“Because, Mauricio just called to tell me that he’s been sending weird texts all night. He’s worried Mikey is going to do something stupid and asked could we please keep an eye on him if he goes anywhere. I have a feeling Mikey had us stay here an extra night for a reason.”
I followed Grace to the new rental car which showed up earlier that evening to replace the one that the homeless woman stole. Grace had parked it at the far end of the lot with the nose of the car facing out so that we had a perfect line of sight on Mikey’s room. It was only a few minutes later that he exited and started toward his porsche.
Grace kept the headlights off as we followed Mikey’s car out of the parking lot and onto the interstate. We drove South for about 20 minutes and then took an exit that had us going West for another 30. Finally, Mikey took an exit labeled “Dew Well” and we followed after him at a safe distance.
Mikey led us into a residential part of town, where he eventually parked in front of a dark dilapidated house that didn’t look all that different from Jeb Casteel’s former home. Grace and I watched as Mikey then headed inside the house without hesitation.
Grace pulled a handgun from her purse and pulled back the slide to chamber a round as she said, “I guess we’re going in.”
“Does EVERYONE have a gun but me?”
Grace dug around inside her purse and retrieved a bottle of pepper spray. “You want this?”
I rolled my eyes and begrudgingly took the pepper spray. Then, for the second time in 24 hours, I started inside a spooky dilapidated house for reasons that I wasn’t entirely sure of. Though, the fact that this time was at night made the experience even more unsettling.
Grace slowly pushed open the ajar front door, careful not to let its ancient hinges creak too loud as it swung inward. The sound of footsteps emanated down from upstairs, prompting Grace and I to start up the dusty steps to our left.
