Beverly Long - Hidden Witness

He flipped on additional lights as they walked. When they entered the kitchen, the first thing he saw was the open newspaper on the table, along with a half-drank cup of tea with the bag still in it. Out of habit, he felt the cup. It was stone cold.

There was a dirty plate in the sink. Brick had had eggs for his last meal.

He opened the refrigerator. Not full by any means, but there were small packages of cheese and lunchmeat, some half-used bottles of salad dressing and ketchup, and a quart of milk. Something, he wasn’t sure what, had spilled at some point on the top shelf and dripped down, leaving remains all the way to the bottom. It smelled sweet.

Brick had gotten sloppy in his old age. Or maybe he’d always been a pig and Sally Hollister had managed to cover up for him.

He turned, realizing that Raney had ventured off into the direction of the downstairs bedroom. He followed her, his chest feeling tighter with each step. He didn’t want to look at Brick’s bedroom, didn’t want to have that intimate of a connection to the man.

Raney stopped in the doorway. Chase stood behind her. There was a regular-size bed, made up with an ugly shiny green bedspread. The matching drapes were drawn tight, giving the room an eerie feel. The gold paint on the walls made the room look dirty. The door to the bathroom was open. With its dated green fixtures, it looked exactly like he remembered.

He sure as hell wasn’t sleeping down here. “Let’s take a look upstairs,” he said.

The wooden steps creaked as they made their way upstairs. He saw Raney flick her hand over her hair and realized she’d disturbed a large cobweb. The carpet in the hallway was threadbare and all the doors were closed.

“I don’t think your stepfather was up here much,” Raney said.

He nodded and opened the first door. This had been Bray’s room. He felt for the light switch and flipped it up. The room was completely empty.

He walked down the hall a few steps toward his old room. He turned the handle of the door, expecting it to open, but it didn’t.

The door was locked. And for some crazy reason, that irritated the hell out of him. Without conscious thought, Chase lifted his good leg and kicked the damn door. It flew back, breaking the top hinge. He heard Raney’s gasp but he ignored it. He felt for the light switch, flipped it and, when nothing happened, he stepped back so that light from the hallway could filter in.

The room was completely empty. He looked up at the ceiling light fixture. Even the lightbulb had been removed.

“Do you think perhaps there’s an air mattress somewhere?” Raney asked, her tone light.

There was only one bedroom left to try. Cal’s. The door swung open and the light worked. In the middle of the room was a queen-size mattress, still with its plastic wrapper, without any bedding or even a bed frame. The mattress and box spring sat directly on the wood floor. There was a bedside table with a lamp. There was no other furniture in the room.

Why the hell had Brick bought a new mattress and put it upstairs in Cal’s old room? And never put sheets or a blanket on it? Based on the layer of dust on the plastic, the mattress had been up here for some time. It wasn’t as if Brick had done it recently and just hadn’t finished the project.

Well, whatever the reason, it wasn’t great but it was better than sleeping on the wood floor. “You can sleep in here,” he said. He pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans, sliced open the plastic and ripped it off the mattress. Dust flew into the air and she sneezed.

“Sorry,” he said. “We can get some sheets tomorrow.”

She sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Where will you sleep?” she asked.

“Downstairs. On the couch. There’s no reason to believe that anybody knows that Lorraine Taylor is in this house. But if anything scares you, just yell. I’m a light sleeper. I’ll hear you.”

She looked around the room. She sighed a little dramatically. “All these years and I never ever envisioned my wedding night would go exactly like this.”

For the first time since Chief Bates had announced that he and Lorraine Taylor were posing as husband and wife, he felt like smiling. She was being a good sport. Her last safe house had no doubt been better.

He wanted to promise that everything would look better in the light of day but based on what he’d seen tonight, he thought the opposite was probably true. He would not have volunteered to bring her to Ravesville if he’d known the house was in this bad of shape.

“Good night,” he said.

He stuck his head into the bathroom that was across the hall. Ran the water in the faucet until it turned clear and flushed the toilet a couple times. There was toilet paper but it was covered with a layer of dust. He unrolled several sheets, ripped them off, and threw them in the small empty garbage can. There were no towels so he ran downstairs, got several clean ones from the cupboard in the downstairs bathroom and took them back upstairs.

It wasn’t camping but it was close.

Finally, he went back downstairs and, still fully dressed, stretched out on the couch. It was too short for him and his feet hung over the edge. He was so damn tired. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told his brother that he’d been awake for more than a day. He had managed to grab some sleep after he’d talked to Dawson but the knowledge that the chief was counting on them had weighed heavily on his mind.

Now, even though his body craved rest, he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, his mind trying to wrap itself around the fact that he was back in Ravesville, back in the house that he’d left thirteen years ago, swearing that he’d never return.

On the drive here, he’d wondered if he’d feel Brick in the house. Or even his mother. But the house just felt empty, so empty it seemed as if there had never been life here.

But that wasn’t true. There had been life and love when Jack Hollister had been alive. His father would have despised Brick, would have hated what had become of the family.

As odd as it seemed, he could feel his father in the house. He hadn’t been able to do that when Brick was alive and living here. But now it felt very different. It was almost as if he could see him standing in front of the big windows, waving at him and his brothers to come in for dinner. Could see him walking through the house, a fishing pole in one hand and sack lunches in the other, yelling for his sons to hurry up, that the trout were biting.

As if he’d conjured up old spirits, he heard a noise. Something soft. Outside. He eased off the couch, used a finger to pull back the heavy drapes and watched the yard.

Nothing moved in the darkness. He waited, continuing to watch. Five minutes later, a dark shape, low to the ground, crossed the gravel.

A groundhog. He let out the breath he’d been holding. He’d been spooked by an animal.

He lay back down, rubbed his sore thigh and closed his eyes. Upstairs, he heard a door open and close, then the sound of water running through the pipes as Raney turned on the shower. She’d had a hell of a day but had seemed to handle it well. She’d been shot at yesterday, hustled out of Florida this morning, pushed into a fake marriage and had ended up here, in a house of neglect.

He’d clean up the place tomorrow, at least get the top layer of dust off. Then he would pitch everything in the refrigerator and make a quick trip to town for food. If the dinner Raney had eaten tonight was any indication, she had a good appetite. Which was surprising considering she was pretty slim.

But the curves were there. He’d seen that firsthand in the wedding dress. That image had stayed with him the entire drive from St. Louis to Ravesville. That and the memory of the feel of her mouth.