The small powder room across from the foyer looked like one you would find in a high-end hotel, right down to the decorative tissue box holder and copper soap dispenser and framed artwork, plus a fancy toilet paper holder in the shape of a cat’s long tail.
The kitchen was small but it sparkled. The travertine tile floor looked clean enough to have a picnic on without the blanket or even dishes. The counters were wiped down, the table set with a plate, cup, and cutlery in a rolled napkin. Canisters on the counters were arranged by height. The stove top’s six burners glistened with not a speck of grease on their surfaces.
Pine opened some of the cabinets and drawers and found everything so organized she felt like she truly was in a model house where everything was on display, no one actually lived there to do any damage, and thus all was perfect. The contents of the refrigerator were so carefully arranged that it made her own fridge back in Arizona look like a dumpster. But that really wasn’t a high bar, Pine conceded.
The thing that was bothering her was that she could understand Desiree being a neatnik, maybe even OCD. But then why was her shop so messy? Normally, a person with that condition didn’t let their desire for organization stop at the front door of their home.
Off the kitchen was a small laundry room. A basket on top of the dryer held scrupulously folded clothes. She glanced at the items and then looked away, but only for a moment. Then her gaze swung back to the stack of clothes. She took a pair of jeans off the top of the pile and held them up.
Desiree had been described to her as being very short, under five feet, and her driver’s license had confirmed this. Pine held the jeans against her own legs. They would have been too short for her, but they were also far longer than someone Desiree’s height could have worn, even if she had on heels.
And the style and narrow hip cut of the pants were for someone a lot younger than Desiree.
The blood seemed to solidify in Pine’s veins.
No way. No way in hell.
She put the pants back in the basket and left the laundry room. She raced back upstairs and made a more thorough search. She noted the pulldown attic door in the ceiling in the unused bedroom. She yanked on it, and a set of hinged stairs collapsed downward. Pine locked the steps in place and hustled up them. She shone her light around in the darkness and called out, “Hello? Is anyone up here? I’m with the FBI? Hello?”
There was no answer, no sound. She hit the entire space with her light and found nothing there.
She climbed back down and lifted the stairs up. They receded into the attic opening, and the access door banged shut behind them.
Pine felt something moving across her head. She was standing underneath a ceiling vent. The heat had just come on again.
The heat?
She ran down the stairs and over to the locked door. She put her shoulder against it and pushed. She felt the lock start to give. She pulled a small lockpick kit from her jacket. She didn’t bother picking the simple lock. She just used one of the tools to merely slide the door bolt back. She opened the door and turned on the light. As she had guessed, the home’s HVAC system was located in here with the ductwork shafted into the unfinished ceiling where it headed on to the rest of the house. She looked around the space. There were a couple of shelves off to the side, all stacked with boxes. The floor under the HVAC was cement.
Had she been wrong in her assumption? But then why lock the door?
She then walked behind the shelves to a small space. She stopped and stared when she noted that the floor here was not cement. It was tongue-and-groove wood. Was it just wood flooring laid over the cement? But why bother with that for a room like this, into which no one other than a repairman would ever really enter?
In the farthest corner sat a hand truck with a large box perched on its lip.
Pine moved the hand truck away, then bent down to examine the spot the box had covered.
Pine felt like she had been gut-punched.
Recessed into the floor was a keyhole. As she looked over the area, she saw the parameters of the trap door. There was a lift handle inlaid into the floor next to the keyhole.
Okay, here we go again, thought Pine.
CHAPTER
30
IS ANYBODY DOWN THERE?” called out Pine through the wooden trap door.
When she was met with silence, she stomped on the trap door. “Hello, is anyone down there?”
Nothing.
Pine looked around and saw it. On one of the shelves’ metal supports was a single key attached to a magnet.
She pulled it free, knelt down, and put the key in the lock. She turned it and then grabbed the recessed handle. The door came up easily on hydraulic hinges.
The space she was looking at was completely dark.
“Hello?” she called out again.
This time she heard a noise. No words, just a scuffling sound.
Pine shone her light into the dark. A set of steps was revealed.
“Hello, my name is Atlee Pine. I’m with the FBI. Is anyone down there? I’m here to help.”
The sound she had heard could have been rats. But you didn’t have a secret space to keep rats in. And they didn’t wear jeans.
She started down the steps, the light in one hand, her pistol in the other.
“Hello? Please show yourself. I’m here to help you. Are you being held against your will? Where is the woman who lives here? Dolores Venuti?”
Now Pine could hear heavy breathing and whimpering, as though whoever was down here was terrified beyond belief. For a moment she thought it might be Desiree. But this couldn’t be a hiding place for the woman. She had looked at the underside of the trap door. The key only worked from the outside.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”
She reached the bottom of the space and had to bend low because the height of the rest of the room was only around four feet. This had to be the rear of the house, where the grade dictated the high foundation. She decided to squat on her haunches and illuminate the area with her light. She shivered because it was chilly down here. The space obviously wasn’t climate controlled, and she figured the outside was right on the other side of the wall. She pointed her light to the left and slowly went to the right.
She saw, with growing horror, the elements of someone living down here. Plywood and cinderblock shelves with clothes piled on them. A torn bean bag chair with a pair of worn lime green Converse sneakers lying on top. A battery-powered lantern. A stack of magazines. A mattress with covers and a single pillow strewn haphazardly over it.
Then Pine tensed when she saw the sock-clad foot. She slowly lifted the flashlight and the beam traveled upward, along the legs clothed in jeans, past the waist, rode up the baggy sweatshirt, and finally came to rest on the young, terrified face staring back at her, the eyes squinting as the beam drilled into them.