Jex Malone (26 page)

“Cooper is her half-brother?” I toss back, barely even breathing now because I—I mean, we—never thought for a minute that Ricki might not be Patty's biological parent.

It didn't even cross our minds to ask. I know in my bones that this is major news, but I'm stumped because I'm not sure exactly how it figures into Patty disappearing.

“Yeah, they moved here and it was one trouble after another at their house until poor Patty just … well, you know, disappeared,” Sandy adds, looking genuinely sad.

For a second, I actually feel sorry for The Idiot Stick Figure because she does exhibit genuine emotions sometimes. Patty was Sandy's student and it's clear that she still really cares about her.

“Patty was a lovely girl. An amazing artist. She painted this gorgeous landscape that's still up in the teacher's lounge. She was so pretty and a gentle little soul who just wanted to make the world a little bit more beautiful,” Sandy says. “I just hate to think about what probably happened to her.”

Wiping a tiny tear from her eye, Sandy tosses me another type of look—as in
let's not get into this in front of your father who is still sensitive about botching the case.

“Ready for sushi?” Dad says in a tone that says he's beyond happy that Sandy and I have had an actual conversation.

“Good night, Jessica,” Sandy says, and then impulsively puts her hand on my arm. “Be careful tonight. Stay inside where nothing bad can happen.”

Oh really
? I answer her in my head.

An hour later, the girls and I stand across the street staring at the darkened house that belongs to Mr. Foster. The curtains are drawn and the air is oppressive, still and silent with the occasional lightning bolt dancing around the mountains in the near distance.

For a split second, I glance at Cooper's house and it's completely black.

“Deva, give me a credit card,” Cissy whispers.

“What? What a weird time for you to start thinking about finally going and buying something decent to wear,” Deva retorts.

“Shut up—just give me your credit card,” Cissy shoots back. “I know what to do. I saw this on
Murder, She Wrote
and read about it in those books I told you about yesterday.”

“What do you want? American Express Platinum? MasterCard World card? Capital One?” Deva says, producing a piece of plastic. “Here, use this one. It's got a ridiculously low credit limit.”

Silently, I watch as she slips Cissy the card and she starts walking towards the Foster House of Fun.

I'm shocked when I see with my own eyes the world's biggest scaredy-cat race across the street to the front door of all things Foster. The others look at each other, and we quickly follow. By the time we bound up the three creaky wood steps to the front porch, Cissy is already slipping the card in between the wooden frame and the door, disengaging the locking pin. She jiggles the knob and the door opens.

It's almost too easy.

We're inside.

Of course, Nat brought supplies, including a flashlight that she pulls out from inside her second sweatshirt. Aiming the beam of light into the kitchen, my eyes dart over the cluttered countertops and a shelf with neatly stacked dishes.

A clock in the living room ticks loudly, and the other girls' breathing seems freakishly loud, but I can't exactly ask them to breathe in a quiet way. That might sound obsessive.

“What are we looking for?” I whisper.

“We'll know it when we see it,” Nat replies.

The house is small, but every room is perfectly tidy in a creepy kind of way. In a way, it's museum-like with dark mahogany furniture that looks like it has been preserved since the 1950s. Wandering through each room, every sense in my body is alert for any signs of Mr. Foster returning to his crib.

We don't really have confirmation he's at the movies
. Why, oh why didn't we check first? And what if he has a stomachache and comes home early? What if
…

What if we die doing this?

Seconds later, I feel cold fingers wrapping themselves around my wrist. Jumping at the contact, I see it's only Nat, who is forcing me to point the flashlight down the long, narrow hallway where several framed portraits of the same couple seem to glare at us. If this were a horror movie, I would see their eyes moving, but their peepers seem to stay in place. For now.

We follow the beam of light as it darts into two small bedrooms and then into a tiny bathroom that's colorless with a neat white towel folded on the sink and one white toothbrush in a clear cup.

In the back room that's obviously his bedroom, the light scans the room, and I zero in on an old bed with a homemade blue and white quilt on it. The corners seem to be folded military style. A framed picture on an old wooden nightstand catches my eye. Even in the dark, I make out a glowing bride with perfectly styled dark hair up in a bun and her handsome, young, tall, wiry groom. Her cheeks are tinted pink, the same shade as the roses in her bouquet.

Moving closer toward the dresser, I notice something small and white in a frame that encases another family photo.

It's a yellowed funeral card and almost immediately I recognize the same round face, flawless skin, and kind eyes of the woman. It's the bride, many years later, and she has aged about four decades. If I had to guess, I'd peg her age somewhere in the sixties.

“Beloved Wife Lillian,” the card reads.

“That's Lillian!” I gasp. “She's Mr. Foster's wife!”

