Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery) by Jennie Bentley Page B

assault with a deadly flashlight.
    • • • 
     
    The front door opened with that long, drawn-out shriek of rusty hinges familiar from scary movies. I hadn’t really noticed it during the day—possibly because the door had been standing open most of the time—but now it sent a chill down my spine.
    We stepped through and stopped to listen. Nothing moved within the living room. Nothing moved anywhere, as far as I could hear. All I could hear was Derek’s steady breathing and my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.
    “So far, so good.” His voice was more breath than actual words, and tickled the flyaway hair near my temple. I jumped. He chuckled. “C’mon.”
    He moved farther into the room, old floorboards creaking under his feet. I followed, tiptoeing and holding my breath.
    It was amazing that this was the same house we’d spent most of the past two days in. Other than a few exceptions—like scaring myself half to death finding the doll, and Brandon scaring us both half to death wandering around over our heads—I hadn’t been aware of a sense of discomfort. It was just an old house with no particular vibe to it. Not particularly happy, but not particularly sad, either. Now, however, with the darkness bearing down on us, only able to see as far as the weak light from the cell phone illuminated, it felt like a different house. Silent, sinister, full of secrets.
    There was nobody on the first floor, and no sign that anyone had been here, either. There were footprints and scuffmarks all across the floors, of course, and tracks from where Derek had pushed the baby carriage, but with as much coming and going as we’d done today and yesterday, there was no way to tell whether any of the footsteps belonged to anyone else. Certainly not in the dark.
    And anyway, the light Cora had claimed to have seen—and then claimed not to have seen—had been upstairs.
    I crept up the stairs in Derek’s wake, keeping to the outside of the steps, where it was less likely that the wood would creak.
    Craftsman bungalows could be one story, but more often they were one and a half: a first floor that looked just like any other house, and a second floor tucked under the eaves with sloping ceilings and dormers in front and back.
    We went into the bathroom first, since the door stood open. There was no one in there. I hadn’t expected anyone, but it was still a relief.
    Derek pushed open the door on the right next, and shone the dim light of the phone into one of the bedrooms the Green girls must have used when they were small. Ten by ten or so, with heart of pine floors—not as upscale as the oak floors downstairs—and with sloping ceilings and knee walls.
    “Empty,” he said, flashing the right around.
    “What about the closet?”
    “I don’t think anyone’s hiding in the closet,” Derek said, but he crossed the floor and yanked open the door anyway. When he jumped back, my heart jumped, too, and my voice reached up into the soprano register.
    “What is it?”
    He turned to me and grinned, the light from the flashlight shining up into his face giving him a sort of demonic look. “Nothing.”
    “That’s mean.”
    “Maybe I was hoping for you to throw yourself into my arms,” Derek said with a waggle of eyebrows. “All we need is a few thunderclaps to complete the scary-movie feel.”
    “I can do without the thunderclaps,” I told him, but I threw myself into his arms anyway. Or not threw exactly, but I walked over to him and let him put an arm around me. When that was done, I peered into the closet. It was empty, save for a row of skeletal wire hangers on a rod.
    “Let’s get outta here,” Derek said and pulled me toward the door. “Get home and to bed.”
    Fine with me. “Just one room to go.” I preceded him out onto the landing and stopped. “Have you been up here today?”
    “No,” Derek said.
    “Do you remember closing the door?”
    He shook his head. “But Brandon was wandering around. He may have