Саманта Сильвер: The Purr-fect Crime

“I know, right? Look, you don’t have appointments for another hour and a half. We can go now and be back in time for the next appointment.”

“Wait, what am I saying?” I added, the reasonable part of me finally making itself heard. “Why is this a good idea again?”

“Because we need to figure out who would have a reason to kill him, and what better place to go that to check out his house? The dude was single, there won’t be anyone else there.”

“Except maybe the cops.”

“Well they’ll be obvious. If they’re there, we won’t go in. God, you sound like Charlotte.”

“Speaking of Charlotte, did you invite her?”

Sophie snorted.

“Are you kidding? Not only does she have class so she would never, ever skip a lesson for something like this, but she’d probably call the cops on us herself.”

It was true that Charlotte wasn’t exactly the brave, adventurous one of the three of us.

“Fine. How did you find out where he lived, anyway?”

“Facebook. I was stalking his page, seeing who left condolences and stuff. You know what’s weird? The dude never posted any selfies or anything on his page.”

“Well duh, he was like, fifty-something, right? They’re not exactly the selfie taking generation. Like, your mom doesn’t have any selfies on her Facebook page either, she just shares motivational pictures and videos for recipes for food she’s never going to make.”

“Yeah, but at least my mom has pictures of her up on her Facebook. Even if it’s just a couple from her childhood and one or two that I’ve taken of her. Tony Nyman doesn’t have any pictures of him on his profile at all. I only figured out it was his account since he lives in Willow Bay and posted a bunch of pictures from around here. Including his house, which I recognize.”

“Well, who knows. Some people are more private than others. Maybe he’s one of those people that think the NSA are reading his Facebook posts or something.”

“Maybe,” Sophie shrugged. “Either way, I want to go check out where he lives.”

“Fine. We’ll go over there and see what’s up. But we’re leaving right away if we see any sign of the cops. I don’t want to get in trouble with Chief Gary.”

“Deal. Now come on, let’s go tell Karen she can take an extra long lunch break.”

Chapter 8

Twenty minutes later Sophie and I had pulled up in front of Tony Nyman’s place, on the eastern side of town. If anyone asked, we were going to say that I got an anonymous tip about a loose dog out here, that I couldn’t get in touch with animal control, and didn’t want the dog getting in trouble.

“So are we just going to sit here and watch, or are we going to go in there and get some actual info?” Sophie asked as I scanned the area.

“Haven’t you ever seen like any detective show ever? We’re staking the place out. We have ninety minutes, we might as well see if anything strange is going on around here.”

“You’re just too much of a baby to come into the house,” Sophie accused me, opening the driver’s side door and getting out. I did the same. Bee jumped out after me. She’d been very quiet in the ride over, insisting on coming after she realized Sophie and I were going somewhere “interesting”.

“That’s so untrue. I just don’t feel the need to rush in there as fast as possible without seeing if maybe we can get a clue as to who murdered him out here.”

“Oh what, because you think the murderer’s just going to come back here and check out the place, just for kicks? Yeah, right.”

“You never know,” I replied, crossing my arms as we made it to the front door. Sophie tried the handle, but it was locked.

“Damn it,” she muttered.

“Really? What else were you expecting?” I asked. “Move your butt over,” I ordered, nudging her out of the way with my hip.

“ Recludaro ,” I muttered quietly, focusing all of my brain’s power on the door’s lock. I felt an energy seeping from my fingers, and a second later, heard the latch moving. Being a witch made breaking and entering a lot easier.

“That’s so unfair,” Sophie muttered. “I can’t believe I lost out on the genetic lottery.”

We stepped inside quickly and closed the door behind us. Even though there wasn’t anyone else in here, we were both super quiet. It was creepy in here.

“I feel like we just stepped into a horror movie,” I whispered. For the first time, Sophie didn’t look completely confident about what we were doing, either.

The house was a decent size for a single guy on his own. It was two stories tall, with an entrance hall and what looked like a living room next to us. I could see the kitchen cupboards in the room at the back. I supposed that meant the bedrooms were upstairs. It was probably a two bedroom place, given the size of it.

I was the first one of Sophie and I to move forward. At the end of the entrance hall were the stairs leading upstairs, but I walked past them and into the living room. I could hear Sophie following me. The place was dark, especially considering the bright sunshine outside, but I didn’t dare turn on a light.

Everything in the room was so… quiet. There was a stillness, an eeriness to the house that I understood, but was still incredibly unnerving. It felt like there was someone here, someone watching us, even though I knew that was impossible.

The whole house was also incredibly impersonal. There wasn’t a single photo of Tony Nyman, or of any old family members. No pictures of him with a buddy or a brother, no pictures of his mom or dad. It was like he didn’t have anyone on the planet that he cared about.

Bee slinked along past me and I jumped at least two feet high when I felt her furry leg rubbing against mine.

“Oh for God’s sake,” I muttered, trying to get my heart rate back down to something reasonable. Sophie’s shoulders shook with silent laughter behind me, and I hit her before continuing on.

“That’s so not funny,” I added, but her snickering didn’t stop.

When we were finally in the back of the house, in the kitchen, I turned to Sophie. Bee had jumped up on top of the refrigerator.

“Is this the creepiest place you’ve ever been to, or what?”

Sophie nodded.

“Yeah. Definitely. It’s such a weird house. It’s like a robot lived here.”

Suddenly, we heard an unmistakable sound. Footsteps. Footsteps, coming down the stairs. And quickly. Sophie and I looked at each other. We both froze.

What do we do?

There was someone in the house with us!

Was it a ghost?

No, of course not. It couldn’t be. Ghosts weren’t real. And even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t be loudly thudding down the stairs.

Sophie screamed, and at the sound, I screamed too.

Before we knew it, though, whoever it was had made it to the front door and run out.

I finally gathered my courage and ran to the front door. I looked out, but could only see a vague shape making its way down the street. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. The only thing I knew is that they were wearing blue jeans and a red shirt.

“Oh man,” I muttered to myself as Sophie came and stood next to me. I turned to look at her. Her face was white, looking even paler against her mostly black hair.

“I can’t believe that happened. What was that?” Sophie asked. “Was it a ghost?”

I shook my head.

“No. Ghosts aren’t real, dummy. It was a person, I saw them running down the street. I don’t know anything else though. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.”

“So that means there was someone up there. Someone in the house.”

“And maybe if we’d stayed in the car and staked out the place for a while they would have come out the front door and we’d know who it was.” I couldn’t help but be a little bit snarky about the fact that my idea was the better one.