Casey’s legs were cramping from her curled-up position, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. Why hadn’t she found a hiding place where she could stand up, ready to defend herself? As it was, she’d be lucky if her legs would hold her when she finally got up. This was no position from which to fight.
Taking advantage of the next exchange of one box for another, Casey slid her legs backward, so she was lying flat on her stomach. The cramps eased, and she winced as the blood began to circulate again. She placed her hands flat on the ground by her shoulders, ready to propel her upright.
The closet light went off, and the intruder sighed loudly. A man, Casey thought. The closet door shut, and the footsteps came closer to the bed. Casey tensed, ready to rocket upward. The bed sagged as the man sat on its edge. Casey longed to look up over the top, but he was so close. She held her position, trying to see his shoes under the edge of the comforter, in case she recognized them. All she could see was a dark heel. Nothing revealing.
The man sighed again, and the bed squeaked as he stood up. Casey squinted, trying to slide under the bed and at the same time see the shoes as he turned around. It was hard to tell, the fringes of the comforter disguising the shoes.
Suddenly, she was no longer looking at shoes, but at knees, and then a face as he looked under the bed. His eyes went wide and he fell backward, yelling and propelling himself toward the closet, crab-like.
Casey jumped up, her hands out in front of her. “Eric! I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
He stared at her, his feet splayed out in front of him, his back smashed against the closet door. His eyes bugged from his head, and he breathed in labored gasps. “Holy shit, Casey! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“I said I’m sorry. And I was pretty close to a heart attack myself.”
He pulled his knees up and looked down at his pants. “At least I didn’t wet myself. I don’t think.”
Casey circled the bed and sat on it. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes narrowed. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I’m looking for what we didn’t find at the factory.”
His clasped his hands around his knees. “Yeah. Me, too. I knew where she kept things…” He gestured toward the closet. “But there’s nothing there but photographs and old love letters.” His face flushed, and Casey looked away, trying to spare him some embarrassment.
“And then,” he said, “I thought maybe under the bed. I didn’t get very far under there.” A smile flickered on his face.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.” Casey knelt down by the bed. “Nothing under here except these.” She pulled out a pair of fluffy blue slippers.
Eric’s face crumpled for a moment, but he regained his composure. “She liked those. Even wore them to rehearsal one time.”
Casey returned them and sat back on the bed. “So where else do we look?”
“Where have you checked?”
She recounted her path. “I didn’t check the kids’ bedrooms because I thought she wouldn’t hide anything there. What do you think?”
He considered it. “She wouldn’t if she thought there was any way it would hurt one of them. But…” He shrugged. “If it was a great hiding place…”
Casey stood. “Well, then, we’d better look.” She hesitated, then held out a hand.
He took it and pulled himself to his feet. “What if it hadn’t been me?”
She swallowed, not liking to think of Karl Willems or Chief Reardon discovering her crouched behind Ellen’s bed. “I don’t know.”
He nodded. “Come on, then.”
Working by regular light was much easier than by a thin flashlight beam. Riskier, too, but she figured Eric wouldn’t be getting in trouble for going through his old girlfriend’s house.
Each taking a side of the older child’s room, they went through the stash of clothes, toys, and books. Nothing. Casey reached just a little farther, into the back corner of the closet. Her hand wrapped around a carrying case. She brought it out and unzipped the cover.
“Look at this, Eric. From when we were kids.” A Walkman, complete with the foam-covered earphones that never stayed on.
Eric gave a small grin. “Yeah, that was Hunter’s. He won it at his grandmother’s Christmas bingo.”
Casey waited for more explanation.
“Ellen’s mom gathers garage sale type stuff, or things she gets from the local thrift store, or Dollar Store. The cousins—there are six of them, counting Ellen’s two—play Bingo, and when they get a bingo they can pick something from the pile. Hunter picked the CD player, but stopped using it when he got an iPod for his birthday. I guess…I guess Ellen never bothered to get rid of it.”
Casey looked down at the player. It sure brought back memories. Saving her baby-sitting money until she had enough to buy her own, the pride she felt leaving the store. The first time she dropped it, and from then on it would skip… She popped the player open, somehow expecting to see a CD of one of her old favorites from her youth. The Cars, or Huey Lewis and the News.
“Eric.” Her voice sounded strangely calm.
She held up the CD player, showing him the contents. The CD-Rom, a generic one from the store, had no title. Nothing scribbled on it in black sharpie. But it wasn’t a regular CD, and if Hunter had a bootleg music CD, he most likely would’ve made sure he knew what was on it.
“Eric?”
He and Casey both jerked up at the sound. Someone else was in the house.
Casey took the CD from the player and shoved the Walkman into its carrying case, tossing it back into the corner of the closet. She closed the door and nodded to Eric.
He left the room. “Yeah?”
“I saw your car out there.”
It was a man’s voice, and Casey thought she recognized it.
“What are you doing here so late at night, son?”
Great. It really was the chief of police. Casey looked around for a CD cover, but finding nothing shoved the CD itself into the waistband at the back of her pants, pulling her shirt over it.
“Just looking around, Denny. I couldn’t sleep.”
“Uh-huh.” It was quiet for a few moments before Casey heard movement toward Hunter’s room. Chief Reardon filled the doorway—as much as a guy his size could fill it—and regarded Casey with a mixture of surprise and resignation. “And what are you doing here?”
“Keeping me company.” Eric pushed gently past the chief and came to stand beside Casey. “It’s not easy coming here, you know.”
“Yeah. I know.” He put his hands on his hips and looked around the room. “And the reason you’re in Hunter’s room?”
“He wanted me to get something. Mail it to him.” Eric’s voice was surprisingly even.
“Really? And what was that?”
“His Pokemon game.” Eric snatched the game disk from the desktop. “He took his GameBoy, but left this by mistake.”
Casey tried to look unconcerned, and prayed desperately that Hunter really had taken his GameBoy, and it wasn’t sitting in full view on the desk.
“I see. So you’re about done here, then?” The chief kept his eyes on Casey as he talked, the message in them clear.
“We’re done,” Eric said. “Thanks for checking in.”
“Neighbors called. Said someone was over here looking around. They thought it strange that the person didn’t turn on the lights, but seemed to be going around with just a flashlight.”
Casey looked steadily at the chief.
“Well, as you can see,” Eric said. “We’ve got the lights full on.”
“Yes. But it makes me wonder who else might’ve been here.”
Eric made a non-committal noise. “That is curious.” He turned to Casey. “Well, shall we go? Now that we got
