Chapter 15 #4
He shook his head. “What’s up? You texted to tell me you’re visiting an old crime scene that’s still somewhat being watched by the police, without waiting for me, so as soon as I got done with what I was doing, I came up here to try to stop you from doing anything stupid.
I told them I wanted to recheck something, so hopefully no one followed me.
Since you’re trespassing here. Among, you know, other things.
” He looked right at me, a million questions on his face.
I couldn’t really explain my actions to him, though.
I’d wanted to make it better for Elijah, so I’d tried to.
“Did you go inside?” he asked us.
“Yup,” I replied. “The door was unlocked. Any old body could just walk right in.”
Chris suddenly seemed to forget he’d just walked up on a blow job in the woods.
“Did you see anything? Get any feelings?” He stepped toward Elijah, eyes wide.
Most people would think Elijah was crazy if they’d never seen proof like I had.
Not Chris, though. He seemed hopeful that Elijah would solve the case.
Elijah finally met Chris’s eyes, but his cheeks were still rosy.
“I mean, I saw a little bit, but not enough to tell who it was. I think someone knocked on the door and no one was there when he answered it. They went in while he was outside checking around, and he didn’t even see it coming.
There were at least two of them, maybe more.
They wore masks. I couldn’t tell anything about them.
It could have been anyone. I don’t know.
I didn’t hear anyone’s voice besides Brandon cursing.
They left him on the floor to die, and they broke his phone.
I felt his fear at the end, I . . .” He trailed off and I hugged him again.
Chris’s eyes cleared and he looked at me in understanding.
At least I didn’t have to try to explain again why he walked up on what he did.
He gave Elijah a sympathetic pat on the back.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said. “You’re right, though, they crushed his phone.
Looked stepped on.” He looked thoughtful.
“There is another question I have for you, though. It’s why I wanted to be here when you guys came.
Not a question about your feelings, but a question you might know because you’ve been here.
Any way you’d come back inside for a minute? ”
Elijah took a shaky breath but said, “Yeah. Okay.”
I had no idea what Chris was going to ask, but I took Elijah’s hand. “Hey,” I said. “I’m right here.” I leaned in to whisper, “And we’re going to pick that back up later tonight, when we’re somewhere you feel safe and comfortable, okay?”
I caught the little shiver before he gave me a little shove with his shoulder. But he said, “Yeah. Okay.”
We followed Chris inside, and Elijah gripped my hand a little tighter as he looked around.
It felt strange in here, even to me, different than it felt the first time we’d come in.
A little too quiet, even though Chris left the door open.
The air felt thick, almost heavy. I wondered if it was just because we’d seen it and knew what to expect, while the element of surprise had us earlier.
Chris didn’t seem to notice. He walked through the living room and into the kitchen with us trailing behind him.
“This,” he said, pointing to the back door.
“Was this knob always broken? It seems like they came in and left through the front door, so I’m not sure why they’d break the back door too.
Especially if they got him to come outside like you said.
We haven’t found any unusual prints anywhere, and I’ve been trying to figure out if this is a red herring and it was just already broken. ”
Elijah was staring past me, in the direction of the living room, not even glancing back at the knob Chris was focused on.
“Um, it was broken . . . maybe not that bad when I was here, but it never really locked right or wanted to open correctly.” His hand gripped mine slightly tighter.
It was barely noticeable, but I noticed.
“He always had to mess with it to get it to . . .” He took the smallest step backward, away from the living room. “To lock.”
Fuck that shit. I looked behind me into the room that was shrouded in shadows. I didn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean Elijah didn’t. I tried to get him to look at me, to clue me in as to what was going on, but his eyes remained trained on that fucking room.
I thought about how my dumb ass hoped Brandon was watching us outside.
That was probably really stupid of me. Had I actually summoned something?
I could have taken him in real life . . .
probably . . . but what the hell was I supposed to do against a pissed-off dead asshole who just watched me blow his ex-boyfriend in the front yard?
I wanted to help Chris out with some clever tidbit of information on why the knob was broken, something my years of detective work had earned me other than that Brandon had probably gotten drunk and broken it worse after Elijah had last been here, but nothing came to me.
