CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The house was so silent even my breathing seemed to echo through the empty rooms. TC had stopped yowling, as if knowing rescue was imminent. I stepped slowly into the kitchen as my eyes adjusted to the near dark.

No appliances. Bare counters covered in a layer of dust. Leaded-glass doors on the cupboards showed they were equally bare.

The basement door was right there, in the kitchen. I took out my gun before opening it. Yes, I carried a gun jogging. Gabriel had bought me a holster and insisted on it after I found Ciara in my car. I was happy for it now. I didn’t care if the house was obviously empty—I wasn’t venturing unarmed into the pitch-black basement of an abandoned house chasing my missing cat. That screams slasher flick.

I called TC from the top of the stairs. He responded with a cry, but it was muffled, as if there was a door between us. I took it slow going down the stairs, ignoring his increasingly frantic yowls.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I called. “Remind me again why I wanted you back? Damn cat.”

The basement opened into a large room with several closed doors. It was as still as the main floor. I cast my mock flashlight around and saw more of what I’d spotted through the window. Dirt floor. Bare walls.

TC scratched at one of the closed doors. When I opened it, he darted out. I bent to pet him. As soon as I touched his side, I stopped. I could feel his ribs. His fur was matted and bedraggled.

Had he been trapped—?

No, I’d seen him outside. He must have just had a hard time on the streets.

A hard time on the streets of Cainsville? This wasn’t Englewood. He hadn’t been in this condition when he first adopted me. Thin, yes. Fleas, yes. But basically fine.

I pushed the door open farther and hit the light switch. Nothing happened. The power was off. I could see a puddle under the window, as if rain had come in. It hadn’t rained since Saturday night. There were mice, too, or what remained of them. Food and water.

“You were trapped down here,” I said. “That wasn’t you I saw.”

Yet it had been, in a way. An omen that had led me to him. When I bent, he rubbed against me and lifted onto his hind legs. I gingerly picked him up, expecting him to leap down—we didn’t have a cuddly-kitty relationship. He settled into my arms and purred.

“That happy to see me, huh?” I said. “Something tells me you won’t take off for a jaunt anytime soon.” I settled him in my arms. “Let’s get you home. I think I’ve got a can of tuna in the cupboard.”

He purred louder. I carried him up the stairs, talking to him, reaching out to push open the door, and—

My hand hit the solid door. Okay, apparently I’d shut it when I came down. That was an old habit from living at home, where my mother would get so flustered over an open basement door, you’d think hordes of bats and spiders were preparing to launch an assault.

I reached for the handle. It turned easily. I pushed. Nothing happened. I pushed harder. Still nothing.

The door was sticking. Old houses. Swollen wood. Whatever. I put TC down, twisted the handle, and rammed my shoulder against it. Pain shot through my shoulder. The door didn’t budge. I shone the light in the crack between the door and the frame, then turned the handle and watched the bolt disengage. I ran the light up and down, but there was no sign of anything else holding it closed.

“No need to panic,” I told the cat, who was placidly cleaning his ears. “There’s no one here, so we haven’t been locked in the basement. We’re just stuck. Temporarily.”

He meowed and trotted back down the stairs.

“Good idea,” I said. “Search for an alternate exit.”

I had just reached the bottom of the steps when my phone rang. Gabriel.

“What’s up?” I said as casually as I could for someone trapped in the basement of an abandoned house.

“I need information from the Meade file. You took it, correct?”

“Right. You asked me to have a look—”

“Yes, I know. But I need witness contact information from it. Are you at home?”

I looked around. “Not exactly.”

“It’s rather urgent. A new development in the case, and I have to check with the witness before the prosecution does. If you aren’t close by, I’ll need to go out to your apartment.”

“I have a security system now and updated locks.”

“Then I’ll take the code. You can change it after.”

That didn’t cover the updated locks, which he presumably could still pick. Hell, I was sure he could disarm the alarm, too—he was just pretending otherwise to make me feel secure.

“I’m close to home,” I said as I walked across the basement, looking for doors or large windows. “Just give me—”

The cat yowled.

“Is that TC?” Gabriel said.

“It is. I found him.”

A louder yowl as the cat called my attention to something. I hurried toward him. It was a dead mouse. Lovely. He kept yowling even when I patted his head.

“He doesn’t sound very happy, Olivia,” Gabriel said.

“I know. He wants to get home.”

A pause as the cat kept it up.

“Are you sure?” His voice lowered. “I know you miss him, but if he doesn’t want to go back with you—”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I never wanted a cat in the first place. Do you really think I’d be dragging him home now? Scratching and yowling?”

The cat stopped.

“Thank you,” I whispered. Then to Gabriel, “Can I call you back?”

“How far are you from home?”

“About a mile.”

“All right. While you walk, tell me what you found in—”

“Actually, now’s not a good time,” I said, staring up at another window I’d never fit through. “I’ll call you back.”

TC meowed. Loudly. It echoed through the empty basement.

“Where are you, Olivia?”

“Can I call—?”

