Logan

160. I Think She Knows

*Natalie's POV*

After gathering myself from the floor, I quickly picked up my shoes and tucked them neatly into a corner. i wasn't ready to dig into Thomas' closets yet, so I busied myself with cleaning out the already bare fridge, throwing away an old carton of milk and a forgotten brick of cheese dating back to December. Everything else was takeout containers and some moldy fruit.

He must have been so lonely.

Seeing how clean he kept the house, why was the fridge different? Where did he go to eat? I ached for him, imagining him eating alone in the local restaurants, buying small portions of canned food to store away for the nights he felt like chicken noodle soup. To which there were many cans left over in the fridge, and I threw them all out, cleaning the cans and setting them aside for recycling.

I felt the tears spreading down my face as I scrubbed the cans, I looked around at the walls. He stood smiling beside two other men and two women, looking from their photos they had to be siblings.

Where were they?

Why weren't they here, looking out for their brother?

What happened to them?

I looked over at the window, it looked so cold and lonely outside. I pulled it closed, looking at the painting beside me. I remember using so much glitter paint, when the sunlight hit it just right, it would glisten. I felt the bridge of my nose begin to burn, the memory of him was soaked through this house. Everything I looked at, he was there. I imagined him sitting at the couch, me sleeping beside him. I looked at the kitchen table, the two of us eating hamburgers together. I looked in the bathroom, the way he cleaned my face the night I showed up high at his house.

I thought at any moment, he would turn the corner and smile at me. I willed it, I begged it to be true, but as the moments passed by, I knew it could not be true.

I put away the cleaning supplies as my eyes burned for what felt like the fifteenth time. I started to go upstairs, and I saw a room to my immediate right, filled with shelves and filing cabinets, a study of some kind. Photos hung up everywhere, trophies, medals, more of my art. Where did he get those? Some of them are from kindergarten.

I closed the door, deciding to look at that later. At the left, a bathroom. Down a small hallway was another room, but when I tried to open the door it was locked. Why would he keep a locked door in his own house? I walked back to Ripley's room beside the bathroom and study.

Now was the moment of truth. I held my heart in my stomach as I opened the door and turned on a lamp beside his bed. This room was bare compared to his study and the living room, a bed, rug, small filing cabinet, and a dresser. No photos, no trinkets on the wall, there was nothing here that showed that this was his peaceful place, it was a place he slept. I saw a small closet with his dress shirts, a small bathroom was attached and then another hallway? How far did this go? I mean, I saw the house but it looked small from the front, when really this was huge. This room was smaller, but I could see out the window. There was a balcony? I couldn't see but it looked like it belonged to the locked bedroom. In this room, there was very little, a beside table and a few boxes of storage. I shined my flashlight around. At the back of the room beside the other window was a crib. It looked handmade, there were gold embellishments, and a N painted on it.

No. I couldn't think about this right now. I put the plastic covering back on it and walked around back to the mystery window, the door beside it looked like another closet. I opened it and looked down to see a staircase. I'd read about these before, servant staircases. I looked at the dust imprints where he'd stepped, there were no cobwebs, so it was clear he'd taken these every day, I saw a couple of photos on the window, a couple of guns on the walls. Thomas had guns in the house? He didn't strike me as a gun person, but these looked like hunting rifles, maybe even BB guns from when he was a kid. I loved the vintage touches, there were even photos from when he was a child. I flashed my light closer to the ceiling to reveal a photo of a man, a gold nameplate, but he looked like he was wearing a vintage uniform. I walked back up into the room and closed the doors, being sure to put everything back.