“And if we’d walked we could have walked past them,” said Mills.
“Coulda shoulda woulda,” I said, stepping out onto the sidewalk. The house looked quiet, the windows were closed, leaves on surrounding trees rippled softly in the wind. I walked up to the porch, not waiting for Mills to uncuff Nobody from the car door; if I was quick, I might have a chance to talk to the Glassmans before Mills caught up. I knocked loudly and listened for footsteps. No one came. Mills and Nobody walked up the front walk, and I knocked again. They climbed the stairs and stood beside me, and Nobody held up Brooke’s cuffed wrists.
“At least they’re in front,” she said. “I can catch myself if I trip.”
“I can change that if I need to,” said Mills.
No one came to the door.
Nobody leaned forward and tried the door handle; it pushed right open. “That’s lucky,” she said.
“Is it?” I asked, and I stepped inside. The whole situation was looking more and more ominous.
“We’re with the FBI now,” said Nobody. “Can we go in there without a warrant?”
“He can’t,” I said, scanning the room quickly. “You and I are not currently employed by a law-enforcement agency.” The living room was mostly how I remembered it—not messy, but full of organized clutter.
“Ms. Glassman?” called Nobody, stepping in behind me.
Mills stepped in as well. “Seriously, guys. I’m pursuing two teenage fugitives through a town where three people have been murdered—I have enough probable cause to start breaking down walls if I want to, let alone come inside and look around.” He picked up a newspaper. “Yesterday’s date.”
“I didn’t see a new one on the porch,” said Nobody. “They must have already—” Something soft and small thudded into the porch, and she glanced outside. “There it is. Paper boy’s passing on his bike.”
“They wouldn’t leave their door open overnight,” said Mills, “so obviously they opened it up this morning and went for a walk.”
“Through the close-knit neighborhood that thinks he’s a pedophile,” I said, moving into the hall. “Somehow that doesn’t seem high on the list of possibilities.”
“Neither is a twisted double murder,” said Mills. “You jump to your conclusions, I’ll jump to mine.”
I turned the corner into the kitchen, and there they were: him in his uniform, her in a blouse and skirt, seated at the kitchen table—face down in their plates of food. Their hands hung limply at their sides. I stepped closer and looked at the dish on the table: some kind of casserole, brown and dried out. They’d been here since dinner last night, at least.
“Holy mother,” said Nobody, rounding the corner behind me.
“What did you find?” asked Mills as he stepped into the doorway behind her. “Oh, eff this whole thing.”
“Eff?” I asked, and I touched Sara’s arm, testing the movement in the joints; she bent easily at the elbow and shoulder.
“We don’t all talk like we’re on The Wire,” he said. “Stop touching them, this is a crime scene.”
“That’s why I’m touching them,” I said, letting go of the arm. “Rigor mortis has already come and gone; they’ve been here fourteen, maybe only twelve hours.”
“Rigor mortis takes longer than that,” said Mills.
“Not in this heat,” I said. “Trust a mortician.” I bent down to look at their heads, but straightened immediately when I saw Mills pull out his phone. “Don’t call it in yet.”
“Of course I’m going to call it in.”
“This is our only chance to examine the bodies,” I said. “And no, don’t say that the police have a forensics team to do that for us, because you know they won’t find everything we will. They don’t know about the Withered, or anything supernatural—they might skip over a dozen vital clues because they don’t know what they’re looking for.”
Mills held the phone in front of him, then sighed and put it away. “Fine,” he said. “You’ve got twenty minutes.”
“You can give me way more than that,” I said.
“Every house on this street saw us park and come inside,” he said. “If there’s more than twenty minutes between us entering and us calling the police, it’s going to look suspicious as hell.”
“Easy,” said Nobody. “This isn’t The Wire.”
Mills sneered at her, and I looked back at the bodies. Twenty minutes.
Come on, bodies. Talk to me.