Locked.
Of course.
It’s the same with both the front door and the side one that leads to the kitchen. Standing in the downpour and jiggling the handle, I realize that Tom is able to get inside because the Fitzgeralds likely gave him a set of keys in case something was wrong with the house. It’s common among the homeowners here on the lake. The Fitzgeralds have keys to my family’s house, as does Eli. And somewhere in the lake house is probably a key that would grant me entry to this very door.
Out of door-shaped options, I try the windows, striking gold on my third try. The sitting room window. Even better, it’s on the side of the house that doesn’t face the Royces’， giving me ample time and cover to lift the window, pop out the screen, climb through.
I tumble inside and shut the window to keep rain from blowing in. The silence of the house is a jarring contrast with the storm outside, making it seem extra quiet.
And extra unnerving.
I have no idea what—or who—waits for me here, a fact that makes my heart rumble as hard as the thunder echoing through the sky outside. The stillness and silence are so heavy it makes me want to turn around and crawl right back out the window. But Tom came here for a reason. The urge to learn what that reason is keeps me moving, even though I can barely see. I make it two steps before slamming into a sideboard crowded with framed photos and a Tiffany lamp.
Damn Mrs. Fitzgerald and her antiques.
The house is stuffed to the gills with them. Ornate chests, love seats draped with tapestries, rococo floor lamps with crystals dangling from their shades. Each one is an obstacle I have to sidestep around as I move through the gloom.
“Hello?” I say in a voice that’s more whisper than word. “Katherine? Are you in here?”
I stop between the kitchen and the dining room, listening for any sound that might suggest she is. At first, I hear nothing but the steadily increasing rain on the roof and more bursts of thunder. But soon a noise—distant and muted—reaches my ears.
A creak.
I hear it a second time, rising from below, as wispy as smoke.
The basement.
I move to a door in a short hall just off the kitchen, secured by an old-fashioned chain lock that’s currently slid into place. Because a large hutch sits next to it, I’d normally think the door would lead to a pantry or a broom closet. The chain says otherwise, especially when I look closer. It’s screwed into two short chunks of wood that have been nailed to both the door and the wall next to it, as if it’s just a temporary fix. A recent one. The wood gives off a fresh-cut scent, making me think of the hacksaw Tom Royce recently bought.
This is his handiwork.
And inside is something—or someone—he doesn’t want anyone else to know about.
My hand shakes as I fumble with the chain, sliding it free of the lock. Holding my breath, I pull the door open to reveal a set of steps leading down into a pool of blackness.
“Hello?” I call, alarmed by how the gloom consumes my voice, snuffing it out like a candle. But coming from within that darkness is another creak, beckoning me to venture down those stairs.
A light switch sits just beyond the door. I flip it, and a dull orange glow appears far below, bringing with it another creak and, I think, a murmur.
The sound pulls me forward, onto the top step, where I pause and listen closely.
There’s nothing.
If there’s someone down there, they’ve gone completely silent.
I take another step.
Then another, which creaks under my weight, the sound startling me.
It’s followed by another creak.
Not from me.
From somewhere deeper in the basement.
I hurry down the remaining steps, into the basement, which is lit by a single exposed bulb dangling from the ceiling. The basement is bare-bones. Cement floor. Concrete walls. The steps I’d just descended nothing more than a skeleton of wood.
I take another step, my field of vision expanding, revealing junk crowded at the edges of the basement. Castoffs from Mrs. Fitzgerald’s antique business. Chipped dressers and chairs missing legs and boxes stacked upon boxes.
Pushed against the wall is an old-fashioned brass bed that has something on top of it.
No.
Not something.
Someone.
I creep closer and see—
Oh, God.
Katherine.
Her clothes are the same ones I saw her wearing the night she vanished. Jeans and a white sweater, now stained in spots. Her shoes are gone, revealing bare feet made dirty by the trek from her house to this one. A line of soup, still wet, drips from a corner of her mouth onto her neck.