in there! Call her name, maybe she can answer you.”
I tried it once, but my voice caught. “Molly, go home, please. I’ll come over in a while. There’s… there’s a smell.
“I don’t smell anything.”
I looked over at her, but didn’t say anything.
“Even with all that sneezing, I’d smell a dead body! Besides, if there is a smell, you don’t know that it’s a comin’ from her! Could be a cat, or a possum or something else dead.”
She was right, of course. I couldn’t see into the basement.
She was waiting for me, silent and afraid, but her eyes pleaded with me to do
I looked at the trail blazed by our unknown predecessor and sighed in resignation. “Try not to step on the flattened grass,” I said, knowing she would follow me. I made my way alongside the trampled path, which led around the corner of the house to a set of concrete steps. At the top of the steps was the back door. It wasn’t wide open, but it hadn’t been closed hard enough to latch.
Sometimes the last thing on earth you want to do is the very next thing you need to do. My curiosity demanded I go into the house, see for myself what was in there. My fear, or perhaps my common sense, said to let someone else take care of it.
“She might still be alive,” Molly said.
Curiosity had an optimist on its side. It always does.
I climbed the steps and used the toe of my shoe to budge the door. It creaked open, and I stood staring into an empty kitchen, yellow linoleum peeling and stained where a stove and refrigerator had once hidden its faults. The counters were bare, the sink empty. I waited. Silence.
Brutus’s sharp yap behind me came close to scaring me right out of my skin. Just as I had decided to listen to the pessimist within me, the dog wriggled free and scurried through the open door, into the house, and out of sight.
“Brutus!” Molly wailed.
“Stay here,” I told her, blocking her attempt to follow the dog. “If I’m not back out in five minutes, or if you have any inkling that something’s happened to me, get the hell out of here. Go home and call the police. Don’t come in looking for me or the dog.”
She didn’t say anything, just peered inside the house. It was silent again.
“Promise,” I said firmly.
“I promise,” she said.
The kitchen had two interior doorways. One led out into the dining area of the living room I had seen from the front window. A quick glance showed this area to be empty of man and beast. The doorway at the other side of the kitchen was darkened.
With every step I took across that kitchen floor, I was sure I wasn’t alone in that house, that I had walked into a trap. REPORTER KILLED IN POODLE RESCUE ATTEMPT. What a headline that would make. Undoubtedly, the subhead would read, “Poodle Found Unharmed.” I kept listening, hearing the soles of my shoes moving across the linoleum, the rustle of my clothing seemingly amplified to shout my presence. I noticed a trail of ants moving along one corner of the kitchen floor — toward the darkened doorway. I swallowed and tiptoed to it.
The smell was stronger here.
I peered cautiously around the corner. A long hallway, as near as I could tell. I held still, hearing a noise to my left. I waited. Nothing.
I glanced behind me, saw Molly watching from the door to the backyard, and tried once again to screw up my courage.
There was only enough light coming from the kitchen windows to allow me to determine that the hallway ran in two directions. I hung back in the kitchen, poised for flight as I groped for a light switch on the hallway wall. I found one. Outside of making a loud snapping noise, it did nothing. The electricity was off.
I reached into my purse for my keychain flashlight. Felt the comforting weight of the cellular phone. If I couldn’t call for help, maybe I could use it to bean an attacker. I switched on the little flashlight, held it to the left, where I had heard the noise, and even its small circle of light revealed enough to make me feel weak in the knees.
An opening gaped in the floor. If I had stepped into the hallway without the light, I might have fallen through the trap door and down the basement stairs.
“Bruuu… tus,” I crooned.
I could swear I heard the little bugger panting, but in the distance. Down in the basement.
I pointed the beam in the other direction, passed it from one closed doorway after another. Three altogether. Thought of opening those doors first, just to try to get more light in the hallway. Didn’t know if I had the nerve to find out what was behind them.
I crept up to one and shoved it open, then ran back into the kitchen, purse raised.
“Irene?” I heard Molly call.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I said.
I took a breath and looked into the hall. A little more light. No bogeymen. Not yet, anyway. Two more rounds of hit-and-run with the doors brought the same result. The house had two bedrooms, one bath. I had the shakes.
Brutus barked. He was down in the basement.
“That’s him!” Molly called. “Do you see him?”
