AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I made a displeased sound. I imagined us pulling up to the Five Pines Resort in our bloody car, looking to unpack our bloody clothes. If the police would give any of it back, that was.
I told myself that bloody or not, we could drive out of here, put this episode behind us, and go on with our lives. Maybe, after enough time had passed, we’d tell it as a hilarious story at parties. Hey, did we tell you about the time we almost got accused of murder? The time an eighteen-year-old girl died of stab wounds in our back seat? That was really something.
I wanted out of here. I did.
I also wanted to know who the Lost Girl was. I wanted to know who had killed Katharine, who had left the wreath I’d found at the side of the road. I wanted to know if Max Shandler would be convicted of murder or if he’d somehow get off. I wanted to know if Gretchen got home—or wherever she was going—okay and if the other kids at Hunter Beach were still there. I wanted to know what the Coldlake Falls PD would learn when they went to Hunter Beach to do their own interviews, whether Mitchell would tell them what he’d told us, whether any of the other kids there had information that we’d missed.
The story hadn’t ended. But it didn’t matter—Eddie and I weren’t going to be here for the last chapters. We wouldn’t get to read it. And on that long-ago summer night, my mother had taught me that in order to survive, you sometimes have to cut and run. Leave people behind. Just go.
We didn’t hear from Detectives Quentin or Beam. Presumably, they were off doing the legitimate police work of a murder investigation instead of spending time harassing Eddie and me. We didn’t hear from Kal, and I hoped he was out getting the answers he seemed to need so desperately. I wouldn’t get to know the end of his story, either.
Rose made a phone call, and someone at the Coldlake Falls PD told her that our car was being returned to us. Robbie’s car had already been returned, parked in Rose’s driveway as she had demanded. For a woman who was so lonely and disliked, she had a lot of sway. I wondered if she would ever get over Robbie, or if she would just sit in this house forever, looking at pictures of Princess Diana. I wouldn’t get to know.
Eddie and I took Robbie’s car and picked up lunch, bringing it back for the three of us. We ate in the kitchen as the air conditioners whirred helplessly.
The afternoon was hot and somnolent. It looked like it was going to storm, and I hoped it would happen, that the sky would just get it over with. There was nothing to do but wait.
Eddie, restless despite our exhaustion and lack of sleep, asked Rose if she had any chores around the house she needed him to do. Rose tried very hard not to look pleased at the offer, though she obviously was. I left them dealing with trash bags that needed to be hefted out of the garage and went into our bedroom, where Rose had made up the bed while we were out. I picked up Flowers in the Attic and sat on top of the fussy bedspread, underneath the Princess Diana portrait, my legs stretched out in front of me. I aimed the fan directly at myself and started to read.
—
Wake up.
A hand touched my shoulder.
Wake up.
I was cold. My throat was dry. I rolled over onto my side, trying to get warmer, and something slid off my chest and off the bed. It thumped to the floor.
I opened my eyes.
I was looking at the chair I’d found Rose sitting in a few days ago. It was empty. The room was silent except for the sound of the fan, still blowing softly. My skin was freezing, as if someone had dragged ice cubes over it. Why was I so cold?
I leaned over the edge of the bed and saw Flowers in the Attic on the floor. I’d been reading. I must have fallen asleep, the book on my chest. For how long? Why had I awoken?
There had been a hand on my shoulder. I looked around the room. There was no one here.
The sun slanted through the window—it was late afternoon. The cold seeped from my skin and sweat broke out on my back. I sat up on the bed, feeling the damp of my T-shirt where I’d sweated through it. Despite the fan, it was hot in here.
I listened for a second. There was only silence in the house. Where was everyone?
I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and got up, moving to the bedroom doorway. In the main room there was only silence, broken by the ticking of the clock on the wall. The kitchen was dim and clean, untouched since lunch. The mismatched chairs in the sitting room were empty.
There was no one here, and yet it felt like someone had just been here. Like someone had only now walked out of the room, and if I touched one of the kitchen chairs or one of the chairs in the sitting room, I’d find it warm.
My thoughts were fuzzy as my brain slowly woke. Someone had touched me while I was sleeping. Someone had touched me.
There was a faint sound from behind the house, and I walked through the kitchen to the laundry room and the door to the backyard. The door was open, and through the screen I saw Rose and Eddie. There was a pile of dead branches in the middle of the yard, which Eddie had likely cut. Rose was cutting lengths of twine, and Eddie was using them to tie the branches into bundles. Both the front and the back of his T-shirt were soaked in sweat.
At the back of the yard, along the fence that separated Rose’s property from the woods beyond, was a garden—a long, dark row of turned earth. There was not a single plant growing in it, not a single weed. I remembered the cop, Kyle, telling us that Rose’s husband, Robbie, had died in the backyard while she’d dug that garden with a shovel.
I stared at that garden and a shiver went down my spine. How long had Robbie been dead now, I wondered? A year? Two? More? Why was nothing growing in July? Did Rose go out and dig it fresh every day all summer, so nothing grew in it? Had Robbie really died of a heart attack? I pictured a body lying there, where Eddie and Rose were standing now. What had happened that day?
There was a sharp knock on the house’s front door.
I jumped at the sound, biting back a surprised scream. I was completely awake now. I put my hand to my stomach, which was churning, and walked across the empty rooms to open the front door.
A uniformed cop stood there. It was Kyle, the cop I’d just been thinking about a minute ago. Kyle Petersen was his name, according to Rose. He gave me the same smirk I recognized from before.
