Skin and Bone

by T. L. Keary

  But I love it here.

  I think about how I would draft a similar house, what I would change.

  It’s not much.

  “That smells amazing,” Davis says from behind me. I turn to watch him shuffling down the hall. He wears a pair of navy-blue sweat pants and a white t-shirt. He runs a hand through his hair, which is wild and sticking up on the left side.

  I smile, and know I’m getting a rare glimpse into his after-hours life, where he’s not completely put together.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” I say, flipping another egg.

  He shuffles through the kitchen, and everything in me flutters and sparks when he puts a hand on my lower back as he steps around me and reaches for the cupboard with the plates.

  “Sawyer?” he asks, and I realize with a start that he asked me something.

  “Sorry, what’d you say?” I try to recover.

  Every bit of my brain is still on that spot on my back where his hand was just a moment ago.

  “I asked if you slept okay, but considering the zoned-out look on your face, I’m going to guess no,” he says with a little smile as he picks up a few pieces of bacon and one of the fried eggs.

  “Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I actually slept great. Thanks.”

  The way he studies me a little longer than necessary, the evaluation in his eyes, confirms that he was indeed the mode of transportation in how I ended up in the bed last night.

  “So, I was thinking,” I say, moving on. “It seems pretty obvious that no one is living at the Milton property, but there has to be some kind of access to the tunnel that goes to the bunker. Maybe we can go check it out, see if there is anything to discover at the house?”

  Davis looks up at me from where he stands, leaned against the counter, his plate at the ready. “You sure that’s a good idea? I mean, it’s got to be pretty traumatic going back to the place you thought you were going to die.”

  I scoop the last egg out of the pan and set it on the plate. “I mean, I’m not overly anxious to go back into the bunker, but I’m not going to let her get away with this. If there’s anything that will help us pin this all down and get rid of her, I’ll do it.”

  Davis finishes chewing his bacon, studying me. “Well, let’s go then,” he says with a smile.

  Twenty minutes later we’re packed up in his truck, the back loaded with possible supplies: a shovel, flashlights, rope, a machete, and I didn’t miss the gun Davis holsters around his waist.

  I’d worry about that part, but considering this is Davis, I know he has to have a concealed permit. If he owns it, he knows how to use it well. It’s just who Davis is.

  Across town we drive. We turn down the street and slowly we roll by the Milton house.

  “Still looks empty,” I say. There are no lights on, and everything looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.

  “I’m going to loop around again, just to be sure,” Davis says, eying the property. He pulls forward and at the end of the street, hooks a right.

  We drive past his development, empty and abandoned. Everything is stalled, at a complete halt while Davis deals with the drama I’ve brought into his life.

  He hooks right again, and then right once more till we’re on the correct street. Slowly, we creep past, me watching the property, Davis checking the other side of the road to be sure no one is watching.

  There are two houses on the other side of the road, but they’re spread far apart, and the Milton property sits just between them, well out of view.

  “We’re clear,” Davis says.

  “Still empty,” I confirm.

  Carefully, Davis pulls over to the side of the road, off into the gravel and long grass, thirty yards past the house. He puts it into park and the two of us climb out into the soggy weather.

  I pull the hat down lower on my head as we step out into the light rain. It’s not a downpour, but heavy enough that we’ll be wet soon if we stay outside for long.

  The ground is covered with dead leaves and old pine needles as we work our way back toward the house. But when we step into the driveway, I see faint hints of tire tracks, just a few leaves fallen over the tops of them.

  “These look like they could have been made a few weeks ago,” I note, nodding my head along their path, which wraps around the left side of the house.

  Davis nods in agreement and together, we follow their path.

  The house looks even worse up close. The paint is peeling off the siding. There are several broken windows. The foundation looks to be settling on the north side.

  It’s falling apart.

  There’s a garage off to the right, but the sagging door of it is wide open, revealing an empty space. There’s a deck branching off the back of the house, and surprisingly, it seems to be in okay condition.

  But we walk past, into the trees, following the tire tracks.

  They run for fifteen yards, deep into the woods, and then end.

  “That wasn’t too hard,” Davis says, as we look down at the rusted metal door. There’s a pile of leaves scattered over the top of it, but it was concealed carelessly. She wasn’t too worried about covering her tracks, not here on her own property.

  I look ahead, into the trees.

  “She wouldn’t have seen your development from here,” I say, shaking my head. “The woods are so dense, that’s all you can see. She wouldn’t have realized what was going on just above that bunker.”

  Davis nods and crouches next to the hatch, brushing the leaves out of the way. He grips the handle and pulls.

  With a loud screech, it lifts, opening into a dark pit.

  “Davis, I don’t—”

  “You stay here,” he says, pulling a flashlight from his pocket. “I just want to check it out and make sure it really goes where we think it does. Maybe I’ll find something useful down there.”

  I wrap my arms around my waist, hating that I feel scared and useless.

  But Davis doesn’t hesitate.

  So I just nod, and watch as he climbs over the ledge and makes his way down the ladder. When he reaches the bottom, I lean over the edge.

  He’s down at least ten feet.