“Shhhh,” the other girls reply in unison. By now, they've also gathered in the bedroom, mostly because Deva and Cissy are too afraid to hang out by themselves in the kitchen, where they did a quick sweep and then ran to the back room.

“Lillian is Old Man Foster's wife. I never would have guessed. Now this is creepy,” I repeat.

“We never knew her first name. She was always just Mrs. Foster,” Nat gasps.

The funeral card shows the date of death, which I note is October 12, 2001.

“Look, she died a few months after Patty disappeared,” I whisper. “Three months later to be exact.”

“Does it say how?” Cissy pipes up.

“It's not an obituary,” Deva snaps. “It's a funeral card. That's what they hand out to people who come to the funeral; it's not supposed to say how she died or tell her entire life story.”

“Look, I don't see anything else in here; we're wasting our time,” I interrupt. “Let's move on. There's also a shed in the backyard that looks creepy enough to send at least two of us into cardiac arrest.”

Nat sticks her head outside the back door to make sure the coast is clear. At that moment, I whisper something into her ear. “I'm staying … in the main house. There must be more,” I say. “I can find out how she died. A guy like Foster will keep the obit somewhere.”

“It's your funeral,” Nat replies. “We're going to check out the shed. Holler if you need … wait, don't holler. Just run. If there is any issue, meet back at my house.”

A streak of lightning illuminates the sky and plays against the darkness of the nearby mountain range. This weather worries me a little bit. We're going to have to move quickly.

Quietly and almost holding my breath, I watch Cissy, Deva, and Nat dart across the backyard where they find a little metal structure the size of a really large bathroom. Even from where I'm standing and squinting, I can see that it has one small window and a blanket has been pinned up as a heavy makeshift curtain.

Later, I would learn that it was Cissy who popped the shed door open with the help of Deva's Visa card and then Nat helped her swing open the rusty door, which squeaked too loudly in the silent night air.

Nat would tell me that inside the shed, old paint pallets had mummified in the dry air. An unfinished painting sat on an easel. Cissy even dared to sneeze in all of this dust, which provoked the typical reaction.

“Shhhh,” Deva and Nat said in unison.

“Now this is really creepy. It's filthy in here,” Deva announced. “How weird that the house is perfectly clean, and this place is such a pit. It looks like it hasn't been touched in years.”

“Look at that,” Nat said, shining the light on a stack of manila envelopes. “Now that's something. Look, over there.”

During my debriefing, I would come to know that the envelopes were clean, as if someone had shielded them from the dust. Cissy picked one up and carefully slid open the flap as Nat shined a light on it.

Out slipped a single piece of paper from the inside. It was a charcoal drawing showing a girl standing in front of an old Spanish arch and a wall. A large spray of bougainvillea poured over the sun-kissed cement. A big floppy hat obscured the girl's face.

Cissy slid the sketch back into the envelope and moved on to the next envelope. Another drawing featured an older girl standing on what looked like the top of a mountain looking up at the stars. The third picture was even more curious and showed a girl staring up at what looked like another mountain with the famous Hollywood sign on it.

It was Cissy who dug a little deeper and felt the fringed sides of ripped-out notebook paper.

Any one of us would have known that handwriting anywhere. It was the last five pages of Patty Matthews' notebook.

The Drew-Ids will tell it well in the future. So well that I will swear I was standing next to them in that shed, but I certainly was not.

Right now, I'm somewhere much worse hearing the most horrifying sound in the world in the close distance: the rattling of keys near the back door.

The girls must have seen his car because even in my ducked down position near the back patio window, I can see them crawling low out of the yard. Maybe I'm seeing things, but on second glance I see papers, lots of them falling out of Nat's jacket and then being tucked securely back in place.

Quickly, she kills her flashlight.

Even in the darkness of this stormy night, I catch a glimpse of Old Man Foster, who clomps into his blackened kitchen, but doesn't step beyond a back mat. When he pulls the Velcro tabs from his shoes, it sounds like an electric current ripping through the air. With fingers that seem to creak, he flicks on the kitchen light and looks out the back window of his house to make sure that everything is as it should be on a fine Wednesday night where everything has been as usual except his favorite movie theater lost power.

“Damn storms,” he says to absolutely no one.

Then I hear him slam something metal down hard on the spotless kitchen counter.

He. Is. Home.

“Would you take it the wrong way if I told you I was actually glad you got shot?”

—Jordan Cavanaugh,
Crossing Jordan

My knees actually shake when I hear the rattling of keys in the door. For a minute, I can't even breathe.

He can't be home.

But who else has actual keys! Just the monster of the house.

My mind downloads what I need to know: If Old Man Foster catches me in his house, there is no telling what he will do, but it won't be pretty. In fact, I know enough to realize he could shoot me for breaking and entering and not even go to jail for it. I'm the intruder here and when you intrude, you get what you get.