The Evidence Room: A Mystery by Cameron Harvey Page B

some files for his job.
    The house phone rang. Aurora had not even known it was connected. Probably Jefferson, checking on her. Reflexively, she picked it up.
    “Hello?”
    “Time to go home, beb,” a singsong voice warned. She thought of the woman in the cemetery who had used that same word—what had Ernest said her name was? Charlie? This voice was different. Fuller, stronger, angrier. Male.
    “Who is this?”
    “Go back where you came from, Aurora. Or else you gonna be sorry,” the voice hissed, “just like your mama.”
    She slammed the phone down, her heart galloping in her chest. They got calls like this at the hospital all the time, crazies saying vile things. Aurora and Nicky laughed about it, didn’t give it a second thought. Something about being under the bright lights of the hospital made her feel safe, secure, indestructible.
    But now she was in this house on the bayou.
    By herself.
    Get it together, she told herself. It was just some hillbilly kid with nothing else to do on a Friday night, looking to scare the new person in town. She checked the lock on the front door and resumed her seat at the desk, but the words on the paper seemed meaningless now; all she could hear was the voice from the phone.
    You gonna be sorry just like your mama.
    Outside, the wind picked up. The tree outside her bedroom window listed to one side, its branches heavy with Spanish moss that fell like a curtain across her view of the bayou. Maybe she should call Jefferson, let him know about the prank caller. But he was an older man; what could he possibly do? Or the police? She’d seen a cop at the coffee place this morning. But what could they do? Everyone in town knew who she was; they either addressed her by name or stared at her when they thought she wasn’t looking. A late-night call to the cops would only fuel the gossip mill. There was nobody in town she could trust to stay quiet.
    Go back where you came from .
    “This is where I came from,” she said out loud. There was no way some voice on the phone was going to stop her now. She settled back into the chair, thumbing through the rest of Papa’s files. She was a New Yorker; she didn’t scare easy. Aurora imagined recounting this story to Nicky. Just me and the voodoo dolls, all alone in the house! The two of them would laugh about it. Aurora smiled to herself and made a mental note to text Nicky in the morning.
    And then the phone rang again.

 
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Josh was breaking into his place of employment.
    He realized it on the ride over, chuckling at the thought of how ridiculous his life had become. Was this latest adventure criminal? Probably. A bad idea? Certainly, but he was in the habit of stockpiling bad decisions. What was one more? Sleep was an impossibility. Hope had taken root inside Josh and would not let him rest. He hoped it was Jesse in that bag, and prayed it was not. People said it was always better to know, but ignorance looked real good sometimes.
    Josh glanced at the clock. Almost eight. Back in his old life, he’d be doing surveillance on some slimeball crack dealer right now, parked in the shadows, poised to strike. Now he was coming back to the warehouse. All night he’d been thinking about Jesse, about the promise he’d made to his brother that he hadn’t kept. And then he’d realized that his salvation had been surrounding him this whole time.
    Evidence.
    He needed to look at the boxes again, to learn the stories of the other missing boys, to know them as well as he knew his own story. It was more than a need: it was a raw compulsion. There was something in one of those boxes that would give him the clue he needed to identify the boy in the bag, whether it was his brother or not. Samba was right. He had a responsibility to all the people whose stories were in those boxes, not just his own kin.
    Josh cut the engine and stepped into the velvety darkness. There was a charge in the air, a faint sizzle that warned of another