Part 48 (1/2)

Welcome to a very special episode of House Hunters.

”That's it over there,” said Sarah about thirty minutes after we were on the ground in Los Angeles. She was pointing from the backseat of the cab we took from LAX. ”The number's on the mailbox. Two seventy-two.”

We pulled up, paid the driver, got out, and stared at Ned Sinclair's last known residence. I expected it to be run-down and creepy, with overgrown gra.s.s and weeds. Instead, it was in great shape, well maintained and impeccably manicured.

That somehow made it really creepy.

”Nora's estate probably provided for a caretaker on the a.s.sumption that Ned would one day be released,” said Sarah.

”Maybe,” I said.

She looked at me. ”Why? You don't think-”

”That he's in there? Nah. He's been killing in only one direction: east,” I said. ”Lousy odds that he'd be commuting back and forth.”

The better odds were that Ned had made a stop at the house after springing himself from Eagle Mountain, only twenty miles away. Pack a suitcase? A shower and a shave? Grab a little travel cash?

The real question, though, was whether he'd managed to leave something behind-some clue, anything, that could help us track him down.

”I'll let you do the honors,” I said as we approached the front door of the cedar-shake house with white trim.

Sarah removed the key from her pocket. It was still a little sticky from all the tape Olivia had used to adhere it to her diary.

”Tell me again there's no chance he's in there,” she said.

”Okay, there's no chance he's in there.”

We both laughed. Ha-ha. Then we both quickly took out our guns.

Just in case we were both wrong.

Chapter 75

KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO'S THERE?

n.o.body.

After a quick sweep of the entire house, there was no Ned to be found. Sarah and I were back in the small ceramic-tiled foyer, where we began.

”You take the upstairs, I've got downstairs,” she said.

Now it was all about finding clues, something that would point us in the right direction. A Ned decoder. Where was he heading next?

Had this been a movie, it would've been so simple. We'd walk into a room and discover with mouths agape that every inch of every wall was covered with pictures of me, each one with a giant X over my face. Then we'd stumble upon some marked-up road map that gave us the exact location of where Ned was planning to kill again.