Page 35 of Cowboy Heat

I move from the living area and kitchen through the small hallway that splits up the front and back of the house. There’s a sitting area with a door leading out to a damaged screened-in front porch at its end. No one is slinking in there. No blood either. I can follow along to the right to the guest bedrooms and baths or the left to the master suite.

I choose the guest bedrooms first and pull the bat up high. I’ve never been a sports guy, but I know that if I need to, I can hit a home run. Take out whoever is bleeding in my new home.

If there’s anyone here.

It’s awfully quiet.

The first bedroom, the one that has my sleeping bag and things, has no one inside. Nothing looks like it’s been moved. The second and third bedrooms are the same. There’s a smaller room at the back set up like a study with a bare desk and bookshelves filled with cobwebs and dust. The door squeaks as badly as the front door. I worry it’s let whoever might be inside know exactly where I am.

But no one’s there.

It looks untouched.

I backtrack to the master suite.

I don’t like this room. Maybe because I know it’s the last place Ryan laid his head before he left this world behind.

Maybe because it’s too big, and I can feel the empty spaces next to me easier.

Regardless, nothing is amiss.

I double back to the small sitting area with a plan to check the locks on the doors and windows again.

Then I see it. Out of the corners of my eye.

My adrenaline surges. My senses heighten.

The door to the basement is staring at me.

The only place left to look.

I know what it’s supposed to look like down there, even though the last time I shut the door behind me was after Kissy’s tour on my first day at Blue Lolita.

It’s only one room. One open room with a dehumidifier and a lone hanging light.

There’s no light coming through from beneath the door now.

My hand shakes a little as it hovers over the door knob.

I’m not afraid of the dark basement. I’m afraid of the choices I’ll make when I’m wrapped up in the same darkness.

Fear has no place here, though. Not like it used to.

I open the door and stare down the stairs into the darkness.

Ready for anything.

Ready for—

A light bobs next to the bottom of the stairs. It looks like a beam from a very small flashlight.

I go on autopilot.

I flip the light switch and shift my body to hide the fact that my only weapon is a baseball bat, then yell down in a voice that’s nothing but the law. “Don’t move,” I yell out, comfortable in words I’d said countless times before in my career.

They echo down into the room, chasing the light.

Both find movement as someone tucks along the part of the stairs that hides them from me.