I let out a bark of laughter. “Well, I guess that explains lunch then.”
He grins. “Yeah, maybe it does.” He looks at me again curiously. “And you, why are you here?”
“At lunch or on Gorda,” I ask.
“Both I guess?”
I sober as I consider. “My father died. He left me a house. It’s all very bizarre and confusing and it just seems to be getting weirder, to be honest. I didn’t know there even was a house out here until last week.”
“He left it to you, no explanation?”
“Exactly, and as you can see it is a very weird house. And now apparently it comes with a giant subterranean locked room, unknown others, and apparently a random woman who has been pretending to be me for months. Oh yeah and this.”
I pull the note from my bag and smooth it on the white tablecloth.
You need to leave. Now.
He reads it then looks up at me, eyebrow raised. “I hate to agree with your bizarre and terrifying death note, but they might have a point. No?”
“That I should leave?”
“Yeah, one hundred percent.” He chuckles. “I would be gone so fast. Sell, sell, sell. That’s prime real estate.”
I take a sip of my drink and try to couch my—clearly unorthodox— reasoning for not immediately flying home in terms that another human might understand.
“This is a lot for a first date, or whatever the hell this is, but I feel we’ve been through some stuff already. Fast-tracked or whatever. So the truth is: this is all I have left, of him, of my dad. And I don’t understand it. And I feel like he wants me to understand it. I have this great job back home— overshare—but I don’t have much else, and I can’t go back there empty-handed.”
Joe takes a moment to digest what I’ve said before nodding. “I get it. I think we never left here because this was the last place we were all happy together before she left. You know. Even though I outgrew this place years ago. Yeah, I get what you’re saying.” He smiles a sad smile. “Thing is this house. This house your dad left you, but never told you about, the one you’re certain he wants you to understand. You might not find what you’re looking for. You know that, right?”
“Well, good or bad. I’d rather know.”
His expression breaks into a warm smile again. “So I guess you’ll be sticking around for a bit then?”
“I guess so.”
CHAPTER 18
NINA
A fter lunch he gives me his number and I tell him I’ll text him. Suggesting he might get a kick out of taking a look at the locked basement door.
On the cab ride back to the house I remember the problem that morning with Bathsheba and I call James.
He doesn’t answer so I leave a vague voice message, unwilling to get into the strangeness of the whole bizarre “other Nina” situation within earshot of the cabdriver.
I am reminded again of the woman Oksana mentioned seeing at the house and I can’t help but wonder if it might be the same woman. Oksana remembered her as being about my age, pretty, and she had been staying in the house. She must have been staying when my father was still alive. A friend perhaps, or the daughter of a friend. I trawl my mind for any friend of my father’s I haven’t spoken to since he died but come up short. His funeral and memorial were well attended and I can’t think of anyone, even a passing acquaintance, who wasn’t present. At the memorial, I’d even met students who’d only taken one class with him, so well loved was he.
I look up quickly, an idea flashing into my mind: what if this woman had been exactly that, a student of my father’s? I let the thought simmer, and I do not like the questions that bubble to the surface. Why would a female student of my father’s be here in my father’s secret second home?
The idea that he was having an affair, perhaps a long-term one, and that this woman whoever she was had tried to lay claim to the house is unsettling. And yet oddly grounding. There is an understandable, pedestrian humanity to it. If this unknown woman was solely a jilted lover, then perhaps the note, the odd behavior make a kind of sense—it would be easier to scare me off than sue me for land rights. But what can she hope to gain other than squatting in the building until I get around to selling?
The taxi takes a windy corner and I slide into the warm door panel with a thump; we are nearly back now, the roads thinning. As I rearrange myself and recover my line of thought it suddenly hits me, dread seeping into every pore of my body: what if she is squatting in the house already? I think of the locked basement room, the plans I saw earlier and this unknown woman’s desire to keep knowledge of those rooms secret, the noises in the night. And I cannot hold back the thought anymore: she might be down there right now.
Back at the house, when I make my way cautiously up to the top of the stone steps, body pounding with exertion and tiredness, it takes me a second to notice that something isn’t quite right.
Plastered across the front door is another note. It is taped to the glass, and as I approach, I read the words on it.
Do not go down there
