Blur (Blur Trilogy) (25 page)

CHAPTER
FIFTY

The cellar air was must
y
and damp and smelled faintl
y
of rotten fruit.

K
yl
e tipped the doors shut behind them.

A thin slit of sunlight managed to leak through the space between the doors. That, along with two small grim
y
windows on opposite sides of the cellar, gave them enough light to see.

The
y
descended the stairs.

The concrete blocks forming the walls were crumbling in places, leaving bare dirt poking through and sliding into small mounds on the floor.

An old wooden shelf holding jars of preserves and pickled fruit lined one wall.

A thick la
ye
r of dust had settled across them, and the
y
must have been sitting there for a reall
y
long time, because the metal screw tops on most of them were rusted or covered with some kind of corrosion.

A water heater sat at the far end of the cellar, a workbench beside it. Above the bench, there was a pegboard holding an arra
y
of hand tools: screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, and so on. Some of them appeared old-fashioned, ma
yb
e decades old.

“That window is just off to the side,” K
yl
e noted.

“Yeah.”

The
y
walked over to look at the pool.

Yes, the fence was visible, but seeing someone dive in the pool? That might have been a stretch.

Half-finished woodworking projects la
y
strewn across the workbench. A pile of sawdust nearl
y
a foot high had formed beneath a vise that was attached to the bench and must have been used to hold the boards Mr. McKinne
y
cut through with the handsaw he’d stowed nearb
y.

Scattered throughout the cellar were pieces of discarded furniture, cardboard boxes stacked in piles five or six feet high, shelves with dust
y
books covered in mildew.

A small potbellied stove squatted near the wall closest to the stairs.

Daniel recognized caving equipmen
t—r
opes, knee pads, a helmet, headlamps, a first-aid ki
t—o
n one of the shelves. Two tackle boxes and a few fishing rods la
y
beside it.

He listened carefull
y
for an
y
movement above him in the house, but heard nothing. However, he did hear one thing in the cellar: a faint scratching sound near the shelf containing the preserves.

When he took a step closer to investigate, a rat scurried out, skittered along the wall, and disappeared into a jagged hole in a concrete block.

Then all was silent.

Daniel wasn’t about to go through all the boxes piled on the floor, but he did walk the perimeter of the basement to search the shelves for disturbed dust or an
y
items that might be there that shouldn’t have bee
n—s
pecificall
y
grim mementos a killer might keep, like a girl’s clothing or jewelr
y.
He found nothing.

Go upstairs. See if there are an
y
clues about his schedule.

No!

Yes. You’re alread
y
in his house. What’s the difference? You’re here. Take advantage of it. Learn what
yo
u can.

Ma
yb
e he was read
y
to go up there.

Ma
yb
e he wasn’t.

In either case, he wanted to make sure no one had arrived or was on their wa
y
in.

The window the
y’
d alread
y
checked out was located at the back of the house. The other one was across the basement, high on the wall. It would make sense that he should be able to get a view of the front
ya
rd and the drivewa
y
if he could just get up close enough to see out of it.

Daniel positioned a wooden crate beneath the narrow, filth
y
window and stepped onto it.

He brushed awa
y
some of the cobwebs that laced his side of the glass and peered outside.

Though he couldn’t see much, he was able to make out the empt
y
gravel drivewa
y.

“Let’s take a quick look upstairs and then get out of here,” he said.

“Right on.”

Daniel replaced the crate where it’d been and the
y
crossed the cellar to the wooden steps that ascended to the main part of the house.

Then he and his friend started up toward the lip of light that eased beneath the door at the top of the stairs.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-ONE

Even though Daniel was confident the place was empt
y,
he took it slowl
y
and made as little sound as possible, just a natural response from being in someone else’s home like this.

The sixth step from the bottom creaked as he put pressure on it.

When he reached the top step, he felt a flicker of uneasiness as he turned the knob and pressed the door open.

The kitchen.

Dishes in the sink, a table with four chairs, cupboards that were all closed. The lights were off, but the window above the sink let in the afternoon sunlight.

The refrigerator door had an arra
y
of magnets posting a shopping list and a variet
y
of photos, to-do lists, comic strips, and reminders.

In the brief span of a moment, he counted twent
y-
eight magnets holding up nineteen objects.

He checked for an
y
to-do list items that mentioned fishing on the da
y
Emil
y
disappeared, but found none.

The stove had a fr
yi
ng pan on one of its burners, a kettle on another.

The
y
closed the door to the basement. Daniel didn’t notice an
yt
hing out of the ordinar
y.
He tried the door near the refrigerator and found that it opened to the empt
y
garage.

K
yl
e scrutinized the pictures and notes on the fridge.

“See an
yt
hing?” Daniel asked.

“Nothing incriminating. Not
ye
t.”

The living room looked t
yp
ical as well. All was quiet. All normal.

A clock on the wall ticked awa
y
the seconds. It was one of those sounds that someone living in the house would probabl
y
get used to, but to Daniel it seemed magnified a hundredfold.

It was sort of like the rattle of the train that passed through tow
n—h
e’d gotten so used to it that he didn’t even notice when it happene
d—u
nless someone actuall
y
pointed it out.

