so old she wondered if he knew the Empire had lost the world record. Not that it mattered. His name was Abbott and he was wealthy and was paying her.

She wanted to drive me mad, Abbott had alleged. Ten years she kept me prisoner on that island. Her only purpose for the house was hate.

Hate houses. What a concept. That people had so much money to expend on bitterness⁠—

The chains whacked dully against metal when she shook them, the noise quickly smothered. Shhh, mustn’t wake the house.

A cigarette found her mouth, a lighter found the cigarette and her ass found the Suburban’s front bumper—in that order. She rubbed the deep scar that cut across the bridge of her nose. She didn’t wear sunglasses because of it. They tended to settle into the cut and made it impossible to forget. When she realized what she was doing she forced herself to stop.

It occurred to her that she should shut off the engine. Save the ozone layer and all that. Decided peevishly to let it continue burning gas.

Hate: intense or passionate dislike.

She studiously avoided thinking about the days and nights ahead. About accommodation. About spending so much time within proximity of a man she didn’t know. She had been reclusive since Josh, avoiding people in general, but men in particular. Rebuilding the fortress walls around her life.

She amused herself by imagining The Righteous staring up at her empty apartment. Abbott’s money was enough to lure her from the safety of her apartment but now, in the damp fog with the locked gate—a real and solid thing, doubts began to tunnel beneath her defenses.

An unfelt breeze snatched the ash from the tip of the cigarette and she glanced up.

Megan French?

Shit! She slipped from the bumper, landing hard in the mud.

A pale face was staring through the gate.

There were three outside the apartment but only one carried a sign.

YOU WILL NEVER KNOW PEACE.

French had become accustomed to them on days without rain, a handful gathered on the sidewalk across from her Locust Street apartment building. Some days a member of Josh’s family stood with The Righteous. But the family showed up less often with so much time passed since the Dateline Special.

Not so The Righteous.

That was her name for them, of course. On social media they called themselves Friends of Josh Hargrave and she developed the habit of checking their page to see who and what would be attending the daily vigil and whether anyone mentioned bombs or hanging ropes.

She ordered food and more importantly, alcohol. Twice one of The Righteous had tried to trick themselves inside this way, but were easily detected in their glassy eyed excitement.

French worked cases online, enough to keep the rent paid with heavy support from her credit cards. Though she was taking on fewer clients, of late her work had focused on domestic cases, scouring the internet and social media for infidelity. She knew she needed to generate more work before her credit card bills crushed her, but motivation was a scarce commodity.

She had one cat, few friends and no color to her skin, the milky pale of a cave thing. She stopped shaving her legs and unless it was too cold, her uniform was a t-shirt and underwear. Told herself that her hair was shaggy chic.

Once she mooned the group below, pressing her bare ass to the window in defiance.

She wasn’t agoraphobic and she wasn’t an alcoholic.

She just didn’t like to go outside.

She insisted silently that a glass of wine for breakfast was French, not addiction.

She told herself it wasn’t just fear of confrontation that trapped her in the apartment. She stood vigil over something she could no longer remember. In the dim reaches of her disassociating mind she hoped for a trigger. A bright flare in the distance. Something to lure her out, a rope to climb. A fucking fire in the building.

She considered setting the fire. If not for worry about her cat, Buster, she might.

When it finally happened it wasn’t a flare and it wasn’t a rope.

It was a letter.

Abbott was a mystery, a complete cipher online. Correspondence found her in the form of a handwritten letter and he insisted on a response via the same atavistic technology.

When she saw her name scratched in spidery ink on an envelope, she was surprised to discover an elevated heart rate.

A date, time and address inside.

It offered sufficient motivation to leave her home, and Doctor Acosta suggested during a tele-session that she seize the opportunity. She called Mrs. Pappas downstairs to ask if her son Mike would feed Buster while she was gone.

Google Maps helped her find the address in Rhode Island, a few hours north of her Philadelphia apartment. She liberated her Acura from the long-term garage and headed north on the date indicated.

High hedges surrounded the Abbott property and vines made the gate near invisible. There was a speaker of vintage make and she pressed a button, stating her name.

The gate rasped open, last oiled in the year the speaker system was new.

She wound down a long drive into a space too wide to be called a ravine but too small to be described as a valley. The house at the bottom was tall and narrow, reminding her of a fussy schoolteacher with his shoulders hunched around his ears. It had the sense of having collapsed inward on itself to grow thinner and taller, so much so it pulled the surrounding land closer and the whole sank below street level.

She pulled up to the front door and left her car, passing unkempt topiary on foot before ascending a high, thin staircase towards the front door, which opened at her arrival.

I’m Hill. Her greeter was as narrow as the house, white hair pulled tightly back over a dark, angular face. A spinster who neither smiled nor offered to take her coat. I’ll show you to the study.

Abbott waited for her like a frog in the center of a puddle that he never left.

I want you to investigate Hate House.

