Cold musty air announced the basement, and I felt along the wall for a light switch. My fingers hit it and I flipped it up, flooding dark red painted wooden stairs. I went down them because I had to see what was there. Nothing was going to stop me, not even fear of her finding me. My heart was beating hard against my ribs as if it were trying to escape.
Chuck Steiner’s worktable was still there, cluttered with tools and gears and an old clock face frozen in time. Pith buttons were scattered about, most of them imprinted with the greasy shapes of the delicate parts they once had cleaned and held. Some were on the concrete floor here and there, along with bits of wire, small nails and screws. Empty hulls of old grandfather clocks stood silent sentry in shadows, and I spotted ancient radios and televisions, too, along with miscellaneous furniture thick with dust.
Walls were white cinder block without windows, and arranged on an expansive pegboard were neat coils of extension cords and other cords and ropes of different materials and thicknesses. I thought of the macrame draped over furniture upstairs, of the intricate lacework of knotted cords covering armrests, chair backs, and cradling plants hanging from eye bolts in ceilings. I envisioned the noose with its hangman’s knot that had been cut from Max Ferguson’s neck. In retrospect, it seemed unbelievable no one had searched this basement before. Even as the police had looked for little Emily, she probably had been down here.
I pulled a string to turn on another light, but the bulb was burned out. I was still without a flashlight, and my heart was drumming so hard I almost couldn’t breathe as I wandered. Near a wall stacked with firewood coated with cobwebs, I found another shut door leading outside. Near a water heater another door led to a full bathroom, and I switched on the light.
I looked around at old white porcelain spattered with paint. The toilet probably had not been flushed in years, for standing water had stained the bowl the color of rust. A brush with bristles stiff and bent like a hand was in the sink, and then I looked inside the tub. I found the quarter almost in the middle of it, with George Washington faceup, and I detected a trace of blood around the drain. I backed out as the door at the top of the stairs suddenly shut, and I heard the bolt slide. Denesa Steiner had just locked me in.
I ran in several directions, my eyes darting around as I tried to think what to do. Dashing to the door near the woodpile, I turned the lock on the knob, threw back the burglar chain, and suddenly found myself in the sunny backyard. I did not see or hear anyone, but I believed she was watching me. She had to know I would come out this way, and I realized with growing horror what was happening. She wasn’t trying to trap me at all. She was locking me out of her house, making certain I couldn’t come back upstairs.
I thought of Marino, and my hands were shaking so hard I almost couldn’t get his keys out of my pocket as I ran around the corner to the driveway. I unlocked the passenger’s door of his polished Chevrolet. The stainless steel Winchester was under the front seat where he always kept his shotgun.
The gun was as cold as ice in my hands as I ran back to the house, leaving the car door wide open. The front door was locked, as I had expected. But there were glass panes on either side of it and I tapped one with the butt of the gun. Glass shattered and lightly fell to carpet on the other side. Wrapping my scarf around my hand, I carefully reached inside and unlocked the door. Then I was running up carpeted stairs, and it was as if someone else were me or I had vacated my own mind. I was in a mode that was more machine than human. I remembered the room lit up last night and ran that way.