“Exactly. I mean, it’s a fair contract, but it’s a bit one-sided in our favor. They didn’t push back at all. They practically rolled over and accepted it.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking nothing is this easy, especially not with a guy like Cowan.” He sighs and pushes the door open. “Come on, let’s go see what fresh hell we’re in for.”
I follow him to the front door. He knocks, and knocks, and knocks again, but there’s no answer. Finally, out of frustration, he tries the knob and the door swings open. His eyebrows raise and he gives me a look like,we might as well, and I just shrug. Cowan’s crazy enough already, he won’t care if we just walk inside.
Although maybe we should’ve brought some bulletproof vests.
Baptist steps into the entryway and doesn’t move.
I hesitate next him, staring around.
“Something’s off.” He moves closer to me, like he’s being protective. “What’s different?”
The feeling was nagging at me too, and the realization snags in my brain all of a sudden. I suck in a breath and grab his arm.
“It’s empty,” I say and slip past him, heading toward the living room. He hurries to keep up but I reach the doorway first.
It’s empty. Entirely empty. Two weeks earlier, when we first came here and watched Cowan fire a shotgun at what I’m still positive was an imaginary raccoon, this room was packed with books. They were everywhere, on every surface, in moldy cardboard boxes, piled on tables, leaning in massive towers that likely would’ve crushed me if they tipped the wrong way.
Now there’s nothing. Only gleaming hardwood floors like they were refinished recently.
“Look at this.” Baptist moves past me, deeper inside. I want to tell him to stop—this is too fucking weird—but I can’t seem to open my mouth. He pauses beside some marks on the wood and kneels down. “Buckshot. From his shotgun.”
I walk up beside him and sure enough, little pellet-sized holes are dotted in the floor in a spray pattern.
Which means we’re in the right house and didn’t somehow head up the wrong driveway.
“What the hell is going on here?” I ask quietly, looking around. “Why’s the place empty? Actually, better question,howis it empty? There was like a decade worth of hoarding in here.”
“I don’t know, but let’s find him and figure it out.”
We head back onto the solarium. It’s also empty. All the plants are gone, the fainting couches, any signs that it was ever filled with life, utterly gone. The backyard looks the same and there’s no sign of Cowan anywhere.
We check the whole house. “Cowan!” I call out, too afraid not to say something, expecting to find some fresh nightmare around each corner. I have this irrational fear that something terrifying is going to leap out of every single dust-bunny-filled closet. Instead, my voice echoes back at me, and we only get a nice tour of a very empty, very gorgeous house.
But no Tony Cowan.
“What the fuck,” Baptist says, standing near the landing to the stairs. “We’re in the right house, right? Seriously, we didn’t stumble into some bizarro-world wormhole?”
“Shotgun blast, remember?” I knock the banister and try to think. “Did he move?”
“He should’ve told us.”
“That seems like the kind of thing he’d forget to do.”
“But the place is empty. You saw it before, it would’ve taken days or weeks to clear all that shit out. They had to have started right after we left, practically.”
“Endless money. You know he’s rich.” I shake my head slowly. Every inch of me wants to get the hell out of here. I’ve never felt so thoroughly spooked before in my life. “This is too weird.”
Suddenly, a noise from somewhere nearby breaks the tension. It’s a sharp slam like someone hammering wood. It comes again and again and again then stops abruptly. Baptist moves closer to me and grips my wrist, holding it tightly and glaring around like he’s scanning for threats.
My heart’s in my throat and the smell of Baptist so close makes sweat roll down my back and my chest judder with excitement. He’s not supposed to touch me, not supposed to get so close, but I’ve noticed ever since our conversation about Cowan and the crack debt that he’s been twice as protective as he ever was before that. It’s like he doesn’t want to let me out of his sight.
“Upstairs,” he says, sounding grim and staring at the ceiling. “There must be an attic.”
“I think I saw one of those pulldown staircases at the end of the hall.”