All I could focus on was Elijah focusing on the darkness behind me.
I knew it felt different when I came in.
It must be pretty damn strong if I could feel it, because I never had before.
I wanted to yell at Brandon, to tell him to go fuck himself, that he couldn’t hurt Elijah anymore, but I didn’t. I was afraid shit would start flying through the house like in a horror movie. Frankly, I just wanted the hell out of here.
Elijah’s grip tightened even more noticeably, and I wouldn’t let him ignore me any longer. “What?” I demanded, “What’s out there?”
I finally had Chris’s attention, since he hadn’t even noticed Elijah’s dilemma, still stuck on some worthless doorknob.
He looked at me, then Elijah, then out to the living room.
“I can’t tell,” Elijah said softly. “But there’s someone in the living room.
” He took another step back, pulling me with him this time.
Chris, despite all of his questions to Elijah about feelings and trying to get him to psychically solve the case, misunderstood. He pulled his gun. “That won’t help,” Elijah pointed out.
Chris looked back at us, at the living room, then at us again. “Oh,” he finally said, holstering it. “That kind of someone.”
“Is it Brandon?” I demanded through gritted teeth, letting my fear feed my anger. “Because that motherfucker who let you sit there all night with broken—”
Elijah yanked on my hand and it forced me to remember that Chris didn’t know about that, since Elijah had flat-out lied to him at the time. He wasn’t looking at Chris, though. “I want to go,” he said. “Can we please just leave?”
Chris looked at me, narrowing his eyes, and I knew he wanted to ask me what I was going to say, but he didn’t.
He sighed, resigned to ending the questions.
I knew he was hoping to use Elijah to aid his investigation, but he didn’t know the extent of it.
He hadn’t been in the cemetery that day, when Elijah knew something was there, just like he knew something was there in the living room.
Something Chris and I would not be able to see.
“Alright,” Chris said, motioning to the living room. “But we need to go that way. I don’t want to mess with this door yet because I’m still trying to figure it out.”
“Maybe they left that way, breaking it worse after they killed him,” I suggested. “Or maybe he just broke it when he was drunk. It doesn’t really seem pertinent if there aren’t any prints or DNA.” I swallowed thickly, my eyes not leaving the room that appeared empty but wasn’t.
It was fine. It was okay. There was nothing there because I couldn’t see anything.
I continued trying to convince myself, even though it wasn’t true, as we made our way into the living room with me in the lead.
I pulled Elijah behind me, Chris following along without a damn care in the world.
I dared a glance back at Elijah, and his eyes were trained on the open bathroom door.
There weren’t any windows, so it was too dark to see anything, but he pressed into me, pushing me to move away from it as we passed.
His eyes never left that dark space. Chris was watching him too, his eyes widening a little, and I could tell even he was starting to get freaked out.
We reached the front door and I sped up a little, pulling Elijah outside and down the porch steps. Chris could take care of himself. He was a big boy and he had a gun.
Elijah and I power walked all the way down the path. We probably looked ridiculous, but I didn’t care. Once we were away from the house, I heard Chris laughing a little from a few yards behind us. Fuck him, though. He hadn’t seen what I had. He didn’t know.
When we reached our cars, Chris caught up and said, “You want to tell me what that was about? Because if you saw Brandon in there, I really had some questions for him.”
Elijah shook his head. “I don’t know if it was him. I couldn’t make anything out, just shadows. I don’t know if it was Brandon, or someone else.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Who the hell else would it have been?” I demanded. “We were in Brandon’s house. Was it haunted before?”
He shook his head. “I never had any weird feelings in there before. But there was something in that house. And it wasn’t friendly.”
Chris looked a little skeptical, but I didn’t care. He was the one trying to milk Elijah of psychic knowledge. “We’re going back to Elijah’s,” I said. “Do you need anything else?”
Chris shook his head. “No. Elijah, we’ll end up bringing you in for a formal questioning, I can’t stop that, but it won’t be like earlier. No arrests, I promise. I’ll call you, okay?” Elijah nodded, and Chris got in his car and headed back toward town.
I looked at Elijah, who was a little shaken. He’d had a rough day, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t made anything better. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you home.”