Page 9 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

She didn’t care about the renter’s stuff. Shedidcare about anything left by the previous owners. Maybe the clues she needed to find her mother were in that room somewhere.

She couldn’t wait to start digging through it.

Aspen thoughttheir tour was over, but when they got back to the first floor, Garrett stopped beside the second door beneath the stairs. He looked…nervous.

“Uh-oh,” she said. “What’s behind door number two?” She meant it as a joke, but when he took a deep breath as if gathering courage, her heart rate sped up. “What? Damage or something? Are you storing a crazy relative down there?”

“Crazy relatives are kept in the attic,” he said, his lips twitching in an almost-smile. “Everybody knows that.”

Bodies were buried in basements.

Surely, her mother wasn’t?—

She cut off the thought with a shake of her head. Obviously, her mother’s body wasn’t lying in the basement in plain sight. She needed to get a grip. “Just tell me what’s in the basement. You’re freaking me out.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m just not sure how to… It turns out, your renter was sort of a… Well, he was a…”

When he didn’t continue, she said, “How bad can it be?”

“A child pornographer, and a kidnapper, and, it turns out, a murderer.”

She stepped back, horrified. “Oh. Oh. I had no idea. Surely my father didn’t…”

“Your dad died a year ago, right?” At her nod, he said, “The guy rented after that. It’s a really long story, and thank God it had a happy ending. But he did some renovations down here. I just wanted to warn you.”

“There’s nothing gruesome or?—”

“No, no, nothing like that. It’s just… Come on. It’s easier just to show you.”

He opened the door, pulled a chain to turn on the light, and stepped aside for her.

Thanks to the anxiety bubbling in her stomach, she wanted to ask him to go first, but she wasn’t a child. She could do this.

She took the rickety wooden staircase to the bottom and found a normal cement basement with a washer and dryer and one small window just below the ceiling, through which she could see nothing but snow. Shelves holding a few tools covered the wall straight ahead. Otherwise, the room looked perfectly normal.

Except…

She looked up at the ceiling, tried to imagine the floor plan upstairs. “I’m probably just being paranoid, but it feels too small.”

“I’m impressed you noticed.”

“You alerted me to look for something, and there’s nothing to see here.”

If she were staying, she’d definitely install better lighting to dispel the spooky factor. She stepped further into the room and saw a giant metal… something under the stairs.

“The furnace,” Garrett said.

“Ah. That explains why it’s warm down here.”

“Come on.” He crossed to the bookshelves, reached behind one, did something she couldn’t see, and then pulled the shelf inward.

Not just the shelf, though. It was a hidden door.

Garrett stepped in and flipped a switch.

As the light flickered on, she followed. There was one door on the far wall. Otherwise, the space was empty, but something creepy and terrifying slid down her spine. Despite the warmth, she suddenly felt cold and afraid. “What is it?”

“It’s an empty room,” he said, his voice soothing. “Just an empty room.”

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