Page 56 of The Evening Wolves

A gust of wind made the night shudder. That’s what it looked like, at least—as though everything were moving: stars, sky, branches, the darkness itself. And the front door of the Brey house shimmied open. When the breeze died, the door rocked back into place until, once again, it appeared to be shut.

John-Henry watched, one hand on the steering wheel.

It could have been anything. It was an old house. It was an old door. He and Emery lived in an old house, and one of the realities of old houses was that, as the house settled, things quickly shifted out of true. Floors became uneven. Windows stuck. Doors that might have closed easily when they’d first been hung now became impossible to open—or wouldn’t shut at all, not unless you really laid into them. Brey had come home. He’d been careless. The latch hadn’t caught. That was all.

Once more the night seemed to ripple, branches creaking, granules of snow rattling against the side of the Mustang, a strong current running through the river of darkness. The door inched open again, a wedge of light fattening on the porch. And then the door drifted shut again.

Or someone else, John-Henry thought with a detached clarity. Someone who didn’t know the house, didn’t know old doors sometimes didn’t close as easily as you thought.

He grabbed his phone and got out of the car.

The wind rose again, raking his hair, a cold hand pressing against his cheek. He hurried across the icy street. He could smell the cold dark and something like dog piss and his own breath. Little clouds of vapor trailed him. The night was so still, he thought the first sound would crack it.

When he reached the house, another breeze forced open the door, and John-Henry found himself staring inside: a foyer, dark timbers, dark tile, a switchback staircase, a rug. It was impossible to make out anything else without more light. He listened. TV voices, too low for him to make out the words, came from an archway to his left, and he caught those glimmers of bluish-gray light again. A smell wafted out to him, unpleasant but too faint for him to be able to tell what it was. He told himself to call out, to announce himself. But he didn’t.

He’d been police for a long time—at this point, he’d been police longer than he’d been anything else. And right then, instincts honed over the years were screaming at him, telling him to get back to the car, call this in, and next time, pack a fucking gun. But he didn’t do that either. This was Auburn, and the chief of police in Auburn was Jonas Cassidy. Cassidy’s past was problematic enough—the short version was that he’d been Emery’s partner and then, when Emery had exposed his corruption, Cassidy had been saved by his father, a captain in the Metropolitan Police, and Emery had found himself ejected from the force. On top of that, though, Cassidy was somehow tied into whatever organization was operating out of the Cottonmouth Club. If something was happening here tonight, calling Cassidy would be like bringing in reinforcements for the bad guys.

He might have turned back. He might have gotten in the Mustang and driven away. But a sound stopped him—a phone buzzing. John-Henry shoved a hand into his pocket to silence it, cursing his stupidity and bad luck. But his phone wasn’t vibrating, and a moment later, he realized the sound had a different quality. A dim glow showed him where a phone lay on the floor next to the stairs. The screen went dark, and the phone’s buzzing stopped.

Nobody left their phone on the floor, John-Henry thought. Not unless they had a good reason. Not in the entry hall. It would have been another thing if it had been somewhere else—on the floor in the living room, say, where it might have gotten knocked off the arm of the recliner and overlooked. But here? Something had happened. And it had happened right here.

John-Henry stepped inside and shut the door, leaning against it to close it firmly. No prints, he thought. Absolutely no fingerprints.

He started off at a quick walk and, the next heartbeat, almost ended up on his ass. The rug slid underfoot, and because he’d been walking so quickly, it had almost taken him out. He recovered his balance and took a deep breath; he could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. His first thought, mingling disbelief and outrage, was that Emery never would have let something like that happen. He would have bought one of those rug backers, the no-slip kind. And the thought, how immediate it had been, made John-Henry want to burst out laughing. He recognized the laughter, too, as an overflow of adrenaline, and he managed to swallow it as he moved deeper into the house.

When he cleared the rug, his sneakers made a soft squeak on the tile—the rubber, wet from the snow and ice, and it squeaked again on his next step. He moved more slowly, trying to minimize the noise, hoping the sound of the TV would cover it.

He started with the archway on his left. It connected with a hallway, and the first opening in the hallway led into what must have been called a great room or a family room or a gathering room. A massive television hung on one wall, faced by an ancient Chesterfield sofa and a much more modern-looking recliner, with gleaming leather and chrome. An updated wet bar, with a lot of expensive-looking glassware, took up the wall opposite the TV. A large opening connected with a kitchen, where the only light came from under the microwave. The television displayed the Netflix home page, and as John-Henry stood there, it cycled through the preview clip for what appeared to be a Christmas-action-horror movie called Just Clause. A bare-chested and ridiculously buff Santa was carrying a waifish (and mostly naked) girl over his shoulder. He had positioned her just right so she didn’t get in the way of the assault rifle strapped across his muscular back.

