Chapter 14
Fourteen
Sam killed the engine and sat for a moment, watching Pirate back the tow truck into the gravel drive.
The steady beep-beep cut through the humid stillness of the night, loud enough to make him wince.
Out here, noise carried. If any neighbors happened to look out their windows, he’d never be able to explain why he was sneaking around Erielle’s place with a tow truck in the middle of the night.
At least she was still at the bar. She wouldn’t hear the racket.
Sam walked through the yard to get to the detached garage, tested the lock and found it open. Maybe Erielle was hoping thieves would empty it out. He couldn’t blame her.
Pirate jumped out of the cab of the tow truck and slammed the door like he’d never heard of being sneaky in his life.
“Whew, what a mess!” Pirate shone his flashlight into the interior as Sam edged down the passenger side of the car to turn on the garage’s overhead light.
It popped on, then off again almost instantly, illuminating more of a disaster than Sam remembered. He hadn’t remembered the boxes stacked on the trunk, the miscellaneous gardening tools tossed on the roof.
“Hey, come over here with that flashlight, will you?” He didn’t want to just shove the boxes onto the ground, though that was his first instinct. He didn’t want to break anything that might be stored in them.
Pirate edged his way toward Sam, stepping gingerly. “Dang, it stinks in here.”
“We found a dead skunk.”
Pirate shone the flashlight into the interior of the car. “Cloth seats. You might not be able to get the smell out.”
“Maybe not, but I want to try.” Wouldn’t she be happy to have this part of her grandfather? Okay, so it was a gas guzzler and probably just had an AM radio and might have the lingering scent of dead skunk, but it would be something for her to have.
And if he could get his dad to help him rebuild it, well, that would be something that might both smooth over their relationship and give his dad something to think about other than his injury.
The boxes had Christmas decorations, old dried-up art supplies and, naturally, books. Sam set them on the sturdy wooden workbench. One of them was heavier than the others, and the box beneath it crumbling, and when he pivoted to place it on the bench, the bottom fell out.
Surprise surprise. Books.
Finally, working together, they cleared a path so that Pirate could back the tow truck to the vehicle, then loosened the winch and lowered the flatbed.
Why Sam had thought he could do this quietly, he had no idea.
He watched as his friend attached the winch to the Buick and hauled it onto the back of his flatbed.
A movement from the house caught his attention, and he turned to see a flicker of light in the window. He spun toward the house, but only caught a fading image in the attic window, like a light had been shone into his eyes, then turned off.
“Hey, did you see that?” he asked Pirate, who was climbing into the cab, ready to take off..
“See what?”
“That…light in the window? Like, not a regular light though?”
Pirate leaned against the cab, watching him. “My dude, are you seeing ghosts?”
Maybe? But Sam didn’t say it.
“I know this place is supposed to be haunted,” Pirate went on. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
The way Pirate asked, it sounded like he for sure didn’t believe in them. Sam was more curious. “I wonder if I should go in and check to make sure everything is okay. That no one’s in there trying to scare Erielle when she gets home.”
Pirate turned back to the cab and mounted the step. “Go ahead, if you can get in, I guess. I’m going to take this on over to your folks’ place. They know I’m coming?”
“Mom does.” He’d already discussed this plan with his mom, and she agreed it could be good for his dad. “I’m going to go check. I want to be sure the house is safe when she comes in. Can I use your flashlight?”
The front and back doors were locked, naturally, and she’d put those little gadgets on the insides of the windows so they couldn’t be raised. He walked around, sweeping the beam of his flashlight over each window, each shadow, looking for any sign of forced entry.
The flashing red and blue lights in front of the house startled him so bad he nearly dropped his flashlight. He rounded the corner and came face to face with Cal and his own flashlight beam.
“Cal, what are you doing here?”
“The question is, what are you doing here?” Cal’s voice was accusing. “Neighbors called about prowlers. Well, I don’t know if we can call them prowlers, since they were making all kinds of noise, beeping and throwing stuff around in the garage.”
“Ah. Well. Yeah.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck, squinting past the light to see his friend’s eyes. “We came to get the Buick out of the garage so I can try to fix it up for Erielle.”
“At eleven at night.”
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of a surprise. I mean, it will be. If you help me make it a surprise.”
Cal’s expression was skeptical in the reflection of the flashlight. “So where’s the car now?”
“Pirate towed it over to my parents’ place.” He wanted to let Cal know about his plan to help his dad, but the other man interrupted.
“If you just came for the car, why are you creeping around the house with a flashlight?”
Sam hesitated. After Pirate’s reaction, Sam felt foolish describing it to Cal. “When we were taking the car, I saw something in the window, and I wanted to make sure no one’s in the house. Can you help me get inside so we can check it out before Erielle gets home?”
