Free Bloodshot by Cherie Priest

I didn’t understand it. I don’t think it’s haunted or anything, though I could be wrong, and no, there aren’t any windows—but most of the windows upstairs are boarded up anyway, so it’s not very different from any other floor.
    Whatever the reason, I was glad they avoided it, and I was doubly glad now that I was hiding bodies down there. The odds were low that either child would take a spade and investigate a mushy spot in the wall even if they did find such a hole.
    By the time I’d concealed Trevor as well as he was going to get concealed, the kids were getting impatient and I wasn’t getting any cleaner. I shuddered to wonder what I looked like. I could take a guess, and that guess was gruesome.
    At least my hair was dark enough not to show any splatter—and that was one more advantage to having it short: It stayed out of tasty open wounds.
    There was no working washroom down in the basement, but there was one on the first floor, and that was where my purse was still located, anyway. I wiped my face on the back of my sleeve,hoped I wasn’t leaving some ghastly clot sitting on my cheek, and took the stairs back up to the cubbyhole where I’d tossed my personal effects.
    Pepper was there, solemn and silent, with her hands folded behind her back. She could be a creepy thing sometimes. That’s probably why I like her so much.
    “Hey.” I gave her an awkward greeting. I didn’t try to hide the cubbyhole, since it was busted wide open and the kids had surely seen it already. I reached inside and retrieved my bag, then told her, “I’m going to hit the ladies’ room. Give me a second, huh?”
    Inside the narrow water closet the kids had stuck a piece of broken mirror up over the sink. The mirror told me I’d seen better days, but I wasn’t about to instigate widespread panic with my appearance, either. I made a show of washing up and pretending that I was an ordinary, civilized woman who was, perhaps, recovering from a bad date—and who had most certainly
not
been hiding bodies in anybody’s basement.
    My hands had gotten the worst of it. I scrubbed as much of the muck out from under my nails as I could, splashed a little water on my face, and left the restroom with what I hoped was a friendly smile.
    “Hey guys,” I said to the pair of them, since they were both hanging out right on the other side of the bathroom door like a couple of cats. “You two, uh. Are you all right?”
    Domino answered with another question. “What the hell happened?” he demanded, his scruffy little almost-gonna-be-facial-hair swirling around on his chin.
    My smile dissolved, to be replaced by an eye roll. “Ask your sister,” I said.
    “I did. She said some guy broke in here. Guys aren’t supposed to break in here,” he informed me, as if it were a news flash. “Who was he?”
    I said, “Trevor. He was just looking around. It’s taken care of, and I’d like to consider the subject dropped.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Didn’t I just say something about a dropped subject? He left.”
    The boy fired off a frown that called me a liar. “He left?”
    “Yes. I threw him out. He won’t be coming back.”
    “You threw him out from the basement?”
    “No,” I lied. “I threw him out through the first floor, before you got here. I went down in the basement because I was looking for something. I figured, since Pepper had called me here with an alarm, I might as well be productive.”
    Domino was not convinced. He folded his arms and acted like he wasn’t going to let me past him until I gave him some answers, but I don’t take orders from teenage boys, and I moved him aside by twisting his shoulder like it was the hot-water knob in the shower. He squealed a protest and said to my back as I walked away, “What was it?”
    “What?”
    “What did you get from downstairs?”
    Damn him for being so sharp. “Nothing.” And that was the truth, wasn’t it? “I couldn’t find it. That’s what took me so long. I