Chapter Ninety-Two Kiersten
Chapter Ninety-Two
Kiersten
Kiersten grabbed her purse and keys from the mudroom, exited the house through the side door, and approached her minivan.
She opened the driver’s side door, tossed her phone and keys into her enormous purse, and dropped it down on the passenger seat. She was about to climb in, when clawlike fingers wrapped around her arm.
She spun around. A tiny woman with enormous eyes stood beside the car.
Margaret.
The old woman blinked up at her through the lenses of her bifocals. A black handbag dangled from her wrist, with a gold clasp on top, like Queen Elizabeth used to carry.
Kiersten blinked back at her as the name Peggy lodged in her throat. She swallowed. “Margaret?”
The woman nodded, then plucked at Kiersten’s sleeve. “Come with me.”
“Come with you where?”
“To my house. We don’t have much time.”
Her mind raced. In just a few hours she was planning to sneak into this woman’s home. And now Margaret was inviting her inside.
A trap?
Dottie’s words swirled through her mind. If the diaries were true . . . and she believed every word she’d read . . . then Margaret . . . or Peggy . . . or whatever this woman called herself . . . had suffered as much as Dottie had.
“We don’t have much time,” the tiny woman whispered, tugging her arm. “Please. Come now.”
Kiersten chewed on her lower lip, contemplating this request. She’d seen chickens that looked more dangerous than this frail, elderly woman.
She reached inside her purse and grabbed her phone, just in case, shoving it into her back pocket. Then she allowed Margaret to slip her age-spotted hand into her own, and pull her out of the minivan and down the street to Margaret’s house.
“What do you need to show me, Margaret? Can you tell me?”
The old woman glanced over her shoulder, gaze darting around the cul-de-sac. “Please. Just come.”
Margaret clung to the railing as they climbed the front steps of the house she shared with Richard . . . or Dickie. Then she opened the door, which was not locked, she noted, and led Kiersten back to the kitchen, just like she’d done on her first visit.
“Is your husband here?” Kiersten asked, casting a nervous glance over the kitchen for Evil Dickie.
Margaret glanced over her shoulder. “Richard’s over at Trey’s house, making a video with Aspen.”
This was the chance she’d been waiting for.
Kiersten tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I need to see the fallout shelter in your basement. Okay? It’ll only take a second.”
Margaret pursed her lips in exasperation, then shuffled through the kitchen and stopped at the head of the stairs. “These steps are hard on my hips. But there’s a door on the north side. It’s under the garage. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Kiersten wrapped her fingers around the railing and descended into the basement.
A musty smell tickled her nose. She moved through the rec room, which didn’t look like it had been updated in decades. The tile on the floor reminded her of the tile in her elementary school.
She found a door in the wall on the north side of the basement. Taking a deep breath, she extended her hand, turned the knob, and pushed it open.
The musty smell intensified. She stepped inside, and darkness enveloped her.
Something brushed her hair, and she bit back a scream as she reached up to slap it away.
Her fingers brushed a string.
The ceiling bulb.
She tugged the string, and the room filled with light.
Her gaze roamed the room. Shelves with paint cans. Nothing else. She looked down at the floor.
Concrete.
Concrete?
How was this possible?
She dropped to her knees and ran her hands over the smooth floor.
But Dottie promised to leave a clue . . . If Dickie succeeds in killing me, I will leave a clue, buried in the past, leading to the truth.
But there was nothing here. Nothing at all.
She headed upstairs, shoulders slumped in defeat.
Could she be wrong? Maybe there was no clue to find.
Margaret waited at the top of the steps, still clutching her black handbag. “Did you find what you’re looking for?” Margaret asked.
“No,” Kiersten shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“That’s because you’re looking in the wrong place,” the old woman hissed.
The hair on the back of Kiersten’s neck stood at attention. “I am?”
Margaret nodded. “I told you. We don’t have much time. Come with me.”
She followed the old woman through the sliding patio door, out of Richard and Margaret’s house, and across the backyard to the house next door.
Chip’s place.
The old woman knocked on the sliding glass patio door, then listened.
“He’s still at Aspen’s,” Margaret said. “But he’ll be back soon.”
She slid the glass door open and grabbed Kiersten’s hand.
“This way.” She tugged Kiersten into the basement level of her son’s home, her grip insistent, urgent.
Someone with money and good taste had recently remodeled this basement.
It smelled fresh and clean, with a sleek, modern look.
Gray porcelain tile covered the floor, a pool table commanded the center of the room, and a giant TV dominated the far wall.
A well-equipped home gym with a Peloton and a bench press took up the rest of the space in the open main room.
“This is our original house,” Margaret said.
“The house where Chip was born. Chip wanted this one when he got married because it’s bigger and has better views of the river.
So we bought the house next door and gave him this house as a wedding gift.
And we bought the house on the other side and gave that to Aspen and Trey when they got married. ”
The old woman gazed up at Kiersten, but she couldn’t read the expression in her eyes.
“So where is—” Kiersten began.
“The fallout shelter.” The old woman beckoned with her hand. “I wouldn’t let them touch it. This way.”
Margaret took her hand and led her through the exercise room to a bolted door on the far side of the room.
“This?” Kiersten asked.
The old woman nodded, and Kiersten slid the bolt open and turned the dead bolt lock. Then she tried to open the door, but it stuck. Kiersten pushed against it with her shoulder, and it finally opened with a loud creak.
A dry, earthen smell filled her nostrils as she stepped inside the shelter. Once again, she raised her hand above her head and felt for the string. Her fingers grasped it, and she pulled.
Light flooded the room as she gazed around in wonder. It felt like entering a time machine and stepping into the past.
Two cots. A table and chairs. A rough shelf held ancient cardboard boxes, canned goods, board games, first aid supplies, everything covered in dust.
Nailed to the wooden shelves, a yellowing calendar displayed the month of October in the year 1965. And across the bottom ran the words Don’t forget your next oil change! Thank you for being an Anderson Motors customer!
“She was smart,” Margaret said. “Smart as a whip. She left something behind.”
“In the floor?” Kiersten asked.
The old woman shook her head.
“Where?”
Margaret pointed to a stack of board games on a shelf in the corner. “Yahtzee.”
Yahtzee?
Kiersten frowned, then knelt by the shelf and unstacked the neat pile of ancient cardboard boxes. Scrabble. Monopoly. Checkers. Then she removed the cover from the board game at the bottom of the pile.
Memories flooded her mind at the sight of the dice, the black plastic cup lined with green felt in which to shake them, the pad of white scorecards, and little pencils. She’d played this game at her grandparents’ house countless times, after Thanksgiving dinner or on Christmas Eve.
Then she paused. Scorecards. Pencils.
She pulled a pad of blank scorecards out of the box and turned them over.
Dottie’s handwriting covered the backside of the pages.