Haunting-Adeline

I bounce the beam of light around in several different direc ons, finding
nothing but more bugs and webs. I almost give up, un l I see a flash of
something shiny.
“I think I found something,” I announce excitedly.
“Thank fuck,” Daya mu ers from behind me. I barely hear the words.
Plunging my arm into the hole before I can consider the bugs, I grab at the
piece, my hand closing around something plas c. I go to pull that out, but
my hand grazes what feels like paper, so I make a grab for that too.
I swipe at my arm, cringing at the feel of cobwebs s cking to me. I don’t
even look at my arm, I just keep brushing it off all while beelining for the
steps.
“Let’s go,” I breathe, right before I’m nearly knocked on my ass from
Daya pushing past me and running down the stairs.
Whatever is in my hand, it’s something big. I’m as sure of it as I am of
the eyes on my back, watching me leave.
Slamming the a c door behind me, I lean against it and heave, shaking
out the bone-chilling cold that seems to cling to me like glue.
“I’m never going up there again,” Daya says, pan ng.
“I don’t think I want to, either,” I say. Finally, I look down at my hand and
see a Ziploc bag with a gold diamond encrusted Rolex in it and blood
streaked across the plas c. And the note in my hand is a quick scrawl that
says, “hide this, no one can know I did it. Remember that.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
“Let me see it. We can’t touch it or we’ll get fingerprints on it, but those
have serial numbers. I can probably trace that back to its owner.”
We rush down into the kitchen, the demon residing in my a c forgo en.
I find a pair of spare rubber gloves that Daya and I used when we were
cleaning out the house. She snaps the gloves on and carefully pulls out the
bloodied watch.
“I don’t want the blood to flake off, but I need to remove the bracelet in
order to see the serial number,” she murmurs, handling the watch piece
with care. “Do you have a thumbtack?”
I whip around and open up the junk drawer in my kitchen, confident I
have one somewhere. A er rummaging for a minute, I let loose a
celebratory ah-ha and hand Daya a blue thumbtack.