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Chapter 2

Author: Goodtale
Detective Wyatt didn't respond. He stood there for two seconds, then gestured toward the two officers behind him with a nod of his chin. "Since a report was made, we'll follow protocol. Check the place out."

The two officers squeezed through the doorway. One searched through the couch cushions while the other opened the TV cabinet.

Henry didn't try to stop them. He just leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed and a sneer plastered on his face.

They tore the entire apartment up.

About 40 minutes later, the two officers walked back into the living room and shook their heads at Detective Wyatt. "The place is clean. No blood or suspicious items."

Detective Wyatt closed his notepad and glanced up at me.

Henry let out a short, sharp laugh. It sounded like something snapping. "Done? Found absolutely nothing, did you?"

He took two steps forward and tapped his knuckles against the glass coffee table, producing a sharp clink. "Are you satisfied now?"

Isabel crouched by the bedroom door with both hands gripping the edge of the doorframe as she curled into a ball.

Muffled, ragged sobs leaked out from beneath her hunched back. "Our daughter is missing, yet you came here to torment us… Do you people even have a heart?"

Henry walked over, helped her up, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders before screaming at Eleanor, "Keep the deposit! Keep every single cent of it to buy yourselves coffins!"

As his voice rose, neighbors at the far end of the hallway poked their heads out again.

Henry pointed a trembling finger at Eleanor. "Eleanor Wilson, your agent is fantastic. Just brilliant. We're leaving right now. Nothing is more important than finding Lea!"

Eleanor flinched. Her lips were trembling, but she couldn't find her voice.

Detective Wyatt raised a hand to stop them, but they pushed past him.

He looked at me, then took a step down the hallway. Lowering his voice, he said, "I ran the search because you called it in, but you have zero evidence. If this is deemed a false report, you know the consequences."

I opened my mouth to speak, but a voice rose from the floorboards. It was faint, like someone whispering from a dark corner. "That night, the front door was slammed shut from the inside."

Right after, the bedroom doorsill chimed in, slurring its words, "The little girl ran barefoot into the bedroom… There was water running in that room… Then, the crying stopped…"

I whipped my head around.

The bedroom door was wide open. The light inside had dimmed, revealing the half-open frosted glass door of the bathroom.

The glass was coated in a dull, grey layer of limescale.

"The bedroom!" I didn't control my volume, and my voice echoed down the hallway.

Henry's expression froze, but just for a split second. He let go of Isabel's shoulder and spun around to face me. "You're still going? They checked the kitchen, the living room, the balcony, and the bedroom! Are you the cop, or is Detective Wyatt? Who the hell do you think—"

"I swear on my entire career," I said, cutting him off.

I looked Detective Wyatt dead in the eye and let each word land like a stone. Even Isabel's sobbing hitched.

"Lea is in that bedroom. If you find nothing, I'll admit to making a false report. I'll accept the fine and detention."

Detective Wyatt stared at me for five long seconds.

The hallway light hummed above him, casting a harsh, white glare across my face.

He zipped his jacket up a little higher, turned, and gestured toward the bedroom. "Test for blood."

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  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 8

    Eleanor called me later.Her voice was utterly ruined. When she spoke, she sounded like she had a mouth full of sand. A long pause stretched between her words.I thought she had hung up, but after a long while, her voice drifted through the receiver again. "Devan, I keep dreaming about Lea peeling oranges for me."I never ate the orange she peeled for me that day. I left it on the coffee table. When Henry broke the lease, I forgot to clean it up. She wasn't even theirs, but when she peeled that orange for me, she held her hands up so high."She finished speaking, leaving nothing but the hiss of static on the line."Eleanor," I said, "it didn't hurt when Lea passed. She didn't struggle much."A long silence followed on the other end.Finally, she offered a faint murmur of acknowledgment and hung up.The next morning, Detective Wyatt asked me to come down to the station.When I arrived, he was standing in the main lobby, talking to a man and a woman.The man was in his early 40

