I stepped inside. “Kevin?” I whispered.

The silence that answered me was heavy, suffocating. The air inside was stiflingly hot and smelled of spoiling food and that distinct, copper tang of unwashed bodies. I used the flashlight on my phone, the beam cutting through the gloom. The furniture was gone. The living room was a cavern of dust bunnies and shadows.

And then, I heard it.

A whimper. It was faint, vibrating down the hallway from the room that used to be the guest bedroom.

I moved faster than I had in twenty years. I climbed the stairs, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The door at the end of the hall was shut. A heavy-duty slide bolt—the kind meant for exterior doors—had been installed on the outside.

Rage, hot and blinding, flooded my vision. With a strength born of pure adrenaline, I slid the bolt back and kicked the door open.