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I tell myself that I’m just thinking of the Abbases, in case they chartered another boat and returned to gather any forgotten belongings, but it’s more than that. I’m unsettled, and it pisses me off because this is the one place where I can truly relax. Now I’m checking the lock and the alarm and then fighting the urge to go around to the other doors.
It’s fine, Laney. Everything is fine.
No, it’s not, and it hasn’t been fine since Kit walked out and Anna died and—
Breathe, just breathe.
Itwillbe fine, and part of that is becoming the parent Madison needs, which means getting my ass up these stairs to check that closet before she sees it.
I zoom up the sweeping open staircase, only to have the railing wiggle under my hand. I pause and give it a shake. It’s loose, which means someone decided it’d be fun to slide down the curved banister again and that someone probably wasn’t even a child and—
Stop.
I continue my flight up. The house has four bedrooms: a huge main and three smaller chambers. When Kit first showed me the architect’s plans, he’d stumbled over himself to explain why there were so many bedrooms. One for Madison, when she came to visit, and one for Anna, if she visited with Madison, and if my parents came, too… See? We need four bedrooms. Same as if Jayla came and theirparents came or any other combination of guests. It was a vacation house; you couldn’t have too many bedrooms.
What he hadn’t said was “children.” It was too early in our marriage, which had happened so fast that we never had that conversation, and so he wasn’t comfortable even joking that we needed rooms for future kids.
Good thing he hadn’t, or it would be just one more thing for me to regret. Another shimmering dream of the future to mourn.
The green room—where the Abbases saw the blood—is right beside ours and also the smallest. I stop in the doorway and look at the closet. The door is shut but light shines around the edges.
I rub down the hairs on my neck. The closet lights come on automatically when the door is opened. They’re also supposed to shut off automatically after five minutes, in case the closet door isn’t closed properly. Our solar and battery array is amazing, but we still can’t afford to waste electricity.
The automatic sensor must be broken. It’s not the first time that’s happened. Kit wanted the house to be state-of-the-art, and I love all the little touches, but each one is also another thing that can break.
I reach the closet and yank open the door. Something swoops from inside. I fall back with a yelp… as a thick woolen blanket crumples at my feet. I curse under my breath. Mrs. Abbas must have pulled it partly out.
I kick the blanket aside and open the door all the way to see the inside. When I do, my breath catches.
There’s blood smeared down the inside of the door.
I fight a shudder as I make out fingerprints in the blood, whorls and ridges. I push the door open farther, and the light illuminates gouges. I lift my hand, and my fingers fit in the marks.
“Bat or rat?” a voice says, and I jump as Madison and Jayla walk in.
“Holy shit,” Madison says, stopping with a squeak of her sneakers.
“Those arenotfrom a trapped animal,” Jayla says as she walks over.
Madison joins her and examines the blood smears. “The marks are human. I mean, staged, obviously.” She glances at me. “Right?”
“Yes,” I say as firmly as I can. I glance at Jayla, who nods, and I relax.
Madison does the same thing I did, placing her hand a half inch over the gouges. They fit her fingers, too. It really does look as if someone had been trapped in there, trying to claw her way out, someone like Madison—
No. That’s my writer’s imagination. No one was locked in my closet. For one thing, there’s no lock.
What if someone braced a chair under the handle. What if—?
“That is one sick prank,” Jayla says. “We’ll find the bastard who did this, and I’ll sue their ass for you… and strongly suggest court-ordered psychiatric counseling.”
Madison nods, and they file from the room, the situation dismissed. I stand there, staring at the gouges. I put my own hand up to them again and imagine—
“Laney?” Madison says, peeking back around the hall door.
“Coming,” I say, and hurry after them.
I’ve shown the others the site of the charred bones in the boathouse and the hex circle under the rug, along with photos from before Nate and I cleaned up. The last stop is the gazebo.
