Page 29 of His to Haunt
“But I want your hot pussy,” he says breathlessly, punctuated by the sound of Kimmie screaming.
Ritter loosens his grip on me just enough that I duck down, escaping his clutches.
“Kimmie!” I call out, racing into the hall, my heart pounding. I reach into my pocket for my phone as several nightmare scenarios flood my brain. Maybe the chandelier fell on her, and she’s lying in a pool of blood. Or maybe Silas has an aggressive side worse than Ritter, and he’s ripping her clothes off. Or…
“Leena, help!”
She stands in the hall alone, pointing at the elevator red-faced.
“He went down. He yelled something—it sounded like he was in pain. I…can’t get the door open.”
I rush to the door, pulling on the lever, but it won’t budge. Ritter joined us, wiping his mouth.
He grabs onto the lever, flexing the muscles with a grunt before dropping his hands with a frown. “It’s jammed. Is there another way down?”
“There is a basement door,” I say, turning past the library. But the door is locked.
I hurry to the kitchen, where I keep the mass of keys. But then I remember I moved the key chain to my room after reading Rachel’s letter.
I tell Kimmie and Ritter to wait in the hall. I do not want Silas in my room, and I’m expecting him to behave himself with Kimmie since she’s with his friend, who seems to be the leader of the two and the one who pays for things.
Grabbing the key guide and chain, I head back into the hall, and we all head to the basement door. There is a banging sound below the house, just like the night of the storm. Except there is no storm currently. I imagine poor Silas lost in the pitch black of the embalming room.
Studying the reference sheet, I find a dark gold and ancient-looking key with the base of the key resembling an Ankh. Each key on the chart has a series of dots beside it, one dot, two, three, and four, arranged in patterns like dice. A way of telling them apart? But there should be four of these. There is only one of this type on the big chain that I have, and it doesn’t work. Kimmie gives it a try, then Ritter.
“It’s missing,” I declare.
“Well, what the hell, then? You have a crowbar?” he says.
“Not sure,” I say, trying to think of where there might be some tools. “Maybe…a tool shed somewhere.”
He makes a sour face at me. “You don’t even know where your tools are kept?”
“Hey, I just moved here.”
He shakes his head at me, then turns and walks off down the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“To bust the window,” he says over his shoulder.
Kimmie and I raise our eyebrows at each other before chasing after him.
We find him near some short bushes around the side of the house, where he is looking at a recess in the ground where a rectangular basement window might go, but it’s been bricked over.
“Mother fucker,” he shouts, heading around the other side of the house. I scan the ground for a shed, but if it’s out there in the darkness, there are no lights around it. I shine my phone light across the grounds, seeing nothing but hedges and trees.
We meet up with Ritter, who is shaking his head at another bricked-off window.
Kimmie throws her hands up. “Why did they do that to the windows?”
“No idea,” I shrug.
Ritter knocks his head back in frustration, running his hands through his hair and then dropping them down dramatically.
“There has to be a way in,” he says.
“Should we dial 9-11?” suggests Kimmie.