Purgatory, West Virginia
March 10
Finn entered the house tired and grubby. He was almost eager for the tepid dribble of a shower. Dropping his coat on the lone chair in the main room, he trudged upstairs.
He stood in the hall staring at the locked door at the end. To the right, his bedroom door stood ajar; across the hall, the bathroom door was closed. Everything was exactly as he had left it, and yet something was off. He took a silent step forward and glanced down. There at his feet, liquid. He squatted to a catcher’s stance and dabbed the droplets. Water.
Gun drawn, Finn turned the knob of the bathroom door and pushed it open on creaking hinges. The sight was unexpected. The lime-caked showerhead trickled a path to the drain in the claw-foot tub. Water pooled on the worn linoleum. A stripe of red caught his eye, and Finn glanced at the floor under the sink and spotted a toothbrush. He shoved his Sig into the waistband of his jeans and picked it up, touching the wet bristles and setting it on the sink.
Finn followed the water droplets back into the hall and to the kitchen. The trail stopped at the heavy wood-paneled door, the locked heavy wood-paneled door. He gave the knob a shake to confirm the deadbolt was in place. Stepping back, hands on his hips, Finn eyed the wood. There. The lower-left panel was hinged. He toed it with a booted foot, and the pet door swung out. Fishing the key from his pocket, Finn opened the door and stepped onto the stoop. The grass was brown and overgrown, but through the weeds, he could make out wooden stakes and a low fence where Annabeth must have had a garden.
He called into the woods, “You can come out, you little shit. I’m not going to shoot you.”
A small voice replied, “You shot at the wolf.”
“I didn’t shoot Elvis. I was just scaring him off. You, I can scare off without a gun.”
The boy Finn had spoken to in town appeared from behind a bush. He wore sneakers held together with duct tape and on the wrong feet.
“Elvis?” the boy asked.
Finn cocked his head toward the cardboard cutout bent beside the dumpster. “He’s got the sneer.”
The kid kicked a rock.
“You eat?” Finn asked.
The boy started to speak then looked away.
“I’ll trade you a sandwich for an explanation. If it’s no deal, then fuck off.” Finn turned and clomped back into the house, leaving the door open.
After slapping together two peanut butter sandwiches and pouring two glasses of milk, Finn returned to the open back door. The kid was gone.