Griff’s in the bedroom Lily and I used to share. He’s bent in half, checking an exposed floor vent. “I don’t like this. I can’t figure out the angle.”
“Me neither.” I check my phone. We’re still fifteen minutes away from the meeting time, but it’s weird Carson isn’t already here. He would’ve wanted to scope the place as well.
Surely he wouldn’t trust us?
I pocket my cell and look at Griff. “I mean, obviously, someone was looking for something, but what? And why? There’s nothing here.”
Griff stands, cradling his right hand like it’s bothering him. “Wick?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you . . . hear that?”
35
My heart double thumps. “No.”
Griff slowly pivots, expression frozen, watchful. “It’s like . . . tapping.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
Griff walks past me, loops through the bedrooms, and pauses next to me again, listening. “I thought . . . I could have sworn . . . never mind.”
His attention is now trained on the street below. From this angle, we can see the neighbors across the pitted street and most of the front yard. A car drives past, stirring the brittle pikes of grass.
“Think Carson’ll come through the rear?” I ask.
Griff thinks for a beat and then nods. “He’ll have to. Can’t risk being seen by the neighbors any more than we can.”
We start for the stairs and Griff stops, checks his phone. A text message from Carson has lit the screen:
Almost there. House clear?
I stiffen. “Why would he ask that?”
“Part of my job to check the meeting sites. More natural for me to be seen around the neighborhood than him. I checked Joe’s house for him too.” Griff’s eyes lift to mine and he grins. “Who do you think was living in that nasty sleeping bag?”
“Carson?”
“Fallen pretty far, hasn’t he?” Griff puts the cell in his pocket.
Tap . . . tap . . . scraaaatttccchhhh.
Both our heads snap back.
“Tell me you heard that,” he whispers.
“Yeah. It’s rats.” I swallow. “I used to hear them in the walls all the time.”
Griff makes a disgusted noise. “Let’s do this in the kitchen. If we make him face us, we’ll be closest to the door. Anything goes to crap, we’ll be first out.”
I nod and Griff follows me downstairs. It’s a decent setup for the meeting. I know my ground. I know the exits. I’m as in control as I can be . . . so why does something still feel wrong? Is it just because the house has been searched?
My foot hits the bottom step and I stop dead. “Electrical sockets.”
“What?”
I turn to Griff. “All the spaces that someone’s searched. They’re all small spaces—the gaps behind cabinets, the spaces behind light switches. Whatever they’re looking for, it’s small.”
He nods. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“And they know it’s here.”
“Or they think it’s here.”
I spin and start running, Griff close behind me. “They just didn’t know where to look.”
“Do you?”
Yes. Maybe. I think so. I round the corner into the kitchen. The door to the garage is still closed. Griff’s half a step behind me and I can feel his scoff against the back of my neck.
“The garage? Where would you hide something out there? Under all the concrete?”
“Exactly.” I pretty much hate the house, but the garage is a special sort of creepy. We weren’t allowed in there because Michael used it for cooking meth and God knows what else.
In the interviews with my mom, she mentioned trying to get in and how he kept it locked. The officers wouldn’t listen. They kept pressing her to get inside.
Now that I’m standing in the middle of it, I wonder what she would’ve found. A meth lab? Servers and computers? Nothing?
There’s a whole lot of nothing right now. The garage door has droopy black plastic garbage bags taped to the windows, letting in more light than they block. The small side door is ajar, a slice of sunlight appearing and disappearing as the door wobbles in the breeze. There’s a jagged crack in the concrete floor. It follows the far wall, forking through dark paint splattered in the corner.
“Okay,” I say slowly. “Whoever took the house apart knew Michael’s hiding spots. They knew him or, at least, they thought they did, but . . .”
“But?”
“But they should’ve known most of what Michael did took place in here. Check the walls.” I veer right, skimming both palms along the cinder blocks and digging my fingernails into the chipped concrete. Griff takes the other side, and for a few minutes, we work in total silence. There’s nothing but the scuff of our shoes and the tap of the side door as it swings against the frame.
“Holy shi—” Griff kneels and scrabbles at the wall. I turn, watch as he drags a cinder block to the side . . . then another . . . and another.
There’s a darkened space behind the wall.
“Huh,” he says, rocking onto his heels. “Did you know about this?”