“Wait here,” Nick said. He circled the barn, disappearing around the corner. We heard the groan of rotten wood snapping. “I found a way in,” he called.
On the side of the barn, we found he’d snapped some rotten boards and opened the hole wider for us. He looked out at us. “It’s dark in here, but I can see something.”
I looked at Heather. She had gone pale, her expression flat. Gone was the girl who had wanted to spend the night at the Sun Down, taking pictures and videos of ghosts. I didn’t have to touch her to know that her skin would be ice-cold. “You don’t have to come in,” I said.
She looked at me, her gaze skittish as if she’d almost forgotten I was there. “I should go in.”
I stepped closer to her. “This isn’t a contest. You don’t win a prize for going in there. She’s my aunt, not yours. This is my thing. Just wait and I’ll tell you if it’s safe.”
I thought she’d argue with me, but instead she hesitated, then gave a brief nod. I wanted to touch the arm of her coat, but I didn’t. Instead I turned back to the barn.
The hole gaped at me, deep black. I could see nothing inside, not Nick, not even a shadow. A dusty, dry, moldy smell came from the hole, and dust motes from the disturbance swirled in the air.
“Carly?” Nick called from the dark.
Down the rabbit hole, I thought, and stepped through.
The light inside came through the gaps in the walls, soft slices of illumination from the gray sky overhead. I could see the four walls, junk tossed against them, dark shapes in the corners. An old bicycle, tools, scattered garbage. As my eyes adjusted to the dark I caught sight of Nick, who had walked to the other end of the barn. He was standing right behind the closed doors. He turned and looked at me. “Hey.”
I came closer to him. Behind him was an old green tarp thrown over what was obviously a car underneath. I paused at Nick’s shoulder, looking at it.
My mind spun. The newspaper reports had said that Viv’s car was left in the Sun Down parking lot the night she disappeared. Wherever she’d gone, she hadn’t taken it.
But what had happened to her car after the investigation? Where had it gone? Where did a missing person’s car go, long after they went missing?
“Uncover it,” I whispered to Nick.
He didn’t hesitate. He grabbed one end of the tarp and tugged it, stepping back and letting it fall to the dirty floor. Underneath it was a car, boxy and decades old. The color was indistinguishable in the dim light. The tires were flat. The windows were opaque with dust.
Nick stepped over the tarp and brushed the side of his hand along the passenger window, smearing the dust. “No one’s been near this thing in ages, maybe years,” he said. He leaned forward and peered through the clear hole he’d made.
Don’t, I wanted to shout. Don’t. I jumped at the sound of flapping in one of the barn’s upper corners, cold sweat rising between my shoulder blades as I realized it was a bird somewhere up there in the shadows. I made my feet move, made myself circle the car to the driver’s side and wipe my own spot, peer through it.
The driver’s seat was empty, tidy. I straightened and tried the door handle. It opened, the click loud in the silence. Inhaling a breath, I pulled the door open.
A rush of stale air came out at me, laced with something sour. Dust motes swirled in the air. On the passenger side, Nick opened the door and leaned in. We both craned our necks, peering around the empty car.
Nothing. No dead body. No sign of Viv—no clothing, no nothing. There was no indication that anyone had ever used this car at all. Nick opened the glove box, revealing that it was completely empty.
“Cleaned out,” he said.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” I said. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It’s some old car that someone didn’t want to use anymore, and they parked it here and left it. It happens all the time, right?”
“Why did Marnie have photos of this barn, then?”
It didn’t feel right. My stomach was turning, my head pounding. “Maybe Viv stole the car,” I said. “Maybe she stole it and stashed it.”
“Maybe whoever killed her stashed it,” he countered.
“We don’t know that. We don’t know anything.” I sighed. “This is a crazy dead end. We’ve done all this work, and we aren’t any further along than we were. It’s a red herring, Nick.”
“What’s that smell?” he asked.
There was definitely a smell. Sour and rotten, but old. “Garbage?”
“Worse than garbage.” He straightened and stepped back, leaving the front passenger door open. He opened the back passenger door and peered in. “Nothing back here. But the smell is worse.” He straightened again, leaving that door open, too.
We walked to the back of the car. The trunk had a keyhole in it, the way all old cars did. We’d seen no sign of a key.
“How do we get that open?” I asked as Nick bent his knees, lowering himself to a crouch.
“We don’t open it,” he answered me. “We call the cops.” He pointed to the floor beneath the trunk. “Either that’s oil or it’s very old blood.”
I crouched and followed where he was pointing. There was a large pool of something black beneath the trunk. It was dry and very, very old.
The blood rushed from my head, and for a second I thought I would faint. The pool was definitely too big to be oil. I gripped my knees and tears came to my eyes, too swift and hard for me to stop them. “Viv,” I said. I started shaking. My aunt was in
