“Follow me,” she said, and then led the way upstairs.
The stairs were not carpeted, and the house was eerily silent. The clack, clack, clack of Patsy’s heels echoed as she climbed, as did the thwack of my flip-flops. I paused briefly to look at a stiff, formal family photo on the wall. Scott and Patsy stood behind two pretty blond girls. The younger girl, who looked about twelve, smiled brightly at the camera, but the older one—Melanie, I presumed—looked bored and resentful.
When we reached the top of the stairs, Patsy reached under her jacket and pulled out a Taser.
I came to a screeching halt, wondering if I would be better off charging forward and tackling Patsy to the floor, or leaping off the side of the staircase in hopes of avoiding her first shot. But she didn’t turn the Taser on me, instead arming it, and then holding it down by her side.
“I put enough chloral hydrate in her cocoa to knock out a horse,” Patsy said, apparently not having noticed my double take, “but just to be on the safe side.” She held up the Taser.
I gaped at her. “You drugged her?”
Patsy looked surprised. “Of course. How else would I get her to submit to the examination?”
I took the remaining stairs two at a time. If Patsy’d given the girl enough chloral hydrate to affect a demon, then it was probably enough to kill her if she wasn’t possessed.
Patsy followed more slowly. She didn’t look at all worried that she might have just killed her own daughter. “The demon won’t allow its host to be harmed,” she assured me.
I wanted to grab Patsy by the shoulders and give her a good shake. “Where is she?” I demanded.
Patsy gestured to one of the closed doors down the hall, and I sprinted for it. I had visions of bursting through the door and seeing a dead or dying teenager. But when I shoved the door open, I saw nothing but an empty twin bed, looking forlorn in a barren room.
The white walls were stained yellow in places, and little patches of paint had been peeled off here and there. The stains and patches tended to form rectangular patterns, and I had a hunch the walls had once held posters that Mommy Dearest had not approved of. The bed was rumpled as if slept in, and in its center sat a sheet of yellow legal paper.
I stepped into the room and heard Patsy follow behind me. She gasped when she saw the bed.
I picked up the paper, read the note, and handed it to Patsy.
FYI, the note read. Whatever you put in my cocoa tasted like shit.
Patsy crumpled the note and hurled it at the wall with a furious snarl. Belatedly, I noticed that the open drawers of the bureau were empty. I pushed open what I correctly guessed was a closet door. The hangers were empty, except for a suit, a conservative navy blue skirt, and a couple of prissy white blouses. On the floor were two pairs of sensible pumps, one black, one blue. I suspected this was what Patsy considered acceptable attire for a teenage girl.
Behind me, Patsy kicked the bureau, her face an unappealing shade of red, the Taser clutched in a white-knuckled fist. Call me crazy, but I got the feeling she was a little annoyed her daughter had chosen to fly the coop instead of drinking the proverbial Kool-Aid. I suspected anything I said would just piss her off more, so I kept my mouth shut, half expecting smoke to come out of her ears.
Little by little, she regained control of herself. I had to wonder what she did with all that rage when she wasn’t in the company of strangers. Maybe Melanie had more than one reason to run away from home.
“It appears your services won’t be needed after all,” she said eventually. “Naturally, I’ll pay you for your time.”
At least the trip wouldn’t turn out to be a total waste, I consoled myself. “If Melanie comes home and you’d like to reschedule, give me a call,” I told her, my feet already itching to be out the door. I handed her my card, and she took it by reflex.
“Of course,” she replied in a flat tone that told me I wouldn’t be hearing from her again.