Her hand gripped the knob, turned it, and for the first time in their silent surroundings, Lori Hanlon heard a noise.
Something behind the door moved.
She’d heard a soft, almost undetectable scuff on the other side, like a cardboard box nudged over a wooden floor.
The hairs along the back of her neck prickled and a shiver rose from her bones. She held onto the doorknob, frozen, imagining a masked burglar crouching in the shadows rather than BJ’s monster.
When she didn’t move, BJ took several steps away. “What? What is it?” he asked, looking small and poised to run.
Lori smiled at him over her shoulder, and her fear fled back to a rational level. BJ’s horror stories had obviously stirred up her own childish fears, and the noise—a settling noise, no doubt—had startled her only because it had been so quiet earlier. If not for their talk about ghosts and goblins, it probably wouldn’t have registered at all.
“Just giving him a chance to run,” she told him.
She opened the attic door and turned on the light.
Only a little larger than the closet itself but with a ceiling that reached high into the rafters, the tight storage space made Lori feel like a mouse in a coffin box. Trapped by the insulation, the hot air of the place warmed her lungs with each inhalation, filling her sinus with the scent of dry wood and dust.
Though the bare bulb over the doorframe did little to illuminate the furthest reaches of the room, no assailant lurked behind the various stacks of boxes or among the overhead crossbeams. She spotted several boxes labeled “Christmas decorations,” three sets of different length skis and poles, and a movable clothes rack with three sizes of winter clothing—sweaters, jackets, snowmobile suits, gloves, hats, and boots—but no monsters.
“All clear in here,” she said. She turned off the light and closed the door. “See, just like I told you. When those jerks hear me coming, they pack up and head for the hills.”
BJ looked dubious. “He’s gone?”
“He sure is,” she confirmed, “which means you can go to sleep and dream of saving the universe with Indiana Jones and The X-Men.”
“What if he comes back?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll mess around here anymore. But if he does, which I know he won’t, I’ll teach you a little lesson on how to get rid of him on your own.”
He looked intrigued. “How?”
“Easy. First of all, what makes a monster scary?”
He made an exaggerated thinking face and said, “They’re jus’ scary.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. They look scary.”
“Right. So, if you don’t look at them, they can’t be scary.”
“Huh?”
She walked him over to the bed, helped him onto the mattress, and slipped the covers around him. He looked so innocent. “If you happen to spot a monster, you can take away its power by closing your eyes and not looking at it. All you need to do is think of something else, something you really, really like: Saturday morning cartoons, what you want for your birthday, a favorite candy. Concentrate super-duper hard on ten good things, and while you’re doing that, the monster gets bored and leaves.”
“That really works?”
“I’d bet you a whole bag of peanut M&Ms it does.”
Per BJ’s request, she left the bedside lamp on and didn’t close the door all the way when she finally left the room. She pulled the door halfway shut and caught him yawning when she chanced one last look, guessing he’d be sound asleep by the time she got back downstairs.
Later, despite all the reassurance she’d used to help the boy overcome his fears, Lori found herself making a quick tour of the home’s first floor, turning on all the lights while she did.
CHAPTER 26
It took Melissa almost thirty minutes to reach the Corcoran border, time she spent mentally sifting through her conversation with Frank, looking for the nugget of information that would justify the long drive or condemn it as an unwarranted waste of time.
The piercing sensation that had driven her out of the house still needled her, spurring her onward. Cop’s instinct, she tried to tell herself, being a true believer in the human mind’s capacity for perception. But was it? Never before had she experienced an intuitive vibe so strong, so undeniable.
She turned off Highway 55, onto County Road 19.
Melissa pressed the gas pedal a little farther toward the floorboards, racing across the seemingly absent countryside that now appeared in the form of a dark swath under the nighttime heavens. She grimaced when she passed the Pattersons’ land along the way. The cheery yellow house seemed drab and lifeless now, no doubt its repose made unduly dour in her mind by the knowledge that nothing living dwelled there.
Several minutes later—after turning off 19 onto County Road 50—Melissa came to the long avenue of the Damerows’ driveway. The home itself, a two-story lodge-style building with decorative stonework along its base, sat well removed from the street, situated on a large and beautifully landscaped yard. In daylight the grounds had the appearance of a professionally groomed golf course.
Melissa parked along the spacious turnabout drive set before a wide three-car garage, once again trying, without success, to convince herself she’d wasted her time chasing a weak lead.
Despite the late hour, the home itself glowed bright. Security lights illuminated the front of the house and walkway, and multiple windows glowed from within.
“It’s about time,” Melissa told herself.
Crickets hiding in the low bushes along the brick sidewalk silenced their singing on her approach. She rang the bell, following up with a knock on the huge, brass-handled wood door. She waited.
After a minute she tried the bell again and knocked louder.
Lights could be on a timer.
After trying the door a third time, Melissa returned to her car and retrieved a black, four-cell flashlight from the trunk. She left her vehicle and started toward the far end of the garage, intent on doing a visual inspection of all the home’s key entry points, searching for any signs of disturbance.
She rounded the garage, one hand guiding the flashlight’s beam, probing it through the darkness, while the other rested on the butt of her holstered pistol. She hadn’t worn her bulletproof vest, but the touch of her weapon afforded her some mental armor in the form of confidence.
The Damerows’ ranch—or hobby farm, or whatever it was—sat alone, surrounded by night-cloaked forest and pastures rather than by neighboring homes. The darkness beyond reach of the security lamps appeared uncut and without end, offering a prowler easy concealment.
By the time she’d reached the backyard, she didn’t simply rest her hand on the sidearm; she gripped it.
Moving along the home’s contours, Melissa panned her flashlight around the shrubs and outer walls, unable to locate anything peculiar until she reached the back of the house. There, an impressive wood deck jutted off the main building, one large enough to accommodate a massive gas grill, a shaded picnic table, and an octagonal Jacuzzi. Melissa stepped up to a sliding glass door that connected the deck to the house and peered inside.
Beyond the parted blinds waited a spacious dining room and an open-air kitchen with appliance-stocked counters. Decorative ceiling fixtures lit both rooms, illuminating twin plate settings arranged kitty-corner on the dining table, each awaiting a dinner that apparently never got underway.