Page 128 of Paranoid

This wasn’t good.

“Kids?” she said, thinking they might be upstairs or down. But the house was too still, silent aside from the padding of Reno’s feet and the hum of the refrigerator. Don’t panic.

They wouldn’t go anywhere.

The house was locked, the alarm set....

Then where the hell are they?

* * *

Nate Moretti’s house, an A-frame with an addition that extended to a double garage, was tucked into a copse of evergreens. The lane that had wound through a stand of fir and maple opened to a small clearing where the home had been built, probably somewhere in the early seventies.

No light glowed in any of the windows, and in the mist-laden afternoon the house appeared deserted.

Cade rapped on the front door and waited for the sound of footsteps or the woof of a dog, or even a cough.

Nothing.

He knocked again, louder this time.

No one answered.

“Well, damn it all.” Voss grabbed hold of the doorknob and gave it a twist, pushed hard, but the door didn’t budge. “Humph.”

“Let’s check the back.”

They did, peeking through windows as they followed a trail of concrete rounds to the back, where the grass was untended. The remains of what had been a chicken coop complete with wire fencing, partially rolled away from the path, stood fifteen feet from the back door, the sides rotting, weeds growing beneath the raised floor, discolored straw littering the area.

“Looks like he could use a gardener,” Voss observed. “Or a wife.”

“Sexist.”

“Truth.” She climbed two steps to a back porch that also served as a sunroom, paned windows enclosing the area. She pounded on a screen door that rattled, then tried it, and it opened.

The inside door, however, was locked.

“No luck.” She sighed and they both peered through the window cut into the back door. Inside was a kitchen, clean enough, though time-worn, one of the kitchen chairs pulled out a bit, so as to view a small television propped on the table.

“No one’s here,” Voss said and they moved on, looking through windows and past partially open blinds or curtains but seeing no signs of life.

Next, the garage. It was locked as well, but a window on the side wall gave a view of the dark interior, where a workbench, clean as a whistle, stretched across the back wall, the rest of the space empty.

Cade said, “Not here.”

“And not at work. Lied about being sick,” Voss said, standing on her tiptoes for a view of the interior and holding on to the outer sill of the window for balance.

“Unless he’s at an urgent care. Or at a friend’s. Maybe he just took the day off and didn’t want the help to know he was playing hooky.”

“Or in the wind if he thinks we’re on to him.”

“If he’s the killer.”

“Yeah. So far, he’s got my vote.”

“Pretty sloppy if he wanted to get away with it.”

“Like I said, sex game that went a little too far.”