Frost saw it, too. The light went on and off, throwing moving shadows above them. Jess took a step toward the stairs, but she didn’t have her flashlight aimed at her feet. Frost did, and he saw something in her path half-concealed by a grease-covered towel. It was gray metal, and it had teeth. He shouted for her to stop, and Jess put her foot down short of the towel, but the toe of her boot kicked the device forward. A metal bang rocked the space as the iron mouth snapped shut.

“A bear trap,” Frost said. “That was meant for us.”

Jess hissed into her radio. “Everybody, watch your step. We’ve got booby traps in here.” And then to Frost, “This is a setup. We’re getting out.”

“You go. I’ll check the second floor.”

“Frost, he’s not here. He lured us inside to make us targets.”

“Lucy might be up those stairs,” Frost snapped.

“I’m ordering you out.”

Frost shook his head. “No way, Jess. I’ll leave when I know the place is empty.”

He stepped over the bear trap and marched toward the stairs, using his flashlight to sweep the floor as he did. Behind him, he heard Jess exhale with a loud sigh. She barked into the radio again. “Hold your positions. Do. Not. Move.”

Jess followed him.

On the stairs, his flashlight lit up dust and broken glass. He saw glints of gold. The stairs were lined with long brass tacks, all of them pointing upward. He took the steps one at a time, knocking the tacks aside with the side of his boot as he went. They tumbled downward.

“Watch out, Jess,” he murmured.

“I see them.”

The light above them got brighter. The shadows got larger, dancing on the stairs. He saw an electric lantern hanging from the ceiling on a hook. The wind through the holes in the wall made the lantern swing back and forth, like a man dangling at the end of a hangman’s rope.

At the top of the steps, Frost found the front half of a rat, severed from the rest of its body. Two feet away, the rat’s back half spilled blood over the claws of another bear trap.

Jess caught up to him and saw it, too. “This guy is nuts.”

“Not nuts. Angry.”

They cast their lights around the building. The glass in the arched windows was mostly gone here, letting in sheets of rain. Thunder boomed like an earthquake over their heads. Dust and paint flecked from the ceiling. As the thunder quieted, he heard another kind of muffled thunder, louder and closer. A strange, snickering scrape joined the chorus, like fingernails on chalkboard. Something was alive in here. Jess heard it, too, and they both turned their flashlights toward the ceiling and flinched.