Page 23 of Taken Away

She wasn’t entirely sure which.

Aubrey didn’t change out of her suit jacket until past midnight.

She sat on the edge of the mattress with her laptop open, staring at a blank email draft addressed to the Ashford Hospitality corporate board. Her fingers hovered over the keys.

To whom it may concern, I am requesting a formal evaluation of my indefinite leave…

She deleted it.

How could she write a corporate appeal when her salary package had been laid out on a walnut table in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains by a dead woman?

No city hum. No sirens. Only the faint tick of the hallway thermostat and, beneath that, the slow, steady rhythm of Moose’s breathing on the other side of the door.

Eleanor’s voice from the law office echoed in her head. Without his expertise, those one hundred and eighty-seven acres would be nothing but a tax liability and tired dirt.

She had humiliated herself in front of the town hierarchy. She had looked at a brilliant, grieving man and called him a grifter because he wore flannel and drank his bourbon straight. Her pride, usually so unshakable, felt scraped raw.

The laptop’s screen saver kicked on, throwing soft, shifting light across the walls.

She closed it.

For a moment, the only illumination came from the hallway nightlight bleeding in beneath the door and the thin rectangle of moonlight slipping past the edges of the curtain.

She thought of the master bedroom again. Of the bed where Mabel had passed. Of Moose standing rigid beside Mabel's side of it, nose pressed to the mattress as though he could call her back.

Aubrey lay back on the guest bed without bothering to turn down the sheets. The mattress felt unfamiliar under her shoulders. The house creaked softly as it settled around her.

Her eyes slid shut.

They snapped open again when the sound came.

A sharp rattle cut through the quiet.

Aubrey froze. The hair along her arms lifted.

It came from downstairs.

A rhythmic, metallic scratching.

One of the side porch latches sticks.

Bennett’s voice echoed in her head—low and flint-hard.

You don’t know this house yet. And not everybody out here is going to care what you need, either.

Her heart lurched as she shot upright in bed.

She didn’t have a weapon. She had a manicured set of nails and a heavy metal water flask beside the bed.

She wrapped her fingers around the flask’s neck. The steel felt icy and slick against her palm.

For a second she considered calling 911.

And say what, exactly? Hi, I’m the stranger who inherited the town winery and my dog thinks the porch latch sounds suspicious?

Another rattle.

Aubrey slid off the bed.