As Jaxon ran through the house, Victoria shouted to him, “Jaxon! Wait!”
He stopped and turned. She was just outside the door to the basement and when she saw him look her way, she pointed to something he could not see. He walked back into the room and followed her finger. He hadn’t noticed it before. High up on the wall, mounted near the ceiling, a little grey box aimed its black lens down on them, its blinking red light mocking them. Jaxon walked up to it slowly and then reached up his hand and gave it the finger. He turned to her and said, “Let’s go!”
Slamming the front door open and running into the yard toward the car, Jaxon saw a group of teenagers huddled around his car. They were trying to pop the lock through the driver’s window. He didn’t even slow down. They saw him coming and two of them stepped away, but the one working the slim jim never faltered. Jaxon slowed as he got closer, but strode up to the one at the window and, without hesitating, drew the weapon Victoria had given him and pressed the muzzle against the kid’s temple.
“I appreciate you wanting to open the door for me, but I got it.” The kid raised his hands and backed away. Jaxon thought he was going to piss his pants. The other two looked about to help their buddy, but Victoria had her FBI credentials out and her weapon pointed directly at them.
“Don’t fucking move!” she said. They froze.
Jaxon shoved the kid out of the way, grabbed the slim jim from his window and threw it over the house as hard as he could. He beeped the locks with the remote and slipped into his seat at the same time as Victoria. He started the car and rolled down the window.
“Have a nice day,” and floored the accelerator, laying down rubber for a hundred yards. “Fuckers,” he said under his breath and Victoria chuckled.
“Their lucky day,” she said.
He nodded. The house they were speeding off to surprised them both, yet now that he knew Worthington’s next move, maybe it wasn’t such a surprise. The picture had been a shot of Jaxon and Victoria’s second house. The one they were in when their marriage ended, the bank taking it in foreclosure. The one Michael was killed in. It was the only picture that didn’t fit.
“He knows we’re onto him,” Victoria said, holding on tight as he took a sharp turn at high speed, the tires squealing in protest.
“He’s going to move her again, I know. We have to find a way to predict his next move.”
“He’s guiding us to exactly where he wants us. Are we going to let him lead us right into a trap?”
“At this point, we don’t have any other choice.”
“He’s always one step ahead. We have to find a way to cut him off.”
“I’m racking my brain, Vick! I’m not coming up with anything. Are you?”
She looked away angrily, “No. But he’s giving us easy stuff to use. Think about it. That picture was obvious.”
“We wouldn’t have seen it if you hadn’t peeled it from the other one.”
“But I don’t think he meant that to happen. I think it was random. I’m sure he planted that picture in there for us to find easily, but we almost missed it because it was stuck to the back of another picture.”
“What are you saying?”
“We’ve bitten on the easy bait. We’ve missed something that might give us an edge.”
He thought about this but could not put anything together in his head that made any sense. The pictures in the box were the only things associated with Worthington and Ellie in the whole house.
“What were the other pictures of?” he asked, grabbing onto the only thing he felt was important.
“Worthington and the Mrs. Family shots. Kids and first houses, and toys and cars.”
It made no sense. Who cares about Worthington’s old family memories. His hate for his wife made the sentimental value of the shots unimportant, so why were they in the basement?
“Were the pictures for Ellie?” Jaxon asked. “To make her see he’s not as bad a guy as she believes?”
“That doesn’t make sense. There were pictures with her mother crossed out of them. A big red ‘X’ right across her face.”
“We know he hates her. Does he want Ellie to hate her too?”
“They weren’t meant for Ellie,” she said. “They were meant for us.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Ellie would never hate her mother. He knows that. And the picture of our house was in there too. Those pictures are ours.”
He knew she was right.
They turned into the neighborhood about fifteen minutes later as dusk was settling over the city and streetlights were starting to come on. The neighborhood was still clean and very lived in. Manicured lawns were the norm and children played in the fading light, mother’s calling to them to come home and father’s pulling into driveways from a long day at work. The house they used to live in sat back in a court off of the main road. As they pulled up, they were surprised to see an old for sale sign in the overgrown yard, the faded red letters announcing, ‘Foreclosure’ and ‘Reduced.’ Apparently it had not been lived in since they had abandoned it.
They parked in front of it and stepped out of the car into the muggy night. Jaxon could hear a dog barking in the distance and the sound of a television turned up too loud in one of the houses. A man stood on his porch three doors down, smoking a cigarette and looking their way. He ignored him and strode up the driveway with Victoria beside him. Trying the door, it was unlocked and he drew his pistol as he pushed it open. The house was dark and quiet.
He looked at Victoria who nodded and then positioned herself behind the door, her gun out to cover him. He slipped inside and she followed. They went directly to the basement, both of them scanning the walls and ceiling for blinking red lights and remaining alert in case Worthington was somehow still here. He doubted it though.
They went through the kitchen and stepped to the basement door. A red light caught his eye and he pointed to it, the web cam just within reach. He knocked it off of the wall and crushed it beneath his shoe. He turned and looked at Victoria who shrugged.
He was reaching for the doorknob when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Even with the ringer off, the buzzing seemed extraordinarily loud in the silent house. He hesitated, raising his eyebrows to her but she shook her head, ‘no.’ He’d check it later.
The door swung open on quiet hinges and he reached into the dark. If anybody was down there, they were hiding in the blackness. The void below them remained eerily silent.
Jaxon went first and felt his way along the steps, the feel of them stirring up memories of the house when his life had been happy and full. It was surreal stepping down into a hole of blackness, feeling nostalgic and terrified all at the same time. He pushed the memories from his mind and concentrated on keeping his footing in the dark.
Reaching the bottom landing he panned around the space, but the little bit of light leaking from the open door above provided nothing he could discern and the space felt empty. He didn’t know how he knew this, just a cop’s sixth sense and one he didn’t analyze, so he lowered his gun and holstered it, moving to the light switch and flipping it up. Nothing happened.
“I guess the electricity was too expensive to turn on here,” he said, his voice booming in the quiet dark. Something moved behind him and he spun, pulling his weapon out and crouching low. Victoria turned on a flashlight and shown the beam around, keeping her body hidden behind the stairwell wall in case somebody shot at the light source. Jaxon followed the light beam and then saw a rat the size of a small kitten skitter through the beam and disappear into a hole in the wall. He relaxed and lowered the gun.
The basement was empty.