Page 64 of Girl, Reborn

But it wasn't the space that worried Ella.It was the silence – that thick, strangling quiet. Like a blanket of spiderwebsthrown over a mirror. If there was a victim on the cusp of drowning in here, hesure as hell didn’t seem to mind.

‘Seth Baxter, FBI!’ Ella called into thedark.

She didn't expect an answer. A ghostdidn't pick up its phone.

They flowed from the kitchen into theliving room. There was a couch that looked like a beached cetacean. A TV thatremembered the Moon landing. Not a whole lot else. No madman in the rafters. Notrophies on the coffee table.

Luca materialized at her elbow. A flick ofhis eyes – upstairs or deeper? She cocked her head towards the hall. They movedas one; well-oiled gears grinding towards resolution.

But the bedroom was a bust, as was thebathroom. They regrouped in the hallway, and Ella holstered her gun.

‘Hawkins, this place is barren.’

Time was leaking away. Each vanishedsecond was another nail in some poor dam-worker’s coffin. And here they were –chasing dust bunnies while Seth Baxter did the backstroke in someone else'sblood.

‘You’re not kidding. There’s barely enoughroom to swing a cat, let alone host a water machine from hell.’

The house was a goddamn shoebox – everynook and cranny on view like a two-dollar peep show. If Baxter was drowningpeople in some murder contraption, he needed a bigger sandbox to do it.

‘Yeah, he doesn’t shit where he eats. Ifhe’s killing people, he’d going it somewhere else. This place is a front, amask. Someplace to hang his coat and pretend to be a real person.’

‘You think he's got a secondary location?’

‘I do. You?’

‘There’s no other alternative. But where?He’s local, so it’s gotta be somewhere in Liberty Grove.’

‘Bingo. We need to turn this place upsidedown. He must have left a breadcrumb here somewhere.’

Luca's grin could've guided ships toshore. ‘I'll take the high road, you take the low?’

She punched his shoulder and gave him thenod. They scattered like buckshot, a whirlwind of slamming drawers and creakingcupboards. No stone unturned, no mattress unflipped. Hell, Ella would've rippedup the floorboards if she thought Seth Baxter might have left a clue betweenthe joists.

Ella swept the kitchen, the detritus of asolitary life. Clutter and cans, a layer of grime, no amount of scrubbing wouldpurge. She pawed through the junk drawer – rubber bands and dull pencils, ahandful of dead batteries. Nothing jumped out to bite her in the ass.

The fridge then – center of the universe,a veritable Rosetta Stone of the suburban underbelly. She wrenched it open,glass rattling in the frame. A six-pack of Schlitz, some moldering Chineseleftovers. She skimmed the take-out menus, the smiling magnets. Nothingscreamed 'murder lair, next exit.'

A calendar hung front and center – one of thosecharity jobs with the big-eyed mutts and treacly quotes. Sentimental dreck tohide the cracks in the plaster. But the pages were pristine, the squares blankas an alibi. No doctor's visits, no birthdays. Just a white fog of amnesia.

Useless. All of it. Ella shoved the doorshut with a grunt of disgust. Crossed to the counter, rooted through thedetritus. Bills and junk mail, a nest of rubber bands and orphaned keys.

No maps. No expedient X marking the spot.Just the dust and dross of a life interrupted.

Upstairs, it didn't sound Luca was fairingmuch better. She could hear him tossing furniture, and God knows what else.

‘Ella, up here,’ Luca shouted.

She was moving before he finished thesentence, taking the steps two at a time. At the top of the landing, Lucaguided her to a door half-hidden in the shadows. Ella cocked her head,frowning. She'd assumed it was a closet, a cubby for moldy sports equipment andmoth-eaten winter coats.

‘What’s this? A closet? And a locked oneat that.’

‘Not a closet,’ he said. ‘Look closer.’

Ella did. And felt her pulse kick intooverdrive.

There, at the base of the door. A thinline of light. That meant there was a window in there, so it was more than justa closet.

‘Son of a bitch,’ she said.

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