5. Carrie
CARRIE
Oscar moved with a careful, quick energy, like a cat stalking through unfamiliar territory.
Outside, the wind pressed against the house with hungry palms, and the storm hurled sheets of rain across the boarded-up windowpanes in violent, diagonal slashes.
When thunder cracked, sounding like the sky splitting open, Oscar flinched and spun toward the boarded windows, his silhouette briefly outlined in electric blue as lightning illuminated the room through the slats.
“Geez, man!” Oscar blew out a breath. “This storm is radical. And I’m expected to…” He cut his words off and grunted in disgust before turning back to the desk while Carrie and Matt watched from the closet.
He started at the top drawer and worked his way down.
He slid out the whole tray of pens and ran his fingers along the bare wood.
He tapped the bottoms, pressed the backs, and then crouched to reach behind the knee space.
The rolling chair thumped against a cabinet, and he froze, breath caught as he stood listening.
After a long beat, he moved again, faster now, eyes darting over the desk.
Oscar checked the rug edge and the seam where the rug met the floorboards.
He laid his palm on the baseboard and pressed as if a section might spring.
What struck Carrie was how methodical he was.
This was not a young kid fumbling his way through a search.
Oscar knew exactly what he was doing and what to look for, and that knowledge left a cold knot in Carrie’s gut. Oscar had played them.
Carrie knew body language and could spot a lie a mile away.
Most of what Oscar had babbled off when Andy had caught him and dragged him to them had been true, but there were parts that Carrie knew were missing from his story.
Part’s Carrie knew he’d not reveal if pressed.
No, Oscar needed to be handled another way…
much like this. She’d given him some rope, and the kid was hanging himself.
Her attention was drawn back to Matt, whom she was desperately trying not to think about right now.
They were so close that she could feel the solid wall of muscle beneath the T-shirt he was wearing, and being this close to him had her pulse racing and heart hammering so loud she was sure he could hear it.
But she didn’t have time to think about it more as she felt him tense and knew he was about to step out of the closet and confront Oscar.
Carrie grabbed his arm and shook her head once.
“Not yet,” she whispered close to Matt’s ear. “Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Matt nodded and stood down. They continued to watch Oscar, who was now kneeling on the floor.
Oscar slid two fingers into the narrow crack between floorboards and tried to lift.
The board did not budge. He hissed a frustrated breath and pushed the rug farther to expose the perimeter.
He tried a new corner. Nothing. He, too, moved the books on the bookshelf, and then spun and headed toward the paintings.
He carefully moved away from the wall one by one.
“Oh, come on!” Oscar hissed. “Where could that safe be?”
“I told you there must be a safe,” Matt whispered close to her ear, sending a warm shiver down her spine.
“Yeah, but it’s not in here…” Carrie’s eyes widened. “Unless it’s…”
“In here with us somewhere!” Matt finished for her. “The last place Oscar has to look.” She felt Matt stiffen once again. “I say now’s the time to confront the little lying twerp.”
“No.” Carrie shook her head. “Wait!’
Oscar spun around, and even in the shadows, Carrie could see the frustration on his face. She tensed and held her breath, waiting to see what Oscar’s next move would be as he stood and stared at the door.
“The safe must be in the bedroom the chief is in,” he muttered to himself. “That was the main bedroom and the most logical place.” Oscar stood staring at the door in contemplation. “I’ve checked the guest bedrooms, the bathrooms…”
“I told you he’d been upstairs way too long for just taking a shower,” Matt told Carrie.
“It’s not in the kitchen or living room, so it has to be in the main bedroom.” Oscar sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How the heck do I get past the chief?”
For a moment, his eyes slid toward the closet. Both Carrie and Matt tensed and stilled.
“Oscar!” Andy’s voice called softly down the hall. “Where are you?”
“Uh-oh,” Oscar said. “The po-po is awake.”
He moved toward the door, opening it, and as he was about to step out, they heard Andy.
“What are you doing in there?” Andy’s cold, suspicious voice rang out.
“I was finding out if the lines were back up,” Oscar lied through his teeth. “I need to call my mom.”
“At four in the morning?” Andy said skeptically.
