Page 98 of The Sister's Curse

Monica came down with a toolbox. “Let’s get doing.”

We shoved the couch up against the bar, donned heavy gloves, and then started at a corner where the carpet was loose. Monica jammed the crowbar into the tack strip, and we pulled the carpet back. It was heavy as fuck, and the farther we went, rolling the dusty carpet back in an uneven roll, the heavier it got. Gibby retreated up the stairs and watched us from the steps. We sweated and shoved the carpet back to the far wall, warping it and leaving it flopping against the couch.

“Well,” I said.

There was a brown stain on the concrete floor. It wasn’t body shaped exactly, but there sure as hell could have been a body there. Untreated concrete sucked in a whole lot of stains. The stain was smeared, like someone might have tried to clean it up at some time. And it was right in the spot Gibby had pointed out.

I looked at him. “That’s a good boy.”

He thumped his tail once on the step, and whined.

I didn’t know much about Gibby’s background, but it disturbed me that he knew the smell of human blood.

I spritzed the stain with luminol. It glowed under my UV light. I slapped a ruler down on the concrete and snapped pictures.

Monica plucked a hammer and chisel out of the toolbox and started taking pieces of the concrete for evidence.

My phone rang.

“Hello?”

BEEP.“Hey, this is Calvert. Your boy Sumner is on the move, headed your way.”

“Oh fuck. We just ripped the carpet up in the basement.” My heart pounded. “Can you delay him?”

“Let me see what I can do. I’ll let you know when he gets within a mile.”BEEP.

I spun to Monica. “He’s on his way.”

“Shit. Shit. Shit. I mean…it’s an option to let him walk in on us, since we have Drema’s permission.”

“Yeah, and if he knows we’re looking this closely at this stain on the floor, he’ll be on a plane to Europe within the hour.”

We scrambled to roll the carpet back out, tugged it into position. I was sweating hard through my clothes, and the salt stung my leg. We got the carpet lined up with the tack strip. Monica moved the couch back into position while I hammered the carpet into place. Good thing it had been stretched out and the nails had come out mostly straight. I tacked a bit around the room’s perimeter. It wasn’t obvious at first glance that the floor had been ripped up, but it wouldn’t pass close examination.

Monica looked at her watch. “C’mon. We gotta go.”

We gathered our gear and evidence and thundered up the steps. I snatched up Gibby’s leash, grabbed his water dish, and shoved him into my car.

My phone rang, and I didn’t bother to pick it up.Fuck. Sumner was gonna be here in minutes.

Monica slammed the door of her car. With lights out, we peeled out on the gravel and lurched onto the road. We’d been on the road for only about thirty seconds when a single headlight appeared behind us.

I slowed and followed Monica to the next crossroads, where we pulled over. From this distance, we could see the house, but Sumner couldn’t see us running dark.

I quickly pulled up the alarm system app and archived the evidence of us entering and exiting the house. I watched the black video, listening to him open the front door.

Another car headed down the road. It was Calvert’s, and he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t speak when he parked beside us.

“Dare I ask what you did to delay him?” I asked.

“I plopped my bubblegum light on.” He pointed up at the magnetic red and blue light on the roof of the car. “I came out of nowhere, with lights on, like a bat outta hell. He nearly pissed himself. In his rush to pull over, he hit two mailboxes and landed in a ditch. I blew past him, like I was chasing someone else.”

“Sounds satisfying,” I said. That explained the single headlight.

“Very.”

“Was he alone?”