AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Finally, she got to something more recent—an article about the host, Bracken, and how he was restoring rundown old properties, bringing new life to the quiet town with his vacation rentals.
A knock at the door startled her, shuttling her back to the present where Bruce’s fingers clicked across the keyboard. She wiped at tears she didn’t even realize she’d been crying.
A soft voice at the door. “Han?”
She opened it to find Cricket standing there. She had her own phone clutched in her hand.
“Look at this,” she said, pulling Hannah out into the hallway. She held up the phone to reveal one of the same articles Hannah had just been reading.
Hannah held up her phone to Cricket, who grabbed her arm, eyes going wide. “Isn’t it just awful,” she said. “Can you believe that happenedright here?”
“I think I saw her,” whispered Hannah.
“Who?”
Hannah pointed to the picture of the murdered mother. Her name was Amanda—friends called her Mandy. “When I was out in the gazebo. I saw this strange floating white light. Just like the chef said.”
Cricket stared at her a moment. “Really?”
“Swear to god. It hovered for a moment, then disappeared into the trees.”
She remembered it now. Just a trick of light maybe. But no. She’d seen something.
Cricket looked at her phone again, enlarged something on the screen then turned it back to Hannah. It was a drawing of the property, a map. Cricket pointed to a body of water. “Where they found the little girl’s body. It’s called Tearwater Lake. I think it’s just down that path behind the gazebo.”
Hannah looked back at Bruce who was still typing at his keyboard.
“Do you want to go find it?” asked Cricket, who Hannah noted was also in one of the plush robes.
Hannah thought of the dark of the woods, the heavy silence. She was more comfortable looking for ghosts on a smartphone screen.
“Where’s Joshua?” she asked, hoping to deflect the request without declining it.
Cricket rolled her eyes. “Still working. Some emergency that won’t wait. He could be a while.”
Hannah looked back at her husband, still staring at his screen. What was it with these guys? Were they just hardworking men with important jobs? Or was it something else, a desire to check out, to separate? Maybe it was a little of both.
“And Mako?”
Something crossed Cricket’s face—it looked like guilt, then sadness. “I think he went to check on Liza. He went into her room and hasn’t come back out.”
“In our bathrobes?”
Cricket shrugged. “Why not? Who’s going to see us? We’re in the middle of effing nowhere. Then—right in the hot tub.”
It wasn’t real to Cricket, what she’d read, Hannah could tell. It was a ghost story, something from the distant past. A romp into the woods after spirits was just a game to her, just another way to have fun, like stories around a campfire. But Hannah couldn’t shake that image of Mandy holding her little girl. It was real—or had been. That love. That horrific murder.
Cricket reached into her pocket then held out her palm.
Two pink gummies rested there, fat and dusted with sugar. Oh, Hannah hadn’t been high in ages. She hesitated.
Cricket lifted her palm higher, smiled her wicked smile. “Come on, Han. Live a little.”
Hannah looked into the twinkling eyes of her best friend. The bad girl. The pretty one. The wild one. The one who frequently needed Hannah’s rescue. The one who always seemed to have way more fun than Hannah.
A final glance back at her husband. He didn’t even notice when she shut the door. “Why not?”
She grabbed one and popped it in her mouth. Cricket did the same, her grin widening.
