Let Me In by Adam Nicholls (books under 200 pages .TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Adam Nicholls
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Read book online «Let Me In by Adam Nicholls (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕». Author - Adam Nicholls
But the apartment was empty.
Although “empty” only went so far as describing its lack of people; the place was cluttered with junk food wrappers, empty shopping bags, and used food cans. A mouse darted from its unsafe hideaway of a drink’s carton, scrambling across the creaking wooden floor and into a hole where it met the wall. Morgan shivered as though it’d scaled his leg. He’d be careful where he stepped from now on.
“Jesus.” Gary swept some trash to the side with his foot. “The guy’s a slob.”
Morgan agreed. Basic hygiene went a long way, and it was clear the tenant of this room had little or no interest in self-care. At least, assuming this was his one and only home, which the large pile of dirty clothes suggested.
It reminded him of a time shortly after high school when he’d moved into his own place, and Rachel’s father hadn’t given his permission for her to leave. He’d lived in a shabby, one-bed apartment in the slums. It was disgusting, dark, loud, and unsafe, but it was only a short bike ride to his workplace at the gas station. Better yet, it was cheap. That moment, and every moment thereafter, was spent building a better future for his family. It was the one thing he’d never stop working on, no matter how tough things got.
Venturing farther in, Morgan pinched his nose and tore back the drapes. A cloud of dust exploded in front of his face, making them both cough and gag. Dust motes danced in a chunky beam of light that targeted the floor but not much else. There wasn’t even anything here worthy of illumination: a rusty metal bed with a stained mattress, the pile of laundry, and a few trash bags in the corner. Morgan approached them and ripped open a small hole. Cloth protruded through the fresh gape.
“More clothes,” he said.
“Mmhmm.” Gary cocked his head and examined the smoke-stained ceiling, following it through to the next room. “Got a bathroom in here. I think I’ll leave that for you.”
“Yeah, right.” Morgan’s attention was fixed on something else—the only other thing in this room that wasn’t a necessity in the modern age. Not for a lonely squatter or the next best thing, anyway. It was a thin, wooden desk with no drawers. A fold-up chair leaned against the wall, disregarded and disused. Atop the desk was a mess of paperwork and a lamp with no bulb, which seemed to match everything else in the room.
“Find anything?” Gary asked, calling from the kitchen.
“No.” He moved toward the desk and began shuffling through the papers. “You?”
Gary made a fake puking sound, but the repulsion was real. It was like he’d just smelled something rotten. “There’s a refrigerator, but it doesn’t work. The cupboards are full of bean and chili cans. Rodents too. Not much else.”
Taking in the information—or lack thereof—Morgan dropped the last loose sheet of paper and swiped a notepad off the desk. Gary joined him at his side, but by then he’d already read the words that would change everything.
Morgan froze, the notepad shaking like a leaf in his hand. He read them over and over, each time becoming harder to focus as the letters jumbled around like they were dancing, teasing and tormenting him. But despite his inability to take it in, he knew what it said. There was no denying it, any more than he was able to deny the cold sweat seeping onto his temples or clinging his shirt to his back.
It read:
Rachel Young
HUCINS Center
Tuesday night
Morgan dropped the pad onto the desk. The discovery led to a realization as his eyes scanned the room. The trash, the cheap, dirty clothes, and even the low supply of food in the cupboards—it all meant something that was so obvious it was impossible to unsee.
Nick Hansen had been here.
“He made the call.” The words fell from Morgan’s mouth in a weak breeze.
Gary cocked his head. “What?”
“The…” He looked again at the notepad on the desk. His eyes shot to the doorway where a singular telephone hung on the wall outside. It made perfect sense. How had he not understood it until now? Nick Hansen had fled his own home and taken up residence at a crummy old apartment in Nowhereville. He’d paid cash. Somehow, he’d derived a problem with Morgan, and then he’d written down Rachel’s name.
“Are you all right?” Gary leaned past him and looked at the pad. “Whoa.”
Morgan’s stomach knotted. His head felt woozy and his hands shook. It occurred to him that Hansen had made the call for a reason, and going by the fact he wasn’t yet in cuffs, Morgan was willing to bet this whole thing was nothing more than a distraction.
The nagging question was, a distraction from what?
Rachel was alone, and that fact stuck out to Morgan like a sore thumb. He felt the blood drain from his face, swirling down into his gut like a whirlpool and unsettling the contents. He imagined the worst—losing Rachel wasn’t an option, and although he had no clue why anyone would want to hurt her, he did know that she was alone.
Not just alone, but vulnerable.
“We need to go,” Morgan said, bursting into a sprint through the doorway. He took the stairs two at a time, with Gary shouting questions behind him. But he had no time to stop and answer. Time was a precious factor now, and he had to reach Rachel before anyone else did.
Unless it was already too late.
Before the engine had even stopped, Morgan dove out of the car and toward the charity hall. He didn’t bother shutting the door—there were far worse things at stake than losing a door—and darted up the steps as fast as his legs could carry him.
Bursting through the doors of the hall, Morgan yelled her name. The lights were on, and a table was set out. There were two people at the far end whom he recognized, but they only watched with blank, horrified stares while Morgan stormed backstage. From there, he ripped back curtains and kicked open doors, calling for his wife.
There was no reply.
His heart in tatters, he rushed back to the main hall where the two men sat with plastic cups in their hands, cradling them like they were some great artifacts. They wore thick coats and frightened expressions, their lips wobbling like fat, pink worms.
“Have any of you seen Rachel?” Morgan asked.
“R-Rachel?”
“My wife. The…” How best would they know her? “She runs this place.”
“Oh.” One of them sat forward on the rickety wooden chair. “She was here earlier.”
Morgan crouched down to meet his eye level. “Where did she go?”
“No clue. Home, maybe?”
“She didn’t say where she was going?”
“Nope, and I didn’t ask. What if you call her and—”
Panic stole over him, shooting him up and back out the door before he could hear the last of that suggestion. By now, Gary was at the top of the steps, keeping watch outside. When he spotted Morgan, he reached the same height of urgency and ran back with him to the car, asking no questions.
Morgan slumped back into the car and fired up the engine. The drive back to his home felt like a torturous journey, and suddenly it seemed far longer than he remembered. Had he really let his wife walk home at night? On streets like these, at a time like this? Self-disgust brewed in his gut, making him sick. All he could think about was the killer, the empty apartment, and how deadly Rachel’s name looked in Hansen’s script on the page.
When they reached his house, Morgan shot out and repeated his previous actions like the world’s worst déjà vu. Gary was at his side this time, drawing his sidearm and taking the lead. Morgan hung back, tossed the keys toward him, and waited at the end of his porch.
That was when he noticed it; the keys were unnecessary.
The door had been bashed open.
Horror seized him, grounding him in ice-cold fear. It took all his strength to move, and his darkest nightmares drove him to override caution. Without another thought, he ran inside on jelly-like legs, screaming her name again.
“Rachel!”
“Hey, Rachel?” Gary joined in behind him, entering the living room.
While Gary was downstairs with a gun, Morgan knew there was no escape. If the killer was in his home, he wouldn’t be getting out without either handcuffs or a hole in him. Morgan prayed it wouldn’t come to that—only extreme circumstances would call for that kind of action, and extreme circumstances meant Rachel had been harmed.
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