“Hold on.” Adam stepped back. “We really don’t want to make it that obvious that we’re here.”

We didn’t?

With a quick grin, Adam backed off the porch and disappeared around the side of the house. A few moments later, I heard the click of the front door and then it opened. I arched a brow as Adam held the door open.

“Figured if we had to break something, we shouldn’t make it so obvious,” Adam said as I stepped past him, into the dark and cold house. “Plus the back door didn’t have one of those weird locks on it. Easily broken.”

“Smart,” I murmured, scanning the bare walls as I walked farther into the house.

Adam pulled out his cell phone. A few seconds later, the screen lit up with harsh white light, casting a glow along the floors and walls. We passed what looked like a living room. A couch draped in a light-colored canvas was the only thing remaining in the room. The kitchen was odd, though. A table sat in the corner of the room, covered in a thick layer of dust.

“Is this normal?” Adam asked, gesturing at the counters. Kitchen appliances were still in their designated spaces. A toaster sat next to a coffeemaker, and both had obviously been sitting untouched since the Williamses moved away. “Do people just leave stuff behind?”

I raised a shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe they didn’t need it.”

“Or they were in a hurry,” Adam supplied.

In a hurry for what? To get away from all reminders of their missing, presumed dead daughter? Or something else? God. We would probably never know.

From the kitchen, we headed upstairs. Our footsteps echoed in the otherwise silent house. We found Bethany’s room pretty easily. From what I remembered, she liked to paint, and there was a nice-sized room with an easel by a dirtied window. There were papers on a small desk, mostly assignments from school. An odd pang hit me in the chest when I saw the neat stack of books in a corner. It reminded me of Kat.

This could be her.

One day, someone could be walking through her room, looking for evidence of what happened to her. Shit. That hit me hard, a fist to the lungs and stomach. Made me want to turn around, find Kat, and keep her…keep her safe somewhere, and that had nothing to do with us being connected. And the punch of panic was far too strong for someone who was just physically attracted to another person.

But I already knew that what I was feeling for Kat dug in far deeper than lust.

Adam opened a closet door, revealing that it hadn’t been packed up. Clothing hung from hangers. Jeans were stacked on a shelf. Shoes scattered the inside. “You know,” he said, stepping aside as he looked over his shoulder at me, “I think this is kind of weird.”

“Same here.” I had no idea if her parents had owned this house or rented it. Either way, it didn’t seem normal that this much stuff was left behind.

I riffled through the papers, finding nothing of interest. The same with her closet. What was I really expecting? A list of people Bethany might’ve confided in? Like life was that easy.

Adam roamed out of the room, and a few moments later he returned, his expression unreadable. “I think I found something interesting.”

Following him down the hall, we entered a smaller bedroom. Like the rest of the house, personal items were scattered about, along with dusty furniture. Adam walked over to an open closet and picked up what looked like a shoe box off the floor. He sat it on the stripped-down bed. “If I remember correctly, Beth lived here with her parents and a younger brother. Her dad worked in Virginia somewhere.”

I nodded, knowing this.

“And I’m pretty sure neither of her parents was a doctor. I remember Dawson telling me once what they did, but hell if I can remember exactly now, but I know neither of them was a doctor.” He gestured at the box. “Which is why I find it strange there’s a shoe box with a stethoscope and a blank prescription pad from the hospital.”

Walking over to the box, I picked up the pad. With the light from Adam’s phone, I saw that was indeed a prescription pad from the local hospital. “These cannot be easy to get ahold of nowadays, not if you don’t actually work at the hospital.”

“Exactly.” Adam moved the phone back to the box, shining the light on the stethoscope. He picked it up, running his thumb along the metal part. “Something was either scratched into the metal or engraved, but you can’t make it out.”

I caught it when he tossed it over, and he was right, the markings were ilegible. I dropped it back in the box, frowning. When I walked to the closet, I saw a couple of plain white men’s shirts lying on the floor.

“No one in her family was a doctor or worked at the hospital?” I asked.

“Not that I know of. I mean, at least not her immediate family, but it looks like someone else lived here with them.” Adam sighed. “The thing is, none of this could mean a damn thing.”

Bending at the knees, I nodded again. “I know.” I swept the shirts aside, feeling something under them. “Hey, bring the light over here.”

A second later, white light shone down on what was under the forgotten shirts. My brows lifted. Several unused bundles of gauze sat atop a bedpan, and I spotted a cane in the corner of the closet. A walker was folded up, resting against the back wall. Next to the bedpan was a pack of unused plastic cups with lids and an unopened six-pack of Ensure.

“Someone was either very old or very sick,” Adam commented.

“Yeah,” I murmured, standing up as unease crawled its way down my spine. “Someone who was either sick or old who might’ve worked at the hospital.”

“Uh-huh.”

Something about this struck me as wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What we found might not mean anything and as we scoped out the rest of the house, we didn’t find anything else. Later that night, as I lay in bed, staring at the cracks in the plaster, I still couldn’t shake the discomfort of knowing I’d stumbled across something without knowing what had tripped me.

Chapter 22

Kat was late to trig class Friday morning before Christmas break, entering the classroom a few moments before the bell rung. Immediately, I knew something was wrong with her. She walked stiffly, as if she couldn’t fully extend her legs. I straightened as she made her way to the desk in front of me and watched her sit down very slowly. Concern pinged through me.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She turned halfway, her face a shade paler than normal. “Yeah. Just slept wrong.”

Tension poured into me. Slept wrong? Fallen recently? And burned her hand on a stove? “Did you sleep on the floor or something?”

She laughed drily and started to turn back around. “Feels like it.”

My fingers dug into the edges of the desk. “Kat…”

“What?” she whispered, her gaze not meeting mine.

I stared at her for a moment and then sat back, folding my arms. “Never mind,” I said, even though I wanted to ask her how training was last night, but I sensed I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. “You still on for tonight?”

Biting her lip, she nodded and turned back around. Throughout class and the rest of the day, whenever I saw her, she moved stiffly. Dee noticed it after lunch, catching me in the hallway. My sister was worried about Kat, and Kat wasn’t telling her anything. Nothing new there, but the horrible suspicion that there was more to her recent injuries overshadowed the unease from last night.

Would Kat lie about someone hurting her?

The mere thought nearly caused me to lose control of my human form while in history class, because there was only one person who would be in the position to hurt her. Blake. In between classes, I’d kept an eye out for the little punk-ass, but he was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, because even without proof he was hurting Kat, I still wanted to rip his throat out. Just because.