  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 7

    Detective Wyatt stood at the far end of the hallway with his back to me. He held those two DNA reports in his hand.Someone reached out and handed him a pen. He scribbled a few words in the blank space of one of the sheets and passed it back.The next morning, he pushed open the door to the office I was sitting in and tossed a stack of photocopies onto the desk."Ten years," he said, sitting on the edge of the table. His voice was laced with the scent of cigarette smoke. "At least five kids across four states."I looked down at the photocopies. They were yellowed newspaper clippings, blurry surveillance stills, and the police report from the neighboring state three years ago.The columns for the reporters' names read "Harren Johnson" and "Irene Martin". Attached was a one-inch photo of a child with two small braids, grinning at the camera.However, right after the date of the report, there was a handwritten note. "Case withdrawn. Missing child returned home on her own.""He with

  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 6

    The interrogation room light hadn't been fixed. It was the same broken bulb. The light flickered erratically.I sat in the observation room next door, watching Henry through the one-way glass. Detective Wyatt sat across from him.When Henry dragged his iron chair forward, the legs scraped against the concrete floor with a long, grating screech."The child in the wall… I'm telling you again, the wall was like that when I moved in. The building is old. It has cracks everywhere."Henry placed both hands on the table. His fingertips tapped the surface in turn. "Eleanor knows. The exterior wall of her place cracked too. A chunk of plaster fell off the neighboring unit last year."Detective Wyatt flipped open a statement and propped it up, turning the page toward Henry. "Last fall, you told Ms. Eleanor Wilson the place was damp and paid out of your own pocket to tile the living room and bedroom."The place had bare concrete floors when you moved in. You laid those tiles yourself. The w

  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 5

    When the tech team pried open the third block of concrete, the forensic examiner's breath caught.The beam of the flashlight probed into the breach, scanning the narrow cavity inside the wall.Where the light stopped, a small, curled-up silhouette emerged.Her head was pressed against her knees, and her arms were wrapped tightly around herself. She lay curled against the curve of the inner wall, looking almost as though she were asleep.Everyone fell silent at once.Even the rustling murmurs from the far end of the hallway were instantly choked off.The forensic examiner crouched there, keeping the flashlight trained on the spot. His other hand fumbled through his kit for a long while before finally finding a mask.He put on his gloves slowly, and his knuckles were strained tight.Detective Wyatt stood just outside the bedroom door. His gaze cut over the examiner's shoulder to land on the edge of the breach. He pressed his lips into a hard line."Based on the initial assessmen

  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 4

    I squatted in front of the wardrobe and ran my fingertip along the grout lines between the tiles.A few of the tiles were lighter in color, as if someone had scrubbed them clean."Were these tiles replaced?" I asked.Eleanor replied, "Last fall, Henry said there was dampness coming up, so he bought some tiles and laid them in the living room and bedroom himself."Detective Wyatt waved an officer over to scan them.The numbers on the LCD screen flickered for a moment before the forensic examiner shook his head. "They're from the same batch. No signs of individual replacements. The color difference is just uneven wear and fading from cleaning agents."Henry straightened up from the doorframe. He let out a short, casual laugh. "Hear that, Mr. Spence? You trashed the place all day, going on about floors and blood, all to prove some poorly wiped cleaning solution damaged the tiles? You just want to keep our security deposit!"When he turned to Eleanor, his voice suddenly became dread

  • Real Estate Agent Who Hears Murdered Ghosts   Chapter 3

    Detective Wyatt's team moved fast.Two officers stepped into the bedroom. The lead cop pulled a spray bottle from his kit, misted a circle around the center of the floor, and flipped the light switch.A sliver of gray light filtered through the gap in the curtains, cutting across the floorboards.When the UV light clicked on, the bedroom plunged into a purplish darkness, casting a cold glow over everyone's faces.The floor began to luminesce. A few scattered, irregular specks of light glowed a faint blue.Isabel's crying cut off instantly. She was crouching by the doorway with her mouth still open, but no sound came out.Henry's Adam's apple bobbed twice. His hands clenched tightly against his thighs, and his knuckles turned white.Detective Wyatt turned to look at them.The bedroom stayed dead silent for about ten seconds.Then, Isabel spoke. Her voice was raspy but unnaturally steady. "It's cat blood."She let go of the doorframe and stood up. Her knees seemed to buckle for

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