Which means Lainey’s house is vacant.
All through church, I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin.
I need to take action.
I have to do something.
Jude doesn’t want me doing that something alone.
So here we are on a Sunday morning.
Ready to commit a felony.
There’s no movement inside any of the windows. No security cameras that we can see. No nosy neighbors out and about, either. So, quickly and quietly, we climb out of Jude’s car, walk casually around the side of Lainey’s home, and stop in front of a privacy fence. Jude opens the warped gate and I follow him into the backyard, where dead leaves collect in the corners and patchy grass surrounds a patio with three plastic chairs and a rusted fire pit.
We creep toward the back entrance.
The storm door creaks in the breeze, its spring busted.
The door behind it is locked.
Jude tries some windows.
All of them are locked, too.
We have no idea if Lainey has a security system. So when Jude pulls a pick from his pocket, I hold my breath while he works on the lock. A few seconds later, I hear the faintest of clicks. He twists the knob and the door opens with a groan.
No alarms sound.
No lights flash.
All is quiet and calm.
Jude flips a nearby switch and the kitchen floods with light.
We move through it quickly. The living room, too. Into a hallway. Past a bathroom. Then we stop on the threshold of Lainey’s bedroom.
Sunlight streams inside, reaching her dresser and the jewelry box perched on top. I hurry toward it and sift through the contents. There’s no ruby or skeleton key, so I move to her dresser drawers while Jude rifles through her desk, the garbage bin, and her nightstand. I check behind the books on her bookshelf, then search her closet. We look under her pillows and beneath her bed.
The ruby amulet is nowhere.
I drag my hands down my face.
“If we’re committing a crime,” Jude says, “we might as well be thorough about it.”
We search the master bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, and the kitchen, my disappointment and anxiety mounting by the second. We’ve been here too long, and so far, it’s been nothing but a dangerous waste of time.
Jude opens the door off the kitchen.
It leads into a dark basement, but for a soft glow on the outer edge, like a television has been left on.
Only… I don’t think it’s a television.
The back of my neck prickles.
“Do you feel that?” I ask.
Jude cocks his head.
