Foster glanced over at Griffin’s office, but the door was closed. “We’ll fill the boss in when we get back.”
The house looked like it had been freshly painted and spruced up to sell, which it had; the for-sale sign staked into the front lawn sported a SOLD sticker on it. The block looked sedate—neat little homes, neat little lawns, lots of trees, Halloween decorations in every window right alongside FOP stickers and the city’s official flag—three white stripes, two light blue ones, and four red stars in the middle.
“Nice, huh?” Li said as they got out of the car. “We were thinking of moving out here when the baby gets a little older. Maybe a nice swing set out back, a kiddie pool in the summer.” She glanced up at the house. “Dormer windows. I love dormer windows.”
“All I see is the commute,” Foster said, “when the snow’s five feet deep and you have to shovel out.”
Li stopped. “Yeah. Didn’t think of that.”
The house looked empty. No car out front matched the one registered to Amelia Davies. There was no answer to their knock at the door.
Li peered in through the gap in the tacked-up newspaper at the window. “They could be in there.”
“This is as far as we can go, though.” Foster turned to scan the street and saw a burly white man cross over from a brick house on the other side. “Company.” Li turned.
The white man stopped at the lawn, hard eyes looking up at them. He’d planted his feet, angled his body, and flicked his right hand over to reveal the badge he clasped in it. “Name’s Nowak. Help you two with something?”
“Police,” Li said.
The man gave them a sly smile. “Knew that when I saw you pull up in the unmarked. Need a hand?”
“No, we got it,” Li said. “Thanks, though.”
“Have you seen anyone going in and out of here?” Foster asked.
“The Realtor. The guy she sold the place to. Midfifties. Dark hair. Drives a late-model Honda Accord. Got the plate number inside if you need it. Also, there was an old Rover parked here earlier. Didn’t see who got in or out.”
Li pulled her phone out of her pocket, scrolled to the image she wanted. “This him?”
He came a little closer, sliding his star into his pocket. “Yeah. Older, though. More gray.”
Li scrolled to the next photo. “How about her?”
He squinted. “No. Haven’t seen her.”
“Thanks. I’m Foster by the way.”
Li waved. “I’m Li. Vera. Thanks for stepping up.”
Nowak nodded, then turned and walked back across the street and into a beige house with an inflated ghost on the lawn.
“You know he’s watching us from behind the drapes,” Li muttered, keeping her lips from moving so Nowak couldn’t read them from across the street.
“Of course.” Foster tried the door. The knob turned freely. She pulled her hand away, letting that sink in. “Unlocked.”
Li exhaled. “Okay, so we have an unlocked door and an audience.”
“In Mount Greenwood,” Foster said, “where there are probably ten cops on this block besides that one with the ghost.”
“A neighborhood where you could probably leave your keys in your car overnight and nobody would steal it,” Li added, “or so the legend goes.”
Foster slid her a look. “We’re still in the city.”
Li pulled a face. “Um. Are we, though?” Li waved at the beige house across the street. “I’m thinking of the body count. If they’re in there, we get to stop them here. Nobody else dies.” She pushed the door open before Foster had a chance to argue the point, then stepped inside. “Police,” Li called out, her voice echoing off the bare walls, the uncarpeted floors. No heat. No furniture. Just house. “Amelia? Tom? Frank? Bodie?” She turned to Foster. “Nobody home.”
“You just breached the door,” Foster said. “We’re not going to talk about that?”
“Exigent circumstances,” Li said.
“Fill me in?”
“You heard Nowak. The Rover parked out front? Remember the Rover in Davies’s painting? She’s a threat to public safety.”
“Not even close,” Foster said. “If Griffin finds out we went this far with so little, she’ll bust us down to traffic.”
“We’re just looking, following a lead,” Li said. “There’s no one here. No rights to infringe upon. No harm, no foul. We don’t even have to call for backup. He’s across the street staring out his window.”
Foster wasn’t happy, but they were in it now. The best they could do was to get in and out as quickly as possible. “Why buy this house?” she asked. “Why not kill and move on?”
“I bet Silva could tell us.” Li wandered into the kitchen. Foster went as far as the doorway. It was a wide, open space with an island and lots of large cabinets. The previous owners had apparently done a complete paint job on it. The entire room smelled like fresh paint. Eggshell, if Foster had to guess the color.
“Will you look at this cabinet space?” Li said, moving around the room. “C’mon.” She ran her hand across the cabinets. “What I wouldn’t give for this kind of setup. You cook, Foster?”
“I microwave.”
Li studied her. “When we catch these assholes, you and I are going to have to talk.”
“No thanks.”
They spotted a door, and Li approached it. “Basement?”
“That’d be my guess,” Foster said. “We’re not going down there.”
“Of course not. That’d be foolhardy. No harm in taking a peek, though.” Li turned the knob, opened the door, and stopped to listen for any sounds from down below. “Smells like a basement. Hello?” Nothing came back but echo. “See? Nobody.”
Foster turned toward the dining room. “We’re either too late, too early, or completely wrong about everything. And I’m tired.”
She looked out the back windows at the long yard. It was large enough for a kiddie pool and swing set. If no one was here, why was the front door unlocked? “Anything?”
“A pantry,” Li called back.
Foster saw something out back, moved closer to the window, squinting to make it out.
“And another door,” Li said.
Beyond the yard, on the alley side of a short, weathered fence. The top of a forest green truck.
“Might be a storage . . .”
Foster reeled. “Li!”
Foster heard Li scream, the scream followed by the sound of something falling down a flight of stairs and the slamming of a door. She ran for the kitchen, even before the echo of both had a chance to die away.
“Li!” There was no response. “Vera!”
She rounded the corner, coming face to face with Amelia standing at the basement door, a bloody knife raised, a vacant look in her eyes. “She’s in the basement.” Amelia angled her head. “Want to join her?”
CHAPTER 76
Li lay at the bottom of the steps, the back of her head throbbing, burning, a ringing in her ears, a rush of blood coursing through her system. She was too stunned to move, even if she could manage it. Stars floated behind her eyelids, and her head felt like a lead block. Amelia Davies. She’d bolted out from the pantry door and shoved her. It had taken Li only a split second to see the woman was out of her mind. The madness was in her eyes.