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And maybe, when she woke up the next morning, this would all have been a terrible dream.
There it was again.
At first, when sleep continued to elude her no matter how late it got, she thought she had imagined it. As a super small town, she already noticed that there wasn’t much traffic in Hamlet. After Maria went to bed, Tess was stifled by the silence. It was so quiet. Except for the nagging tick of the clock in her room, she didn’t hear anything until the first time the car passed.
It didn’t bother her. The revving of the engine, the hum as the car passed by the front of the house, it caught her attention because it was a momentary break in the heavy silence. Back home, the apartment where she and Jack lived overlooked a busy throughway. Constant traffic sped past her window all hours of the night.
But then it happened a second time. She froze in place, her fingers gripping the edge of her quilt as she held her breath. The rev, the hum. It sounded exactly the same. There was the smallest of pauses between the two sounds, almost as if the driver idled nearby before taking off again.
Half an hour later, she heard it again. The pause lasted longer this time. She counted it in her head. Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three… More than a minute ticked by before the car revved up and sped away. The roar of the engine echoed through the night. Her head turned so that she was watching the closed window blinds opposite of her bed. The car had lingered in front of Ophelia. She was almost sure of it.
She waited for close to an hour. Wound tight and breathing shallowly, her heart thumping in her ears, every single noise seemed magnified. She moved her leg, the whisper of her sweats against the satin sheets sounding like sandpaper against steel.
Just when she started to relax, just when she thought she was overreacting, she heard it again.
Throwing her quilt back, Tess clambered out of the bed. Her toes sank into the thick shag of the carpet, muffling her steps as she ran for her window. She didn’t stop to lift the blinds, choosing instead to shove her jittering fingers through the slats, leaving her a peephole wide enough to get a good look at the street.
Luck was on her side. Though there were only a handful of streetlights out there, leaving most of the road in inky blackness, there was one tall post not too far from Ophelia. Enough light fell in front of the house for her to see the car parked across the street. She squinted but couldn’t make out the driver’s face, hidden in the shadows.
She didn’t have to. There were only a few people it could be. The Sheriff Department only had four current employees. Who else would be driving around in one of their cruisers?
Her fingers slipped off of the blinds, closing the gap she created. She turned away from the window, pressing her back against the wall. As her heart raced, Tess couldn’t stop thinking about Jack, and how he’d been sleeping alone in an unfamiliar bed when someone snuck in and strangled him.
Though she already checked three times, Tess tiptoed across the room and tugged on the door. Double bolted. Even if the outer lock was undone, she kept the one inside her room engaged. True, she couldn’t get out, but no one else could get in either. Not even a cop.
Climbing back into bed, she froze when she heard the purr of the car’s engine whisper through her window. It happened so quickly, she wondered if the driver had circled the street and come right back around. Had he seen her looking out at him? If not, she didn’t want to peek through the blinds a second time. Let it be the cruiser again. She couldn’t stop it.
Maybe it would be a good thing. With what happened to her husband last night, she should feel more at peace knowing that the sheriff’s team was keeping a close eye on her.
She should. She sure as hell didn’t, though. Not when the sheriff made it perfectly clear that—alibi be damned—she thought Tessa had som
ething to do with Jack’s murder.
Feeling helpless and alone, she realized she was at the mercy of everyone in Hamlet. The sheriff, her deputies, the doctor… even the woman who ran this bed and breakfast. She currently had no car, very little cash and Sheriff De Angelis’s order that she stay in town until further notice.
Even if she wanted to disobey the sheriff, she had no idea where Deputy Walsh impounded her car or how to get it back. And, of course, she couldn’t go anywhere without Jack. She owed him that much.
The endless tick of the clock mocked her. She pounded her pillow, tried sleeping on her side, even got up again to get a glass of water from the bathroom. Nothing helped. Tess couldn’t turn off her brain. The events of the day wouldn’t let her be. She couldn’t sleep and didn’t expect to. The only plus was that the rest of the night passed by in silence. If the cruiser came back again, she was too exhausted to notice.
As the sun began to rise, sending golden rays of light streaming in through the slats of the blinds, Tess was still awake, staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling.
She didn’t see the flat white expanse above her, though. Just a length of rope twisted tightly around a man’s neck. The dead eyes, splashed with red. The waxy, white skin. It didn’t matter if she closed her eyes. She saw it regardless.
The image of Jack’s corpse was burned in her memory.
12
She must have fallen asleep after all. The momentary escape took her almost by surprise.
It felt like Tessa had only closed her eyes for a single second when she was blinking her lids open to a blank ceiling and an ache that had nothing to do with the firm mattress beneath her.
The purple room was bathed in shadows, the sun having moved across the sky as she slumbered. She could tell that she hadn’t slept too long—perhaps a couple of hours—but it was enough. Shoving the quilt away from her, she climbed out of bed.
It’s a new day, she thought, followed by the absolute certainty that Jack was still dead.
It staggered her. Stumbling, she reached out blindly, grasping the edge of her bed with a flailing hand. Her legs folded and she dropped down.
Jack was gone.