But if
yo
u were new to the area,
yo
u would hear it.

Tick.

He looked down the hallwa
y,
at the photos that lined the wall.

Tock.

Starting down the hall, he studied the pictures.

There was a wedding photo as well as one of Mrs. McKinne
y
standing next to her husband on a mountainside. Beside it were two pictures of underground caverns. From the times Daniel had been in Wolf Cave with his dad, he recognized them as two of its main chambers. In one of the cave photos, the math teacher was with the school photographer. The final picture showed Mr. McKinne
y
and Daniel’s offensive coordinator, Coach Jostens, beside a lake holding up a muskie that one of them must have caught.

So, the
y
were friends.

Daniel hadn’t known that.

As he looked around, his heart seemed to find a new rh
yt
hm, pumping in s
yn
c with the clock on the wall.

Tick . . . Tock . . . Tick . . . Tock . . .

The doorwa
y
to the bathroom at the end of the hallwa
y
was partwa
y
open. The door beside it—

Tick.

Was probabl
y
the master bedroom—

Tock.

As he waited for K
yl
e, he swung through the master bedroom and looked around. When K
yl
e arrived, Daniel went into the room across the hall while his friend headed toward the bedroom closet.

In Mr. McKinne
y’
s home office, Daniel found three shelves of books in a semicircle around a handmade wooden computer desk with an older-model laptop and a printer. A swiveling office chair faced it. A wastebasket half-full of crumpled papers sat beside it.

A dozen high school
ye
arbooks were stacked on one of the shelve
s—t
he last three from Beldon High. The others were from Roosevelt High and Coulee High, both schools in their conference. Mr. McKinne
y
must have taught at Coulee first before spending one
ye
ar at Roosevelt and then moving to Beldon. A photo of a math club with the emblem of a coiled snake and the name of the team “The Adders,” from the
ye
ar he was at Roosevelt High sat on the desk.

A gun rack held a shotgun and two hunting rifles.

There were no calendars with clues about being at Lake Algonquin. After a brief internal debate, Daniel sorted through the balled-up papers in the wastebasket, but found nothing.

Unlike Emil
y
Jackson’s bedroom, the office didn’t look overl
y
neat.

Just normal.

Ever
yt
hing seemed utterl
y,
remarkabl
y
normal.

“He
y,
” K
yl
e called from the bedroom. “Come here. I found something.”

When Daniel joined his friend, he saw that the closet door was open and K
yl
e was kneeling on the floor beside a shoebox.

The lid was off.

The box was empt
y,
but there were three cell phones on the carpet.

The pink casing on one of them and stickers and accessories on the other two made it clear that the
y
were not the phones of a grown man.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO

Daniel crouched beside his friend. “This is not good.”

“Yeah, wh
y
does a gu
y
who doesn’t have an
y
kids have three girls’ phones hidden in his closet?”

“In this case, I can onl
y
think of one reason.”

“Me too. We need to tell
yo
ur dad.”

“Tell him what? That we broke into Mr. McKinne
y’
s house and found three phones in his bedroom? How is that gonna fl
y?
It’s not a crime to keep old phones in
yo
ur house.”

“Depends on whose the
y
are.”

Daniel realized the phones were on the floor. “Wait. Did
yo
u dump them out or did
yo
u touch them?”

K
yl
e bit his lip. “Dude, I wasn’t thinking. I just . . .” His tone became intense. “The
y’
ll have m
y
prints on
’e
m now, won’t the
y?
”

“Ma
yb
e,
ye
ah, I don’t know. Depends.” To put it mildl
y,
it was not a good thing that K
yl
e had touched those phones. “Did
yo
u tr
y
turning them on to see whose the
y
are?”

“No.”

Daniel tucked his hand beneath the corner of his shirt and used that so he wouldn’t have to actuall
y
touch an
y
of the phones.

He depressed the “on” button on each of them and waited.

Either the batteries were dead or the
y’
d been removed, because none of the phones booted up.

“Makes sense,” K
yl
e said. “I heard the
y
can track phones, even if the
y’
re turned off.”

Still avoiding touching them directl
y,
Daniel laid the cell phones in the shoebox and processed ever
yt
hing.

Even though he and K
yl
e were in Mr. McKinne
y’
s house, if the phones had K
yl
e’s prints on them, it could implicate him. Wiping the phones off might remove his prints, but it would also remove Mr. McKinne
y’
s if the
y
were ther
e—w
hich the
y
probabl
y
were.

A law
ye
r could argue that K
yl
e put them here, that he planted them.

“Should I point out the elephant in the room?” K
yl
e said.

“There are three phones.”

“Which means three girls . . .”

“Yeah.” Daniel e
ye
d the closet. “Was there an
yt
hing else in there tha
t—”

But before he could finish his thought, he heard the crunch of gravel outside from the drivewa
y,
and the simultaneous rattle of the garage door.

Mr. McKinne
y
had come home.

CHAPTER
FIFTY-THREE

“We can get back out through the cellar,” Daniel said.
“Let’s go.”

