Page 300 of Property of Whiskey

I smile.

Twila looks toward the front door. “Anybody got a warrant?”

Royal turns toward her. “You worried about procedure now?”

She smiles. “Just wanted to hear you admit you know what one is.”

He flips her off.

Twila pats the folded paper inside her jacket. “Signed before we left. Daddy got the judge on the affidavit.”

Royal looks disappointed. “You had to ruin the fun with procedure.”

“I’m still a deputy.”

“Tragic.”

Legend mutters something about children.

The front door ain’t locked. That bothers me more than if it were.

Twila pulls on gloves and opens it with one hand, then starts through first. Every instinct I own tells me to hook my fingers into the back of her jacket and pull her behind me.

I don’t.

I step through beside her.

Inside, the air is cool and damp enough to settle against my skin. Dust floats through our flashlight beams, the old carpet has gone dark with mildew, and somewhere deeper in the house water drips in a slow, steady rhythm.

Under all of it is another smell.

Bleach.

Twila turns her head slightly.

She caught it too.

“That ain’t twenty years old.”

“No.”

The entry hall is mostly empty. Picture frames still hang along one wall, but the photographs are gone, leaving cleaner rectangles inside dusty glass and pale spaces where other frames were recently removed.

Royal sweeps his light across them. “Somebody cleaned house.”

“Recently,” Twila says.

Legend crouches near the baseboard and points out several tracks cutting through the grime. None belong to us. Different boots, maybe work shoes, more than one person.

We move deeper.

The first bedroom contains three metal bed frames with no mattresses, though the dust outlines show where they once sat.

Twila crouches and runs her flashlight low along the wall. “Look.”

An eye bolt is screwed into the baseboard near the first bed.

Another sits beside the second.