Page 5

Dakota

M allory made a rude sound in the back of her throat before she tossed back her hair once again, the action jostling the alcohol in her glass and spilling some over the rim.

She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t care.

She was far more focused on the fact that she had seemingly been abandoned by both of her sons.

Well, one. She had burned the last remaining flimsy bridge between herself and Chance, and there was no rebuilding a new one for them.

My heart panged inside my chest at the thought.

Since my parents had never been particularly caring, I’d stupidly thought that my in-laws might have provided that parental love I had always craved.

I thought I had it, but the more I got to know Mallory and Calvin, the more I realised I was like an object to them.

To Calvin, I was the woman who would produce an heir for his fortune.

To Mallory, I was a doll she liked to dress up and whine to.

Neither one took any real interest in me as a person, nor cared for my opinions.

I was used to that, so I learned to live with it easily enough. I was disappointed, but I still had Blake. Yet, he was still nowhere to be found. I was beyond upset at this point. This was past letting my insecurities get the better of me. He had abandoned me, and I was pissed.

I was also increasingly concerned for Chance. I hadn’t heard from him since yesterday, and I was sure he was going to call before now. I placated myself by repeating the mantra that `no news was good news, but my gut was screaming at me that something was wrong.

The problem was, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong so I could fix it until one or both men returned, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that I was better off leaving than sticking around for whatever this shitshow had become.

Then again, why should I have to be the one to fix it?

Whatever was keeping them away, if it was merely the memory of Kali or something else, it was not my responsibility to make everything go away again.

This was a weight that had no right being left on my shoulders, and I refused to let it weigh me down.

Chance, I could understand. His love was borderline obsessive.

It was like Kali was the air he breathed, and without her, he was suffocating.

It didn’t escape my notice that Blake’s love for her was but a fraction of what his own brother felt, which, combined with his marriage to me, begged the question of why?

Why had he run off? Why was he struggling with everything now?

It wasn’t fair to me, and I wasn’t having it.

I could only make so many allowances for his grief, especially when he was supposed to have moved on.

I hadn’t seen any sign of regret from him before our marriage, but ever since we’d returned from our honeymoon, everything had been different.

I couldn’t place my finger on it, but I could sense it all the same.

It was that horrible, sick, twisting feeling in my stomach that something just wasn’t quite right, but there was no real evidence to prove it or to point me in the right direction.

I felt more alone now than I ever had before, and I’d spent the majority of my childhood feeling isolated and unwanted.

I had vowed never to let myself fall into the same position again, yet here I was, moping over my missing husband who was moping over his dead wife. It was too much.

I just wanted to go home.

‘Where is that boy?’ Mallory whined, lifting a portable fan to her face and not even bothering to open her eyes.

I didn’t doubt she was genuinely curious where Blake had run off to, but she wasn’t concerned in the slightest. Blake had assured me she had been more maternal in his youth, but it was difficult to combine that image with the woman before me now.

‘I told you, he’s fishing,’ I reminded her for the umpteenth time, only to receive an annoyed huff in return.

‘He’s always off fishing, my Blake. Such a mindless activity.’

‘That’s why he does it,’ I mumbled, my patience with this entire situation running thinner by the second.

‘Well, if he’s not back soon, he’ll miss all the fun. He’s always loved skiing.’

I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat and contemplated heading back to Rhodes’ house. I hadn’t seen Kali since yesterday, but I was more than curious if they’d had any luck contacting her.

She was another reason for my desire to depart and leave this place behind.

I worried my presence was making her uncomfortable, that she was taking the news of Blake moving on hard.

She had scratched his name out on the note he’d left me, which led me to believe she was angry with him because of me.

I didn’t want that, but I also didn’t want to stick around where my husband’s late wife’s ghost was haunting us.

Perhaps that made me selfish, but I trusted Chance would help her move on.

He was good at solving mysteries, as his job required, but this was a problem for the police.

Hopefully, we’d all get answers soon so that we could finally put it all behind us and move on with our lives. Or, in Kali’s case, her afterlife. I wanted her to find peace, but I was also woman enough to admit that she had freaked me out a little.

Okay, a lot .

It wasn’t every day one experienced evidence of the paranormal, and while from a distance it was fascinating, up close it was a lot more disconcerting than I was comfortable with.

I was more than ready to get the hell out of here and purge these events from my mind.

Yet, I couldn’t. Not because I was physically incapable of leaving, but because I felt like I at least owed Kali the respect she was due.

I hadn’t met her when she was alive, but she was loved by the people I loved, and she had suffered a great deal.

So, she was a ghost. So what? Just because I was practically crawling out of my skin at the mere thought of her revealing herself to me again, didn’t mean I should just leave her.

She was clearly attempting to send a message, though I had no clue why she chose me.

Rhodes apparently had the ability to see and speak with her, and Gloria was a psychic and could communicate with her as well. Why me?

If I were being honest with myself, that was the true reason why I hadn’t fled like a coward.

I was curious. About her, about why she was reaching out to me, specifically.

There were so many unanswered questions surrounding her, and the mystery of Kali kept getting denser and more complicated the further we dug.

She was dead, but she wasn’t gone. She deserved to be heard just like anyone else.

More than that, she deserved justice.

Fuck, I wanted Blake now more than ever.

We were supposed to be partners, yet as soon as things got ugly, though no one was to blame here, he ran.

It had me searching through my memories for anything else I had missed or dismissed that could be construed as red flags.

Was my husband the man I thought he was?

I hated that I was doubting him. Doubting us .

I hated that he was the cause of it even more.

I hadn’t expected this from him, and it was so out of character that I was struggling not to take it personally.

Everyone always said the first year of marriage was the hardest, but surely they didn’t mean this?

My insecurities were running wild, and the longer he was gone, the more I would overthink, overanalyse, and think up the worst-case scenarios.

I was struggling more than I had in a long time, and I fought the urge to curl up beneath the cot like I had before.

Hiding wouldn’t solve my problems, nor would small spaces make me safe.

Tell that to my brain, though, because it didn’t want to listen.

‘I need some air,’ I said, abruptly standing and interrupting whatever Mallory was currently droning on about. I hadn’t been paying attention, and normally I might have felt bad about that, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Mallory’s grievances were inane on the best of days.

‘We’re already outside,’ she said, confused, finally opening her eyes so she could take stock of my mental state. The way she was looking at me reminded me too much of the way my mother would stare at me as a child whenever I told her about the monsters in the shadows. Like I was a freak.

‘Excuse me,’ I muttered, then hurried away.

She didn’t try to stop me, and I didn’t want to dig into whatever feelings that brought up, choosing to shove them aside to pick apart later.

Now, there was already too much going on inside my head that I needed to sort through.

I had to pull up my big girl panties and pull myself together.

I could not, would not, fall apart. Not here. Not again.

I rounded the back of the interconnected series of ostentatious tents back to my own.

I had been forced to move it further out of the way when Mallory had demanded more space for another ‘room’, but I was suddenly glad for it.

I couldn’t see my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law was somewhere inside the maze of colourful fabric.

I didn’t want to see either of them right now.

For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to be alone.

I pushed the flap to the side with a little more force than necessary, wincing when I heard a tear, but told myself it was likely nothing more than the zipper.

When my gaze landed on the empty cot, only one pillow indented, the reminder of my missing husband was like a punch to the gut, and I decided I didn’t care if the whole tent was cut into ribbons.

I needed out. I never wanted to go camping again.