Page 82 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

Lightning licked the sky with its sharp tongue. She could smell salt and ozone.

Right on cue, thunder boomed overhead, so loud she involuntarily dropped to a crouch, hands over her ears. The air moved around her, and the ground tremored under her feet.

She straightened, her pulse pounding in her ears. From here, the house was just a vague shape through the curtain of rain.

She wished the marshal would come back. Maybe he’d drowned before he made it to the porch. Or maybe he’d knocked on the door of a family of serial killers, who were at this very moment tying him in the basement next to the body of the last guy who’d been stupid enough to knock on their front door.

She dithered for another few minutes, then took a deep breath and held her bag over her head like a makeshift umbrella.

And then she ran through the storm to the creepy old house built up on stilts, trying not to think about how this was like the start of nearly every horror movie ever made.

TWENTY-FIVE

A dirt path,already a muddy stream, led from the shed to the house. Jessica took it at a run but got drenched within seconds. Rain ran in rivulets down her arms, cascading down her chest and filling her sneakers to overflowing. She’d become a human water feature.

She splashed up the wooden steps. A tiny arched awning over the front door served as the house’s porch. Cowering under it, she reached down for the doorknob, but just as her hand closed around it, it was yanked out of her grasp. The door sprung open, revealing Inglis standing there in his dripping wet parka. One hand was resting on the grip of his holstered handgun.

He blinked at her, then removed his hand from the gun and stepped aside to let her in. She entered a small entrance hall, squeezing water from her hair as she went. “Anyone home?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“No serial killers?”

He gave her an odd look, then said, “The place is pretty cleaned out. Hard to know if whoever lived here left yesterday or last year.”

“Was the door locked?”

“Key was under the mat.”

She looked around the entrance hall, noting its threadbare carpet and mold-spotted wallpaper. “What happens if the owners come back?”

A gust of wind barreled into the house, making it shiver on its stilts.

Inglis shook his head. “No one’s going about in this.”

She caught his eye, and she knew what he was thinking. That whoever had been following them was probably still stuck out there in the storm. And hopefully not seeking shelter anywhere near them.

He turned and led her down the hall to the kitchen. The air hung heavy with the smell of stale smoke and mold, making the room feel dingy and oppressive. The linoleum was ancient, the wallpaper peeling. Inglis was right about the place having been cleaned out: there was just an old stove with a coil range, a refrigerator that might have been new in the sixties, and a chest freezer in the corner.

She wandered around the rest of the house. It had been reduced to its bare bones. A single, sagging couch sat in the otherwise empty living room; the only other piece of furniture was a double bed in the bedroom, beneath a boarded-up window.

Jessica stood in the doorway, taking in the depressing digs. A ceiling fan had a milky center light entombing dozens of dead bugs.

It suddenly flared to life. She turned to see the marshal standing behind her, hand on the switch.

“Power’s still on.” As soon as the words had left his mouth, a gust slammed into the house. The bulb dimmed, then grew bright again. “Though maybe not for long,” he added ominously.

She looked at the bed, which was just a mattress covered with an old sheet.

Inglis glanced at it, too, his face expressionless. Then he turned and left without another word.

If the guy were any less animated, he’d be dead, she thought.

Next door was a bathroom, which was as sparse as the rest of the place. Toilet, pedestal basin, old enamel bathtub with a shower head above. Metal shower curtain rail, sans curtain.

She sighed.Home sweet home for the night.

She went back into the kitchen to find Inglis standing there. They were both soaked through and dripping trails of water everywhere they went.