Red Herring ✔️

54. Probably, Most Likely, Definitely Dead

It felt like someone died in the house from the musky mothball scent to the dust that danced in the air, shining particles that reflected the sunlight streaming through the tiny opening in the dark drab curtains covering every single window in the lower level of the McCormick home. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood at attention, sensing the overwhelming and startling stillness. The ominous sensation of coming into contact with the dead, like running through a cemetery on a foggy October evening, heckled down her spine, tightening the muscles in her abdomen. It probably had to do with the fact that the entire house lie dormant - lifeless. The electricity had been cut off, leaving both a staleness and coldness that unpleasantly tickled her nose. The refrigerator didn't hum. The clock in the kitchen didn't tick. The heat didn't buzz. The air didn't move.

Yet, nothing seemed out of place. The kitchen at the back of the expansive great room was spotless, not a spare piece of mail littered the counter or a working grocery list tacked to the fridge. In the living room beyond the foyer, two TV remotes sat perfectly lined up on the rustic wood coffee table and a pair of reading glasses lie atop a murder mystery novel as if opened for pleasure just the evening prior. The irony.

None of them disturbed the eerie silence by speaking as if the disturbance would break some sort of spell and the house itself would spark to life. Jason lurked around the house while Christian hovered at her back. Though he didn't touch her, he stood close enough that his presence felt like a tangible caress that comforted the nerves in her belly.

"Just one second," Jason told them from somewhere deep in the house. He disappeared the second they opened the front door. He also knew where the spare key was hidden - under a limp, dying potted plant.

"Creepy," Mazie muttered.

"You're telling me," he responded.

Mazie tentatively crossed the threshold. "Almost worse than the cabin."

"Both owned by a dead woman," Christian reminded her which earned him a sharp elbow in the gut. "You read the text."

Circumstantial evidence with nothing to back it up. Hearsay, at this point. Mazie didn't believe Demi could actually do something like that. Not really, anyways.

Of course, everyone has a breaking point. Should Mary Anne's text be true, what enraged and impassioned Demi to the point of murder? What made teenage girls kill at all? Did teenage girls kill people? Obviously, the answer was yes not that Mazie could name a single infamous murder enacted by a teenage girl unless it was entirely warranted but not premeditated or a fluke accident. Could Demi have killed Meredith McCormick accidentally?

She didn't think so.

"I wonder if Mary Anne has been here at all," Mazie thought out loud, stepping carefully into the wide living room. She tucked her arms close to her body to avoid touching anything. Reasonably, she knew there wasn't actually a dead body here but that suspicious sensation tingled at the base of her spine, the precursor of a ravenous chill, as if the ghost of said dead body still lingered.

Christian stalled, studying the family pictures on the wall above the television. "Doubt it. This is the house where she used to live with her dead mother."

For the first time since Christian started making the dead mommy jokes, Mazie asked, "You really think she's dead?"

"She's been missing for a month. She's dead."

She hesitated, looking at a mother daughter picture of Mary Anne and her mom when they were both much younger. "And that text?"

Catching her eye, Christian answered honestly, "Still thinking about it."