Lila stood before the rickety house, staring up at the caving roof.
“What do you hope to find here?”
“Answers.” She marched past Lundquist and up the back steps.
“It’s not safe to be in there,” he called after her.
“Well aware of that,” she shot back.
Picking her way around the damage done by the fallen porcelain tub, she entered the kitchen. Behind her, Lundquist muttered expletives as he followed.
“The sheriff will have my head if you get hurt again.”
“She won’t if you’re hurt too.”
“You’re a sadist, aren’t you?”
She smiled at his deadpan. Inching into the dining area, she studied the room, its rubble, and the adjoining rooms. Lundquist stood in line with her but a few feet apart.
“It would help me to know what you’re looking for exactly.”
“If I’m right about Maya trying to hide out here, maybe she hid her phone or phones. Possibly Regan’s or Bobby’s. Anything of theirs that would be overlooked.”
He frowned, looking about. “Better hope it wasn’t under the bathtub.”
Lila sighed. “I am.” She headed for the living room/parlor.
“Lila.”
Stiffening, she turned casually. “What?” Well, that was weak.
“Be careful.”
The obvious concern in his tone unsettled her. One minute he acted like she was a thorn, the next she was a liability to the department, and then he’d flip it all on its head and suddenly he was worried for her welfare. She put her back to him. Deputy Kyle Lundquist was a riddle Lila did not want to unravel.
“You too. My little body can’t lift your Viking butt to safety.”
There was a strangled sound from him that made her grin. Good. He did have a sense of humor.
“Why don’t you check over the kitchen, lightweight?”
“If we strike out everywhere else, we’ll go there. The kitchen is too obvious of a hiding place. The killer or killers would look there first.”
“You are talking about a teenager with an underdeveloped brain in a panic.”
“True.” Lila lifted the edge of the ripped up carpet. “But I’d like to give Maya the benefit of the doubt and say she was being logical.” She dropped the carpet, stirring a cloud of dust.
“Not that it would matter to you, but I wouldn’t create a dust bowl. There’s a lot of nasties in the dirt in here that can cause lung problems.”
Lila saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
His face soured, and he stared at her.
“What?”
Face relaxing, he shook his head. “Nothing.” He lifted an edge of the broken table.
Shrugging off his odd reaction, she went to work, taking his warning in advisement and not disturbing the dirt and dust too much. Together, they cleared the first floor with no success. At the bottom of the steps, Lila looked up.
“I don’t know if we should chance it.” Lundquist squinted at the upper level.
“You want to run the risk of missing crucial evidence being left up there because you’re worried the floor will collapse?”
“Yes. As you so eloquently put it, my Viking butt is too heavy for that questionably stable floor.”
“Just because a porcelain tub caved in the floor of a bathroom, where I’m sure there had been water damage to weaken the integrity of the wood, doesn’t mean the rest of the upstairs is compromised.”
Lundquist gestured for her to climb the steps. “Be my guest. I think I’ll stick to the first floor.”
“All right.” Lila looked down at her duty belt. “Better still.” Nimble fingers went to work removing her belt. “Hold this. A little less weight.”
He took her belt. “Be quick about it.”
She mounted the first step. “Not how an investigator does their job. Fast work is sloppy work.” Which steps were the ones she had to avoid or risk falling through?
“You know what I mean.”
Lila peered at him over the stair railing. “Do I?”
His features hardened. Guess that answered her question. Setting aside the oddity that was Kyle Lundquist, Lila crept up the stairs, locating the weak steps as she went.
“I’ll look over the stairwell,” Lundquist said when she reached the top.
“You do that.”
Start from the big hole that was the bathroom and work her way back to the stairs? Or begin from where she stood?
A creak at the end of the hall made her shiver.
End of hall back to the stairs it was.
As she passed the smear on the wall, she hesitated and looked at it closely. If memory served her right, the condition of Regan’s body didn’t determine if her bloodied injuries were caused peri- or postmortem. Lila studied the sweep and angle of the smear. Turning her back to the hole, she swiped her hand through the air in the same direction of the stain.
Before it plunged into the hole, she thought the tub had blood in it, but it was pockmarked by rust, making it difficult to determine one way or the other.
“Lundquist?”
“Did you find something?”
“Not yet. Hey, think about the condition Regan’s body was in when she was discovered.”
After a few seconds of silence. “Okay?”
“Do you think it’s possible she’d been beaten? Tortured?”
Lila looked down the hall, picturing the bathroom once more whole. The image that came to her turned her body cold.
“Are you thinking, whether she was alive or not, the killer brought Regan here to torment Maya before they killed her too?”
Bile burned the back of Lila’s throat.
“My God,” Lundquist groaned. “Who the hell does something like that?”
“Someone bent on protecting their identity.”
Lila turned to the bedroom behind her, the room where the possum carcass stank up the place. She entered the room, gagging on the sickly sweet stench. Last time, she’d only glanced at the room, repulsed by the corpse. Finding a sturdy, rusted curtain rod, she used it to leverage the body up and flipped it over.
“Maya, you clever girl. Found them!”
Digging out gloves and a baggie, she picked up the two cell phones, gagging through it, and dumped them in the bag. She hoped the body fluids hadn’t ruined the SIM cards and computer components. A tiny part of her felt sorry for the tech who was going to have to deal with the juiced over devices.
She double-timed her way out of the room and down the hall. She waved the bag at a relieved Lundquist as she picked her way down the steps.
Lundquist handed over her duty belt and took the bagged cell phones. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t believe my hunch proved right,” Lila said as she stepped out into the fresh winter air.
“You’re just lucky you didn’t fall through the floor again.”
Rounding the corner of the house, they pulled up short at the shotgun pointed at them. Lila clutched the nylon straps, itching to grab her gun. How could she have let her guard down?
“Don’t even think of doing it. Give me the phones.”