Strange Country Read Free Page A

alternately relaxed and nervous and he couldn’t understand what caused one reaction or the other. Hallie had told him once that everything Prue did was calculated. If so, she was good, each action or reaction seeming genuine in itself, just that it made no sense when it was all put together.
    He moved lightly down the hall, unsnapping his holster and removing his pistol as he did so. There had been no sounds from upstairs since he arrived; if there had been an intruder inside the house, he or she was probably gone. But the gap between probability and certainty was wide. And dangerous. He thought again about Prue at the table watching him. She was playing a game, had probably been playing one since the moment she called the station. But he didn’t know what her game was, and if there was even the slimmest possibility that there really was a prowler, he had to check it out.
    At the top of the stairs was a narrow landing with four doors that led to what Boyd guessed were three bedrooms and a bathroom. He paused. Nothing. He opened the first door to his left—the bathroom, long and narrow—checked behind the door and the shower curtain. Nothing. The next room was filled with boxes, a long table and two armoires on opposite walls. Moonlight filtered in through the uncurtained window, and the room felt cold. There was an acrid smell, like burnt motor oil, and a low hum that Boyd felt more in his chest than actually heard. He flipped the switch, but the single overhead light didn’t come on, so he worked his way along the wall, checking the corners before he moved on to the furniture. The first armoire was locked; the second was empty.
    The third room, visible by a night-light in an outlet by the bed, looked like a guest room—bed, nightstand, narrow painted dresser, wooden rocking chair. Boyd checked behind the door, checked the closet. No other sounds than his own footsteps as he moved though the rooms. Still, he checked.
    The last room was the largest, clearly Prue’s own bedroom, with a night-light in the outlet near the door, and a second one to the left of the nightstand by the bed. Boyd checked behind the door and in the closet. He could see all the corners and he’d already lowered his pistol when he noticed that the window on the far side of the bed had been raised approximately six inches.
    He approached with his hand on his gun.
    There was a three-foot drop to the porch roof. The window and the storm window were both open, but not far enough for anyone to squeeze through. Cold from outside barely penetrated the warmth of the room, stymied by insulated curtains and the general stillness of the night. He tried the window himself. It lowered, but it wouldn’t open any farther than the six inches it had already been raised.
    After studying both the window and the porch roof below for several minutes, Boyd returned to the closet, turned on the light, and looked up. He saw a trapdoor with a pull rope attached. When he stood to the side and pulled, steps unfolded into the narrow closet space. He waited, didn’t hear anything, and went carefully up the stairs. He could have called another deputy out, gotten them out of bed, and waited while they drove across town or ten miles in from a trailer on CR54, but even then, one of them still would have had to be the first one up the ladder.
    He went up fast, pistol ready, and found what he’d expected—boxes, some dust. No intruder, but he could see that dust had been disturbed on a couple of boxes and a shelf on the near wall where there appeared to be something missing, a clear spot left behind in the shape of a small rectangle.
    He refolded the attic stairs, reholstered his pistol, brushed nonexistent dust off his pants leg, and went back downstairs.
    Chelly checked in on the way down, which meant he’d been there half an hour. “Five minutes,” he told her.
    He went back to the kitchen, where he found Prue still in the same spot at the table, looking at the cooling