I used the tarnished brass knocker to rap on the door. “Come on, come on.” I bobbed up and down on my toes. I knocked again. The bottom had dropped out on the atmospheric pressure, and the temperature was falling along with it. The storm was strengthening. But where was Adam?
Again, there was no answer. I glanced over my shoulder. No one was around. I dug my teeth into my lower lip and wiggled the door handle. Locked. My heart thumped. I wondered if I’d officially lost my marbles. But that was the thing about losing it: You were usually too far gone to care. From my back pocket, I pulled my wallet and slid out my driver’s license. Bending down, I inserted the license between the doorframe and door and slid it down toward the latch. It took several attempts until I heard the click that meant I’d successfully maneuvered the license in between the lock and frame.
With a whiny creak, the door popped open an inch. The room inside was a dark, tea-stained brown. The soles of my shoes sank into a spongy, carpeted floor as I slipped in and pulled the door shut behind me. I chained the lock and pressed my back to the door, letting my eyes adjust. A musty odor emanated from the comforters on two separate beds.
“Hello?” I called. The room was quiet except for the buzz of the window air-conditioning unit. All I needed was a hint of where they might have gone or when the last time was that they were here. I forced myself to move away from the wall and made a beeline for a duffel bag squished tightly between the television and minifridge.
I dug into a pile of clothes. If I had any doubt as to whether I had the right room, it went out the window when I found the treasure trove of cutoff denim. The girl loved to take scissors to jeans—shorts, skirts, it didn’t matter. Soon, I was squatting amid a denim massacre.
But it was underneath a pair of underwear that I saw the glint of a screen. I pinched a red thong, the kind I’d never personally own, between two fingers and dropped it on the pile of clothes.
I picked up the shiny black tablet. The silhouette of my face reflected off the screen. I swiped my thumb across the bottom, and the tablet came to life. Bingo.
The background lit up blue, displaying a dozen icons. I tapped the one for “mail,” but it wasn’t set up. I cursed under my breath and closed out of the application. I selected the Internet app instead and the browser expanded.
I navigated to Meg’s search history. A long list appeared, showing the last two weeks of activity. I scrolled. I didn’t even know what I was looking for. A clue. Anything. Shopping websites filled the bulk of her history, and I grew impatient as I paged my way through.
From the hallway, I heard the sound of approaching voices. I stiffened, glancing around for somewhere to hide if I had to. Under the beds? The bathroom? They got closer. Shadows crossed the blinds. Footsteps. They were at the door, and then, in the space in which I was sure a key would slip into the lock, the footsteps began fading. They passed by the room. I let out a long whoosh of air and returned to the contents of the tablet.
Partway down, though, the word fire caught my attention. The link was to a news article. I clicked it, and the screen went white before flashing to the local news site for Hugo, a town north of Hollow Pines, across the Oklahoma border.
The headline, at once, stopped me cold: Fatal house fire was intentionally set, officials say. I read without wanting to. I read knowing what I might see. But the important thing was, I read anyway.
Unified Fire Authority investigators ruled out natural gas as the cause of a fire that destroyed 408 East Trice Street in Tuesday’s late-evening hours. Unified Fire Battalion Chief Aaron Blanton issued a statement confirming, “… some other form of accelerant was spread in several places throughout the house.”
James Flacco, 21, perished in the fire. An autopsy will confirm whether Flacco died as a result of the fire or whether his death occurred at some time earlier in the night.
My skin went from hot to cold to clammy and sweat-ridden like I was consumed by fever. I had finally found the house. My hands quivered. I set the tablet down and heard it knock against something hard in the bag.
I pushed a rolled-up shirt to the side, and my finger grazed something smooth and hard. Carefully, I lifted a gun out of Meg’s bag.
My veins whooshed against my eardrums. Despite living my entire life in Texas, I’d never held one before. The short, angular handgun was light in my grip. I balanced it between handle and barrel.
My thoughts tumbled one on top of the other, roaring like a waterfall. Adam. The flashback. The screams. The fire. Meg. Gun.
That was what Meg meant by trouble. Someone died. I stared at the words on the screen. I hadn’t created the monster. I’d just uncovered the person there waiting. It was John lurking underneath the surface. Not my methods. John.
But my loyalty was to Adam.