Between Limestone Ruins

Chapter Twenty-Five

The trace on the profile brought them to a student house near the local college that was in the middle of a subdivision, but with enough space between houses that you wouldn't be able to hear the fights of your neighbours. It looked abandoned. A for sale sign that had definitely passed its prime swayed in the wind on the front lawn. 

"We wait for Nora?" Hannah asked as they climbed out of the car.

Walker shook his head. "We knock, if no one answers, then we wait for Nora." He gestured to his phone in his pocket. "Jenn just texted me, we have a warrant to search the house, but I don't want to knock down doors without Nora here to back us up."

Hannah nodded her understanding and followed Walker to the porch. "It could be any of the four apartments," she commented.

"Lucky us," Walker grumbled sarcastically. He began ringing doorbells, all four, twice each.

And they waited. Several minutes. And then Hannah tried the front door. It clicked open without her even having to turn the knob. She turned to wordlessly ask, 'what now?' 

Walker was already drawing his weapon.

"Pull your gun," he whispered, then as an afterthought, "I'll lead." Hannah obliged but drawing and checking her gun was loaded, while falling back to follow Walker as he slunk down the hallway to the first apartment's front door.

Hannah took the other side of the door and waited for Walker to knock. He double checked his gun was also loaded and knocked, only getting one sharp rap in as the door swung open. Walker stepped through the door before Hannah had the chance to voice how weird it was that both doors had been left open.

She stepped through the threshold to see Walker sweeping the rooms quickly and efficiently in the apartment. There was a decent amount of furniture but it was covered in a thick layer of dust. No one had lived here for a long time. An undressed stained mattress sat directly on the floor in one bedroom. 

"I found a computer," Walker's voice called from down the hall. Man, he was good.

Hannah walked in the direction she heard his voice come from and entered what looked like an office. A broken looking desk was pushed up against one wall with an old Windows 95™ desktop computer centered on top. The room had no desk chair. The only other furniture was several filing cabinets and bookshelves lining the walls, half full and torn apart as if they'd been searched years ago. 

Hannah took all that in in a fraction of a second. Which was good because the next thing she noticed was the metal plate on the floor Walker was currently standing in front of the computer he was trying to turn on. There was no chair there for a reason. 

Her eyes scanned the plate and followed a bundle of multi-coloured wires that led to the closed closet in the room.

"Walker," she started gently.

"Get over here Morris, I can't get it to turn on." He had clearly not noticed the edge in her voice. Hannah mentally took back what she had thought about Walker being efficient at sweeping houses. Fucking idiot.

"Walker I need you to not move."

That caught his attention. His whole body tensed but he did what he was told. Hannah re-holstered her gun.

"What is it Hannah?" His voice was tight, but she could tell he was trusting her to get him out of whatever he had walked into.

"Alright Walker," she said steadily. "I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain you're on a pressure activated bomb, and I'd really like you to not move so neither of us blow up." She watched Walker swallow nervously.