The old woman glanced over her shoulder, gaze darting around the cul-de-sac. “Please. Just come.”
Margaret clung to the railing as they climbed the front steps of the house she shared with Richard ... or Dickie. Then she opened the door, which was not locked, she noted, and led Kiersten back to the kitchen, just like she’d done on her first visit.
“Is your husband here?” Kiersten asked, casting a nervous glance over the kitchen for Evil Dickie.
Margaret glanced over her shoulder. “Richard’s over at Trey’s house, making a video with Aspen.”
This was the chance she’d been waiting for.
Kiersten tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I need to see the fallout shelter in your basement. Okay? It’ll only take a second.”
Margaret pursed her lips in exasperation, then shuffled through the kitchen and stopped at the head of the stairs. “These steps are hard on my hips. But there’s a door on the north side. It’s under the garage. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”
Kiersten wrapped her fingers around the railing and descended into the basement.
A musty smell tickled her nose. She moved through the rec room, which didn’t look like it had been updated in decades. The tile on the floor reminded her of the tile in her elementary school.
She found a door in the wall on the north side of the basement. Taking a deep breath, she extended her hand, turned the knob, and pushed it open.
The musty smell intensified. She stepped inside, and darkness enveloped her.
Something brushed her hair, and she bit back a scream as she reached up to slap it away.
Her fingers brushed a string.
The ceiling bulb.
She tugged the string, and the room filled with light.
Her gaze roamed the room. Shelves with paint cans. Nothing else. She looked down at the floor.
Concrete.
Concrete?
How was this possible?
She dropped to her knees and ran her hands over the smooth floor.
But Dottie promised to leave a clue ...If Dickie succeeds in killing me, I will leave a clue, buried in the past, leading to the truth.
But there was nothing here. Nothing at all.
She headed upstairs, shoulders slumped in defeat.
Could she be wrong? Maybe there was no clue to find.
Margaret waited at the top of the steps, still clutching her black handbag. “Did you find what you’re looking for?” Margaret asked.
“No,” Kiersten shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“That’s because you’re looking in thewrong place,” the old woman hissed.
The hair on the back of Kiersten’s neck stood at attention. “I am?”
Margaret nodded. “I told you.We don’t have much time.Come with me.”
She followed the old woman through the sliding patio door, out of Richard and Margaret’s house, and across the backyard to the house next door.
