Page 25

25

Tallus

W e landed back at Ivory Lace B&B for lack of knowing where to go and what to do. Diem sat on the edge of the bed and fumbled with the bottle of painkillers, dumping four into his palm. He washed them down with a long, generous helping of whiskey. He didn’t cap the bottle and balanced it on his knee as he breathed through the evident fire it had caused in his esophagus. When it seemed to wear off, he drank more. A lot more. Then he capped the bottle and lay down, groaning with discomfort.

“I assume that means we’re taking a break?”

“Five minutes.”

I huffed. “You’re going to be out cold in five minutes.”

He covered his face with his more mobile arm, mumbling something incoherent.

“The hospital could at least give you better painkillers.”

“I’m not going to the fucking hospital.”

“You’re a stubborn mule. What are we doing with this case?”

“I don’t know. Let me rest a minute. I have a headache. I can’t think.”

Frustrated, I let him rest. As I predicted, he fell asleep within minutes, heavy snores filling the room since he was lying on his back.

My irritation waned as I watched him sleep. Diem had been a pendulum of emotions these past few days. One minute fretting over our shared bed. The next, passionately loving me because an accident in the woods had rocked him off-balance. If my assumptions were correct, the tree branch falling had awoken something inside him he’d been carefully holding at bay. So, not only was Diem fighting a battle with physical pain, but he was trying to maneuver through unexpected feelings as well. Add the case and financial concerns, and it was no wonder he was edgy.

I didn’t condone what he’d done to Duke, but I understood.

I sat beside Diem, gently stroking my fingers through his sweat-dampened hair as I considered Duke and his father’s landscaping business. Duke would know how to rig a tree branch to fall a certain way. It was a huge red flag.

The more I considered it, the more plausible it seemed. If Loyal had built himself an army of like-minded soldiers, it was feasible they would help him cover up the truth, but what was the truth? Did they all have a hand in Weston’s accident ? Was Chett’s dad involved? Why else would he be out in the woods with a rifle so close to the cabin if he wasn’t helping to protect a secret.

Chett, chumming up with Loyal, made sense. I’d known kids in high school who would give their right arm to be part of the popular crowd. Or rather, they’d give up old friendships for something better. No matter the risk. No matter the cost.

Had Chett turned on Weston?

Weston was part of the group. Why attack him? Had he planned to leave? To tell?

“What the fuck happened out there?” I asked out loud. “How did you end up in the water, Weston?”

I considered Atlas but couldn’t figure out how he fit. His dynamic was wrong. Unless it was the dark nature of delving into crime that interested him. Atlas seemed like the type who enjoyed crossing lines and dabbling in things that weren’t especially legal.

Then, we had Noel and doe-eyed Londyn. Were they part of the group because one was Loyal’s girlfriend and the other was his twin? Londyn admittedly wasn’t much of a writer, but her brother defended her constantly.

Something didn’t sit right about the twins’ relationship, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it because their mother had taken off, and Londyn had gotten lost in the flow with two men at home and no female role model to guide her through puberty?

Something tickled the back of my brain, a sensation I’d felt once before. What was it? Trying to force the thought only drove it further away, but it screamed its importance in my ear.

Diem let out a strangled snort and groaned in his sleep on an exhale. Careful not to wake him, I drew the collar of his T-shirt aside and cringed at the deep purple bruising and swelling that had spread across his shoulder and collarbone. It looked terrible. Painful.

“You’re such a stubborn asshole sometimes.”

I went downstairs and got him an ice pack from Ivory’s undead husband. Wrapped in a towel, I applied it to Diem’s injury. He moaned and rolled his head to the side but didn’t wake. I kept it there as I watched the fading light of day wash over his face.

The winter sun went down early. By five, dusk had taken over the town, and Diem had shifted into a deep, soundless sleep. No more snoring. No more noises of discomfort. I removed the ice—it had mostly melted—and set it on the bedside table.

I kept returning to the niggling thought that wouldn’t surface, and the only thing I knew for sure was that it had something to do with the cabin in the woods. Had I seen something?

I pulled up the pictures I’d taken and browsed, but nothing stood out. Nothing triggered the thought. But I was right. I knew I was.

Inching off the bed, repeatedly checking that Diem remained asleep, I aimed for the bag of supplies Diem had taken from the trunk of the Jeep after the tree incident by the trail. I rooted inside until I found his lockpicking kit. I’d never used it, but I’d watched Diem on a few occasions. How hard could it be?

