Chapter 7 - Headlights in the Driveway
The white glare swept across the walls, illuminating the dried mud on the floor, the open cellar door, and the blood pooling beside Thomas’s boot. A heavy patrol truck idle rattled the glass panes in the front room, its engine running hot and loud. Sarah grabbed Thomas by his good arm, shoving him backward toward the cellar stairs.
"Get down there," she hissed. "If he sees you, he won't ask questions."
"He didn't come to ask questions," Thomas muttered, but his knees buckled under the blood loss, and he stumbled down three steps into the gloom, catching himself against the stone wall. Sarah slammed the cellar door shut, sliding the brass bolt home just as the heavy thud of car doors slamming shut echoed from the driveway.
There were two of them. Sarah watched from behind the edge of the calico curtain as Sheriff Vance stepped out of the driver’s side, adjusting his wide-brimmed rain hat against the downpour. From the passenger side emerged Deputy Cole, holding a heavy pump-action shotgun cradled across his chest. Neither man moved with the casual ease of an officer checking on a rural resident after a storm; they walked with the deliberate, heavy cadence of men closing a trap.
Sarah threw the kitchen knife into the sink, wiped her damp hands on her jeans, and walked to the front door. She unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open before Vance could reach the top step of the porch.
"Sheriff," she said, leaning against the doorframe to block the view of the hallway behind her. "Power's out along the ridge. A little late for a welfare check, isn't it?"
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Vance stopped on the third step, the rain pouring off the brim of his hat. He didn't smile. His eyes were cold, calculating, fixed entirely on the dark smear of fresh red blood sitting right on the edge of the threshold.
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