  “There’s a tunnel here,” he says, shining the flashlight in the direction I assume leads to the bunker. “It’s only about five feet tall, but it wouldn’t be too hard to carry a body down it.”

  “Don’t call me a body,” I say, goosebumps rising on my arms. “I wasn’t and am not dead.”

  “Sorry,” he says, a little smile curling on his lips. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  He instantly disappears from my sight.

  All the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and fear sprouts in my stomach when I stand, realizing I’m alone. As I turn, taking the property in, anxiety spikes in my blood.

  There are certain places that just have a dark vibe. That make your skin crawl. That sprout a sick feeling in your stomach and make you want to skitter away as fast as possible.

  This place is oozing those feelings.

  I try to imagine it, Brad Milton coming here to raise his nieces. A grown man inheriting a couple of teenage girls. I imagine Faith Cooper, accused of trying to burn a couple of cheerleaders alive.

  And Charity Cooper, being groomed by her uncle, taking all of her anger and resentment out on the people she thought deserved it all, believing her hands to be clean.

  My eyes move from one window to the next, and I try to imagine their life here. I wonder if Brad ever stopped stalking people or if he just started training Charity. I wonder who their targets were. How many pictures they took.

  I wonder how long Charity watched me and Ezra.

  A chill works its way down my spine and my ears start ringing.

  When a hand rests on my shoulder, I scream, swinging an arm as I twist out of its grasp.

  “Whoa, it’s just me!” Davis says, barely getting a hand up to block my blow. His eyes are wide.

  I nearly trip myself over the branches and leaves, my
heart hammering a million miles per hour. Both my hands come up to cover my chest and my breathing rips in and out, far too fast.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “I just… This place is just…”

  I blink, trying to tell my body to let go of panic mode. I’m fine. You’re fine, I mentally whisper to it, over and over.

  “Hey,” Davis says. He takes the two steps toward me. “It’s okay if this place creeps you out.”

  I can only nod, but I can’t find my voice just yet.

  With concern in his eyes, he takes another step toward me and wraps his arms around me, holding me gentle but firm.

  And it’s just enough to get my heart and brain to pull out of panic mode. My arms relax, and I let them wrap around Davis, my cheek resting against his chest.

  One, two, three, four, five. I count my breaths as I take them in and out. I listen to the sound of Davis’ heart. Focus on the strength of his arms around me and remind myself that this is what’s real right now. This is what’s actually happening.

  “Sorry,” I say again, feeling embarrassed for my overreaction.

  “It’s okay,” he says, bringing his hands to my shoulders as I take a step back. “Don’t feel like you aren’t being brave, because you are. It’s been two days and you can already handle coming back to the property.”

  I nod, letting myself believe what he’s said.

  But mostly, I just can’t believe that it’s only been two days since Davis found me and I got out of that bunker.

  So much has happened and been discovered since then.

  “Did you find anything down there?” I ask as I slide my hands into my back pockets and Davis drops his hands.

  “Just a tunnel,” he says, looking back toward the still open hatch. “It was empty. Ran for about fifty yards, maybe a bit more. And then it was filled with dirt, where I collapsed it with the excavator.”

  I nod, and we both look back toward the house.

  “Think you want to go in?” he asks.

  “That’s if we can find a way in,” I say. “I can’t imagine she hasn’t locked it down tight.”

  Davis reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a black case. “Locks won’t be a problem.”

  I nod, and we cross the yard toward the back deck. The steps don’t bow under our weight, and the decking doesn’t even groan. We check the handle just in case. It’s locked, of course.

  Davis opens that case to reveal lock-picking tools.

  “You make breaking and entering a hobby?” I ask.

  He picks and wiggles, looking like he’s done this a million times before. “Well, when tenants lose keys and you’ve got all the spares at the office across town, this is the quickest option.”

  And just like that, the lock pops and he pushes the door open.

  The dust is so thick, our shoes immediately create tracks. Places in Washington easily smell like mildew and rot and the process just speeds up if no one is caring for them. It’s so overwhelming in here I cover my nose with my shirt.

  We step into a dining room. There’s a table here, its surface scratched and dinged. There are three chairs around it, one of them with a broken leg, another with two broken spokes in the back support of it.

  A small kitchen with peeling green cabinets is off to the right. It’s dated, I’d guess it hasn’t had a remodel since the early eighties.

  To our left is a small living room. A brown couch is accompanied by an orange-colored chair. An old-style TV sits on a dresser that looks like it weighs eight hundred pounds.

  One end table is set up next to the chair, and there, I see a picture frame.

  Crossing the space, regretting the footprints, I reach for it.

  There’s Charity and Faith Cooper. They stand next to a man and woman, and without even looking too hard, I just know they’re the parents. They’re all looking at the camera, smiling, fishing in a lake.

  “Charity would have been, what? Fourteen when her uncle came to town to take care of them?” Davis says as he looks at the picture.

  “Something like that,” I say. My throat is tight. I don’t want to have pity for the woman. She’s done awful things.

  But who’s to say I would have turned out any differently if my parents had died when I was that young?