Quietly, I put on my coat and tucked the kit inside the pocket. My shoes were long past ruined. My feet had suffered from cold and wet the entire time we’d been in Port Hope. One more trip into the woods wouldn’t make them worse, and I had to get a look inside that cabin.

Diem had ingested enough whiskey that I suspected he wouldn’t wake until morning, so I grabbed the keys to the rental Jeep and snuck out the door.

The drive to the trailhead didn’t take long. Traffic in Port Hope was thin even during rush hour. Instead of parking under the trees along the side of the gravel lot, I left the Jeep in the middle, away from potentially falling branches—not that I thought the culprit would try the same trick a second time.

With the sun kissing the horizon, the path under the trees was ominous and darker than usual. I kept telling myself that Nicholas’s dad wouldn’t be around. It was the dinner hour. He would be at home with his kids or at the bar having a liquid supper. He would not be haunting the woods with a rifle and dog.

Running into a group of potentially homicide-happy teens was another story. I could have waited until midnight, but creeping through the woods was bad enough at dusk, never mind in the pitch dark.

I reached the rickety wire fence and climbed over. Clumsier without Diem there to assist, my trousers caught on a loose wire, sending me off-balance. I fell, ripping a nasty hole in the fabric.

“Goddammit.” All my good clothes would be ruined at this rate. At least the wire hadn’t gouged my leg. The last thing I needed was tetanus.

I scanned the quiet forest as I advanced toward the cabin, alert for signs I might not be alone. The stupidity of my decision didn’t sink in until the utter seclusion of my adventure took root. Trees in every direction. A racing river a hundred or so yards away. What if I ended up in trouble? No one would hear me call for help. No one would hear me scream. Would my fate be similar to Weston’s?

I shivered at the thought.

Heart pounding, I glanced back from where I’d come and debated leaving, racing back to our shared room and curling up next to my ornery boyfriend. Diem would not approve of my spontaneity. Hell, if he knew what I was up to, he would lose his mind.

But the cabin was in sight. I was close enough it would be foolish to turn around. I only wanted to take a look. Five minutes at most. I’d seen something important, and I needed to figure out what. It was like a word on the tip of your tongue. I could taste it. The answer was right there. All I needed was a quick peek.

I continued toward the cabin, undergrowth snagging my pant legs. The snap of a twig in the distance made me jump. A gust of wind rustled a few dry leaves overhead. My nerves jittered, and goose bumps crawled over my already cold skin.

I was not a chickenshit. No one was out here but me.

Reaching the cabin without incident, I peeked in a window. The room beyond was barely visible without the sun shining in the windows. No lights on. No people inside. I made my way to the door and tried the knob, not surprised to find it locked.

I tugged the lockpicking kit from my pocket and studied its contents. On my phone, I searched YouTube for lockpicking tutorials, skimming for a quick video that might show me the basics. I didn’t have twenty minutes to spare, and most content creators like to talk. In retrospect, I should have watched a few before leaving the room.

Splitting my attention between the surrounding forest and the video eating up my data, I got a basic idea of what I was meant to do. It seemed straightforward until I put what I learned into practice.

After ten minutes of fighting with the lock and cursing up a storm, I gave up and watched another video. Diem made it look easy. I should have forced him to teach me sooner.

The forest was completely dark by this point, and I couldn’t see beyond a few feet in any direction. My fingers were numb from the cold, and it made using my phone difficult. My second attempt to pick the lock saw success in under three minutes, and I silently cheered. Diem would have been proud—after he reamed me out for being irresponsible.

I slipped inside the dark cabin and closed the door behind me, engaging the lock, instantly more at ease since I was no longer exposed. I took a second to calm my racing heart and to listen for anything that sounded out of place. I kept expecting a dog to howl in the distance or a chain saw to rev to life. Every horror movie I’d seen growing up came back to me, and I was the brain-dead character doing stupid shit the audience warned him against.

“Fuck me.”

Instead of turning on a light—it might draw attention to someone out in the forest—I used my phone flashlight to look around. I could make out the furniture and shelves but not much beyond. No true detail. That would require closer inspection, but I wasn’t ready to move.

With my back pressed against the door, I shone the light over all we’d seen from the windows the previous day, paying particular attention to the setup of the whiteboard and table detritus in case it had been recently moved. Everything looked the same as the photographs I’d studied at the B&B.

Inching forward, cautiously ensuring I didn’t bump into anything, I entered the room to explore properly.