The library was tight but tall like everything else, two stories with a ladder on wheels, and she felt as if she were at the bottom of a well. It smelled of old smoke and old man and the origin of both waited in a Victorian wheelchair, moth eaten suit coat visible above the blanket thrown across his lap.

Read this before we speak, he’d said as she entered and she went with the flow, taking the large manila envelope from his palsied fingers and sitting in a settee across from him without asking. There were printouts, a map, and handwritten pages. The family name Laurent was prominent.

Your reputation is one of discretion.

She looked up from reading about a property on the Maine coast. Discretion is critical in my profession, Mr. Abbott.

He fluttered a liver spotted hand.

She resumed reading and when finished, neatened the pages and slid them back into the envelope. The property is yours.

"Hate House is mine. Fey light danced in his eyes and he jabbed with his smoldering pipe. I earned it."

She nodded.

"Her estate wants it, Abbott continued. I’m rich. They’re richer. We’ve fought in court for decades and no one has been inside since."

"Her estate, she said. The Laurent estate?"

Simone Laurent, my late ex-wife. His lips twisted as if the words carried a foul taste. We both, the estate and I, employ security patrols to keep the other out.

His froggish tongue slid wetly across his lower lip. Now we’re going in.

We?

He nodded, ignoring the pipe ash that scattered onto the blanket over his legs.

"You as my agent. They will dispatch a counterpart. Together you will enter Hate House and together you will investigate. You will prove that it is mine."

Why is it called Hate House?

It’s the Versailles of Hate houses. The Empire State Building.

I don’t understand.

You will.

At the door to the study she paused when he said her name. His voice was loaded and she braced for the question that everyone asked.

Abbott’s purple lips were wet with expectation.

Did you kill him?

Are you okay?

French barely had time to register the words issuing from the pale face beyond the gate before he sprang up to grasp the top. The man was all knees and elbows in an alpine sweater and baggy cargo pants. He planted a boot on the locking chains and she was expecting him to vault clear over like New England’s answer to Tarzan. Instead, the boot slipped off the damp metal and shot forward through the bars, somehow tangled in the chains.

Fuck!

She was up and running in an instant. Stop pushing! She planted her shoulder against the treads of his boot and pushed hard with her legs as he wiggled the boot free.

He chinned himself to the top of the gate and slid over to plop down with a splat, knees flexing to take the weight.

Sorry. He looked at the muddy boot print on her windbreaker. He smiled awkwardly and offered his hand. I’m Grady.

She was pissed so she asked, Who wears sunglasses in the fog?

He plucked his glasses free. UV protection?.

After wiping the damp seat of her jeans she pulled out a pack of Salems, offering it without speaking. Alarm crossed his guileless face and she shrugged, shaking one out and plucking it free with her lips. She took her time with the lighter, enjoying the petty pleasure of ignoring social norms.

Neither one of us is supposed to go into the house without the other present. Smoke leaked from her mouth. That’s the deal.

His smile was awkward and she wondered if he had trouble closing his lips over such blocky teeth. I got here early and decided to explore, but I didn’t get to the house.

Didn’t get to it?

He fished in a front pocket and pulled out a key. If you have yours, we can open up the gate and you can see for yourself.

She pulled out her key and he gestured, so she checked the two locks. The second said SCHLAGE, so she worked the key in against the grit and wiggled it until it turned. She unfastened the lock and removed it, the chain dangling. The Schlage went in a pocket and dragged her windbreaker down on that side.

Grady attempted the Masterlock installed by the estate and had it free in a moment.

I parked back there off the road, he pointed back the way she’d come. I’ll get my truck and follow you in.

Alright.

The rented Suburban bounced and jostled past a small, untended graveyard behind a falling down iron fence that did nothing to lift her spirits. The road on the inside of the gate barely deserved the name and her teeth were clacking together with every pothole.

You’re kidding me.

The bridge was out, reduced by years of battering Atlantic weather to a jumble of pilings furry with white barnacles where they rose above choppy water.

French shifted into park and shut off the engine before climbing out, the sea smell cleaner and clearer here. Grady parked his Dodge pickup beside the Suburban and he cut the engine before hopping down.

So that sucks, he opined.

How the hell are we going to get the gear across?

They had exchanged logistical details over email earlier, including a division of equipment. She had a small generator and fuel as well as personal gear. He had food, camp stove, lights and more fuel.

She shook her head and stepped closer to stare down past the wet rocks to the water separating them from the small island a mere thirty yards away.

It’s almost like we’re not welcome, eh? He said.

French flicked an irritated glance his way but he ignored it and she followed the direction of his gaze, finally taking in the reason they were there.

Hate House.

It was three stories of stone and brick with a tower-like structure rising to a fourth story on the southernmost side. The windows were boarded over as if the house had closed its dozen eyes against the world. A low fence of rusty iron ran along the rooftop and she imagined some kind of platform. The kind of thing a Captain’s wife would leap from upon news that her husband’s ship was lost at sea.

