Crowe took the blacktop to its end, then the Forest Service road, where I'd left my car three weeks earlier. Ignoring the cutoff to the crash site, she proceeded another three quarters of a mile and turned onto a different logging trail. After crawling upward for what seemed like miles, she stopped, studied the forest to either side, advanced, repeated the process, then took us off road. Our backup followed closely.
The Jeep bounced and pitched, branches scraping its top and sides. Boyd pulled in like a box turtle, and I yanked my arm from the window ledge. The dog whipped his head from right to left, spraying saliva on everyone. The deputy pulled a hanky from his pocket and wiped his neck but said nothing. I tried to remember his name. Was it Craig? Gregg?
Then the trees stepped back, yielding to a narrow dirt track. Ten minutes later, Crowe braked, alighted, and swung back what looked like an entire thicket. When we proceeded, I could see that what she'd moved was a gate, entirely overgrown with kudzu and ivy. Moments later the Arthur house came into view.
“I'll be goddamned,” said the deputy. “This place in the 911 book?”
“Listed as abandoned,” said Crowe. “I never knew it was here.”
Crowe pulled to the front of the house and honked twice. No one appeared.
“There's a courtyard around to the side.” Crowe nodded in that direction. “Tell George and Bobby to cover that entrance. We'll enter in front.”
They got out, simultaneously releasing the safety clips on their guns. As the deputy walked back to the second Jeep, Crowe turned to me.
“You stay here.” I wanted to argue, but her look told me no way.
“In the Jeep. Until I call you.”
I rolled my eyes but said nothing. My heart was hammering, and I shifted about more than Boyd.
Crowe sounded another long blast on the horn while scanning the upper windows of the house. The deputy rejoined her, a Winchester pump held diagonally across his chest. They crossed to the house and climbed the steps.
“Swain County Sheriff 's Department.” Her call sounded tinny in the thin air. “Police. Please respond.”
She banged on the door.
No one came forth.
Crowe said something. The deputy spread his feet and raised the shotgun, and the sheriff began hammering the door with her boot. There was no give.
Crowe spoke again. The deputy replied, keeping the barrel of his weapon trained on the door.
The sheriff walked back to the Jeep, sweat dampening the carrot frizz escaping her hat. She rummaged in back, returned to the porch with a crowbar.
Wiggling the tip between two shutters, she applied the full force of her body weight. A more earnest rendition of my own jimmying act.
Crowe repeated the movement, adding a Monica Seles grunt. A panel yielded slightly. Sliding the bar farther into the crack, she heaved again, and the shutter flew back, hitting the wall with a loud crash.
Crowe laid down the bar, braced herself, then smashed a foot through the window. Glass shattered, sparkled in the sun as it showered the porch with jagged shards. Crowe kicked again and again, enlarging the opening. Boyd urged her on with excited barks.
Crowe stood back and listened. Hearing no movement, she poked her head inside and called out again. Then the sheriff unholstered her gun and disappeared into darkness. The deputy followed.
Centuries later the front door opened, and Crowe stepped onto the porch. She waved a “come on” gesture.
I leashed Boyd with clumsy hands and wrapped the loop around my wrist. Then I dug a Maglite from my pack. Blood pounded hard below my throat.
“Easy!” I aimed a finger at his nose.
He practically dragged me out of the Jeep and up the steps.
“The place is empty.”
I tried to read Crowe's face, but it was registering nothing. No surprise, disgust, uneasiness. It was impossible to guess her reaction or emotion.
“Better leave the dog here.”
I tied Boyd to the porch railing. Clicking on the flashlight, I followed her inside.
The air that hit me was not as musty as I expected. It smelled of smoke and mildew and something sweet.
My olfactory lobe scanned its database. Church.
Church?
The lobe separated into components. Flowers. Incense.
The front door opened directly into a parlor that spanned the entire width of the house. Slowly, I swept my light from right to left. I could make out sofas, armchairs, and occasional tables, grouped in clusters and draped with sheets. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered two sides.
A stone fireplace filled the room's northern wall, an ornate mirror decorated its southern. In the dim glass I could see my beam slide among the shrouded shapes, our own two images creeping with it.
We progressed slowly, taking the house a room at a time. Dust motes swirled in the pale yellow shaft, and an occasional moth fluttered across like a startled animal in headlights on a two-lane black-top. Behind us, the deputy held his shotgun raised. Crowe clutched her gun double-handed, close to her cheek.
The parlor opened onto a narrow hallway. Staircase on the right, dining room on the left, kitchen straight ahead.
The dining room was furnished with nothing but a highly polished rectangular table and matching chairs. I counted. Eight at each side, one at each end. Eighteen.
The kitchen was in back, its door standing wide open.
Porcelain sink. Pump. Stove and refrigerator that had seen more birthdays than I had. I pointed to the appliances.
“Must be a generator.”
“Probably downstairs.”
I heard the sound of voices below, and knew her deputies were in the basement.
Upstairs, a hallway led straight down the middle of the house. Four small bedrooms radiated from the central artery, each with two sets of homemade bunks. A small spiral staircase led from the end of the hall to a third-floor attic. Tucked under the eaves were two more cots.
“Jesus,” said Crowe. “Looks like Spin and Marty at the Triple R.”
It reminded me of the Heaven's Gate cult in San Diego. I held my tongue.
We were circling back down when either George or Bobby appeared on the main staircase at the far end of the hall. The man was flushed and perspiring heavily.
“Sheriff, you gotta see the basement.”
“What is it, Bobby?”
A bead of sweat broke from his hairline and rolled down the side of his face. He backhanded it with a jerky gesture.
“I'll be goddamned if I know.”
A SET OF WOODEN STAIRS SHOT STRAIGHT FROM THE KITCHEN down to an underground cellar. The sheriff ordered Deputy Nameless to remain topside while the rest of us went down.
Bobby led, I followed, Crowe brought up the rear. George waited at the bottom, flashlight darting like a klieg on opening night.
As we descended, the air went from cool to refrigerator cold, and murky dimness gave way to pitch-black. I heard a click behind me, saw Crowe's beam at my feet.
We gathered at the bottom, listening.
No scurrying feet. No whirring wings. I aimed my light into the darkness.
We were in a large windowless room with a plank ceiling and cement floor. Three sides were plaster, the fourth formed by the escarpment at the back of the house. Centered in the cliff-side wall was a heavy wooden door.
When I stepped backward, my arm brushed fabric. I spun and my beam swung down a row of pegs, each holding an identical red garment. Handing my flashlight to George, I unhooked and held one up. It was a hooded robe, the type worn by monks.
“Holy mother of Jesus.” I heard Bobby wipe his face. Or cross himself.
I retrieved my flash, and Crowe and I probed the room, spotlighted by George and Bobby.
A full sweep produced nothing indigenous to a basement. No worktable. No Peg-Board hung with tools. No gardening equipment. No laundry tub. No cobwebs, mouse droppings, or dead crickets.