Evil at Heart (32 page)

           
“This way,” Archie said. He walked through another door and flipped on a light switch. A series of bare compact fluorescent bulbs stuttered to life in a hallway. The wood floors were warped, providing a facsimile of vertigo to Susan as she followed Archie down the hallway. The walls were covered with colorful airbrushed images and scrawled spray-painted signatures.

           
“At least the graffiti’s interesting,” said Archie.

           
Susan took a closer look at the walls. Next to some of the images were unmistakable round red stickers. “It’s art,” Susan said.

           
Archie didn’t answer.

           
“Really,” Susan insisted. “See the red dots? It’s a gallery.”

           
“It’s a dank hallway,” Archie said.

           
“Slash gallery,” Susan said. “Low overhead. A lot of these old warehouses cater to the underground art scene.”

           
She thought she heard Archie sigh.

           
“This city really needs to start enforcing fire codes,” he said.

           
“You know what causes the most house fires?” Susan said. “Cooking. It’s why I don’t do it.”

           
“Down here,” Archie said, opening another door and flipping another light switch.

           
The door revealed a set of wide fire stairs that led to a concrete floor and another door. Another scary basement.Of course. “You know what I’d like to see?” Susan asked. “More crime involving airy aboveground spaces.”

           
Archie started down the stairs. There was a single compact fluorescent bulb at the bottom of the stairwell that made the whole scene look like something out of a Japanese horror film.

           
“What makes you think this Jeremy kid will be here?” Susan said. “Maybe he hit an earlier meeting.” Susan had a sudden vision of a group of bloodthirsty cultists sitting in a circle drinking bad coffee and sharing stories from their childhood. Like AA, but with more blood and cackling. You could hit the child-killer meeting in the morning and the support group for sexual homicide fetishists at noon.

           
“I don’t think it works like that,” Archie said.

           
“Should we make a plan?” Susan asked. “Like what’s our story?” They couldn’t just walk in without a story. “Are we serial-killer enthusiasts looking for the Gretchen Lowell Fan Club meeting? Are we a nice couple who’s run out of gas and wandered inside to look for lodging?” Susan looked at Archie, then down at herself. “Never mind. No one would buy us as a couple.” She considered more options. “I know! Let’s be building inspectors.”

           
The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and a girl appeared.

           
Susan and Archie froze. The fluorescent bulb made the girl’s skin glow bright and blurry like television static. She was wearing black fishnets, cutoffs, a black tank top, a Goth-looking black lace-up corset over the tank top, and lace-up high-heeled pointy-toed boots that looked like they’d been salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic. To finish the outfit off, the girl wore a pair of antique-looking driving goggles on top of her head.

           
Runaway, Susan thought. Hiding out. Probably more freaked out to see them than they were to see her. The whole building-inspector cover suddenly seemed pretty weak. Susan wished she’d had her clipboard.

           
Archie was four steps ahead. Susan couldn’t see his face. Susan willed him to say something. He didn’t. “Hi,” Susan said to the girl. “My husband and I ran out of gas.”

           
The girl didn’t even look at her. The girl was looking at Archie. Her cheeks flushed. Her stance went a little pigeon-toed, or maybe it was just the boots. And then she squeaked two words—“Archie Sheridan”—followed by a little squeal. Like a kitten, having a nightmare.

           
Susan had met Jack White once and reacted much the same way.

           
“That’s me,” Archie said.

           
The girl had a stud in each eyebrow, and she reached up and twisted one. “You came,” she said. “I mean, wow.”

           
Archie took a step down one more stair, moving slowly, like someone approaching a wounded animal. “I’m looking for Jeremy,” he said.

           
The girl nodded, but Susan wasn’t sure if she was responding to what Archie had said or was just trembling with excitement.

           
“Do you know Jeremy?” Susan asked the girl.

           
The girl’s pierced brows furrowed, and she shot Susan a concerned look. “I’m not sure if you’re allowed a guest,” she said to Archie.

           
The story of Susan’s life. She couldn’t even get a plus one to a serial-killer sect.

           
Archie took another step toward the girl, all nonthreatening confidence. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.

           
The cheeks deepened another shade. “I guess,” the girl said. She shrugged and Susan noticed how bony her shoulders were. What was she? Sixteen? “Come this way,” the girl said. She swung the door open with a self-conscious flourish that made her seem even younger. “Everyone’s waiting.”

           
Archie descended the final three stairs and stood face-to-face with the girl. She was small and seemed to shrink more in his presence. With her cinched corset, teetering boots, and brass goggles, she looked like a tiny awkward insect. Susan clomped down the stairs after them, her arms crossed.

           
“They’re waiting,” the girl said again.

           
“Is Jeremy waiting?” Archie asked.

           
“We love Jeremy,” the girl said. She smiled and her eyes suddenly shimmered. “Just like we love you, Archie.” Susan would have laughed if the whole thing hadn’t been so entirely creepy. She looked for some sign from Archie, a wink or nudge, something that would reassure her that they were in on this together, but she got nothing. She clutched her purse full of mace closer.

           
The girl sniffed noisily, and wiped her nose with her forearm. “You have no idea,” she said. “We’re your biggest fans.” Then, with an apologetic gesture toward a stain on the concrete floor, she stepped through the door at the base of the steps and into a dimly lit basement hallway. “Watch the blood,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s kind of slippery.”

           
“Blood?” Susan said.

           
The girl laughed. “I’m kidding,” she said. “God.”

           
C H A P T E R 39

           
Archie matched his gait to Susan’s, so that they were side by side, a few steps behind the girl. He knew where they were going. He’d been in this basement a dozen times. He’d walked down those stairs, down this hallway, around the corner, into the old boiler room.

           
Seven years ago, Gretchen had killed a man here. Archie had examined the crime scene. Taken inventory of every lesion on the corpse. Watched the man split open on the ME’s table. Seven years ago, Archie had notified the dead man’s wife and children. He’d gone to the house, rung the doorbell in the middle of the night, and broken the news that their husband and father was dead.

           
Back then the main floor of the warehouse had been a used-office-furniture outfit. Metal desks, filing cabinets, stacks of steel-case cubicle components, and hundreds of pale blue and plum-colored office chairs arranged in rows three hundred feet long.

           
No makeshift gallery. The upper floors were empty, the windows boarded up.

           
“Are there still rats down here?” Archie asked the girl.

           
Susan stiffened.

           
The girl shrugged. “You see them once in a while,” she said.

           
There was a persistent drip coming from a pipe somewhere that echoed off the concrete. But the air down there was cool and pleasant. The ceiling was low, but looked even lower than it was, and Archie found himself reflexively hunching over a little as they walked.

           
The gun was tucked into his waistband, under his shirt, at the small of his back. He ordinarily wore his gun in a shoulder holster, but that was in a box in a storage unit. He could feel the gun at his back now, like someone’s hand pressing him along, guiding him deeper into the basement. It would be hard to get at in a hurry, but it was there if they needed it and it was in a place that amateurs might not check. It was that or duct tape it behind his neck—he still couldn’t really figure out exactly how people pulled that off on cop shows. Besides, he didn’t have any duct tape.