Death Night

“I know.” Emma looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. “But please let me try to salvage at least a few things. Please.”

Kat liked to think she was too tough to be swayed by tears. She was wrong. The fire had left Emma devastated. Letting her try to save a few items was the least she could do.

“Okay,” she said, stepping in front of Emma. “But let me go first.”

Dutch entered the museum. Gripping his own flashlight, he aimed the beam at Kat’s face. “Not a chance,” he said. “I’ll go first.”

Behind him, the voice of Danny Batallas rose from outside. “I’ll stay right here, if you don’t mind.”

“Go back to the truck,” Dutch instructed. “Tell the others what we’re doing. If we’re not back in five minutes, send in a rescue team.”

He waved his flashlight back and forth between Kat and Emma. “You got that? Five minutes.”

Dutch handed each of them a helmet and demanded that they put them on before going any farther. “You’ll thank me if the ceiling caves in,” he said.

Kat did as she was told. The helmet was heavier than she expected—a weight pressing down from the top of her skull—and did nothing to aid in navigation. It obscured her peripheral vision, forcing her to twist her head to the sides if she wanted to see anything that wasn’t directly in front of her.

Not that there was much to look at in the hallway. Inching through it, Kat saw only a few administrative offices and a meeting room. Still, she could tell that this section of the museum wasn’t nearly as fire-ravaged as the front. Other than the smoke and some puddles of water, everything seemed to be in decent condition. It wasn’t until they reached the end of the hallway, which opened into the main gallery, that Kat saw the extent of the damage.

The gallery, a large room packed floor to ceiling with displays, had been obliterated. Sweeping her flashlight across the room, Kat saw that portions of the floor and most of the ceiling were badly charred. The walls were, too. The one facing the street had been so severely gutted that she could see right through it to the thinning crowd outside. Whatever had been hanging on the wall was now gone. Only warped and blackened frames remained.

In fact, most of the displays in the gallery had been destroyed. Those that weren’t consumed by the fire had been ruined from water damage. Display cases that might have withstood the flames had been knocked over by the pressure of the hoses. The floor was covered with glass shards and water, which combined to make a crunching and sloshing sound that reminded Kat of a pebble beach at high tide.

Roaming the gallery, she noticed random objects among the detritus, some of which she still remembered from her childhood visits. A pocket watch. A woman’s shoe. A blade saw from the mill’s early days. In the corner, a wax figure wore the remains of a Union Army uniform from the Civil War. Drops of water fell from the sleeves, and large holes that resembled cigarette burns marred the fabric. The figure’s face had melted, its misshapen nose oozing down to what had once been its chin.

She looked to the wall opposite the front door. Still hanging there, safe in its frame, was the deed Emma had mentioned earlier. Roughly the same size as a newspaper and written in florid script, it stated that Mr. Irwin Perry now owned a hundred acres of land outside an unnamed village in southeastern Pennsylvania. A year later, the Perry Mill opened, flooding the village with workers. To mark this surge, the village was officially named Perry Hollow. Of all the pieces in the museum, the deed was the most treasured. Seeing that it had been spared made Kat breathe a sigh of relief.

Emma, however, was downright overcome with emotion. Sniffing back tears of gratitude, she hugged both Kat and Dutch.

“You helped save history,” she told them. “You really did.”

“I’ll take it down,” Dutch said. “Then we’ve got to get the hell out of here. I don’t want to press our luck.”

While he removed the frame from the wall, Emma took off her helmet and whipped out her cell phone one more time. “I have to tell Constance. She’ll be thrilled to know the deed survived.”

She dialed and held the phone to her ear. A second later, Kat heard a muffled trilling coming from somewhere inside the museum. It chirped three more times before abruptly going silent.

“She’s still not picking up,” Emma said, flipping her phone shut.

Kat also removed her helmet. “Call her again.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Once again, Emma tapped in the phone number. And once again, Kat heard the electronic trill. She edged to a corner of the room. The sound was slightly louder there, though still muffled. When it chirped again, Kat realized the noise was coming from beneath the floor.

She turned to Emma. “Does the museum have a basement?”

“There’s a crawl space under the gallery. We sometimes use it for storage, although the rest of the collection is up in the attic.”

“How can I get down there?”

“A trapdoor,” Emma said, confused. “You’re standing on it.”

Kat took a step backward, finally seeing several gaps in the floorboards that formed a square. A nickel-sized hole—easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it—sat on one side of the square. Kneeling, Kat jammed an index finger into the hole and raised the trapdoor until she could slide a hand under it.

Seeing what she was doing, Dutch handed the framed deed to Emma. He then knelt next to Kat, aiming the flashlight into the crawl space as she removed the door and peered inside.

What they saw was Constance Bishop.

She was slumped over a wooden chest, her generous rump raised in the air. Her legs were bent slightly, knees pushing against the wooden chest, and her lifeless arms dangled forward. One of her shoes was missing, revealing the sole of a foot blackened with dirt.

Dutch moved the flashlight beam over her body, which hadn’t been able to escape the fire hoses despite being beneath the floor. Beads of water dotted the pale skin on the back of her legs. Her blouse and skirt, darkened by moisture, clung to her body.

When the light reached the back of her head, Kat saw a flash of crimson. Blood. Just behind her right ear. Tiny bits of white stuck to her hair. Bone fragments, Kat surmised. Or maybe brain matter.

“Sweet Jesus,” Dutch muttered.

“What’s down there?”

It was Emma Pulsifer, stomping toward them with the deed tucked under her arm. Kat stood, trying to block her, but it was too late. Emma peered into the crawl space, spotted Constance, and choked out a strangled cry.

“No! Dear God, no.”

She clamped a palm against her open mouth, the deed slipping from her arms. The frame shattered when it hit the floor—Perry Hollow’s founding document smashed into a hundred pieces.

The noise snapped Kat into action. Returning to the floor, she lowered herself into the crawl space. It was a tight fit, especially with Constance there, but she managed to squeeze herself inside. For once, being short was an advantage. Still, wiggle room was nonexistent, forcing her to stand behind Constance, straddling her lifeless legs.

As Dutch held the light steady from above, Kat leaned forward until her chest was pressed against Constance’s back. She placed two fingers against the side of Constance’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

There wasn’t one.

Not content with the results, Kat pivoted as much as space would allow and reached for Constance’s left arm. Although it was as heavy and unwieldy as wet cardboard, she managed to raise it enough to slip two fingers against her wrist. No pulse there, either.

“She’s dead,” Kat announced.

She swallowed hard, suppressing the sob that threatened to bubble up from deep in her chest. Part of her sadness was, of course, for Constance Bishop, a kind woman whose life had been cut short. The rest of the grief was reserved for her town. She thought the violence had died with the Grim Reaper killer. She was wrong. Murder had once again visited Perry Hollow.

Above her, Emma’s sobs grew louder. They blasted through the hole in the floor and echoed into the smallest recesses of the crawl space until they became tinny and faint. The light above Kat shifted as Dutch apparently turned in an attempt to comfort Emma. The new slant of the flashlight’s beam illuminated the left side of Constance’s head, her shoulder, and part of the arm that Kat was still holding. It also, Kat noticed, shed light on a series of black marks on Constance’s hand.

“Don’t move,” she shouted up to Dutch. “Keep the light right where it is.”

“Why?” he called back.

Kat didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned forward even more, staring at the dark lines on chalky flesh. They were letters, she realized, scrawled in what seemed to be black marker.

Someone had written on Constance Bishop’s hand.