I started with the loose papers on the table, the stuff we hadn’t been able to closely examine before. In a brown file, I found rough copies of what appeared to be more partial stories. Some were marked with notes, and others were clean.

I skimmed the opening paragraphs of a few but had no clue how to tell who wrote them or if they were important. As Diem had pointed out, it likely didn’t matter who wrote the story about the incident. They all had a hand in its editing. I left the file on the table and examined the posters and diagrams before moving to the bookshelf with the nonfiction collection about serial killers.

Nothing creepy about that.

I pulled a few from the shelf, examined their covers, then put them back. Some were tabbed and annotated. Others were untouched. At the desk, I opened a few drawers. Pens, highlighters, colored tabs, notebooks galore, and paper clips. I opened a few notebooks and encountered the same penmanship as the stuff in the file on the coffee table. I had nothing to compare it to but suspected it could be Loyal’s writing since it was his hideaway.

I tore a random page from the notebook and stuffed it into my pocket for later analysis like I was some sort of expert who knew anything about this stuff and could decipher someone’s personality through their handwriting. Hell, maybe there was a YouTube video I could watch. Kitty would probably know. The woman was mysteriously knowledgeable.

Sitting in the desk chair, I glanced at the overhead shelves with the collection of fiction titles by Ambrose Whitaker. “Is he your hero, Loyal? Wanna be just like Ambrose when you grow up?”

The elusive thought tickled my brain again, and I frowned, focusing on drawing it forward. The books. It had something to do with the books. I selected one at random and pulled it from the shelf.

“ The Unseen Hand ,” I read aloud, tracing the title with my finger.

I located the blurb on the inside flap to refresh my memory. It was one of the ones I’d browsed online.

Not a paragraph in, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. I read slower, then a second time, absorbing the details. The floodgates opened, and all I hadn’t been able to bring into focus before clarified.

I flipped through the hundreds of pages in the book, considering the chances of my being right. Was it possible? Did it even make sense? What if…

My phone buzzed with an incoming call, and I nearly jumped out of my skin since I was holding the device and using it as a flashlight.

I checked the screen. Diem.

“Oh fuckity fuck.” He was going to be pissed.

But I’d found something, hadn’t I? Again, I rolled the details around my head. It was too big of a coincidence to be nothing. I hesitated, unsure if I should take the call and tell Diem where I was and what I’d found or head out and explain when I got back to the room.

He would not be pleased with my little solo adventure into the woods, especially when I’d snuck out without telling him where I was going.

I puzzled the book and the blurb and all it could mean. My gaze slowly slipped to the rest of the books on the shelf as I recalled the premise for the series. The detectives. Several unsolved cases. The perfect murder. An uncaught serial killer.

“Oh fuck.”

The phone stopped ringing, but it started again right away. I took my chances and connected. “Hey, D. You are not going to—”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“Yeeeah… Okay, so, don’t be mad, but—”

“Don’t be—”

Glass shattered near my head, followed by a whoosh . I ducked on instinct and barely had a second to realize what had happened before the cabin burst into flames.

I shouted with alarm, launching from the desk chair and spinning to face the room. The couch and coffee table were on fire. A broken bottle on the ground nearby was surrounded by vicious blue flames that licked over the surface of the wood floor in every direction.

I spun, intent on running, when a second window shattered. Another bottle landed in an explosion of glass and fire, liquid splashing to my feet. I danced out of the way as it instantly erupted with another whoosh of blue flames. In my frantic flight, I tripped over the easel and landed on my ass, my phone skittering away and my glasses falling into a pool of liquid with fire dancing over its surface. In an instant, the frames melted before my eyes.

A strangled sob escaped me, but I didn’t have time to mourn their loss. I grabbed my phone—it had luckily escaped the fire— and scrambled to my feet, kicking at the flames swiftly closing in and licking at my pant legs.

My heart pounded in my throat as the temperature in the cabin grew at a fantastic rate, and my means of escape vanished before my eyes. I vaguely realized Diem was shouting on the other end of the phone, but I didn’t have time to contemplate his ire. I needed to get the fuck out of there.

Half-blind, I aimed for the door, but when I tried to wrench it open, it wouldn’t budge. I heaved and tugged, and it rattled in its frame but stuck. Cursing, I spun in time to witness the third window shatter with the impact of a launched projectile. A third blurry Molotov cocktail hit the ground and exploded into flames.