“What exactly did you see?”
“I thought I saw a light in there. Moving.”
“You sure it wasn’t just a reflection of your light?” Cal nodded toward the heavy-duty flashlight in his hand.
Sam considered. While it probably wasn’t the flashlight, could it have been the headlights? No, it had moved, or else he wouldn’t have seen it.
“Can you just help me check out the house and make sure no one’s inside?”
Cal rolled his head on his neck, like a teenager asked to clean his room. “I’ve already been through it inch by inch. This house is enormous.”
“All the better reason for two of us to check it out. Look, do you want to be responsible for a woman alone coming home from work and facing someone in her house?”
Cal grunted, then mounted the front steps. With a tool slipped between the door and frame, he popped the lock in seconds.
“I’ll go. You stay out here. I’d hate to shoot you on accident.”
“Come on, man. You take the bottom floor, I’ll take the second floor, we both do the attic.” They should probably start there, since that’s where he saw the light, but whoever it had been would have to come downstairs anyway, right?
Cal sighed and motioned for Sam to precede him into the house.
The hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stood up as he entered the dark house. “Lights on or lights off?”
“I’m not walking around this house in the dark,” Cal said, and flicked the switch beside the door, illuminating the foyer and stairs. “You got the second floor?”
Sam nodded and started for the stairs.
The lights cut out.
“What the hell?” He pivoted to see Cal still by the light switch, grinning, Then he turned them back on. Sam muttered a curse loud enough for Cal to hear, then continued up the stairs.
Four bedrooms. Not too much to see, some furniture, not many places to hide.
He checked the back two, then the front bedroom Erielle had claimed.
He flicked on the light, wondering why she’d chosen this one.
Being here without her felt weird, looking at the rumbled bed—well air-mattress covered with one of her grandmother’s quilts—the folding wooden TV tray beside it, with her charging cord and laptop, a box of tissues and a tube of Chapstick.
Her suitcase was sitting on a dresser, open, still unpacked. He wondered why. And next to the dresser, a rolling canvas hamper with clothes draped over it.
No place to hide in here, either. But lots of questions brought to mind.
“Anything?” Cal asked from the doorway, making Sam jump a foot.
“Nothing.”
“You ready to go up to the attic?”
He was not. Something buzzed under his skin, something he couldn’t define, but they mounted the steps, Cal in front.
A bookcase blocked the doorway to the attic.
“This wasn’t here the last time I was here,” Cal muttered.
“She put it there to block the attic.”
Cal turned to look at him. “From what?”
Sam shrugged. “She was afraid someone was coming in that broken window to scare her. She figured this would stop them.”
“Did it?”
“She hasn’t said.”
Working together, the men pushed it aside and Cal opened the door.
“Hello?” he called up the steps. “Anyone here?”
Sam’s skin iced. No, not just his skin, his whole body, his organs, his blood. His muscles tightened in what he recognized as a fight-or-flight response.
And then, just like that, he felt normal again.
“Did you feel that?” he asked, realizing then that Cal had already entered the attic and was looking back at him curiously.
“Feel what?”
“Like, that chill?”
“No, man, it’s hot as hell up here. Maybe you’re getting sick.” Cal squinted. “Sometimes when my mom gets a migraine she sees a flash of light first. You think that could be what happened?”
“No, I’ve never had a migraine.”
“First time for everything. You’re not getting any younger.”
Sam scoffed and marched up the stairs, trying to shake the icy feeling.
He rubbed his hand on the back of his neck as he searched behind the boxes.
It was like a feeling of being watched, and while there were a lot of places to hide, someone wouldn’t be able to move from one place to another without being seen.
As much s he wanted to be close to Cal, he wanted to be done more, so they headed in different directions.
He alternated between shining the flashlight on the floor in front of him to behind the stacks and stacks of boxes.
But nothing. No one was there, and there was no sign anyone had been there.
So what had he seen?
“Ain’t nothing here. I’m pretty sure all you saw was your own headlights.” Cal gave him a look over the beam of his flashlight. “Or else you’re trying to distract me from what you’re really doing here.”
“Come on, Cal. You know me.”
“Yeah, I do, which is why I came in with you instead of hauling you off.” He opened the door to leave the attic, motioned for Sam to precede him out the door.
Once they reached the front door, Cal turned to him. “You satisfied?”
Sam rubbed the back of his neck again, the prickle that hadn’t gone away. “I mean, I didn’t see any evidence of anyone being here. So yeah, I guess.”
“Well, you go on home, then. Don’t come sneaking around here when no one’s home.”
“Yeah. I’m going to make sure the car’s at my folks’, then go down to Rumrunners.” He said it almost like he was asking permission, which felt weird. But when Cal nodded, Sam headed down to his truck and took off.