“Trust me, she’s up and pacing, wondering if I’m okay,” Oscar assured him.
“Yeah, hoping you’re not doing something stupid like trying to rob someone’s house,” Andy retorted. “Now get back to the living room. As soon as the storm has passed, trust me, you and I are going to your house to meet your mother.”
“No!” Oscar snapped, and then his voice softened to a plea. “Please. You can’t.”
“Oh, I can and will,” Andy assured him. “Now get back to the living room.”
“I need the bathroom,” Oscar told him.
“Then go to the guest one down here,” Andy suggested. “Don’t think I’m letting you go spend another hour upstairs. The chief and Matt are sleeping.”
“Fine,” Oscar muttered. “Just the bathroom upstairs has a light. The one down here doesn’t.”
“You have a phone,” Andy pointed out. “While it might not have any service, I’m sure the flashlight works.”
Oscar sighed and pulled the study door closed behind him.
They waited a heartbeat longer than necessary, pressed together in the darkness of the closet.
The storm filled the silence like surf, rain hammering against the roof in waves while wind moaned through the eaves.
Carrie could feel both of their breaths steady, the warmth of Matt’s exhale tickling the nape of her neck.
Her fingers found the cool brass of the closet door handle, its ornate scrollwork pressing into her palm.
She was about to step out when a shout, sharp and panicked, cut through the house like a knife.
“Oscar, get back here!” Andy’s voice cracked with alarm as the front door slammed against the wall with such force that the brass knocker left a half-moon dent in the plaster.
Both dogs erupted into frenzied barking—Muttley’s deep woofs overlapping with Luna’s, their nails clicking and scraping across the hardwood as they thundered through the house like a stampede of much larger animals.
Carrie and Matt burst from the closet, their shoulders colliding as they raced through the office doorway.
They sprinted down the hallway, the polished floor cold beneath their bare feet.
At the front of the house, hurricane winds howled through the gaping doorway, transforming the foyer into chaos.
A Monet reproduction torn from its hook skidded across it, while the Persian runner writhed like a living thing, its tasseled edges flapping wildly.
Rain slashed sideways through the entrance, soaking the antique console table and spattering the wallpaper with dark tears.
Through the veil of water, they glimpsed Andy’s silhouette on the steps, his clothes already plastered to his body as Muttley and Luna bolted past him into the raging darkness.
“Muttley, Luna, come back!” Andy’s voice cracked against the wind as the dogs vanished into the churning darkness.
The hurricane swallowed his silhouette, transforming him into a ghostly figure—rain plastering his shirt to his shoulders, his knuckles white around the brass handle of the storm lantern.
The wavering yellow flame cast eerie shadows across his face as he staggered forward, each gust threatening to extinguish the light entirely.
For a moment, time seemed to fold in on itself: a lone man with a flickering lantern, pursuing something precious into the heart of nature’s fury.
“Andy!” Matt yelled, lunging toward the toppled coat rack where his navy-blue Gore-Tex raincoat lay crumpled among umbrellas and scarves.
He yanked it free, thrusting his arms through the sleeves with such force that the waterproof fabric snapped like a sail catching wind.
He shoved his feet into the rain boots he pulled from beneath the pile. “Don’t go after Oscar.”
Carrie stumbled after him, fingers closing around the butter-soft yellow slicker she recognized as Lori’s.
The coat smelled faintly of her friend’s gardenia perfume as she zipped it to her chin before slipping her freezing feet into Lori’s rubber gardening boots.
They fumbled for their flashlights, clicking them on only to watch the beams dissolve into useless, wavering halos against the wall of rain—like trying to cut through fog with butter knives.
Carrie followed Matt as they launched out of the foyer and into the needle-biting storm.
Wind tried to snatch the door from her grip; she slammed it behind them, barely registering the rattle of glass and the violent boom as the wind gouged at the clapboards, her cold fingers turned the key in the lock, and she slipped it into a pocket that zipped up.
Now there was no way for Oscar to get back into the house if he was crazy enough to try to double back.
The rain hit with the force of thrown gravel, instantly slicking her hair to her scalp and making the world around them vanish into a gray, seething curtain.