Chapter 29 #2
I climbed out of the car and, using the GPS to pinpoint the house, I went down the alley behind the houses until I reached the one I was looking for. I started to head toward the back of the house when something caught my attention.
I stopped where I was in the middle of the backyard and did a slow circle. Unlike the front of the house, the backyard was mowed. Why would he take the time to mow the back, but not the front? Then I saw the worn track leading to the large shed in the corner of the yard.
Two tracks were worn down to nothing but dirt.
One was much deeper and wider, showing a route that was often taken, likely daily, possibly even multiple times a day.
That one led straight to the back door of the house.
Morris could literally step off the small, square landing, directly onto the well-worn path, and walk straight to the shed.
From the looks of it, he could do it in his sleep.
The other path was less worn, with bits of stubborn grass still growing through the trampled earth. That one led to the entrance of the alley I’d just come from. An alley that made for easy access to bring in an incapacitated woman. Or leave with a dead body.
I walked to the shed, removing my service weapon from the holster, and I let my finger rest next to the trigger. The door swung open easily on well-oiled hinges, not making a sound. Glancing around, I saw how clean it was.
There were tools lined up orderly. Literally everything had a place.
It was like a scene out of a magazine. Perfectly organized, with nearly every hand or power tool a person could want.
I recognized some of them, but my dad hadn’t been into working with his hands, so he’d only had the basics.
Even then, despite how little he used them, they still had some wear and tear. These on display were spotless.
“Why have so many tools on display that you never use, Morris?” I murmured. “Could it be another facade?” It would cut down on a lot of suspicions from the neighbors if they thought he was simply a hobby builder who spent a lot of time in his shed.
Something about the space seemed off. It took me several moments as I scanned the virtually spotless tools and workbench to figure it out.
There was a large rolling workbench sitting in the middle of the floor.
Everything else was tidy, hung perfectly positioned in their places on the walls and pegboard.
But this huge workbench was just in the middle of the floor instead of the space against the wall that appeared to be designed just for it.
I eyed it, wondering why it bothered me so much that he didn’t have it pushed into its proper position.
I looked down at the floor. There were tracks that had been made over time, leading to the proper location.
How many times had Morris pushed the workbench into place, only to pull it back to the center of the floor?
Sliding my 9 MM back into the holster, I gave the workbench a test push, then frowned when it didn’t budge.
Stepping back, I looked at the wheels and saw that the locks on two of them were set to a downward position.
Using the toe of my shoe, I pressed down until they clicked and were fully released in an upward position instead. Then, I gave it another nudge.
The workbench rolled smoothly across the floor. As it moved, the corner of what appeared to be a hatch appeared. With my heart racing rapidly, I pushed harder until the heavy workbench was out of the way and the entire hatch was revealed.
It almost blended in with the floor. If I hadn’t been specifically looking for anything suspicious, I might have overlooked it.
The hatch was a large square, painted the exact color of the cement floor, with a frame around it.
In the center was a drain that could easily be explained away inside a shed.
Only, why would someone put a frame around a drain unless they were trying to conceal the seams of a hatch?
Bending down, I looked for a handle but couldn’t find any way to grip the hatch to open it. Finally, I pressed down on the drain, only to realize that it had been a cleverly concealed handle as it flipped up. Gripping firmly, I pulled and held my breath as the hatch door came up on silent hinges.
Pulling my phone out, I peered into the dark hole to see a ladder. Swallowing hard, I took a shaky breath and reminded myself that Morris wasn’t here and I was safe. But there was possibly a girl down in that pit of hell who wasn’t.
Gripping the bars firmly, I descended the metal ladder, my shoes making an echoing sound in the darkness with every connection against a new rung.
“There had better be a light at the bottom. Oh my god, I hope there’s a light at the bottom.
” A part of me wanted to run away and never look back, but then I remembered what my sister had gone through and knew I could never leave her behind. Not Mariposa, and not Melanie.
Finally, my feet touched the ground, and I breathed a sigh of relief when my hands were free, and I was able to pull my phone out and use the flashlight feature again.
I swept the light over the wall in front of me slowly, then turned in a circle.
The space at the bottom of the stairs was small, hardly more than four feet by four feet.
It could easily have been explained as a storm shelter during tornado season.
It was just large enough for a couple of people to sit close together as they waited out a storm.
I didn’t find a light switch in the small space, but I did see a door.