10 years ago, the Lawson family disappeared without a trace, seemingly into thin air. Upon the discovery of a hidden room, it reopens a decade later, and Harper Sloann, a low-ranking detective with a fascination for the macabre, takes on the case. I...
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I sat inside Chief's hatchback, hands warming from the coffee cup's sides. It wasn't cold outside. Wasn't that scorching, either. More like in the middle. It's alright.
The air conditioning blasted crisp air towards my face, making the nausea build up as Chief steered the car to where he wanted to go. "Feel free to take a sip," he said when he noticed me squished on the shotgun seat. I looked so small compared to the hulk of his car. "I wouldn't mind if there are spills."
"That's not what I'm worried about, Chief," I said, eyeing the scenery and noticed it was nowhere near the station. It's still familiar, which was scarier. "Where are we going? And why in your car? I could have taken mine if this is for a case."
"Trust me on this, Sloann," Molina tapped a finger against the gearstick. He seemed to be listening to a tune I couldn't hear, but he wasn't wearing headsets. The stereo was off too. Maybe a recent LSS? "And this is for a case. Your case."
Before I could say anything more, he yanked the wheel, turning into a bend that'd take us straight to the expressway. The moment the roads and the scenery whizzing past me from the tinted windows started bringing me back to my childhood, I realized Chief was right. I was going to need the coffee.
I dunked the contents of the cup as fast as the car's motion and the nausea rising in my gut could allow. The bitter taste of the beans wrapped around my tongue, enough to mask the rancid sliver of my bile. By the time I finished the drink—which I paid for, by the way—the car peeled off the expressway and ambled along a foresty alley, one I never thought I'd go back to.
He's taking us back to the Lawson House.
And true enough, within a quarter of an hour, the Chief pulled up in front of a bright barricade of police tape, telling people to keep out. In the distance, the sky matched the plumes which must have wafted into it when the flames devoured the house. What remained of the Lawson House came into view.
My jaw parted when I climbed out of the car and Chief followed suit. His footsteps crunched against the dried blades of grass as he rounded the back and joined me. He jerked his chin at the rubble before us. "Looks bad, no?"
I could only agree. Only the pillars were left, the walls having caved down under the fire. The roof, once laden with laverne roofing, had withered away to nothing, leaving a spindly skeleton of the support beams. The smell of ash and burned glass was heavy in the air. When a stray wind blew, I was sure it carried with it traces of the embers which had once been the Lawson House.
As expected, the hidden room, located at the back of the house by the stairs, was decimated into a pile of splintering planks, charred books, and little trinkets touched by the flames but only went as far as melting them.
"Why did you bring me here?" I turned to Molina who stared at the scene with a passive look. "It's too late for a field investigation, is it not?"
"You seem eager to avoid doing it at all costs," the Chief answered, his voice nowhere near the volume he adapted during our shouting matches. Somehow, this was scarier. "Even going as far as torching the place down."
