Page 43 of Catching Fire

Smart.Though she searched carefully, she didn't see any. In fact, the door didn't even look like it might have a serious lock on it. When she motioned to him that she’d found nothing, Kalan looked to Maggie. Once the three of them silently agreed, he turned the knob and headed in.

With one last look around, Seline noted that the agents following them were now nowhere to be seen. Rossi told her that, if the three of them were intent on going in, they should make it look like a home job. Seline figured they were doing damn decent work of looking like amateurs.

She crossed the threshold carefully, worried about rotted flooring, rodents and killers. But the house was empty.

It smelled stale and old. Not even the ancient smells of food-once-cooked lingered. It had been abandoned that long.

They opened every door but found nothing. A few pieces of old furniture were covered in dust, and Maggie stomped on the floor, making an odd pattern in the footprints they’d already left as she tried to brush old carpets aside. One was so old that it crackled as she toed it.

Dust poofed into the air, and all three of them jumped back.

When the rug was finally moved and the dust settled again, there was only hardwood floor and not the cellar or crawlspace entry they had hoped for.

The sun had moved noticeably in the sky in the time it took to inspect the house. They declared the house done and headed back outside.

“Garage,” Maggie declared, and the three of them agreed.

Again, Seline looked over her shoulder, still not having seen the agents that had followed them here.

The garage proved just as useless as the house. The old car was rusting under more layers of dust, and the mouse droppings indicated that the only ones who had been here weren’t human.

The barn yielded nothing, the hay dry and crackling. When they moved a few old bales aside, again they filled the air with dust and old pollen. Maggie sneezed and Seline coughed, though Kalan seemed somehow immune.

She was starting to lose hope. She looked to Kalan who seemed to understand her distress. Softly, he reached out and took her hand in his. She felt her heart rate steady, and she wished she was anywhere but here. Anywhere but searching for a friend and hoping she wasn’t a serial killer’s latest victim. “Where do we go next?”

Maggie pulled up her phone. Though cell reception was terrible, she'd been prepared and taken a screenshot earlier. She showed them the picture and pointed. “If you look at the aerial photos, it looks like there's another building out that way.”

From where they stood, the building was off in the distance. They'd be getting further from the car, unless they drove it.

Seline shook her head. “I don’t think my car can make it over this turf. And I didn't see a tractor we could drive.”

They would walk it, even though the sun was low enough now to make her wonder if they’d make it back in time.

It was Kalan who said, “We need drinks.”

Though Seline hadn't thought of it herself, her dry throat agreed with him, and they reluctantly walked the other direction back to the car. Within minutes, Kalan had put a cold bottle of a sport drink in each of their hands.

“Drink it as we go,” he motioned them onward and the three began trekking across what had once been cornfields.

Seline had learned quickly that while the dry stalks looked like they would crumble beneath her heavy shoes, they poked and tried to push through the sole. She stepped carefully.

When they got to the building, Kalan reached for the door, but this time it was Selene who stopped him.

Pointing toward the corner, she said, “Look.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kalan froze. “Holy shit.”

Though he’d told Seline to look for cameras—or anything else digital—by the time they hit the barn, he’d quit looking. The farm appeared truly abandoned. Clearly, he’d expected this small building to be, too.

Thank God Seline had taken the instruction seriously. He would have walked right past the tiny spyware she was now quietly pointing out. Hidden almost completely by a sagging piece of siding, she’d maybe seen it because she was shorter.

He realized then that they’d been discovered. Anyone smart enough to install and mostly camouflage a camera was mostly likely watching or had a motion sensor alerting them to activity. Sanders had probably just watched them find his hardware.

Crap.

But if Sanders was inside, Kalan wasn't going to give him the time to run. With a quick motion, he grabbed for the knob already leaning in to open it before he realized it didn't turn. “It’s locked.”

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