Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

She checked the mailbox again. It was black, unlike the more decorative ones painted with fishing rods or deer heads. It had no plastic box underneath for the local paper, and there was no name on the mailbox, also unusual. Many of the other boxes had the owners’ last names in old-fashioned white stenciling or cute hand-painted script, and the houses had been given vacation names, like Hernando’s Hideaway. But if this one was a hideaway, it was well hidden.

Mary looked at the house, aware that her heart had started to beat a little harder. Raindrops pounded on the hood of her car and sluiced down the windshield in a sheet. Her shoes were still wet from last time, and her clothes felt clammy. She stalled a minute longer, in no hurry to run out in the rain or, oddly, to leave the safety of the car. She became aware that she hadn’t eaten in hours and checked her watch, its dial glowing a ghostly greenish circle. Almost ten o’clock. She was too nervous to feel the least bit hungry and edged up in the seat, keeping an eye on the house for movement.

No movement, no nothing. No other cars were on the road, and she shook off a spooky sensation, then grabbed her purse helmet and bolted out of the car. She ran around the front and scooted up the slick driveway. Cold rain hit her cheeks and splashed onto her ankles as she darted for the front porch. She clambered onto the floorboards, next to two chairs of a cheap white wire, and she kept her gaze on the picture window. There didn’t seem to be anybody inside the living room, and she walked to the front door on sopping feet, ready to knock if she got caught snooping.

The picture window revealed a small living room, furnished sparely with a brown sofa and two chairs. There were no magazines or newspapers on the coffee table, as in the other houses; in fact, there was no clutter anywhere at all. It hardly looked lived in. She walked closer to the front door, her heart beginning to hammer. She was raising her hand to knock when she noticed that inside, where the brown rug ended, a green ceramic lamp lay smashed on the hardwood floor, its shards laying about, sharp ends up.

Mary felt her senses spring to alertness. What could have knocked the lamp down? There didn’t seem to be any pets around. Why would anyone leave the broken pieces lying there? Why not pick them up? She stood at the door, wondering. Barely breathing. Listening hard. There was no sound but the rushing of the rain around her.

She knocked, then waited, telling herself to calm down. No dogs began barking inside, and no cats blinked back at her. She knocked again out of sheer nervousness. No answer. She pressed her eye to a slit in the curtain on the door, which gave her a sliver of the small dining room beyond the living room. The light was on there, too, but there was no movement, just a long wooden table, and on it, a brown shopping bag, standing upright. Something about the bag caught Mary’s attention. She squinted until she could see better, and her heart leapt to her throat. On the bag, a heavyset chef with a Super Mario mustache held a steaming plate of spaghetti and meatballs. The Biannetti’s logo.

“Trish!” Mary heard herself scream, against the wind and rain. She twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. She pounded on the door. “Trish! Are you there?” The downpour drowned her cry. She felt as if someone had flipped a switch, throwing on all of her circuits, all at once. It had to be Bobby’s house. Trish could be inside. Trapped. Dying. Alive. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

“Trish!” Mary screamed. The sound reverberated in her ears. Her thoughts ran scared. She could go back to her car and call the cops, but when would they come? Were there cops up here, anyway? Trish could be inside the house. It was an emergency. Mary wasn’t standing on ceremony or law. She shoved the door with her shoulder, then ran back a few steps on the porch and hit it again with all her might. It budged, but didn’t open. Her shoulder hurt like hell.

She looked wildly around. The wire chair on the porch. It was heavy enough to do the job. She reached over, grabbed the chair, raised it over her head, and in one motion, brought it crashing through the window in the door. The glass shattered with a tinkling sound, spraying to the ground.

“Trish!” Mary yelled. No one came running from the house or anywhere else. It made her more nervous than before. Her mouth went dry.

She flung the chair aside, poked her hand through the broken window, and felt around inside for the knob, calling Trish’s name. She felt herself give in to panic. She twisted the lock frantically one way, then the other. She tried the knob again. It unlocked, and she extracted her hand and swung the front door wide open, then hurried inside.

“T rish?” Mary called out, closing the front door behind her. She scanned the living room. It was as she had seen from the window. Nothing out of order except the broken lamp on the floor. She stepped over the shards from the lamp and the window, then moved quickly through the dining room. She could be contaminating a crime scene, but it was an emergency if Trish was alive. And if she wasn’t, her killer was beyond conviction.

Mary called out again, the tremor in her voice echoing throughout the house. She reached the Biannetti’s bag and peeked inside. A stack of tinfoil trays with white cardboard lids sat inside. She felt the bag. It was stone cold. She eyeballed the room. A new dining room table with four chairs. Nothing on the walls, and it smelled like fresh paint. She glanced at the walls, eggshell white, and imagined a likely scenario: Bobby had brought Trish here, to show her the house and even got take-out diner to celebrate. Then he’d popped the question, and all hell had broken loose.

Mary turned and looked behind her at the shards on the floor, wondering. Had he hit Trish with the lamp? Dragged her out to the car? Taken her somewhere? Killed her? Could she still be alive in here?

“Trish!” Mary went from the dining room to the kitchen, then looked around. All cleaned and untouched. A six-pack of Bud sat on the counter, unopened, next to a bottle of Chianti and three of Smirnoff vodka, one half full. Next to them sat a white cake box with dancing musical notes around the side, from Melrose Diner. She peeked inside the box’s clear plastic window, knowing what she’d see. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart, read the pink icing.

“Trish!” Mary hurried from the room and up the stairs, her heart pounding. If Bobby had killed her, would he have done it in the bedroom? Would there be a body there? She flashed on Trish’s mother, heartbroken in Mary’s parents’ house, and then the Mean Girls, hysterical in her office. She stowed those thoughts in the back of her mind and reached the top of the stairs, then entered the first room on the second floor, holding her breath as she flicked on the light switch.

No body. Nobody. Merely a queen-sized bed, with a white coverlet and flanking night tables, just like in the house in South Philly. Not slept in. Nothing on the walls. A small single closet with an open door. Empty. No clothes or shoes inside, or anything awful, either. Mary glanced around. There was no bathroom off the bedroom, so she went back out in the hallway, sick with fear. Where could Trish be?

Mary came upon a doorway next to the bedroom, braced herself, and flung the door open as she flicked on the light, then looked inside. Nothing. A new, bright white bathroom, also apparently unused. She turned around, puzzled. There was only one room left, off the hall, at the darkened end. She swallowed hard and crossed the hall, then reached inside the door for the light switch.

“Trish?” she said, hearing the fear in her own voice. She couldn’t find the switch with her fingers and got so nervous that she raked the wall with her hand until the room came to life, illuminated. Nothing. Another bedroom. Nothing in it except a double bed and a single night table. She blinked, confused.