83: Porter felt the weight of Bishop’s knife in his pocket.
This was not going well. This was not going well at all. I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans searching for the familiar hilt of my Buck knife. If I had it, I could slash this man across the neck. I’d cut right through all his chins and let his blood loose like a faucet. I was fast. I knew I was fast. But was I fast enough? Surely I could kill him before this overweight waste of a man could react, right? Father would want me to kill him. Mother too. They would. I knew they would.
Bishop’s words rattled back at him from the diary.
They stood outside the Carter trailer after photographing everything. They bagged the locket and key. The clothes went back into the backpack. They left it on the floor of the bedroom, the floorboards and mattress still up.
Above, the moon crept out, pushing aside dark curtains in an effort to steal a peek at the earth below. The air turned decidedly cold, nothing like the weather in Chicago, but there was a deep, humid chill to it, one that teased Porter’s bones.
Sarah wanted to go to town, find a hotel, get rest. She didn’t have to say it again. He saw it in her eyes. She was tired. She had had enough for one night.
Porter turned away from her and stared back at the woods lining the property behind both houses, at the small path leading into those woods.
There was a flutter in his stomach. His skin tingled.
The beam of Sarah’s flashlight went from the ground at Porter’s feet, swept across the yard, then met with his, illuminating the mouth of the path. “Nobody has been living out here for years. Why do you think that path is still there? Shouldn’t it have grown over by now?”
“Animals, maybe. Or the same kids who party here in the trailer.”
Or something else. Something worse.
The knife felt warm. He hadn’t realized he even put his hand back in his pocket. His fingers slipped over the surface of the handle.
“You can stay here,” he offered.
Sarah was already shaking her head. “You’re not going out there alone.”
With that, they crossed the lawn toward the path, stepping over the trunk of a small fallen tree before disappearing down the path’s throat, the beams of their flashlights dueling with the dark.