“We’ve got to get out!” the girl screamed.

“The only way out,” Santa answered, “is up.”

Since they were approaching the fireplace, John-Henry decided that meant going up the chimney. He also decided that if he survived the next few days and didn’t spend the majority of the next decade or two in prison, he and Colt were definitely going to have to watch that movie.

The Netflix trailer reached its end. Silence swallowed the house again. Then something beeped, breaking the quiet, and John-Henry started. His gaze moved to the kitchen. The microwave’s display flashed. The Netflix trailer began again, but now that John-Henry was listening for it, he could hear the microwave’s reminder beep when it came again. He passed into the kitchen.

The stink that had met him in the entry hall was stronger now. Burned popcorn. The microwave flashed the word DONE at him and beeped again. John-Henry’s mind began to assemble a narrative: Brey had been ready to call it a night. He’d turned off the lights. Popped a bag of popcorn. Started scrolling through Netflix, looking for something to watch. And—

A gap opened in the story. Something had happened. Something that had left the front door swinging in the breeze.

John-Henry retraced his steps through the great room, out into the hallway. Without the glow from the TV, the darkness seemed even thicker, but he didn’t want to use the flashlight on his phone because it would reveal his position, announcing his presence to anyone still in the house. He moved slowly, each step coming down carefully on the tile, straining to hear. The next door opened onto an office—he could make out the shape of the desk, the computer, the filing cabinets—and the one after that appeared to be a guest room, with a bed and dresser, but pristine and smelling slightly musty, with no personal effects to suggest anyone used the room regularly.

The hallway turned, and the final door was bolted. After a moment’s hesitation, he covered his hand with his sleeve and threw back the bolt. When he opened the door, he found the garage. Cold air washed over him, making him shiver. A single car occupied the garage. The gloom made it impossible to make out details, but he guessed the shadows clumped up against the walls were the usual junk that accumulated in a garage. He shut the door, wiped down everything he’d touched, and retraced his steps to the entry hall.

He found a dining room with big windows that looked out on the street. Light filtered into the room and gleamed on a table and chairs and china hutch. Next, a formal living room, with more of those big windows. Another old-fashioned sofa and chairs, a piano with its lid open, the steel and bronze inside glittering like teeth. Someone had left a copy of Country Living on the coffee table, and even though there wasn’t enough light to read the date, it looked like it might have been older than John-Henry.

The only other door off the entry hall led into a bedroom. John-Henry knew at once it was the master or the primary or whatever you were supposed to call it these days. The size was one clue—the room was much bigger than the guest room he’d seen earlier. Heavy wooden furniture made bulky shadows in the weak light. He caught a faded, floral scent that reminded him of the sachets his grandmother used to keep in dresser drawers, but it mingled with a musty smell that reminded him of the guest room. John-Henry debated exploring the room further. Curiosity made him want to check the closets, the walk-in bath, the bedding. Why hadn’t Brey moved into this room after his parents died? What might John-Henry find if he poked around? He had a Hitchcock-induced vision of finding a mummified Mother Brey wrapped in a nightgown and propped up in an old-fashioned wheelchair. Honestly, he thought as he eased the door shut and retreated, at this point, Psycho would be a relief compared to what he was dealing with.

The only place left was up, and John-Henry fought the urge to whisper to himself, The only way out is up. He didn’t, of course. In part because his instincts were still screaming at him. And in part because he knew the goofiness was a result of the hormones rushing through his body, making it hard to think clearly. But mostly because he knew that Emery would have killed him if he’d been here.

He was on the landing of the switchback stairs when a thud came from above him, and then a muffled grunt. John-Henry stopped. His heart raced, the sound of its drumming filling his ears. He thought, for a moment, it was too loud for him to hear anything else. But then the microwave beeped downstairs. He waited. On the walls, generations of Breys stared down at him, their eyes silver in the weak light that filtered in through the windows. No more noises came from above. After a minute, he started up the stairs again, testing each tread to see if it would creak before he trusted his weight to it.

Why didn’t you bring a gun, he asked himself.

Because I’m an idiot, he told himself. Because I was making a point.

What that point might have been, though, was lost to him. It had been a long time since he’d run away from a fight—even a fight with Emery. And he was aware, under the roil of emotions, that he’d acted like a child, and that even Colt had probably rolled his eyes at that display of emotional maturity.

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