Free Dead Silence by Derting Kimberly Page A

place.
    It was the scent of death. Of newly decaying flesh.
    Bodies.
    She strained toward it, like a ravenous predator. Her hand closed around the phone in her front pocket now as her heart raced and she bit back her breath, afraid it might disturb the air around her and give her away.
    But if someone was in there with her, it was already too late. Her shoes were still wet, and they squeaked across the tiled entry, giving her away the moment she’d stepped inside. She slipped one foot out of her shoe, and then the other, leaving the shoes beside the front door as she crept inside on bare feet.
    She wasn’t afraid. She should be, she knew. But she couldn’t find the fear to hang on to.
    The entryway was dark, but only because the lights were out, and as she slipped past the wall, Violet could see the sunlight trying to strain through the narrow opening between the heavy curtains that were drawn in front of a large picture window.
    She went there first, her fingers clutching the soft fabric as she began to peel them apart, pulling them back along the curtain rod. Light washed the living room in its golden glow.
    It would have been a beautiful setting, if not for the blood. And if not for the victims.
    Violet gasped, choking on her scream as she staggered backward, falling against the window. She hit the glass hard—too hard—and she held her breath as she waited, listening for the sound of breaking glass to fill her ears.
    It won’t hold. She’d hit it too hard.
    Any moment it would shatter beneath her and she would just keep falling, all the way through it to the lawns below. And then to the water. And even then, she’d keep falling.
    Falling . . .
    But the sounds never came, not even a crack, although she couldn’t help wondering if it wouldn’t have been preferable to what she now witnessed.
    She’d known there would be bodies. Of course she’d known it, she told herself, as she shoved her palm against her mouth to keep from screaming out loud.
    She stayed frozen like that, with her hand pressed to her lips as she leaned against the window for several long seconds . . . minutes . . . or possibly hours.
    She couldn’t tear her gaze away from them.
    All three of them.
    Her vision was nearly blocked now as the colors of the kaleidoscope echo swirled and whorled and erupted in front of her eyes, leaving only gaps through which she could see.
    But it was enough.
    She could make out their sightless eyes. And their gaping wounds. And exposed throats.
    I have to get out of here , Violet realized, coming to awareness only as her stomach recoiled violently. She eased away from the glass, testing her legs and her balance for only a second before she started running, scrambling to get to the front door again on feet that felt suddenly slippery beneath her.
    Outside the door, she bent over one of the large potted plants that stood on either side of the entry and retched, clutching the sides of the ceramic planter and vomiting until her stomach was empty. Then she vomited some more, tasting the stomach acids that filled the back of her throat. And when her body had finally stopped convulsing, her head felt clearer. Too clear .
    She was alone in a house with a dead family.
    And that’s what they were, a family. A mother and a father and a boy—ten, maybe eleven, years old.
    They’d been seated on the couch, although Violet couldn’t imagine that that was where they’d died. Their placement was too peaceful, the setting too serene. This whole thing looked . . . planned . Posed.
    No, she was certain they’d been placed there.
    Afterward.
    She fumbled with her cell phone, her hands shaking so hard that she nearly dropped it. She had to try three times to get her Contacts list up, and even then she struggled to scroll through it. She searched for her uncle’s number, listed only under “Stephen.” He was the chief of police in Buckley, and although she might be outside his jurisdiction here on this side of the