Patrick Middleton’s house was dark when Harley arrived some ten minutes later, a stream of yellow police tape still tracing the perimeter. Having trekked from the library on foot, she hoped to evade any detection by neighbors or the police.
She approached the carriage house and studied the double doors. Padlocked. Assuming there must be another point of entry, she rounded the corner and stopped at the first of two five-feet-high windows, flanking the back wall.
After removing a crowbar from her bag, she wedged it underneath the aluminum pane and thrust backward, prying the window open wide enough for entry. Her body at an angle, she slid one leg inside the window and finding her footing, followed with the other leg.
Darkness engulfed the carriage house, and a dank mustiness assaulted her senses as she eased her head inside. She removed a strand of cobweb from her face, realizing its maker had died ages ago, entombed by walls of forgotten tools and rusted oilcans, like a long-buried secret she was not meant to unearth.
Cupping her hand over her nose and mouth, she ripped a pair of old curtains from the window. Daggers of sunlight cut though the darkness, releasing hazes of fleeing dust.
Patrick’s long-held secret, the secret that had haunted him for over thirty years, that had racked him with crippling guilt, was at last revealed.
Before Harley lay a chrome fender and a heap of gold metal.