Page 37

I straightened my shoulders and spine, sitting up higher. “Yes. He told me.” He made it perfectly clear I was to stay out of the woods above all else, and that fact still needled me uncomfortably, like a burr beneath my clothes that I couldn’t find.

Corbin nodded grimly, and then the Winter boys left. I tried to figure out where they went from the window, but the snowstorm swallowed up their figures and their footprints within seconds. They disappeared into a dark curtain of snow, gone from sight in an instant.

Angie poked my shoulder, and with a startled flinch, I turned away from the glass I’d been fogging up with heavy breaths.

“Come on. You’re not supposed to stare into the dark at night. Every myth I’ve ever heard says you risk seeing something you’re not supposed to.”

Her nervous smile was meant to be a teasing kindness, but her fear made the corners of her mouth waver. None of us were ready to find out what happened to Everly, least of all me, but I didn’t have a choice if I wanted to salvage any hope of bringing my sister home.

We were a mostly silent group sitting around the dinner table, the wind howling outside and rattling the air vents. As I munched on a dinner roll smothered in butter, I had only two trains of thought operating—the food was damn good here, and I wasn’t supposed to go into the woods.

While I could appreciate the first thought, I couldn’t understand the second.

“Rae? What are you thinking?” Ben asked when he noted my complete lack of presence with the rest of them at the table. He snapped his fingers under the table, trying to corral Maple who made her rounds, laying a drooling maw on everyone’s knee to beg for scraps.

Slowly, I set down the butter knife, resisting the urge to pound one more roll out of pure stress. An intrusive thought warred inside me, one threatening to burst and make all my friends uncomfortable.

But their comfort didn’t matter, for they could walk away at any moment, and I wouldn’t blame them.

I took a breath, pushed away the doubt, and said, “I’m going to go into the woods tomorrow night.”

Chapter 17

It was pretty much the only rule that mattered.

Don’t go into the woods.

It was the one Fox had stressed most painstakingly. The one he very nearly begged me to obey with his hard eyes and cold demeanor.

That was exactly why I had to break it.

The Winters were hiding something in the woods, and Fox knew all about it. If was in a betting mood, I would wager he stressed the rule so pointedly to give me a clue. Maybe beneath the stern command to stay out of the woods was a boy who secretly wanted to help.

I didn’t stay with my friends to let them talk me out of it. After their initial shock at dinner, and then their clamoring protests that followed me up the stairs, I escaped to the second floor to explore the other suites. The day I’d visited and Arthur had been cleaning, it could have been a simple routine to prepare the cabin for the next event, but something felt off about it.

Why would Arthur Winter be cleaning the place himself?

Surely, they made enough to hire a cleaning agency. Surely, he would make someone else in the family do it since he made others do all the serving. It made me wonder if he had been handling it himself to clean up evidence. To wash away clues of what he did with my sister. Or what he knew happened to her.

I combed through every room, focusing most of my efforts in the room Everly claimed the night before her wedding. Other than a dozen taxidermy animals, a hundred books on fishing, and other rustic knickknacks, I didn’t find anything, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I even knocked and felt along every wall for signs of a crawl space.

But there was nothing.

It was just a big, harmless cabin. The perfect decoy for a shady business going on behind the scenes.

Forcing my thoughts to quiet when I laid down that evening was no small feat. I pulled a throw pillow stitched with deer antlers close against my chest, squeezing it as hard as I could to make the breaths in my chest come easier.

Overanalyzing everything and chasing every thread in my head wasn’t going to solve anything. Of course, while I understood this logically, getting my anxious thoughts to shut up was near impossible.

I didn’t fall asleep until the storm had passed some time past two in the morning. A bone chilling dream about Arthur trying to bury me alive haunted those precious few hours I got, and then I woke at eleven to the sound of dishes clinking downstairs and silverware scraping plates.

I flung the covers off and stuffed my feet into complimentary moccasin slippers before rushing down the stairs.

My friends were already eating with Maple dozing on a pillow in the corner, and the door to the kitchenette stood silent. Not a whisper of life behind it.

“Who came?” I asked.

“Good morning to you, too,” Riss quipped while spooning fresh fruit on her plate. “You look like you slept outside in the storm.”