I shake my head. “He might’ve been worried about time. He needed to get back inside, clean up, and slip back into bed before anyone noticed. The whole operation was pretty risky.”

“Maybe that’s what he liked,” Chase says. “Doing this right under his friends’ noses.”

“Maybe,” Joe says.

The area has been pretty well canvassed by the forensics team, so we head back across the bridge and up the sloping lawn to our vehicle.

Joe drops his weighted tarp, takes a deep breath, and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Okay, let’s try this through the house this time.”

We head down the driveway, and I unlock the door. I pause in the mudroom and point to the peg where the key ring would usually hang.

“Convenient,” Joe says.

“Yeah. Mrs. Bradley said it was there for whoever needed it.”

“Like a serial killer?” Agent Metz chuckles. “Here you go. Take the keys, and go find a victim, and end her life in our basement. The perfect host.” We all groan. She’s young, but she’s got the gallows humor down pat.

“The first door on the right after the mudroom leads to the basement.”

“The perp wouldn’t have had to go through much of the house if he brought her through this way,” Joe says. “Let’s take a look.”

We head down the basement steps. The light switch is easily accessible on the wall at the top. I’m in the lead, so I flick it on. The staircase isn’t terribly steep or hard to maneuver. It looks like it was probably replaced in the last twenty or thirty years. Not original to the house. At the bottom, the light peters out, and we’re in darkness.

Joe drops his tarp, and the cinder blocks make a scraping sound. He points to the faint light coming from the door at the far end. “So when he had her in the house and down here,” Joe says, “I doubt anyone could’ve heard him once he got through the door to the tunnel.” We follow as he leads us deeper into the basement and through the door. That ubiquitous smell increases as we approach the table and sink area. Cobwebs line the arched ceiling, and a constant drip echoes from somewhere. We stand silently, each wondering, I suspect, about Annalise Robb’s last minutes in this dim cellar.

CHAPTER 55 - Molly

CHAPTER 55

Molly

IT FEELS GOOD TO BE HOME. SADIE AND I WALK THROUGH THE HOUSE, and I open curtains and let in the sunshine. The Christmas tree still stands in the corner, and I head to the laundry room, where I’ve stashed the packing bins.