“I don’t see why not,” said Charles. “I’d love the company.”
“But he just got back from his last run,” Patty said. “He won’t have another until next month. That’s not to say you’re not welcome to stay that long of course, but—”
“No,” Nora said, more forcefully than she’d intended. She willed her voice to soften. “That’s okay. I’ve got…work.”
“I’m happy to have a look,” said Phil. “Really. Charlie, why don’t you come along and show me where you crashed? I can get on it later today.”
“No,” Nora said again. “I mean, I’ll go. Charlie had some things around here he wanted to do. Right, Charlie?”
Charlie finally caught on with the help of a subtle pinch to the side from Nora.
“Uh, yeah.”
“Well, that settles that,” said Ruby. “Now shake a leg and get changed. I could use some help putting lunch together.”
Nora found the pile of clothes waiting for her when she got downstairs. She sifted through the neutral fabrics, holding each item up to her front. Just about everything looked handmade, the simple cuts sewn with relative skill. She selected a pair of gray pants and a pale salmon top and made for the door to find somewhere private to change, but was promptly interrupted by a groan from Charlie, who was almost entirely submerged in the bedroom closet.
Nora froze. Was that a groan of pain? Had Nora missed something somehow and, in doing so, allowed Death to finally claim her brother?
“Charlie?” Nora called.
Charlie poked his head, still in its proper place on his neck, out of the closet. “I don’t see any of Dad’s stuff. It all looks like Charles’s. I’ll hulk out of these sweater-vests.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nora muttered to herself. “Maybe Dad’s stuff is somewhere else? I don’t know, Charlie. If you can’t find them, then borrow Richard’s clothes. Just stay away from that Phil guy. He’s my top suspect right now.”
“Wait, seriously? He’s kinda hot though, right?”
“CousinPhil clearly got here just before we did, and he knows those woods. He could easily have known a shortcut. Plus his clothes are covered in mud. From climbing trees? And he has all the tools in town, apparently. Not to mention how keen he was to spend some one-on-one time with you.”
“I mean, I also wouldn’t mind—”
“CousinPhil,” Nora repeated. “Stay away from him. Please, for the love of god.”
“Okay, okay,” said Charlie, his more serious tone returning. “You’re right. That’s all sus as fuck. No hot cousin Phil time. Noted.”
“Thank you. Now, I’m going to change into something that doesn’t smell like sweat and mental anguish. Please try not to get killed while I’m gone.”
Charlie gave her a salute, and Nora finally made it out the door. Back in the common area, she decided to change in Patty’s old room. It seemed appropriate since she was getting into her clothes. Why not embrace the transformation fully? But as she reached for the handle, the third basement door caught her eye. It was narrower than the bedroom doors, clearly a closet of some kind. The kind of closet where folks might keep a bunch of oldclothes belonging to their son, maybe. Nora knew her father’s things would be Charlie’s preference over the stodgy wardrobe of their grandfather. Though nothing could quite compete with Charlie’s novelty T-shirt collection, family photos suggested Martin Bird had a decent sense of style in his day, always in something acceptably well cut and rich or darkly colored to accent his eyes, although Nora couldn’t account for how much of that was her mother’s influence.
Nora opened the closet and was promptly greeted by a wall of dust. She coughed and sputtered as the motes clambered up her nose. Clearly this thing hadn’t been opened in a while. When she’d finished frantically waving away the settling cloud, Nora inspected the shelves within, stacked with dinosaur-print linens and a few well-loved plush toys. Beneath the shelves, a garbage bag sat slumped on the floor. She slid it out and opened it to find a mass of tangled old clothes staring back at her. Vindicated, she went to close the door when something else caught her eye. Something familiar.
In a cardboard box on the floor next to where the bag had sat was a stack of file folders. Nora looked at them with narrowed eyes. Those files…she shook her head. S.C.Y.T.H.E. intentionally used the most generic brand of generic file folders for their cases. These could hold anything, and likely did: tax records, old receipts, more of her dad’s impressively bad artwork. And yet, the familiarity of their innocuous beige niggled at her.
She glanced behind her, twice over each shoulder just in case, then plunged in, plucking the first file her eager fingertips touched. She pried it open, a puff of dust wafting out, then promptly slammed it closed. Then opened it again. Then closed it.
No. This wasn’t possible. She grabbed another file andopened that one. Then another. With bated breath she grabbed one more, but as soon as she read the first words, she immediately regretted it. And even more than that: she regretted coming here, and everything that led up to it.
* * *
Once she was changed, Nora went back into her dad’s old bedroom and threw the bag of clothes at her brother. He was sitting on the bed, Jessica cradled in his arms like a baby.
“You found them,” Charlie said, sifting through the bag.
“Yeah,” said Nora, still numb from shock.
“Jeez, Dad really had a thing for paisley, huh?”
“Charlie,” said Nora, “I found something else.”
