AllFreeNovel
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I’m not!
You accused him, like everyone else…
Because he’s fucking guilty! Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and there’s always smoke around Dane…
But what if—
JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!
The only thing cheering me up is how epic Grimstone is starting to look as the town gears up for the Reaper’s Revenge.
Regardless of what Emma says, I’m looking forward to it. I fucking love Halloween, and it’ll be nice to take a night off after weeks of working myself to the bone.
Even Jude is getting in the spirit. He’s been working on a costume, a skeleton suit made with glow-in-the-dark fluorescent paint.
Tom Turner comes to the house on crutches to walk me through connecting the last few elements on the electrical panel. The moment of truth when we can finally throw the switch and watch the chandeliers in the ballroom light up is nothing short of exhilarating—for the first time, Blackleaf is starting to look like a real house and not just a mausoleum.
Tom shares the celebration with Jude, Emma, and me but doesn’t partake in our champagne toast.
“I’ve been cutting back,” he says, leaning awkwardly on his left leg.
“You have?” Emma says, pleased and surprised.
“Yeah.” Tom shrugs. “Thought I might as well—they made me detox in the hospital anyway.”
I thank him about a million times for all his hard work and apologize again for the accident.
“Hazard of the job,” Tom says, but I notice he doesn’t stay any longer than he has to, and he doesn’t come within ten feet of me throughout his visit.
It’s like he’s scared of me.
Which makes me think Tom suspects that Dane had a hand in his accident just as much as I do.
* * *
The night before Halloween,I head into Grimstone for more supplies, stopping at the hardware store first to buy more teak slats. I’ve been working on my little side project in stolen minutes here and there.
When I finish shopping, it’s only eight o’clock and I’ve got nowhere to be. I head to the Fog Cutter for a drink, hoping to sketch out the next stage of my project in the little notebook where I keep all my design ideas.
One drink turns into six as I struggle with the exact dimensions of my design. Customers come and go along the bar, and I barely notice when a pretty, redheaded woman takes a seat beside me until she peeks over my shoulder at the sketch.
“Are you an artist?”
“No…” I have to resist the urge to close the notebook in embarrassment. “It’s a design for a gazebo.”
“Oh, okay…” She tilts her head to get the full view. “Are you going to build it?”
“That’s the plan—it’s a bit trickier than I expected. I’m trying to interweave the slats to make a pattern…”
I turn the book to show her, thinking that she looks familiar, though I’m not sure how—I don’t think we’ve met before.
“Well, that’ll be real pretty when it’s done,” the woman says kindly. “I should hire you to make one for my place.”
“At the rate this one’s going, I should be free next Christmas.”
She laughs. “That’s probably when I could afford it. I’m Annie, by the way.”
She holds out her hand. I shake it, noticing her extremely chapped knuckles.
