Foster wasn’t as neat a bachelor as Graham. Blankets were flung over the back of the leather couch, untidy stacks of magazines covered the coffee table, and clothes hung from the bannister running up to the second floor. Quinn shone the light into the kitchen, illuminating a pile of dishes in the sink, food dried on each one. He moved to the stairway and climbed the steps, shining the light ahead of him.
The second floor of the house opened into the loft, its picture window looking out onto the yard and trees beyond. Wind whistled in the eaves and found cracks to hiss through. The storm was here, fat underbellies of clouds almost skimming the tallest trees in the forest. Quinn crossed the loft and entered Foster’s office through an open archway. The room wasn’t large and contained a small desk and rolling chair. A computer sat on the desk’s top and a file system was fastened to the wall holding various bills and receipts.
He sat at the desk, standing the light on end before opening the first drawer. Inside were rubber-banded stacks of photographs, curled and faded with time. Quinn shuffled through them, spotting Foster as a much younger man in several of them. In one particular picture, Foster held a smiling little boy in one arm, his other around a plump woman with a kind face. They were all squinting as if the sun were behind the photographer. On the picture’s back Robert, Myra, and Fred was written in looping script. Quinn placed the picture back amongst the others. He’d never known Foster had had a family. They’d never been in any of the stories the older man had told while sitting in the loft.
The next drawer held rows of hanging file folders, their sides bulging with paperwork. Lightning raced through the sky again outside the office window, igniting everything inside the house in a fluorescent white. He counted to five before the thunder crashed this time, the sound like massive waves hammering the coast below the cliffs.
In the second-to-last folder, he found the generator’s manual. He paged through it, the word ‘troubleshooting’ standing out in bold print. Maybe he could even get the generator fired up tonight if he hurried. Quinn closed the manual and grabbed the flashlight from the desktop. Outside, the first lashings of rain fell, streaking the glass in silver rivers that shone in the halogen’s glow. Stepping into the loft he paused, shining the light over the places that he and Foster had sat. Ghosts of memories trailing to him through the years were replaced with the image of the man sitting behind the wheel of his truck, waiting for Mallory to leave the house for the last time. Leave him for the last time. And there had been no goodbye.
A harsh scraping came from the far side of the room.
Quinn’s chest tightened and he shone the light to the furthest corner. Nothing moved but the sound continued. It was as if a tree branch were sliding along the outside of the house. Shhhhhhhhhhhhik.
The sound cut off and he waited, breath suspended in his lungs, eyes wide-staring across the room. The seconds ticked by and the light’s beam shook.
Something moved past the picture window.
He spun, only catching the faintest hint of movement out of the corner of his eye, every hair on his arms and neck standing upright. Darkness had crept from the forest and surrounded the house, the yard barely visible through the hesitant rain. What had it been? A bird zipping past? Quinn swallowed and lowered the light before flicking it off. The window became more transparent without the halogen’s glow and he walked toward it, the floor creaking with each step. Lightning lit the yard, the flash far off and only providing a moment of ambient luminance. Something must have blown by the window, a piece of debris carried by the wind. Maybe it was the same thing that had slid along the wall. But it hadn’t looked like something untethered floating on the air. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten, it had looked steady and lithe.
Like something walking.