When the Sky Fell on Splendor(34)

After that, I’d get more information from Black Mailbox Bill. I’d figure out how to . . . fix this.

I went to the top of the stairs and peeked through the doorway the terrified raccoon had darted into.

It was a kid’s room, complete with unicorn wallpaper that had been peeled down, words scrawled in red on the blank space left behind. On the far wall stood a baby-blue wooden vanity with a warped mirror, beside a twin bed whose blankets had been thrashed, its pillows bleeding feathers across them and onto the floor.

Through a skinny doorway on the far side of the room, there was a pink-tiled bathroom, and when my flashlight hit the mirror, the words BLOODY MARY lit up in red lipstick on the glass.

I turned away, and my flashlight stumbled over a shattered window. Its gauzy drapes were pulled to one side, dancing in the sticky breeze.

That must’ve been the raccoon’s entry point.

I turned back toward the hall, but the flashlight lit on something else, lacquered and cherry red.

Chills slithered down my spine at the sight of the undersize piano.

The gold catch of the light over the brand etched into the top of it: Schicksal.

Nick’s voice drifted across my mind: I dreamed about pianos . . . hallways made of them that ended in little red kids’ pianos with German words written in freakin’ gold leaf.

Schicksal could be German, couldn’t it?

My skin had started crawling again, but then the obvious occurred to me: Nick must’ve caught a glimpse of this the night of the crash. His subconscious wrapped it into a dream.

There was nothing creepy about it.

I set my backpack down and took out one of the rubber gloves I’d borrowed from work, slipped it on, then took a picture on my phone and sent it to Nick.

Then I gathered my stuff and headed back downstairs to search the fence line.

Every ounce of optimism I’d started this night with had turned to lead in my stomach. I couldn’t possibly make it to where we’d climbed the fence without walking through the light, possibly in the path of a hidden security camera.

Another one of those power surges would come in handy right now.

There’s no way you did that.

I felt stupid, but I tried anyway: I stepped up to the edge of the light coming off the temporary fixtures, held my hands out, and thought as hard as I could about the shattering light bulb in the hallway. About energy and electricity and lightning. I even summoned the memory of the white light.

A dark pool ahead of me. Nothing but solid black, and then suddenly, light on every side of me in shimmering streaks of color and—

I opened my eyes. Nothing. I huffed and dropped my hands. Whatever had happened in the Jenkins House, I wasn’t its cause.

At the end of Jenkins Lane, a pair of headlights swung onto the gravel, and within seconds I’d placed the shape crawling down the street as a cop car.

Not only was I out of time to search, but if I didn’t hide, I’d also ruin any future chance to get back here and find my necklace.

I darted back to the house and crouched against the side of it with my bike as the car slid to a stop. The door popped open, and the sheriff stepped out, rounding the hood of the cruiser.

He touched the radio clipped to his shirt, and his words reached me in bits. “. . . appears to be empty . . . Sure they said the house on Jenkins Lane? It’s dark now.”

I looked up the side of the house. Someone must’ve seen the electrical flare when they were driving past and called it in.

“. . . I’ll take a look,” Sheriff Nakamura said. “Go ahead and send another cruiser for backup, but it was probably unrelated . . . just kids getting into trouble . . .”

He started up the yard, and as my heart rate sped, something happened.

A light flashed in the window directly over me.

The sheriff’s chin snapped upward, his gaze locking on to where the light flickered.

Shit.

Was I doing this?

At the end of the street, more headlights appeared, and when the sheriff turned toward them, I took my chance: I ran along the side of the house, dragging my bike and trying for a magical mix of speed and quiet that didn’t exist.

Any second, he’d spot me, and if he didn’t, he’d hear me.

I reached the back of the house and dragged my bike behind it.

“Who’s there?” I heard.

I climbed on my bike and took off. Branches whipped my face, caught on my clothes. My front tire jerked and stumbled over roots.

Voices called through the dark behind me, and I risked a glance back. Spears of light crisscrossed the night, interrupted by the slim silhouettes of trees.

At least three officers were spreading out behind the house, following me, calling out words I couldn’t hear over my own pulpy pulse.

My front tire slammed into something, hard, and jerked sideways, the bike skidding out from under me. I hit the leaf-strewn ground on my side, my breath and a grunt knocked from my body.

The flashlights snapped toward me. I staggered onto my feet, ankle throbbing where it had hit the ground, and the front tire of my bike bent at an ugly angle.

A rocky outcropping, blue-black and easily ten feet high, cut back through the woods in a mossy zigzag disappearing into a forested hill.

If I’d been looking straight ahead, there was no way I’d have collided with the ridge of stone, even in the near-total darkness.

I tried to climb back onto the bike, but it wasn’t rideable, and the echoey shouts were moving closer.