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“I’ll do a thorough examination myself,” I say. “Again, I am so sorry. I’m refunding your money right now.” I open my app. “Then I’ll head out there and see what’s going on.”
“I bet it was a raccoon,” Madison says when I hang up. “Hopefully not a rat. We haven’t seen rats on the island, right?”
I stare at her as I try to connect her words to what just happened.
“Blood and scratches in the closet?” she says. “Obviously, some poor critter got trapped in there. Maybe a bat. That would make the most sense, right? A bat?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, struggling to collect my thoughts. Then I swing my legs out of bed. I head to the kitchen and flip on the coffee machine.
Madison’s footfalls pad from my room, which is about ten paces from the kitchen. Yes, it’s a tiny house, but it’s all I could afford in Madison’s school district. After my sister died, I couldn’t bear to upend my niece’s life any further. I’d paid Anna’s remaining medical bills with the sale of her heavily mortgaged house and rented the one place I could kinda-sorta afford on the edge of her upscale suburban neighborhood.
“It’s four in the morning, Laney,” Madison says when she comes in the kitchen. “Why are you making coffee?”
“I need to head to Hemlock Island and resolve this before they register a complaint, which Mrs. Abbas absolutely will.”
“Yeah, she’s really freaked.”
“I don’t blame her. I’m sorry, Mads, but I might not be back until late. We’ll need to find you a place to stay the night.”
I brace for her to say she’ll stay here, which will inevitably lead to a fight. She’ll argue she’s old enough to stay alone, and I’ll remind her about what happened last month when some guy peeped at her while I was out late.
I start to put my coffee cup under the brewer, but she gets her travel mug in there first.
“I’m going with you,” she says.
“Uh-uh. I’mnottaking you to the island after that.”
“After what? A bat got trapped in the closet?” She peers at me. “There’s more to the story, isn’t there?”
I concentrate on pouring exactly the right amount of cream into my empty cup. “More to what story?”
“You never even thought it might be an animal,” she says. “That guy said it was a prank, and you rolled with it. Now you’re rushing out to investigate.”
“I’m not rushing out.” I fill my mug and settle onto a wobbly kitchen chair. “See?”
“What else has happened?”
Here’s where I always get stuck in this new role as Madison’s legal guardian. I need to be the parent, not the fun aunt, and I’m grappling with that shift. Which is worse? Lying to her? Or sharing something potentially disturbing? Knowing my niece, I cross my fingers and make what I hope is the right choice.
“There have been other things,” I say. “Other… incidents.”
“Incidents?”
I set my mug down on the thrift-shop table. “Nate found charred animal bones in the boathouse. I found a hex circle under the crawlspace rug and then feathers and bones hanging from the gazebo.”
“Ah, Halloween came early this year. Some renter’s kids got bored and staged a house of horrors for the next guests.” She takes a bag of Oreos from the cupboard. “Part of me wants to high-five them for their creativity and part wants to give them shit for scaring innocent people. I blame Mom for the finger-wagging. The high-fives are totally on you.”
“Me?”
“Uh, remember the stories you told me when I was a kid? The haunted houses we set up? The Halloween parties that had parents telling you off for giving their kids nightmares? I always said you’re missing your calling. Mysteries are fine, but you really should be writing horror.” She flips me an Oreo. “So some kids staged…”
She stops, cookie halfway to her mouth. “Wait. How long has this been going on?”
“Nate found the bones in mid-August.”
“And no one has used the green bedroom since? Nate hasn’t opened that closet door since? That’s not possible.”
“The room has been used twice since, and Nate and I thoroughly searched the house after I found the hex circle.”
