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stunned, and then she lowered it slowly and clutched it to her chest, warm raspberry sauce and all, her heart beating like mad. She stared dumbfounded at the wall, waiting to see if he’d come rushing back through, like a ghost or something. When nothing happened, she went over and pushed cautiously with the pan on the place where the kid had disappeared.
It swung open and shut again, the hideous wallpaper that had covered it now torn along the straight edge of a doorframe.
“Oh,” Agnes said, caught between amazement that there’d been a swinging door behind the wallpaper and fear that there was also a crazed moron behind there.
“Agnes!” Joey yelled on the phone.
Agnes took a deep breath and stepped back to the counter and picked it up. “What?”
“What the fuck happened?”
“There’s another door in my kitchen, right next to the hall door.” Agnes went back and pushed it open again, avoiding the rusted, broken nails that lined the doorway edge, and peered into the black void. “Huh.”
“Where’s the kid with the gun?”
“Good question.” Agnes dropped her skillet on the counter, yanked open the utility drawer by the door, and got out her flashlight. She turned it on, shoved the door open with her shoulder, and pointed it into the darkness.
“What are you doing?” Joey yelled.
“I’m trying to see what’s behind this door. I didn’t even know it was here. Brenda never mentioned?—”
“Agnes, you can explore that goddamn house later,” Joey said. “Take Rhett and get the hell out of there.”
“I don’t think the kid’s a problem anymore.” Agnes held the phone with one hand and peered down into the pool of light the flashlight cast on the floor below as Rhett came to join her, pressing close to her leg so he could peer, too. “He fell into a basement. I didn’t even know I had a basement back here. Brenda never said anything about one.
Did you know—?” She had been playing the light around the floor, and now she stopped as it hit the moron. “Uh-oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘uh-oh’?”
The boy was splayed out on what looked like a concrete floor, and he did not look good.
“I think he’s hurt. He’s definitely not moving.”
“Good,” Joey said. “He fall down the stairs?”
“There are no stairs.” Agnes squinted down into the darkness as the light hit the boy’s face.
His eyes stared up at her, dull and fixed.
Agnes screamed, and Rhett scrambled back, stepping in the raspberry sauce, which he began to lick up. “Agnes?”
“Oh, God,” Agnes said as her throat closed in panic. “Joey, his neck’s at a funny angle and his eyes are staring up at me. I think 1 killed him.”
“No, you didn’t, honey,” Joey said around the traffic noise in the background. “He committed suicide when he attacked an insane woman in the stupid house she bought. I’m almost there. You stay there and don’t open that door for anybody.”
“He’s dead, Joey. I have to call the police.” This is bad. This is bad. This is not going to look good.
“The police can’t help you with this one,” Joey said. “You stay put. I’m gonna get you somebody until we figure this out.”
“Some body. Right.” Agnes clicked off the phone and looked back down at the dead body in her basement.
He looked pathetic, lying there all broken and dead-eyed. Agnes swallowed, trying to get a grip on the situation.
How are you feeling right now, Agnes?
Shut the fuck up, Dr. Garvin.
Don’t say “fuck,” Agnes. Angry language makes us angrier. Gosh darn, Dr. Garvin, I’m feeling ... She put the beam on the boy again. Still dead.