K
yl
e disappeared into the closet with the shoebox and when he reemerged the
y
hustled down the hallwa
y.

B
y
the time the
y
were halfwa
y
to the kitchen, the garage door was beginning to close.

No, no, no!

“Hurr
y,
” Daniel whispered urgently

The
y
rushed across the kitchen to the cellar door. K
yl
e swung it open. As the
y
stepped through, a car door slammed in the garage.

Silentl
y,
Daniel closed the basement door behind him and the
y
started down the stairs, walking as softl
y
as the
y
could.

He heard the door leading from the garage to the kitchen bang open. “Hello?” Mr. McKinne
y
called into the empt
y
house.

How does he know someone is here?

Somebod
y
saw
yo
u come in and called him!

Daniel counted the steps.
The sixth one from the bottom creaks!

K
yl
e was in front and Daniel laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder to stop him, but it was too late. He put pressure on the step and it made the same squeaking sound it’d made earlier when the two of them were going up the stairs.

Daniel’s heart nearl
y
stopped beating.

He and K
yl
e froze.

Footsteps began to cross the kitchen.

“Go.” Daniel did his best to keep his voice low.

The bo
ys
scrambled down the rest of the stairs and shot across the basement. The
y
raced up the steps that led outside.

“Is an
yb
od
y
down there?” Mr. McKinne
y
said loudl
y.

K
yl
e pressed the cellar doors open, the
y
exited, and Daniel was closing them behind him when he heard the kitchen door to the basement opening up.

Hoping that Mr. McKinne
y
hadn’t seen an
y
light slip down the cellar steps, the
y
bolted across the
ya
rd to the woods and dove behind a couple large oak trees to catch their breath and make sure the coast was clear before moving on through the forest.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Daniel felt the chug of adrenaline, just like he did during games. His heart churned, thrummed in his chest.

You need to see if he’s coming.

No. Wait here. Don’t move—

But he might come across the lawn. You have to look. You have to find out if he’s following
yo
u.

Daniel finall
y
decided he needed to check before moving an
y
farther into the woods.

Slowl
y,
he edged over to peer around the tree.

Mr. McKinne
y
was standing near the cellar doors, staring directl
y
toward him through the forest.

Daniel whipped back behind the tree.

No, no, no!

He saw
yo
u, he did, he saw
yo
u!

No, there are too man
y
shadows here in the woods, he couldn’t have.

No, he did!

He looked in K
yl
e’s direction, then patted one hand against the air and put a finger to his lips with the other to signal for him to be still and not make a sound.

Daniel strained to listen for an
y
movement coming his wa
y
and heard soft stirrings in the brush piles and leaves, but no sound of an
yo
ne running toward him across the lawn.

No one called out.

He sat there for what seemed like forever. K
yl
e waited too. Neither bo
y
moved an inch.

Daniel didn’t want to peek at the house again, but he knew that before escaping through the woods the
y
needed to make sure Mr. McKinne
y
wasn’t still watching or on his wa
y
toward them. Taking a deep breath, he carefull
y
tipped his gaze around the side of the tree.

This time the
ya
rd was empt
y.

Mr. McKinne
y
had gone back into the house.

To call the police?

To get his shotgun?

“We need to get out of here,” Daniel told his friend, but K
yl
e was alread
y
moving and didn’t need an
y
convincing.

The
y
hurried through the woods, neither of them speaking, and emerged from the trees near their cars.

Looking back, Daniel confirmed that no one had followed them. No cars were on their wa
y
down the street. No police sirens cut through the afternoon.

“One of the neighbors must have seen us and called him,” Daniel said.

“That or he finished up earl
y
at school. It’s not far from here; ma
yb
e he got suspicious when I phoned the school to talk about rescheduling.” K
yl
e thought about that. “I said I needed to do it for m
y
son. What if Mr. McKinne
y
onl
y
had girls scheduled for the rest of the da
y?
”

“I don’t think that would be enough.”

“Whatever it was, he suspected somethin
g—h
e called out to see if an
yo
ne was in his house as soon as he entered.”

Daniel decided to bring up what he’d discovered. “When we were in there I saw a bunch of high school
ye
arbooks on the shelf in his office. The
y
were from a couple of different schools in our conference.”

He listed them off, the schools and the academic
ye
ars of the
ye
arbooks. “I sa
y
we go online, search to see if an
y
other girls might have disappeared or drowned while Mr. McKinne
y
was teaching at their schools.”

“Nice.”

“I know we don’t have a lot to go on, but ma
yb
e I should tell m
y
dad, or at least we could call in an anon
ym
ous tip. I mean, if Mr. McKinne
y
does think someone was in his house just now he might get rid of the phones.” Daniel could tell something was reall
y
bothering his friend. “What’s wrong?”

“You can’t call
yo
ur dad.”

“Wh
y
not?”

“You’re not going to like this.”

“Like what?” He began to imagine the wors
t—t
hat K
yl
e had left his car ke
ys
in the house or something like tha
t—b
ut he never would have imagined what K
yl
e did next.

His friend reached into his jacket pockets, produced the three phones from Mr. McKinne
y’
s house, and laid them on the hood of his car.