  I set the picture back down. Turning back to the house, I follow Davis down the hall.

  There isn’t much to explore. There’s a bathroom that is slowly getting taken over by mold and broken tile. We find what looks to be the bigger bedroom.

  “Brad’s room,” I take a guess. There’s a full-sized bed in the middle of the room and a dresser opposite it and a tiny closet.

  One by one, we start going through the drawers. They’re still filled with clothes, all of them worn out or stained or torn. In one of them, we find a graduation program, from my senior year. My eyes scan through the names until I find Charity’s.

  “He must have cared enough to keep something like this for years,” I say, laying it on the dresser.

  “And print a few photos,” Davis says, scooping them up from the bottom of the drawer. “That’s him. Brad.”

  I lean over, looking at the pictures.

  Brad has a similar look to the girls and their parents. Dark hair. Dark, thick brows. He’s in good shape, though he doesn’t seem to care much for his physical appearance. He looks a week ripe in all of them.

  The first one is of him and Charity, sitting next to a fire pit, roasting hot dogs. The next is of the two of them sitting out on that back deck, seemingly in deep conversation. A third is just a picture of Charity in a graduation gown. She looks at the camera, a dower expression on her face.

  “Does it seem like Charity and her uncle were close?” I ask, my brows furrowing as I look up at Davis.

  His eyebrows raise and he keeps looking through the pictures. There are four others, all of either Charity or her and Brad Milton.

  “I’d say it looks like there was some favoritism,” Davis says. “Faith isn’t in any of these.”

  “But she would have lived with Brad for a couple of years before she went to jail, right?”

  Davis nods, putting the pictures and the graduation announcement back and closing the drawer. We move over to the closet and pull it open.

  Instead of room to hang clothes, there are shelves, five of them. There in the center, is an old camera with one of the most intense zoom lenses I’ve ever seen. There’s a bag with old-style film. The rest of the shelves are stuffed full of file boxes.

  “Doesn’t look like Uncle Brad gave up on his job after the arrest,” Davis says. He grabs one of the files boxes and pulls it out, setting it on the bed. He pulls the lid off. The whole thing is full of files, all stuffed to the brim, but they at least seem organized.

  I grab a file from the middle. Janet Edom.

  There are dozens of pages of hand written notes inside, with dates and times. The majority date back to 1999.

  “No wonder they thought he was a stalker,” Davis says, grabbing the pile of pictures. There’s a woman in them, with rich, long red hair. In one picture she’s walking down the sidewalk, holding a cup of coffee. In another, she’s walking into a house. In another, we see a zoomed-in view from a window, the silhouette of her taking a shower. There are another dozen of her sleeping, some of them taken from inside the room.

  “This just keeps getting creepier and creepier,” I say, closing the file and placing it back with the others.

  “But it does tell us that Charity could have easily had the training to spy on you and learn everything about you,” Davis says, pulling out another box. It’s the same, and with a quick check, we find similar files. Notes and pictures of women.

  “How did you say Brad died?” I ask as we check under the bed to make sure there isn’t anything else to be found in this room.

  “I want to say it was a heart attack or something,” Davis answers.

  “So, a natural cause, rest his creepy soul,” I say as I brush the dust off my knees. “Nothing
Charity could have faked or caused?”

  Davis lets out a breath, shaking his head. “I kind of assumed it was natural, but after seeing the Cooper-Milton freak show, who the hell knows?”

  We step back into the hall and open the last door.

  It’s a bedroom, smaller than the last. There’s a bunk bed pushed against the far wall. Faded yellow comforters cover the mattresses, accompanied by matching pillows.

  There’s something…clinical about this room. It takes me a moment to realize it feels that way because there are no pictures on the walls. No posters, no anything. Nothing personal. Nothing that says teenage girls ever lived here.

  The closet reveals only a few outdated coats and two pairs of boots. There’s a dresser with a mirror.

  There’s a handwritten note tucked between the glass and the wood.

  You have to be better.

  The writing is masculine.

  At first, I don’t understand what that means, but as we look through the dresser and find absolutely nothing in it, it dawns on me.

  “You have to be better,” I say, letting the words roll. I turn, taking in the emptied bedroom.

  My eyes go back to the hall, to Brad’s door that’s still open.

  The cameras. The files. The personal pictures.

  “I think that was written by Brad,” I say, my eyes going back to the note. “Saying that Charity had to be better than Brad.”

  I look up to meet Davis’ eyes. “There’s nothing to find here. There was nothing down in that tunnel. She’s left no trace online, and the ones that exist, it’s because she had no control over them.”

  “He was teaching her how not to make the mistakes he made,” Davis says.

  I nod. And then I shake my head as a sickening realization hits me. “We’re not going to find anything here. She will have been careful after all the years of planning this. She won’t have left anything behind. And besides, she probably hasn’t lived here in years.”

  “Then where does that leave us?” Davis says, desperation showing in his voice.

  I shake my head, stalling a few moments to think.

  “I think we have to warn Ezra when he gets home tomorrow,” I say. “And then we’re finally going to get the police involved.”