TC began scratching at a different closed door. While yowling.

“Olivia. Where—?”

“On my way home. Soon.” I checked the room where TC had been scratching. One window. No bigger than the rest. I closed the door again. “I’ve just . . . I’ve had a setback. Can I just call you—?”

“You’re not outside, are you?”

I sighed. “No, okay? I’m . . . I found TC in the basement of an abandoned house. Well, I’m not sure you’d call it abandoned—it’s just not being lived in. I’m having trouble getting out of the basement.”

“Trouble?”

The cat sat on the bottom step, looking up at me, silent now.

“I went downstairs, and I must have closed the door, but it won’t open. It doesn’t seem to be locked, but I can’t get it—”

“You’re chatting with me about work when someone has locked you in a basement?”

“You were chatting about work. I was looking for an exit. And no one has me locked—”

“The door mysteriously closes behind you and won’t reopen?”

“I might have closed it, like I said. There’s no one here. The place is so quiet I’d hear a mouse scampering.”

A ding sounded at the other end of the line. Then the familiar whoosh of a closing elevator door.

“Where are you?” I asked carefully.

“Coming to get you.”

“No, no, no. Go back up to your condo. I’m fine.”

“You’re locked in the basement of an empty house, not even a week after being knocked out by someone who left a severed head in your bed. Also after repeatedly seeing a fetch—”

“It wasn’t a fetch. Rose thinks . . . Never mind. The point is—”

“The point is that you are trapped in a basement.” His footsteps echoed. Parking garage.

“And you are an hour away.”

“If I drove the speed limit. Which I do not.”

I sighed. “I’m fine, Gabriel. If I really can’t get out, my phone obviously works. I can call the police.”

“After breaking into an empty house?”

“It was unlocked. Look, if I need to, I can call Rose.”

“She’s in the city tonight on a date.”

“Date?” I tried to picture it and failed. “Okay, then I’ll call someone at the diner—if and when I’m absolutely sure that I can’t get out. My cell phone battery is half full. The house is silent. I’m not going to die down here.”

“What’s the address?” His car’s engine roared to life.

“Gabriel? Really. Don’t do this. I made a stupid mistake—”

“I’ll call you for the address when I’m in Cainsville. If you hear anything, phone the police. Don’t worry about trespassing charges. I can fix that.”

He hung up. TC rubbed against me, purring.

“Oh, now you’re happy. You yowled on purpose, didn’t you?” I was kidding, of course, but when he glanced up, I swear he looked very pleased with himself.

“We don’t need rescuing,” I said as I tramped up the stairs. “He knows that. He’s making a big deal out of it so I’ll owe him. Then he can get away with even more shit, because I’ll remember the times he came running to help me, and I’ll feel guilty.” I glanced at TC, leaping up the stairs alongside me. “You do realize that, don’t you?”

He purred.

I’d get this damn door open if I dislocated my shoulder doing it. I twisted the handle, went to ram it with my shoulder . . . and fell through as it opened. I tripped over the top step and landed on my hip on the kitchen floor, my cell phone skidding across the linoleum. TC trotted over to it, bent, and nosed it my way.

“Thank you,” I muttered as I sat up and grabbed it back. “You are truly helpful. You’re lucky my gun didn’t fall out and shoot you. Accidents happen, you know. Tragic kitty accidents.”

He only sniffed.

I speed-dialed Gabriel. It went to voice mail. Not surprising—it was much harder to rescue someone if she called and told you she didn’t need rescue. I told him exactly that and texted the same message, abbreviated. There could be no question now—I was fine and I’d notified him, so I owed him nothing.

“Okay, TC,” I said, pushing myself up. “Time to go home.”

He darted across the kitchen and into the next room.

“Um, wrong door?” I called.

As I followed the cat, I noticed the elaborate frieze in the front parlor. I looked at one section. Seven magpies. Six leaned over, beak to their neighbor’s head, as if whispering to him. The seventh stood there, oblivious.

Seven for a secret, not to be told.

The old rhyme played in my head.

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

Four for birth,

Five for silver,

Six for gold;

Seven for a secret,

Not to be told;

Eight for heaven,

Nine for hell,

And ten is for the devil’s own self.

I craned my neck to scan the entire frieze. They were all magpies, in their groups, from one to ten. The first magpie with its wing over its head, weeping. Then two with their heads thrown back, laughing. I quickly snapped pictures. Then I backed up to the dining room. The frieze here was crows, illustrating a similar rhyme.

One for bad news,

Two for mirth.

Three is a wedding,

Four is a birth.

Five is for riches,

Six is a thief.

Seven, a journey,

Eight is for grief.

Nine is a secret,

Ten is for sorrow.

Eleven is for love,

Twelve is the hope of joy for tomorrow.

TC meowed from the next room. Right. This wasn’t an open house. Time to get my damn cat and go.

“Come on,” I whispered. “We need to leave out the back—”

He darted in the opposite direction.

“Hey!”

I rounded the corner into the front hall . . . only to see him leaping up the stairs.