Erica Spindler - In Silence

"Put it together, Avery." She leaned toward her. "You're a reporter…who fits the profile?"

When Avery didn't respond, Gwen filled in for her. "They're probably all men. Though, obviously, since a woman lured me out tonight, women are part of the group. They're no doubt longtime Cypress Springs residents. Pillars of the community. Men who are looked up to. Ones in influential positions or ones who have influence." She paused. "Like your dad."

"He would never have been party to this. Never, he-"

Gwen held up a hand, stopping her. "It's the only way this would work. I guess them all to be mature, forty and up. Maybe way up, if the members of today's Seven are the same, or partly the same, as the past's.

"And," she finished, "if today's group mirrors the one of the 1980s, they have many accomplices in the community. Like-minded citizens willing to spy for them. Break the law for them."

Avery frowned. "The past and the present, they're intertwined. The group from the 1980s, Sallie Waguespack's death. I just don't know how."

"What do you think Trudy Pruitt's proof was?"

"I don't know. But if it was for real, the way I figure it, there's a chance it's still in her trailer."

Gwen moved her gaze over Avery, her expression subtly shifting to one of understanding. "And you're thinking we should go find it?"

"If you're up fo it."

"At this point, what do I have to lose?"

They both knew, both were acutely aware of what they could lose.

Their lives.

"Besides," Gwen murmured, smile sassy, "I've got a pair of black jeans I've been dying to wear."

Avery parked the SUV just outside the trailer park and they walked in. Neither spoke. They kept as much as possible to the deepest shadows. Unlike the previous evening, Avery was grateful for the blown-out safety lights.

They reached Trudy Pruitt's trailer. The yellow crime scene tape stretched across the front, sagging in the center, forming an obscene smile. Avery shivered despite the warm night.

"How are we going to get in?"

"You'll see." She quickly crossed to the trailer. Instead of climbing the steps, she stepped into the garden. The frog figurine was just where she had expected it to be. She picked it up, turned it over, opened the hidden compartment and took out a key. "My bet is, this is a key to her front door."

"How did you know that was there?"

"I noticed the figurine, thought it was concrete until I accidentally knocked it off the porch. Why else would someone have a fake concrete frog on the front steps?"

"Good detective work."

Avery lifted a shoulder. "Journalists notice things."

They climbed the steps, let themselves in. Avery retrieved her penlight, switched it on. Gwen did the same. No one had cleaned up the mess. In all likelihood, even when the police gave the okay, there would be no one to clean it up. She averted her gaze from the bloody smear on the back wall.

From her back pocket, she took the two pairs of gloves she had picked up at the paint store that afternoon. She handed a pair to Gwen. "This is still a crime scene. I don't want my prints all over the place."

Gwen slipped them on. "We get caught, we're in deep shit."

"We're already in deep shit. Let's start in the bedroom."

They made their way there, finding it in the same state of chaos as the front room: the bed was unmade, the dresser drawers hung open, clothes spilling out. Beer cans, an overflowing ashtray, newspapers and fashion magazines littered the dresser top and floor.

They exchanged glances. "Wasn't a neat freak, was she?" Gwen murmured.

Avery frowned. She moved her gaze over the room, taking in the mess. "You're right, Gwen. The killer didn't make this mess, Trudy Pruitt was simply a slob."

"Okay. So?"

"Last night I thought the place had been ransacked. Now I realize that wasn't the case. Why search the living room but not the bedroom?"

"What do you think it means?"

"Maybe nothing. Just an observation. Let's get started."

"What are we looking for?"

"I'll know it when I see it. I hope."

They began to search, carefully examining the contents of each drawer, then the closet, finally picking through items on the dresser top. Avery shifted her attention to the floor.

The Gazette, she saw. Strewn across the floor. Avery squatted beside it. Not a current issue, she realized. The issue reporting her father's death. Trudy Pruitt had drawn devil horns and a goatee on his picture.

"What?"

Avery indicated the newspaper. Gwen read the headline aloud. "'Beloved Physician Commits Suicide. Community Mourns.'" She met Avery's eyes. "I'm sor-" She stopped, frowning. "Look at this, Avery. Trudy made some sort of notations, here in the margin."

The woman had used a series of marks to count. Four perpendicular hatchet marks with another crosswise through them. Beside it she had written "All but two."

"Five," Gwen murmured. "What do you think she was counting?"

"Don't know for certai-" She swallowed, eyes widening. "My God, five plus two-"

"Equals seven. Holy shit."

"She was counting the dead. Dad was number five. There are, or were, two left."

"But who were they?"

"On the phone she said there weren't many of them left. That they were dropping like flies."

"People who knew the truth."

"Gotta be."

Avery carefully leafed through the remaining pages of the paper. Nothing jumped out at her. She carefully folded the page with her father's photo and Trudy Pruitt's notations, then slipped it into a plastic bag.

They searched the living room next, checking the undersides and linings of the chairs and sofa, behind the few framed photos, inside magazines. They found nothing.

"Kitchen's next," Avery murmured, voice thick.

"That's where…it's going to be bad." Gwen paled. "I've never-" They exchanged glances, and by unspoken agreement, Avery took the lead.

Using tape, the police had marked where Trudy had died. A pool of blood, dried now, circled the shape. Several bloody handprints stood out clearly on the dingy linoleum floor.

Her handprints.

Avery started to shake. She dragged her gaze away, took a deep, fortifying breath. "Let's get this over with."

Avery checked the freezer. It was empty save for a couple unopened Lean Cuisine frozen meals and a half-dozen empty ice trays. The cabinets and pantry also proved mostly bare. They found nothing taped to the underside of shelves, the dining table or trash barrel.

"Either she never had any proof or the killer already picked it up," Avery said, frustrated.

"Maybe her proof was in her head," Gwen offered. "In the form of an argument."

"Maybe."

Gwen frowned. "No answering machine."

Avery glanced at her. "What?"

"Everybody's got an answering machine these days." She pointed at the phone, hanging on the patch of wall beside the refrigerator. "I didn't see one in the bedroom, either. Did you?"

Avery shook her head and crossed to the phone, picked it up. Instead of a dial tone, a series of beeps greeted her. She frowned and handed the receiver to the other woman.

"Memory call," Gwen said. "It's an answering service offered through the phone company. I have it."

"How do you retrieve the messages?"

"You dial the service, then punch in a five-digit password. The beeps mean she has a message waiting."

"What's the number?"

"Mine's local. It'd be different here. Sorry."

Avery glanced around. "My guess is, Trudy wrote that number down, that it's here, near the phone. So she wouldn't have to remember it." She slid open the drawers nearest the phone, shuffled through the mix of papers, flyers and unopened mail.

"Look on the receiver itself," Gwen offered. "Until I learned mine, that's where I taped it."