Amber jumped into the driver’s seat and leaned over to unlock Ricky’s door. He simply stood there and watched as she stabbed the start button with her finger and then tried the other controls. The car was dead.
“Pop the hood,” he said.
She found the latch just as Ricky reached the front of the car. There was an empty space where the battery should have been. The cables hung there, connected to nothing.
“Come on,” Ricky said, heading down the road.
Amber jogged after him.
“She’s an old lady,” Amber said. “Maybe she stole my battery, but what could she have done to George? I’m not even sure she was capable of walking all the way back there.”
“Anything could have happened,” Ricky said. “It felt like we were down there for twenty minutes, but it has been hours. Anything.”
“True,” Amber said. “She knows me. I’ll go to the door. You circle around and see what you can.”
Ricky nodded. When they passed a tree that he could use as cover, Ricky darted down the bank to the narrow creek. He followed the creek, perpendicular to the road, until he felt like he could cut back to the right and approach the back corner of the house. When he heard Amber knock on the door, Ricky crossed the side yard and ducked below the level of the window. He went to one of the windows near the porch and rose up until he could see over the sill.
He saw the woman’s kitchen. Through the next window, he saw down the hall all the way to the front door.
Amber knocked loud enough for Ricky to hear it around back.
The woman of the house wasn’t going to be answering. Ricky could see her on the hall floor.
He raced to the back door and found it open. Ricky sprinted through the kitchen and rounded the corner, grabbing the doorway to make a fast stop. Her blood had spread out in a wide pool around her. Ricky could smell it.
Amber banged on the door again. Ricky circled around through the sitting room and reached over to unlock the front door while he kept an eye on the body.
“What…”
Amber’s question died in her throat when she saw the corpse.
“Is she…”
Amber stopped short of the edge of the blood and reached across to touch the old woman’s hand.
“Barely warm,” Amber whispered. She staggered to her feet and retreated until she reached the couch. Amber lowered herself down and perched on the arm. Her fingers dug into the cushion so she could stabilize herself.
Ricky circled the body, forcing himself to really look at the horrific scene and take in the details. The woman’s face was covered by a towel that had wicked blood up from the floor at the edges. There were no visible wounds on her chest or stomach, but Ricky saw a deep gash in her side. Based on the amount of blood, he guessed that she must have more wounds on her back. Ricky and Amber had both been careful to avoid the blood, but there were dried footprints that led towards the kitchen.
“We have to call someone,” Amber said. “She must have a phone.”
Ricky pointed to the small table near the kitchen doorway.
Amber went to use the phone while Ricky crouched next to the body.
Her hands weren’t wounded—she hadn’t tried to fight back. There was blood smeared on the baseboard next to her.
“Nothing,” Amber said, setting the phone back down. “Broken or disconnected.”
Ricky stood up.
“Renfield,” Ricky said. “She knew Renfield.”
“What? How do you know?”
“He stabbed her in the back. I think she knew him. He left through the back door but not before covering her face. He felt bad about doing this.”
Ricky stared down at the body. He couldn’t stop imagining her fall, and how the killer must have finished her off before turning her over and then covering her face in shame.
Amber returned and crouched next to the body before she reached out and touched the woman’s hand one more time.
“I’m sorry Jan Libby,” she said. “I’m sorry if our presence brought this person here.”
“Jan Libby?” Ricky asked.
When Amber nodded, Ricky headed for the door.
# # #
“Wait, Ricky!” Amber said as they crossed the yard. “Where are you going?”
“I think I know who Renfield is.”
“Slow down. What are you going to do, walk? We can find her keys and take Jan’s car.”
“That car?” Ricky asked, pointing. It was pulled up next to the house, parked in front of the garage. The car was sitting on flat tires.
“Then tell me where we’re going.”
“The maps are in your trunk, right?”
“Yeah?”
“A few miles that way,” Ricky said, pointing, “is the house of Romeo Libby. He’s the man who lost his whole commune back forty-some years ago. I should have figured it out before. He didn’t survive just because he managed to fight them off. They let him survive.”
“And he came after us and found only George,” Amber said.
Ricky reached the car first and tried to open the back. It was locked. Amber produced the key and let him in.
“The question is—why didn’t he just wait for us and kill us too when we came out,” Ricky said. “He’s clearly not above murder.”
Ricky unfolded the map, figured out their location, and then pointed another finger at where Romeo’s house on the hill was located. There was no direct way there. By road, they would have to go almost ten miles north and then they could come back south the same distance. It would take forever on foot. Ricky glanced back at the garage, wondering if it held any bicycles.
Amber seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
“Maybe we’ll see a car and we can flag them down. The cell service is so spotty around here—someone will stop for us, right?”
“We can’t count on that,” Ricky said. “I want to catch up with Romeo before dark.”
“How?”
“Through the
