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Chapter Eighteen
AFTER DARK, I slipped into the laundry room and lifted a slat in the blind to get a look at Ashleigh’s house. The place was dark. I visualized the inside and tried to recall anything she’d said that might be a clue, but nothing came to mind. I located another flashlight, slipped into a dark windbreaker, and stepped out into the night. It was cave black.
The darkness was alive with a thousand sounds. Endless rhythms and patterns of drumming, chirping, buzzing, rustling. Nature’s symphony. The sounds of life. Sounds one would rarely hear locked away in prison.
I squeezed into the row of bushes at the back of the lot and emerged about thirty feet from Ashleigh’s steps. There was a large seal on the door that hadn’t been there Sunday night. Otherwise, it looked exactly the same: potted plants hanging along the edges of the porch and a pair of dirty tennis shoes sitting by the entrance.
I moved forward, lifted the police tape, and starte
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