He followed her, still moving cautiously. Together, they beamed their flashlights around the place. It was typical of abandoned basements. A slanted shelf held lanterns; candles were piled in another box, half-melted into one another. A rope was strung across the space, hung with old clothes as if they’d been put there to dry in winter. Barrels, staves and crates sat in one corner; here, too, spiderwebs seemed to hold court.
“Watch it. Nice nesting place for a brown recluse,” he said. “Nothing like getting your man, and then dying of a spider bite.”
“There’s nothing down here,” Meg said, her tone disheartened. “I thought... I thought we’d find her. But this isn’t even like the floor I saw. I mean, I thought I saw. She was on the ground, alone, passed out from hunger or dehydration or...”
Her voice trailed off. Matt suddenly wondered if he’d been wrong about Lara and wrong in making Meg believe that Lara might be alive.
He hated to lose faith like this, but she was probably dead. The killer must have taken greater care with her corpse, weighting it so well that she wouldn’t float back to the surface. One day, someone fishing or diving in the river would come across her decomposed remains, her bones part of the riverbed.
He realized, though, that he had faith in Meg, if not in himself.
“We’re going to find her. Let’s keep looking down here,” he said.
They did. They searched for a good hour, tapping the walls, hoping for a secret exit, the kind of thing that might have been used in slave days.
“We have to give it up now,” Matt said at last. “We’re almost out of time.”
Meg nodded, and they headed back to the stairs. But before they reached them, Meg paused, easing back against him and turning around.
“Killer, come,” she ordered the dog.
He didn’t seem to hear her. He stayed where he was, whining again. Meg walked back over to where he stood and stooped down to pick him up.
“We’ve searched, boy. We’ve searched all over. We can’t find anything,” Meg told him.
“Take him and go on up first,” Matt suggested. “I can catch both of you if you fall—better than you catch me.”
Meg almost smiled. “I’m just not sure about hauling you back up if another step does go,” she said.
“I tested them all. Only the fourth one was really bad.” When they emerged into the kitchen, he turned to her and laughed. “You’re covered in spiderwebs. You look like hell.”
“As I noted before, you have a talent with words—you always know the right thing to say,” she told him sardonically. “You should see yourself. And Killer!”
The dog looked like a ghost dog; he, too, was shrouded in gray webbing.
“We’ve got to get this off before we return to the MacAndrew house!” he said. “You help me, and I’ll help you.”
“Don’t you dare try to turn spiderwebs into something erotic!”
“I’ll contain myself—as long as you exercise control, as well,” he teased.
It took some time before they were both presentable.
“We didn’t go upstairs yet,” Meg said.
“No. She’s not going to be upstairs.” If she was there, he thought, they would’ve heard something. Unless she was dead.
And then, he knew, they would have smelled the odor of decomposition.
He didn’t say that to Meg. And what she said next did make sense.
“I agree we won’t find Lara, but we can tell if someone’s been here recently.”
“It’s likely that if the PTP corporation bought the place, they’ve had people here, including local real estate agents,” he said. “But you’re right. We’ve come this far. Let’s go up.”
The upstairs of the house was as sadly haunting as the rest. The few pieces of furniture were broken and falling apart. Drapes were ragged and drooping from the windows. In one bedroom, Meg paused.
“What?” he asked her.
She was standing by a window and motioned him to come over. “Look, but don’t touch. There are prints in the dust on the windowsill. Someone’s been here. And there in the distance...”
Across the fields and roads, up on another hill, was the MacAndrew farmhouse.
“Well, whoever was here was certainly checking the view,” Matt said. “That might’ve been a security precaution by Larry Mills or one of the other cops. Maybe they’d thought about stationing someone here to keep watch. It’s hard to say, Meg.”
“Lara’s somewhere nearby,” she said passionately. “I just know it!”
“We’ll figure it out—and we’ll get to her in time,” he promised. He prayed he could keep that promise. But somehow, he felt that something was going to break soon.
Congressman Walker’s speech was the next day. That was a catalyst, he thought. He wasn’t sure how he knew or why, but that would be the catalyst.
“We’d better go.”
When they were outside the house, Matt looked across the overgrown field and to the Union encampment. “Let’s pay our new friend a quick visit,” he said.
“Our new friend? You mean Sylvia Avery?”
“Yes. She should be at that encampment, in the vicinity of the medical tent.”