Chapter 59
COOPER
I climb the stairs to the second floor.
I’ve never been on the second floor of Ken’s house. In fact, I’ve only been here twice before, both times to water his plants when he wasn’t around. He doesn’t entertain, at least not for coworkers, and I suspect not at all. I’ve never met his wife, and he’s never met Debbie.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I am presented with five doors, one of which is slightly ajar.
The others are closed. I start with the one that is open, and I quickly discover this is a bathroom.
I flick on the lights, and it’s empty. No blood in the sink, no dead bodies lying in the bathtub—just a normal, ordinary bathroom that doesn’t look like it’s been used recently.
Maybe Ken really did just go out of town for a few days and leave his phone behind.
I work my way down the hallway after that.
I check the first room, which is a small room with a twin bed inside and posters on the wall of a band I’ve never heard of called Glass Animals.
I assume this is the room of one of his children who has gone to college.
The next room I check also has a teenage vibe to it, and I quickly move on.
The next room contains a neatly made double bed and a small dresser. If I had to guess, this is a guest room. It doesn’t look like anybody has lived in this room in a long time. Ken isn’t one to entertain.
There’s only one more. Based on the last three rooms I checked, this must be the master bedroom. If I look in there and it’s empty, I can feel comfortable saying that wherever Ken is, he is not in this house.
(Actually, there’s still the attic. But I’m not going up there unless I hear screams or something.)
I turn the knob of the last door with my right hand.
I notice immediately that this room is darker than the others, because all the curtains have been drawn.
There’s nothing intrinsically suspicious about it, but I am filled with a sudden sensation of dread.
I push the door the rest of the way open.
And I fall to my knees.
I thought that if I saw something truly horrible, I would scream. But at this moment, there are no sounds coming out of my mouth. I can only stare at the motionless body of my boss lying on the bed, his eyes cracked open, his jaw slack, and a bullet hole in the center of his forehead.
He’s dead. And he’s probably been dead for a while. At least since yesterday morning, when he didn’t show up for work.
I can’t seem to make myself get back on my feet. A wave of nausea washes over me, and it takes everything I have not to throw up. I put my head between my legs, taking big gulps of air.
Ken is dead. Somebody shot him. Somebody murdered him.
And I can’t forget the reason I’m here in the first place. Because my phone told me that Debbie had been here.
But that doesn’t mean Debbie was responsible for this.
It seems like Ken might’ve been going through a divorce, based on the complete absence of his spouse and some comments I heard from Mrs. McCauley.
She could be the one responsible. Or…a burglar!
A burglar could have shot him. Anything would make more sense than Debbie murdering Ken because he wouldn’t promote me. She doesn’t even own a gun.
Okay, I’ve got to calm down. I’ve got to pull myself together and call the police to tell them what happened.
And then, just as I’m reaching for my phone, another thought occurs to me. One that stops me in my tracks.
It’s true that Debbie doesn’t own a gun. But I’ve got one. It’s registered in my name. And my fingerprints are all over it.
I suck in a breath.
I thought that Debbie might have come here to ask Ken to give me my job back.
And I thought there was a chance that when he refused, she got angry and did something terrible.
But now that I’m thinking more clearly, I realize that given the guy was shot in his bedroom, it seems unlikely that Debbie was having a conversation with him that went awry.
If Debbie is responsible for this, her motivations were very different from what I originally thought.
Shit.
I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to check my garage.