Alonealone.
Even what Davis has implied—having heirs and not claiming heirs are two different things—suggests that he was alone.
“Don’t know,” Davis finally says.
“Someone had to. If he lived here, he would’ve stored things in the basement and there would be furniture in the room. Even minimal furniture. Like a bed. Something to put a lamp or a candle on. Something to eat on. Or eat with. Maybe he gardened and stored canned vegetables down here. Or he was secretly a Halloween freak and used this space to store all of his skeletons and pumpkins. Everyone hasthings. Where are all of thethings?”
He stares at me a moment, then shakes his head and starts for the stairs. “I’ll ask a few people who might know.”
“Your sister?”
He doesn’t answer.
I roll my eyes at his back, and he catches me as he glances back. “You go up first.”
No point in arguing.
We’re done down here.
But about halfway up, there’s a more ominous creak than any I’ve heard before.
And as my brain clicks with the realization that we can’t see the underside of the stairs, the wood beneath me gives way.
27
Davis
Sloane makes a noise,and then a cloud of dust envelops her as she drops.
No, not drops.
Falls.
Falls through the stairs.
My heart stops beating. My brain pictures her falling sixty feet into the earth below.
I drop the flashlight.
I drop the metal detector.
And I lunge to save her. “Sloane.”
“Mother—auuullkkk—fucker,” she gasps.
She coughs.
I suck in a cloud of dust and cough.
But I have her.
I have my arms around her, and I’m hauling her out by her armpits.
One foot fell in. Not both. She only went down to her thigh. Not all the way.
She’s not dead.
She didn’t fall sixty feet from the sky.
