Page 14 of I Know She Was There

I followed his gaze, taking in the deceptively cheery house. “Looking at this place now, I almost don’t believe what I saw.”

“Do you think maybe youcouldhave imagined?—”

“I didn’t imagine the bump on my head.” My hand went instinctively to the lump at the back of my skull. “Someone knocked me out.”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his own head in an unconscious display of sympathy pain. “We shouldn’t even be here.”

“True.” I studied him. Tried to gauge his next move. He stood awkwardly, as if unsure about what to do. “We’re here now, though. Might as well look around.”

As if taking my comment as permission, he nodded. Closed his car door and walked around the front of the Jeep.

“Hold on,” I said, turning and sprinting to my car. I opened the driver’s-side door and glanced into the back seat to ensure Emmy was okay. Her head had tilted forward, the lower half of her face beneath an enveloping blanket. I could see only the top of her fuzzy head and her tiny row of eyelashes resting above pillowy cheeks. I reached over the seat and plucked at the light blanket, exposing her tiny form in a simple pink onesie. Her undefined arms and legs, like little rolls of fresh, unbaked dough, looked too still, too serene, to be real. But even the slightest discomfort would shoot those tiny limbs into motion and disrupt her peaceful visage. I cracked open the windows a little more to ensure her comfort and snagged the keys out of the ignition, then quietly closed the door, locking it with the remote. Emmy would be okay for just a few minutes. It was cool. I recalled my car thermostat displaying a temperature of sixty-seven degrees.

Looking up, I saw Jeffrey step onto the front porch and knock on the door. I crossed the yard and halted on the brick path in front of the house, noticing the wooden door Jeffrey continued to knock against was beautifully carved in an intricate floral pattern. It struck me then, the impossibility of an atrocity occurring behind such an exquisite door. I wondered if Jeffrey’s suggestion might be true. Perhaps I’d onlythoughtI’d seen Melanie in deadly distress. Maybe I’d fallen backward and bumped my own head.

“Nobody home.” Jeffrey turned toward me with an expression that confirmed what the police had said.

I looked up at the window where I’d seen the woman, remembered her eyes, huge with horror. Beseeching. Pleading. She was real. She had to be.

“Let’s go around back.”

Jeffrey followed close behind. As we walked, an impression swirled in the back of my brain like a persistent fly. As we rounded the house, I tried to isolate the sensation. Pinpoint what was bothering me. But, like trying to catch that pesky insect, my mind couldn’t close around the thought. Couldn’t grasp the feeling.

Jeffrey’s voice was in my left ear. “Why don’t you check the shed out back?”

“Why?” I stopped and looked at him.

He shrugged. “Just being thorough.”

“Okay.” But I didn’t know what he expected me to find. Disturbed dirt in the shed floor revealing a shallow grave? I’d seen a movie when I was around ten where that had been the case. Zombie hands clawed up through the disrupted soil on my thirteen-inch television screen. Scared the shit out of me and earned me a scolding from my mom about watching inappropriate shows when I should have been sleeping.

I crossed the backyard, looking over my shoulder. Jeffrey was trying the back slider, which didn’t appear to budge. I stepped into the shed, glancing at the row of gardening tools hanging on one wall. It was surprising that the previous residents hadn’t taken any of the implements with them to their new place, but maybe they’d moved into a condo.Or the murdering husband is booking a flight toMexico.I looked at the pegged implements—rakes, brooms, lopping shears, a shovel—all glinting in the early afternoon light like shiny new offerings in a hardware store. I noticed the shed floor was a spotless concrete slab.

When I stepped out of the small structure, Jeffrey was nowhere to be seen. I crossed the weedless grass and stepped onto the back deck. “Jeffrey?”

No answer.

I walked to the slider and pulled the handle. The door slid open with a swish. I stared at it as if it were enchanted. Jeffrey was in the empty dining room beyond the doors.

I stepped over the threshold. “How did you get this door open? I saw you tugging on it.”

“Oh, that.” He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Credit card.” He grinned, looking charmingly handsome. “Oldest trick in the book.”

I tilted my head, considering. “I thought that was one of those things you only saw in movies.”

He didn’t answer, just kept looking around the empty space as if trying to imagine what it might have looked like with furniture.

The thought came to me instantly—the niggling in the far recesses of my brain:Check the vestibule. That’s where I’d been the night before—where I’d lunged inside and had my head bashed in. I stepped into the foyer and looked around the empty space. The white Carrara marble entryway floor revealed no footprints or debris from outside—no errant blade of grass or a stray leaf marring its surface. Odd. With no doormat to wipe one’s feet, how did the area remain pristine? Surely I’d brought something in on my shoes the night before? A chill ran up my spine. Someone had cleaned up.

I turned back toward the living room, looking around. Once more, Jeffrey wasn’t there. I retraced my steps, entering the dining area and heading left through the expansive kitchen, all white cabinetry, granite surfaces, and stainless steel appliances—even a state-of-the-art blender like the one featured inTop Chef, my favorite television cooking show. A kitchen I could only dream of cooking in. Today I rushed through it, for once uninterested in the layout of the place. Next came a bathroom, stripped of its shower curtain, soap dish, and towels, and two bedrooms. Both empty as scoured bowls. I circled back to the staircase in the center of the house. Taking two steps at a time, I made it to the upstairs landing, looking to my right where Jeffrey was exiting a room.

“There you are.” I huffed, unsure whether the quick shot of physical exertion or the fear of nearing the place where I’d seen the doomed woman seized my lungs, making me gulp for air.

“Another empty room,” was all he said, passing me and heading to my left, down the hallway.

My heart rate accelerated as I followed him into the far room, the master bedroom with attached bath. Like the rest of the house, the empty space looked like it had just been cleaned. No dust, windows sparkling in the midday sunshine. I instinctively felt my eyes roaming over the cream-colored walls for any specks of—what? Dirt? Blood?

Jeffrey stepped into the master bath and disappeared. Only his footsteps belied his presence. I glanced at the expanse of louvered closet doors against the far wall. They looked so much like the ones in my house when I was growing up. I recalled games of hide-and-seek with my dad, peeking through the angled slats to watch his feet roaming around, “searching” for me. My eyes took in the wide plank floorboards, pine or light oak. The floor looked clean enough to serve a meal on.

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