I knew it would take Claude Henry a while to get out that far, so I climbed the steps and went back into the house.

I’m not sure what I hoped to find, but nothing had changed, nothing stood out. I turned my flashlight over the space. The chairs, the table setting… it was all so common. If the door wasn’t broken, I would think he had just walked off.

As I turned to leave the kitchen a second time, the light hit the doorframe just right, and it reflected back. The pearlescent sheen warped and moved with the light. Some kind of oil mark. I examined it closer, catching it from all angles, stopping just shy of contact. 

The engine in the drive sent my heart off at a thousand miles an hour and pulled me from my study with a chill I couldn’t shake.

I took the stairs two by two, reaching the driveway at the same time as the door opened.

Claude Henry stepped out. And so did my sister.

“What is she doing here?” I demanded.

Luce had a knack for finding trouble everywhere, and I wanted her nowhere near whatever shit had happened here.

“Nice to see you too, sweet little sister of mine,” Luce said.

“This is town….stuff…we don’t know what’s going on yet. You shouldn’t be here.”

I hated that I sounded less mayoral and more whiny. She apparently heard it too because she skirted right by me and up the porch stairs without the slightest hesitation.

“Sorry, Eva. She heard the call and wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Claude Henry said. He gave a half-hearted shrug.

That was laughable. There was not a chance in hell he had attempted to say no to her. She could have set him on fire, and he’d still be standing there with that sheepish smirk.

“I’m certain you argued so hard, too.” I sniped as I chased after the woman in question.

Luce stood at the door assessing the shattered hinge.

“My, my, I do declare something interesting might actually have happened in this one-horse town!”

Her affected southern accent seemed to clang off the walls of the too-quiet house, and I cringed as she ran her fingers over the place setting. This could be a crime scene; we had no idea yet. But if I said that, she’d do a lot more than touch just for the hell of it.

“What do you think happened? It’s like they just…disappeared. No struggle or anything.” Claude Henry said.

“I don’t know. It’s bizarre. But I don’t think we can let the MPs find out.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw his somber nod. We both knew it really was a town matter now, whether we wanted it or not.

“Well,” he said as he looked into the vacant living room, “we’ve got four days to find him before we have to turn in Roll.”

And then we’d have MPs whether we wanted them or not. I contemplated that as I followed Luce. She wandered down into the cellar I’d cleared earlier.  Small space. Poorly lit. In a house with a mystery.  My first clearance was more than enough for me, but the click of the light switch helped me gather myself and join her. Luce had turned on the hanging lightbulb in the center of the dank room, and we could see it more clearly. My clostrophobia was not entirely soothed, but it helped.

My sister wasn’t joking around anymore. In fact, her countenance had completely changed. As my eyes raked the path that hers were trained on, I realized why. Deep gouges disturbed the otherwise fully compacted and flattened dirt floor. It was scuffed up for about ten feet and then just stopped.  There had been a struggle of some sort after all.

Luce looked over the scratches, squatting to get a closer view. She studied the ground, tilting her head at various angles, scrutinizing. Where she was filled with curious intensity, I was stuffing down a wave of panic. Cold sweat broke across my brow, and I tried to ground myself, anchoring to the smell of dirt and the feel of the stone wall behind me. I didn’t want to leave her down here, but I was dying to get into the open again.

“It…that was probably a dog.” I stammered.

My tone seemed to pull Luce away from her study, and she turned her assessing eyes on me. Whatever authority I may have had with her before, my unease in the cold draft of the cellar was quickly siphoning it away. Her head still angled, still analyzing, she made to step toward me, but the door behind us was flung open, and we both startled. It was enough to pull me to attention again and away from the encroaching dread that threatened to swallow me whole.

Something between a laugh and a sigh of relief slipped from me as Claude Henry rejoined us.

“Eva, we’ve got to get back to town, they…” he paused, and his eyes widened as her took notice of the floor. “What in the world…” he trailed off.

“Probably a dog,” I said with more confidence than before. “What’s happening in town?”

His eyes were still wide with fear as he stepped to the side, subconsciously placing himself between Luce and the ominous marks. He cleared his throat.

“They found Mr. Thomas. It’s bad.”