Thicker Than Blood - the Complete Andrew Z. Thomas Trilogy - Blake Crouch [126]
Vi walked to the backdoor and peered through glass panes into the moony backyard, taking in the oak, its tree house, the rope swing, the pier, the lake. Cutting off the flashlight, she walked back through the dining room into the den, her eyes now where she wanted them, accustomed to the shadows. She could’ve turned on the lights but she needed to encounter the house as he had encountered it.
The smell sharpened in the den. She stopped and looked down at a bowl of popcorn on the floor. A videotape case sat empty on top of the television. Movie night. She walked over, glanced at the title: Where the Red Fern Grows.
When the telephone rang, Vi drew a sudden breath.
The answering machine picked up after two rings: "This is Theresa."
"Zack, too."
"Hank!"
"And Ben!"
Familial laughter.
A boy’s voice continued: "We aren’t here. Leave a message if you want."
After the beep: "Hey ya’ll. It’s Janet. Hadn’t heard from you yet about next weekend, so I’m just calling to bug ya. Really hope you can make it. Jack and Susie send their love. Talk to you soon."
The silence resumed.
Stepping into the hallway, Vi glanced in the bathroom, then continued to the doorway of the older boy’s room. She saw Hank Worthington in bed under the covers. He only looked asleep and she thought, This house would feel so normal if you couldn’t smell the death.
At the end of the hall, the door to Zach and Theresa’s bedroom stood wide open. Vi approached carefully, as though she might wake them, pulse racing, a pounding in the side of her neck.
She did not deny or curse the fear. Squatting down, she prayed, I don’t feel You in this house. Go with me into that bedroom. She rose, felt just as alone, but walked on until she stood in the threshold of the master bedroom, eyes watering from the smell.
Vi had no tricks for steeling herself up to see innocence eviscerated. It punched the wind out of you and then you carried on or you quit. Sgt. Mullins had told her that early on. He’d been right.
With the tip of her pencil, she flicked the light switch.
The room shrieked at her and she let slip a bated whimper. Her stomach fluttered as she took three steps forward and looked straight into the worst of it.
Mr. and Mrs. Worthington stared back at her, despoiled of any scintilla of dignity.
Vi jotted on her notepad, relieved to look away.
When she finished she walked back down the hall into the foyer and opened the front door.
It felt so good to breathe fresh air again. She wanted to wash her hands for an hour.
As she stepped onto the front porch and pulled the door closed after her, she felt Sgt. Mullins and the CSI techs studying her, reading the abhorrence on her face, reflecting it in their own.
"The parents are torn up," she said to everyone. "May be a ritual-type thing. And the boy under the table is holding something in his right hand."
One of the techs said, "You know Andrew Thomas used to live just across the lake. Bet you ten beers this was him. He’s come back out of hiding. Wanted to do it with a flourish."
As Vi stepped across the sidewalk into the grass, she saw a local news van parking in the cul-de-sac.
The patrolman stood in the street with his arm around Brenda Moorefield and as Vi walked toward them, cold again, she called her husband and told him not to wait up.
23
ON the day he planned to interview Andrew Thomas, Horace Boone woke to the frozen pitiless darkness of his singlewide shithole on the outskirts of Haines Junction. The kerosene heater had gone out again during the night and despite five layers of quilts and blankets he lay on the mattress on the floor, shivering uncontrollably. Having woken cold for the last two weeks he was beginning to realize that he would not survive a Yukon winter in this rundown shelter, when the temperature fell to minus forty and the wind howled through the thin walls.
He threw off the covers and came to his feet, already fully clothed