HIDDEN DOORS, SECRET ROOMS by Jamie Eubanks

Author:Jamie Eubanks
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

In the living room, the grandfather clock struck the hour. Outside, the crusted snow glistened beneath a nearly full moon. And three miles away, in what was once an abandoned shack, two men sat listening to utter silence, sipping black coffee from Styrofoam cups, fighting sleep.

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Brewster read and reread Laurel’s notes. Foreman, Greck and Garcia were practically tied for having the most entries. The Grecks had the sick kid. Their son, the one-year-old, screamed the entire time Brewster and Andrews searched the house. The mother said she thought it was an ear infection. Brewster had it figured different. He’d seen the bottle half filled with coagulated milk that the kid was sucking on. He’d seen the filth in that house, a week’s worth of dirty dishes strewn about the kitchen, the stench of urine combined with cigarette smoke. If that kid was sick of anything, he was sick of being in that nasty house.

It appeared as though all the transmitters were in working order. Even those from the five homes they had not visited tonight had picked up bits and pieces of conversation, television broadcasts, and music. He ran a finger down the listings on each tablet, until he got to tablet number eleven, which corresponded with house number eleven, the Mills’ residence.

“Andrews.”

“Yeah?”

“Come here a minute, will you?”

Andrews, who’d been sitting on the floor in the corner of the room, got up and brushed off the seat of his pants. He went to the table, Styrofoam cup in hand. “Yeah?”

Brewster dropped tablet number eleven on the table and said: “What do you make of that?”

Andrews read: “Eleven twenty‑five. Eleven thirty. Eleven forty‑two. Eleven forty-four. Twelve-twenty.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the only logs we have on Mills, are the ones just prior to and during our visit?”

“He’s single. He has no one to talk to.”

“He has a dog. Dogs go outside. And how does a dog let the master know it needs to go outside?”

“It barks,” Andrews replied.

“Exactly. So why is it that we’ve heard nothing until these five entries?”

“What you’re implying is ludicrous. Mills has no way of knowing the transmitter you gave him is a bug. He’s a musician, not a detective.”

“Maybe the woman told him.”

“Yeah. And maybe his dog only barks when strangers show up on the doorstep. Mills struck me as the kind of guy who’d keep to a regular routine. He gets up in the morning, lets the dog out. Before lunch, he lets the dog out again. Just before going to bed, the dog goes out, does its business. And the next day it starts all over again.”

“Maybe.”

Andrews pushed the writing tablet aside and took a seat on the edge of the table. “Kevin, only a drowning man grasps at straws. We’re not drowning yet. That woman leaves an easy trail to follow everywhere she goes. Now that we know exactly what to look for, she’ll give herself away. All we have to do is keep an ear tuned.”

“Yeah,” Brewster said and sighed.

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