A fine distinction, but possibly a significant one. I didn’t really have an explanation as to why the smells here might be different, so I only said, “Most everything happened in the stairwell.”
Father Neil nodded and headed in that direction. The house around us was eerily quiet, with only the faint hum of the air conditioning in the background to break up the stillness. I made a mental note to shut it off, or at least push the thermostat up over eighty so it wouldn’t be costing my mother and Tom a mint to keep it running. I thought I’d turned it off the last time I was here, but maybe it was preprogrammed to run at a certain temperature, and my fiddling had only changed the settings temporarily.
I followed a few paces behind the priest, figuring that if something decided to push him do
