Fletch hugged the tree line for as long as he could before making his break for the back of his parents’ house. He unscrewed the bulb from the sidelight when they reached the back door, blanketing them in darkness.
He stood watch as Brick moved in to pick the lock. The night was quiet with only the moon as their witness. The weather in Seattle would be turning cold soon. He couldn’t help but wonder if Kyle was somewhere warm. Moments later, they were inside. The previous feeling of being watched wasn’t there this time around as they moved from the back laundry room into the house.
Some of the finishing may have changed, but the old layout remained, providing Fletch with the ability to move quickly from room to room. Brick followed him through the kitchen and into his father’s study, which was eerily the same as he remembered. Dark paneling covered the walls while highly polished hardwood flooring shone in the moonlight coming in through the windows.
He’d received an uncountable number of lectures in this room throughout his childhood. Spent mostly with his head down, watching his reflection in the hardwood. Two of the walls held custom floor-to-ceiling bookcases typically packed full of books, but not now. There was barely enough to cover one shelf.
“Where did all the books go?” Fletch mused aloud. “This room had been full the last time I saw it.”
Then he saw the monitors set up along the back wall. “So that’s why we felt like someone was watching us because someone was. We need to find out who that person was.”
“I’ll search the desk,” Brick said. “I want you to get a better look around the house overall. I’m curious what else is missing.”
“Same here,” Fletch agreed. “The place looks bare.”
He turned and went back out the study door and continued past the living room he’d seen at their first meeting and to the stairs. Slowly, he ascended to the second story, watching ahead for any movement. Sure, they believed his parents were here alone, but you could never be too careful. It wasn’t as if they’d tell them.
When he reached the landing, once a communal space at the top of the stairs, Fletch found it empty. His mother’s Bosendorfer grand piano, which had sat front and center, taking advantage of the lofty ceilings and large space, was nowhere in sight. She’d played it every day when he was young. Now, there wasn’t even a plant in this room, making it an eerily dead space.
Down the hall were five closed doors, the bedrooms, and the bathroom. He came to the first door, which used to be his and Kyle’s bedroom, and opened it. Empty. Another empty room. It wasn’t as if he thought his parents would keep anything of his as a memento of their firstborn son, but Kyle had been wiped out as well.
He shut the door to ensure he left no trace they were there. He came to the bathroom, which looked unused and ready for an update with its green toilet and tub, then to his sisters’ room, finding it much the same condition as the other. It seemed even the golden daughters didn’t survive the purge.
The spare bedrooms were barren, as well as having a thick layer of dust covering everything. It appeared that no one had been in them for years. When Fletch came to the end of the hallway, the only room left to check was his parents’ master bedroom. To say this was creepy as fuck was an understatement, but he pushed on.
He opened the door and could barely see inside because the curtains had been drawn, covering all the windows. Fletch took out his pencil light, knowing no one would be able to see the glow outside, and stepped into the one place he’d never been allowed.
This room had some furniture, a queen bed, a couple of high-backed lounge chairs near the bay window, and a small coffee table set between. It was clean and tidy but nowhere near his parents’ preference for excess. The vanity area in their en suite bathroom was devoid of fancy perfume bottles, cologne, creams in their gold jars, and those Mason Pearson hairbrushes his mother liked. He never understood the need for brushes costing hundreds of dollars. What was left there appeared old and well used. There was nothing new.
Elizabeth Daniels was known to go on shopping sprees for no reason. Coming home with designer dresses and handbags she’d wear to lectures to appear “more” than the other professors and drawing that line in concrete. The message was clear: The Danielses were better than all of them. Fletch wasn’t making that up in his imagination. He’d heard his mother talking about how far above she was than the head of her department at the university. She referred to the other woman as a simpleton wasting her money on books and charities.
He moved on to their walk-in closet only to find more of the same, and there wasn’t a designer bag in sight. Half the racks were empty and what was left looked like a hodgepodge of pieces taken from what their wardrobe used to be. There was no question in his mind: his parents were in financial straits. They’d been liquidating their belongings for a while, but why? They still had their high-paying jobs, not to mention all the money they’d inherited.
There should have been more than enough to keep them living comfortably for the rest of their lives. Where did it all go?
On top of the dresser sat a stapled stack of paper. Carefully, he used a nearby pen to lift the pages to read what was inside. It was a residential sales agreement for the house in Ensenada between his parents and Salvador Realty. Spence had already checked, and his parents were still listed as owners of the house in Mexico. Were they planning to sell it at one point? And why hadn’t they?
Fletch continued through the bedroom, using his flashlight to scan each area before moving on to the next. He noticed discoloration on the walls indicating where a painting had been hung and removed.
At the foot of their bed, the Persian rug was worn almost bare along with the silk comforter on the bed. When he moved on to the chairs, his light caught something darker on the pale fabric arm of one chair. As he got closer, Fletch recognized what he was seeing.
Blood.
“I’ve got blood upstairs in the master bedroom,” Fletch announced, his voice cold but his heart pumping double time.
“On my way,” Brick replied.
Fletch knelt to get a better look at the stain on the underside of the armrest, and it appeared to be an outline that reminded him of fingers. As if someone had blood on their hand when they sat down in the chair. It was on the right side of the chair, leading him to believe it was from someone’s right hand, and by the size of the fingers, the person was a man. His father.
“Whatcha got?” Brick asked as he entered the room.
“Bloody fingerprints under the armrest of that chair,” Fletch said as he pointed at the telltale piece of furniture.
“I’ll take a sample of it and see if we can find a match,” Brick stated before taking a small clear tube from his pocket.
Fletch held the flashlight as Brick opened the lid and pulled out a cotton swab, adding a few drops of liquid to the end before rubbing it over the dried bloodstain. The swab came back red, and Brick dropped it back into the tube.
“Let’s pull back before our luck runs out,” Brick suggested, and Fletch had to agree they’d been in here long enough. His skin was beginning to crawl.
“Let’s go.”