It swung open and shut again, the hideous wallpaper that had covered it now torn along the straight edge of a doorframe.

“Oh,” Agnes said, caught between amazement that there’d been a swinging door behind the wallpaper and fear that there was also a crazed moron behind there.

“Agnes!” Joey yelled on the phone.

Agnes took a deep breath and stepped back to the counter and picked it up. “What?”

“What the fuck happened?”

“There’s another door in my kitchen, right next to the hall door.” Agnes went back and pushed it open again, avoiding the rusted, broken nails that lined the doorway edge, and peered into the black void. “Huh.”

“Where’s the kid with the gun?”

“Good question.” Agnes dropped her skillet on the counter, yanked open the utility drawer by the door, and got out her flashlight. She turned it on, shoved the door open with her shoulder, and pointed it into the darkness.

“What are you doing?” Joey yelled.

“I’m trying to see what’s behind this door. I didn’t even know it was here. Brenda never mentioned-”

“Agnes, you can explore that goddamn house later,” Joey said. “Take Rhett and get the hell out of there.”

“I don’t think the kid’s a problem anymore.” Agnes held the phone with one hand and peered down into the pool of light the flashlight cast on the floor below as Rhett came to join her, pressing close to her leg so he could peer, too. “He fell into a basement. I didn’t even know I had a basement back here. Brenda never said anything about one.

Did you know-?” She had been playing the light around the floor, and now she stopped as it hit the moron. “Uh-oh.”