The abandoned dwelling gave the appearance of a beast atop the small, rocky island on which it was built. Too tall for the tiny bit of land, it dwarfed the island, as if sucking its materials in through pyroducts like roots, the island shrinking as the house itself grew another story. The whole of it was bleached by sun and salt, here the color of bone, there the shade of decaying teeth.

Pale orange and pink strokes were gently brushing across the house as the sun set behind her, there and gone. It occurred to French that this was likely the best the house would look. To look past the house was to see a sky already dark with October night.

I don’t love the look of that current. Grady picked his way carefully down to stand beside her. The current came in from the north and swept by them going south. Beyond the small island was open ocean.

He pulled out his phone. Lousy signal. The phone went back in a pocket. It’s a little past high tide. At low tide we might be able to wade across.

Carrying the generator? She watched a predatory mess of seaweed swirl like Medusa’s hair along the surface.

He smiled and pointed. That, on the lee side? I think it’s a boat house. He wiggled his finger. See there? Stone stairs down into the water.

She saw them now, steep and treacherous. When is low tide?

Three, four hours.

You want to wade over to the island in the dark?

No. The word exploded in a laugh. But I don’t know what else to do, unless you want to head back inland and find a boat rental.

French planted her hands on her hips and a sudden gust tugged at her windbreaker. A rusty weathervane spun atop the house, the squeak carrying to them over the water. She wondered about the dark interior, untouched by light in how many years?

It’s ugly, she said.

I don’t know what the fuss is about, Grady said.

Rich people, she thought.

Rich people, he said. Bet five bucks it’s haunted.

French looked over her shoulder into the dark. You see that graveyard we passed?

Yeah, he nodded. Lot of those in New England from early settlements and stuff.

A metal screech drew their attention back to the weathervane and French pursed her lips.

It’s totally haunted.

A seagull screamed overhead.

Chapter Two

The breeze picked up when the sun went down and French’s windbreaker fluttered in defiance. She retreated to the Suburban for solitude, unconcerned with how Grady might spend the time. Being out in the world was exhausting.

She lit up a Salem, keeping the windows closed in an act of defiance. She wanted the familiar stink of cigarette smoke in her hair. In her clothes.

Hasty research prior to leaving Philadelphia had shown the Laurent estate was nearly as much of a cipher as Abbott himself. No social media presence. No newspaper articles announcing charity functions or donations.

It took money, but the internet could be scrubbed. She’d done it for clients on a smaller scale.

She had been gliding over the web like a spider on dancing feet when she stumbled across a connection of incredible importance.

Claude Laurent was the founder of Court Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest big pharma players in the United States. His obituary listed him as survived by a wife, Josephine, and single child. Simone Laurent.

Was her adversary employed discretely by the estate, or was he the point man for Court Pharmaceuticals? Whether the former or the latter, it was clear at the moment that they wanted discretion, as did her own employer.

She dozed.

Dateline nearly destroyed her.

She couldn’t prove Josh’s family was behind the show’s dogged interest in the case, but they were wealthy and connected and unwilling to accept the results of the police investigation. Josh’s passing was a terrible tragedy. He leapt to his death after a psychological breakdown.

It was not a murder.

Dateline didn’t care and the episode they ran nearly destroyed her.

She woke with a snort, opening her eyes to darkness. Emerging from the vehicle, she brushed ash from her jacket and shook feeling back into her legs before opening the back hatch to assemble some gear.

Her lips and mouth were working to clear away the taste of ashes and she privately admitted the recent petty rebellion had backfired.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

She could barely make out the figure of Grady standing at the edge of the slope that dropped towards the water. If it were a portrait it would be titled Loneliness. In the dark he could have been a stone road marker or a branchless tree for all that he moved. Her earlier grumpiness brought a trickle of guilt and she felt like she’d bullied Richie Cunningham. Worse, a young Beaver Cleaver before he got older and his voice broke and he wasn’t cute.

She told herself she was leaving the vehicle to move around and get blood circulating, the notion of being social because it was expected something she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. A moment later she was standing beside him looking at the black hump of Hate House, a deeper darkness against the night ocean beyond.

Grady seemed lost in himself—probably meditating or some yoga bullshit—and she stuck a Salem between her teeth before sparking her lighter to life. Cupping her hands like a convict afraid the wind would steal her flame, she lit her cigarette and drew deeply, relishing the thorny heat in her lungs.

Grady stirred when she blew out an industrial cloud of smoke. He started to say something but decided to shift himself until he was standing upwind of Megan the Environment Killing Smoke Stack.

You ever hear of Hate Houses before this gig?

His question surprised an honest response. Nope.

So I started reading⁠—

Yeah, she interjected, nodding.

—and didn’t find much about Hate Houses but tons about Spite Houses. This stuff has been going on for centuries. Not just here. Europe too.

She tapped ash and smoked, content to listen.

"There was this place called the Marino