Chapter 24
A CLOSE CALL
Ipeer through a pair of binoculars into Lainey’s living room window from the passenger seat of Jude’s car. Currently, she’s away. At Griffin’s house. Twig and Naomi are trailing them. Lainey’s mom is gone, too. Apparently, she leaves most weekends to visit her boyfriend in Mill Creek.
Which means Lainey’s house is vacant.
All through church, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin.
I need to take action.
I have to do something.
Jude doesn’t want me doing that something alone.
So here we are on a Sunday morning.
Ready to commit a felony.
There’s no movement inside any of the windows.
No security cameras that we can see. No nosy neighbors out and about, either.
So, quickly and quietly, we climb out of Jude’s car, walk casually around the side of Lainey’s home, and stop in front of a privacy fence.
Jude opens the warped gate and I follow him into the backyard, where dead leaves collect in the corners and patchy grass surrounds a patio with three plastic chairs and a rusted fire pit.
We creep toward the back entrance.
The storm door creaks in the breeze, its spring busted.
The door behind it is locked.
Jude tries some windows.
All of them are locked, too.
We have no idea if Lainey has a security system. So when Jude pulls a pick from his pocket, I hold my breath while he works on the lock. A few seconds later, I hear the faintest of clicks. He twists the knob and the door opens with a groan.
No alarms sound.
No lights flash.
All is quiet and calm.
Jude flips a nearby switch and the kitchen floods with light.
We move through it quickly. The living room, too. Into a hallway. Past a bathroom. Then we stop on the threshold of Lainey’s bedroom.
Sunlight streams inside, reaching her dresser and the jewelry box perched on top.
I hurry toward it and sift through the contents.
There’s no ruby or skeleton key, so I move to her dresser drawers while Jude rifles through her desk, the garbage bin, and her nightstand.
I check behind the books on her bookshelf, then search her closet.
We look under her pillows and beneath her bed.
The ruby amulet is nowhere.
I drag my hands down my face.
“If we’re committing a crime,” Jude says, “we might as well be thorough about it.”
We search the master bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, and the kitchen, my disappointment and anxiety mounting by the second. We’ve been here too long, and so far, it’s been nothing but a dangerous waste of time.
Jude opens the door off the kitchen.
It leads into a dark basement, but for a soft glow on the outer edge, like a television has been left on.
Only… I don’t think it’s a television.
The back of my neck prickles.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
Jude cocks his head.
The air hums with electricity.
Intrigued, we creep down the stairs, each step creaking beneath our weight. Halfway down, a gasp tumbles from my lips. For there—in the back, past the washer and dryer and furnace—is a rift. An open, glowing rift.
With my heart in my throat, I take a step closer.
The rift sparks.
Jude grabs my arm.
But I take another step.
The rift flickers and twists. Then a bellow of wind howls through the opening. I lift my hands to shield my face as an unholy shriek rattles the walls. I clamp my palms over my ears and the rift explodes in a violent burst of light.
I am tucked beneath Jude’s arm, pressed against his chest, my own heaving—unsure what that was or why it just happened—when the front door opens above us.
I stop breathing.
Footsteps echo overhead.
Jude pulls me under the stairs, behind a stack of storage bins. We crouch low as the footsteps stop in front of the staircase.
Twig and Naomi were supposed to notify us if Lainey was on her way. The very thought seems to conjure a response. A loud buzz vibrates in my pocket. My fingers fumble as I quickly shut it off. We lower ourselves all the way to the ground.
Someone climbs down the stairs.
Dust rains on our heads.
A cough rises in my throat. I choke it back.
Slowly, Lainey walks to the hanging bulb in the center of the room and pulls the chain.
She stands with her back to us, facing the spot where the rift was hovering mere moments ago.
She turns up her wrist, the dots glowing as she tries to open another doorway.
I watch as she struggles, fails, then spins around.
The harsh light glints off the key hanging around her neck as she squints into the dark corners of the basement.
I don’t dare breathe.
She tries again.
Fails again.
Then she stomps up the stairs.
A few seconds later, the front door opens and slams shut.
Jude and I stay where we are.
For a long moment, neither of us move.
All we can do is breathe.
By the time I turn on my phone, I have a slew of missed calls and text messages. Mostly from Twig, but Harper, too. She sent a message to me and Naomi.
SOS. Are you two okay? Jake just told me two girls have gone missing but he won’t say who. Call me ASAP.