As he ducked under one of the strings and moved toward this window, he saw that there were actually two boards, one behind the other, with about an inch of empty space between them. The second board had a hole in it, too, but it was offset from the first so that he could only look through them at a sharp angle. Peering through these holes, he could see the roof of one of the buildings across the street and the tall peak of a distinct structure reaching up behind it. Pressing his eye to the hole for a better look, he thought at first that it was the steeple of the Catholic church on Deer Street, but it was squared off, not pointed, less a steeple than a tower. And as he thought about it, he realized that Deer Street was in the opposite direction. This looked more like a clock tower, minus the clock. But he couldn’t quite place the building, even though he’d lived in Creek Bend most of his life.
A noise startled him. It sounded like a door clicking closed.
Suddenly his heart was racing.
“Be careful!” hissed Isabelle.
Eric nodded but didn’t dare speak aloud. Was that Aiden? He pressed his back to the wall and glanced around the room. The big, pink bouquet was still lying on the table, visible from the door all the way down the hall. If anyone had entered the apartment, they would know instantly that someone was here.
That was really stupid.
But no one called out to ask who was trespassing. The building remained deathly quiet. The only sound was the occasional rumble of passing traffic on the street outside and the thudding of Eric’s pulse in his ears.
Silently, he stepped away from the wall and ducked under the string again, careful not to make any noise. Seconds passed as he crept toward the hallway, his body tense, ready to defend himself, but no one came to investigate the bouquet. The apartment remained quiet. And when he peered around the corner, he found no one there.
He’d left the door open behind him. Now it was closed. Perhaps a breeze had pulled it shut. It wasn’t all that unlikely. The door at the bottom of the steps didn’t have a latch, so the wind could easily have created a draft.
He checked the bedroom and bathroom, just to be sure, but both remained empty. There was nowhere to hide. There weren’t even any closets.
He peered out the door and down the steps, but no one was there, either.
Returning to the living/dining room, he opened the second door and looked out. Another dark stairwell led down to the first floor of the building.
Eric turned around and scanned the mysterious apartment again. If these were the only two exits, then Aiden could only have gone this way.
Isabelle’s voice drifted up from his hand and he lifted the phone to his ear. “What was that?”
“I said, what’s the deal with this guy, anyway? You knew him?”
“Not very well. Aiden was one of my students about seven years ago. The next year, he disappeared without a trace. It was big news in this town for a long time.”
“A missing person, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I can relate to that.”
Eric smiled. “That’s right.” He found Isabelle almost a year ago. She looked and sounded thirteen, but she’d been missing for thirty-six years, trapped inside a living mansion that existed between two worlds. She saved his life, and in return he gave her the courage to escape her strange prison. But she still wasn’t exactly free. Although she’d left the terrifying Altrusk House behind, she could only travel between buildings with similar properties. She still couldn’t venture outside.
“Maybe you can save Aiden, too, just like you did me.”
“Maybe.” But Aiden didn’t seem to want to be found. He was gone as quickly and mysteriously as he’d appeared. “But for now, I’m going to hang up until I’m out of here.”
“I’ll be watching.”
“Thanks.”
Stuffing the phone back into his front pants pocket, he retrieved the daisies from the table and then left the apartment down the spiral staircase. At the bottom was a heavy, steel door. Like the others, it was unlocked.
He stepped through the door and immediately found himself standing in a shadowy room that smelled of leather, stale beer and faint cigarette smoke. A round, oak table stood before him with a single, unlit candle resting in the middle. Four high-back chairs of matching oak stood around it. Similar tables were set all over the room. The walls were painted black, the floors were hardwood. The décor appeared to be a passionate marriage of Harley Davidson and United States naval history. Leather jackets, gloves and biker helmets mingled with American flags, framed photographs of aircraft carriers and battleships, paintings of sailors, framed medals and other various war memorabilia.
This was a bar.
He was still on Main Street, just a few doors down from the florist. He thought for a moment and finally realized where he was. This was Big Brooke Tavern.
Fantastic. He was now trespassing in a biker bar before business hours.
This was definitely not somewhere he wanted to be.
Quickly, he turned to retreat back up the steps, intending to instead leave the way he came. But the heavy, metal door to the spiral staircase was no longer there. He was staring at an empty wall adorned with a painting of a bald eagle.
Baffled, he croaked a stifled, “What—?” and twirled around, scanning the room.
Where the hell had the door gone? He just came out of it. It was right here.
Wasn’t it?
He pressed his hand against the wall and felt it. It made no sense. Doors didn’t just disappear. Yet this one had done just that. It was utterly gone.
He turned and looked out into the bar again. He had to get out of here.
Stepping around the table, he saw that there was a door to his right, but it was clearly marked “FIRE EXIT” and warned him that an alarm would sound if he attempted to open it.
That wasn’t desirable.
The only way out seemed to be the front door.
A loud bang came from the rear of the building, followed immediately by a deep, angry voice that he couldn’t clearly hear but was certain had uttered a profanity of some sort.
He wasn’t alone here.
Again, he wondered what would happen if he was caught. Would the owners call the police and have him arrested? Or would they simply beat the crap out of him and toss him out with the garbage?
Still clinging to the stupid daisies, Eric made for the front door, weaving around tables as he went.
He glanced back. From here he could see the polished bar with all its bottles of liquor neatly organized behind it and its cozy stools sitting empty and waiting for the day’s first patrons. He could also see the door to the right of all those bottles, leading back into the store room. There was a light on back there, shining through the window in the door. If someone were to glance out from behind that window, he would be right out in the open and impossible to miss.
He reached the front doors without drawing anyone’s attention, only to find them locked tight. The handles clanked noisily down, but refused to budge.
Panic exploded in his chest. No! This wasn’t fair. What was he supposed to do now?
“Hey!” boomed a frightful voice from the rear of the building.
Eric spun around. Standing behind the bar, having just emerged from the store room, was a large man in a leather vest with big, tattooed arms and an even bigger gut. His hair was cut so short it was little more than a shadow covering his scalp, but he had more than enough beard to make up for it. Black as coal, it cascaded down his chest and came to rest on top of the huge bulge of his belly. “What are you doing in here? We’re closed.”
Frozen and wide-eyed, significantly outweighed and cradling the big, pink bouquet of daisies in his arms, Eric never had a chance of intimidating this monstrous man. Not even a little. He might as well burst into tears and wet himself on top of it all. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I think I’m lost.”
Eying the bouquet, the man said, “You think?”