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Austin flicked the switches back on. The lights buzzed slowly back to light, starting with the kitchen lights, living room, bedroom, all of them turning on and shining through the row of windows.
The last lights to turn on had been the outdoor lights. They flicked on and bathed the yard in light, two of the lights shining up toward the wall of the house.
That’s when I screamed. It just came out of me, like it had been ripped with force from my lungs.
Austin held it together better than I did, but not by much. His normally tan complexion flashed into paper pale in seconds, his eyes bulging out of his head as he tried to process what we were looking at.
Underneath a covered area, where the rain hadn’t gotten to it, written on the wall with what could only be blood, were the words “You’re not welcome in Blue Creek. Leave” in an almost uplifting cursive font. The thick, dark red blood dripped down the gray brick and pooled onto the concrete below it.
“Get inside,” Austin said, his words carrying as much urgency as a gunshot.
We both went back into the house and locked the doors. I moved away from the windows like Austin told me while he searched the rest of the house. From the basement to the attic, not a corner was left unturned.
When everything was clear, he came back to me, huddled on the couch in the living room, unable to look toward any doors or windows, half expecting them to burst open at any second. The nausea didn’t leave me, no matter how much I tried to control my breathing and calm my thoughts. Drinking the water Austin brought me didn’t help either; if anything, it made it worse.
“This feels like my fault,” I said as Austin sat down next to me, the mood on this couch suddenly taking a massive shift from earlier in the night.
“It’s not. Not in the fucking slightest. Don’t think that.”
“If I could just remember what me and Hank were doing, then all of this could just end. Instead, there’s a message written in blood on your house because you’re helping me. Fuck.” I dropped my head into my hands. Austin rubbed my back and kissed the side of my head.
“You’re not the first client who’s gotten me on some psycho’s shit list, and you probably won’t be the last.”
“So this has happened before?”
“No, not at all. Never, no,” Austin bluntly answered. The two of us laughed, a brief flash of light in this dark and twisted night. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not ready to handle it.”
“Should we call the police? A cleaning crew? What the hell do we do?”
“I already contacted someone in the department. I want this to be kept quiet, since the sheriff’s already made it clear he doesn’t even want to lift a pubic hair to help us out.”
Another laugh. I rested my head on Austin’s shoulder. It was like stepping off a stormy boat and onto solid land. “You’re not going to listen, right? You’re not going to leave Blue Creek?”
“No. I’m not.”
“Okay, good. I don’t think I’d be able to handle that again.” Not that I could even remember the first time…
Austin rubbed my shoulder, holding me tight. “I don’t think I could either.”
His phone rang, clattering along the glass coffee table and scaring the crap out of me. He reached for it and answered the FaceTime call.
“Hey, Anya, you got news for me?”
A smiling woman filled the screen, her face reflecting the blue glow of what must have been a dozen computer screens. She had box braids that hung over one shoulder, with golden rings perfectly placed throughout, matching the golden chain around her neck and golden eyes looking at us underneath a hip pair of glasses. Austin had talked about Stonewall Investigations’ hacker, but this was the first time I was meeting her face-to-face.
“I do, I do.” Her eyes seemed to flick my way before they went back to the camera. “Am I interrupting something? I can call back.”
That’s when I realized we were both still in only our underwear, sitting shirtless on the couch. I covered my chest with an arm as if that would really do much.
“Ah fuck, sorry, Anya. It’s been a long night.” Austin ducked and grabbed the clothes we had discarded to the floor before this night had turned to complete shit. He tossed me mine, and we got into them before getting back on camera.
“And we’re back.”
“Damn,” she said, “I never said you had to take a girl’s eye candy away.” She gave a biting motion and a wink before leaning back in her chair. “Okay, so you asked me to see if I could get you camera footage from Hank’s house, annnnnd I did. I was able to download two weeks’ worth of footage, which sounds like it’s more than enough. I focused in on the night of his death, and, well, I think you can see it for yourself.”
