The Searcher(84)

“Why?”

“Just give it a minute. Let’s be sure no one else had the same idea as your brother.”

“That’s why Bren came here. ’Cause no one else ever—”

“Just wait,” Cal says. He moves back, nice and easy, to stand among the spruce trees. Trey rolls his eyes impatiently, but he follows.

Nothing comes from the cottage, neither movement nor sound. The weeds growing high against its walls have been trampled away on the path to the front door. Its windows are mostly broken out and plenty of its roof slates are missing, but someone has been trying to remedy this, not long ago: a tarp has been tacked down over one patch of roof, and there’s plywood in the windows.

“You said you’ve been in there since Brendan went,” Cal says. “Right?”

“Yeah. Coupla days after.”

That means they’re unlikely to walk in on his dead body. A pair of swifts skim in and out under the eaves, unhurried, practicing their acrobatics in the cool air. “Looks OK,” Cal says, at last. “Let’s go take a look.”

Down in the dip, sound is condensed in a way that comes as startling after the open space above. Their steps are sharp and loud on the grit of the path. The swifts set up an angry chittering and dive for cover.

The door has a big splintered dent near the bottom, where someone has kicked it in with a nice combination of precision and dedication. Not too long ago: the broken wood is only starting to discolor. A steel hasp, its padlock still attached, hangs loose from its staple; there are holes in the door where it was wrenched free. Cal pulls his jacket sleeve down over his hand before he pushes the door open.

“Was it like this last time you were here?”

“Like what?”

“Kicked in. Lock broken out.”

“Yeah. Just walked in.” Trey is right at Cal’s heel, like a barely trained hunting dog pulsing with impatience.

Inside, nothing is moving. There’s a little fall of weak light somewhere in the back room, but apart from that, the plywood makes the house too dark to see. Cal finds his pocket flashlight and sweeps it around.

The front half of the house is one mid-sized room, with no one in it. The next thing Cal notices is that it’s clean. The first time he walked into his own place, it was layered up with cobwebs, dust, mold, dead bugs, dead mice, forms of gunge he couldn’t even identify. This has bare floorboards with only a thin coating of dust. The wallpaper, columns of fancy pink and gold flowers, is damp-stained, but any peeling pieces have been ripped away.

In one corner is a propane camping stove, brand-new, with a few spare tanks beside it. Under one boarded-up window is a cooler, also brand-new. Along the back wall are a shitty white MDF sideboard, not new, a broom and dustpan, a mop and bucket, and a row of big plastic water bottles. There are scuff marks on the floorboards where things have been dragged in and maybe out.

Nothing moves as they step inside. “Wait there,” Cal says. He goes swiftly through to the back. Here, in what used to be a kitchen and a bedroom, no one has bothered cleaning. The floors are scattered with fallen plaster and random pieces of dilapidated furniture, and dusty cobwebs hang heavy as lace curtains from the ceiling. The back windows are unboarded, yellow-flowered weeds swaying behind them, but the mountainside presses close enough to block much of the light.

“See?” Trey says, at his shoulder. “No one.”

“So we wasted two minutes,” Cal says. “Better’n walking into trouble.” He heads back into the front room, squats down by the cooler with the kid hanging over his shoulder, and opens it through his sleeve. It’s empty. He examines the camping stove, which is set up ready to go but looks like it’s never been used. He rocks each of the spare propane tanks on its base: one full, two empty. He moves to the sideboard, pries the doors open by their corners and points his flashlight in there.

Inside the cabinet are three packs of rubber gloves, three bottles of household cleaners, a pile of dirty scrubbing sponges and cleaning cloths, a few Tupperware containers, a big pack of coffee filters, a coiled-up rubber hose, two sets of lab goggles, a pack of lab safety masks, and a stray battery that’s rolled into a corner.

Cal’s heart zigzags. For a second he can’t move. He wanted something that would burn off all the hazy possibilities and show him the solid thing in their midst. Now that he’s got it, he finds he doesn’t want it one bit.

He had Brendan wrong. He was picturing a wild kid galloping after the first and easiest idea that sprang up in his head, all hopped up on resentment and the prospect of showing everyone they’d underestimated him. But Brendan went about this methodically, systematically, taking his time and setting all his pieces in place. A half-cocked kid in a huff can get himself into plenty of shit. A kid with method is less likely to get himself into shit, but if he does, the shit is a whole lot deeper.

He can feel Trey crouched beside him watching every flicker of his face, catching the instant of stillness. “Huh,” he says easily, straightening up. “Here, hold this for me.” He hands over the flashlight.

“What for?” Trey asks. He’s coiled tight, barely containing his electricity.

Cal finds his phone and switches on the camera. “When you’re investigating, you document. You never know.”

Trey doesn’t move. His eyes are still on Cal’s face.