Jennifer Hillier: Creep

T he last time Morris had felt this scared was during a football game-and not even one he’d played in the NFL.

December 31, 1980. The Bluebonnet Bowl. If he could get through that, surely he could get through this. Closing his eyes, he forced himself back to that night.

Longhorns versus Tar Heels. Fourth quarter, two minutes left, down by three, Texas had the ball. A twenty-one-year-old Morris in the huddle, listening to the quarterback call the play. His stomach burned with a mixture of fear and ferociousness, and he was hyperaware of the NFL scouts sitting in the first three rows of the Astrodome near the fifty-yard line. He’d vomited, some of it landing on his own shoes. It hadn’t mattered. All that had mattered was winning.

This felt like that, multiplied by a hundred. Sheila might very well be trapped inside Wolfe’s house, and Morris was so sick with worry he thought he might vomit right now.

He wondered what he must look like at this moment-a hulk of a man standing in front of a big black Cadillac, scoping out Wolfe’s house in the middle of the night. Morris had made it past the old security guard at the gate without any trouble-Henry thought he was a cop. But if anyone saw him, the Remington 700 hunting rifle tucked under his arm, surely they’d call the police.

Let ’em come. Anything to get their heads out of their asses and over here, where they belonged.

Morris approached the rambler at 3513 Maple Lane. He took the three steps up to the front door quickly, knees creaking in protest. Hesitating for only a second, he rang the doorbell and got his weapon ready. The rifle was loaded, though he didn’t want to have to use it. But he would, if it meant saving Sheila’s life. Or his own. In that order.

Like the last time he’d been here, he heard the bell ring clearly through the stained-glass window panels on either side of the door. And, like the last time, there was no movement from inside. The house was dark. He rang the bell once more, waited another moment, then gave it a good bang with his fist.

Still no motion he could detect. Either nobody was home or Morris had just alerted Wolfe that he had a visitor. Shit. He was at a loss as to what to do next. He’d honestly expected someone to answer the goddamned door.

What now? Should he shoot the lock with his rifle? Break the glass panels and reach through with his hand to unlock the door from the inside? Neither option sounded appealing. As it was, he was trespassing. If he got inside, it would be breaking and entering. And with a weapon-well, what would that mean? Home invasion? Attempted something-or-other?

And what if there was an alarm system? A house this size, there had to be. Would it scream silently or wail like a banshee? Would the neighbors come running with their guns to shoot him, the intruder? Or would Wolfe hear the alarm, panic, and hurt Sheila?

He hadn’t thought this through. For a split second he found himself wishing Jerry were here-the man was sensible and would know what to do.

Morris really did feel bad about punching the PI, but, goddamn it, Jerry had no balls. And, for an ex-cop, no instincts. Something about Ethan Wolfe stank to high heaven-how was it possible that Morris was the only one who could smell it?

He didn’t care whether it had been Wolfe on the security tape or not. Sheila was here. He could feel it.

Before he could overthink it, he slammed his body into the door with all the force he could muster. If this didn’t work, he’d blow the door open with the rifle, neighbors be damned. But under his weight, the bolt ripped from the casing and the door swung open. Surprised, he stood frozen, waiting for the alarm that was sure to sound.

But nothing happened. No beeping or screeching announced Morris’s entrance. No red or green lights flashed anywhere on the walls to acknowledge his body movements. On the contrary, the house was eerily quiet. He was breathing fast and he tried to calm down so he wouldn’t give himself away. A warm trickle of sweat ran down the nape of his neck to the curve of his spine.

It was too easy. What kind of guy would put such a flimsy lock on the front door with no alarm system? In an upscale neighborhood like this, burglary was a legitimate concern. Maybe Wolfe had a silent alarm, but the point was to scare intruders away, not let them ransack the house before they got caught.

Morris raised the Remington and entered the house, shutting the battered door behind him. A small amount of light filtered through the stained-glass panels from the streetlamps outside. Otherwise, it was dark. The shapes from the glass cast strange, dim patterns on the hardwood floors. He stopped again.

What if Wolfe was watching him this very moment? Crouched in a shadow, ready to pounce?

Feeling around on the wall perpendicular to the door, he found the light switch and flicked it on. A stretch of hallway that ran straight to the back of the house was instantly illuminated. Morris clutched the rifle, fully expecting to see Wolfe coming at him with a gun or a knife or some other awful instrument of death designed to kill him where he stood.

But there was nobody. Just the tasteful entryway of a big house.

“Sheila!” Morris stage-whispered. It sounded ridiculous somehow. “Sheila!”

He walked down the hallway, his finger hovering over the trigger. The Remington’s trigger pull was heavy. It minimized the possibility of unintentionally firing a shot. He was especially happy about this since his hands were shaking. He moved swiftly from room to room, continuing to whisper Sheila’s name. Nobody responded.

The door to the master bedroom was open, and he entered. Turning the light on, he let out a breath when he saw that nobody was waiting for him, ready to blow his head off. In actuality, the bed was neatly made, the furnishings surprisingly nice even though the large room was minimally decorated. He crossed to the bathroom ensuite, but nobody lay in wait there, either. The room was spotless and smelled faintly of disinfectant.

Three more bedrooms yielded nothing-two were empty, and one held a desk and nothing else. Another bathroom, also pristine. At the back of the house, the enormous kitchen displayed state-of-the-art appliances, gleaming as if they had never known the joy of cooking.

Something was off about this house, and Morris couldn’t put his finger on it. It came to him a moment later.

The entire space was completely devoid of personal items. No photos on the walls, no clothes in the closets, no dishes in the sink.

Did Wolfe even live here? Why buy a house like this and then rent a crappy one-bedroom apartment in Seattle? What was the point?

Back in the main hallway, he spied a connecting door to the garage. He opened it and poked his head inside, his eyes widening at the sight of Wolfe’s vintage Triumph motorcycle.

The kid was here somewhere. But where? Morris had checked the whole house. Frustrated, he shut the connecting door and stepped back into the main hallway.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye and he turned toward it. A little green light was blinking on a keypad that was mounted to the wall a few feet away. Beside the keypad was a door he must have passed earlier, but apparently hadn’t noticed. It looked out of place. Keypads belonged on the outside of the house, to keep folks out, but this one was inside. Frowning, he walked toward it and tried the handle. Locked.

His heart, already well into tachycardia, kicked into an even higher gear. No locked door had ever seemed so sinister. The goddamned front door had a crappy lock and no alarm system, but this one was bolted with a keypad? Why? What was behind it? Closet? Crawl space? It was impossible to know without either looking at the blueprints or looking inside. Morris wished he had the blueprints.