I enter the kitchen, and show her the floors.
There is no water, of course. The few drops of water Giana had seen evaporated after she left.
“I see nothing,” I murmur.
“Yes… I don’t see anything either.”
I show her the kitchen to see for herself that things are in order before heading to the living room.
“The baseball bat, you say…” I give her a view of the door and the spot where the baseball bat used to sit, propped against the wall.
“That’s it,” she says. “That’s where I usually keep it. It’s not there,” she says, disappointed, while I spot it where I left it.
Next to the couch.
“It’s, um… I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” I say.
I walk around, taking my time as if looking for it, and then I open my mouth and speak again.
“There it is.”
I pick it up and show it to her.
“Where was it?”
“By the couch.”
“By the couch?? How did it get there?”
“Maybe it fell and rolled across the floor…”
“Very unlikely…” she murmurs. “Only if someone toppled it over.”
She thinks about it for a second while I prop the baseball bat against the wall.
“Okay. I’m good,” she says with a hint of urgency in her voice. “Please get out of the house.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“Yes. A little.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself. Besides, how do you think you can live here alone when you don’t think I’m safe in your house? There’s no one here but me,” I say just as something creaks upstairs, raising my hackles.
I tip my gaze up and wait to hear it again.
She senses something’s wrong.
“What’s going on?” she asks, worried.
“I think I heard something,” I say.
My focus is still on the upper level.
“It’s quiet now, but there was a strange noise upstairs,” I murmur. “The floors creaked as if someone had walked across.”
I listen. There’s nothing.
That would be really strange. To have someone in her house after Grayson and I were here, checking her place?