Smoke filled the air, and hot tendrils of fire reached out toward me. The bookshelf burned. The rug. The desk. I couldn’t get to any of the windows. As a source of oxygen, the flames rage with maximum fury in those areas, blocking my path.

I spun back to the door, heaving and yanking and pounding on its surface. Only as pure panic descended did I remember that I’d locked it behind me from fear of someone coming in when I was unprepared.

I swung the dead bolt and crashed into the night, fresh, cold air filling my thirsty lungs. I ran, tripped, and ran some more. Coughing, I landed on my hands and knees a second time and crawled away from the cabin, vaguely aware that someone was in the woods. Someone had thrown those homemade firebombs into the cabin. To destroy me or evidence, I didn’t know.

A good twenty or so yards from ground zero, I settled near the base of a wide tree. Despite severe disorientation and a frantic flight, I somehow managed to keep hold of my phone. Screaming himself hoarse on the other end of the line was my boyfriend.

It took ages to stop coughing and form enough words to explain where I was. The minute Diem understood I’d gone to the cabin, he unleashed a flurry of curses like I’d never heard before.

“I’m okay, D,” I rasped. “I’m okay.”

He couldn’t hear me, and I wouldn’t succeed in calming him down so long as I was out in the woods and he was back at the B&B without a vehicle.

With my back pinned to a tree, I squinted into the dark, trying to orient myself, acutely aware I could still be in danger. The cabin lit up the forest in a radius, but beyond that radius was a haunting abyss. In that haunting abyss lived a threat I couldn’t see. Between the shock and my compromised vision, I couldn’t tell which way I needed to go, and I couldn’t hear the river beyond the roar of the fire.

I glanced at the canopy overhead. So far, the surrounding trees hadn’t caught fire, likely due to the recent weather making the forest excessively damp. Using the tree trunk for leverage, I got to my feet and headed in the direction I assumed was the trail.

Diem continued to shout, but his voice was a muffled concern in the distance.

I tripped over several branches and got tangled in the undergrowth more than once. Remembering my phone’s flashlight, I used a trembling finger to turn it on. Nothing fixed the blur of not having my glasses.

“Diem,” I croaked. “Stop shouting.”

“I’m on my way. Get out of those fucking woods, Tallus. Right fucking now.”

“I’m trying. Gotta… find the path. I lost my glasses.”

A long moan traveled through the line, and I couldn’t tell if Diem was hurting himself in his urgency to get to me or if my predicament had unearthed painful emotions. Either way, I didn’t like the sound of it.

I focused on where I was going, carrying Diem with me for support, wishing he was there to protect me from whatever unseen threat I’d stumbled upon. The hairs on my neck stayed on end, anticipating a violent encounter at any moment. Would I end up in the river like Weston or with a bullet through my head? Neither sounded appealing.

I moved faster.

With luck and persistence, I found the wire fence and hopped it, tearing my pants a second time. From there, I easily located the trail and ran blindly into the night, shoes slapping the packed earth, lungs burning from smoke inhalation and exertion.

When I emerged into the parking area, Diem screamed into the lot, driving an ancient station wagon. He braked hard, kicking up gravel and spinning the tires as he came to an abrupt halt.

Diem blew through the door like a battering ram and came at me like a freight train. My head spun with adrenaline and fear, but the sight of a six-foot-six, two-hundred-and-sixty-pound tank barreling toward me was nothing but a relief.

He grabbed me roughly, and the next I knew, I was engulfed in a smothering embrace, the vitality of my ribs and organs compromised, but I didn’t care.

I tried to squeak a warning about his injury, but he didn’t hear me. Diem was spitting mad. He called me every name in the book. Nasty names. Ones that would have turned his grandmother pale. The whole time, he never let me go. I didn’t miss the tremble rocking his system. It vibrated through me.

After shouting himself dry, he deposited me on my feet beside the station wagon. The assault that followed was similar to a police frisking. Diem’s hands were everywhere, checking me like I was priceless china that couldn’t be replaced. “Are you hurt? Why do you smell like smoke? Answer me, goddammit. Your pants. They’re ripped. Are you scratched?”

“D… Diem,” I rasped. “I’m okay. I’m okay, I swear.”

He clutched my face between his palms, and I saw something I never thought I’d see in my stoic, surly boyfriend. Tears pooled on the surface of his eyes. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he growled. “What the fuck were you thinking?” He said it over and over and over. Each time with more anger, his entire body an earthquake.

When a single tear escaped, Diem released me and punched the station wagon like he might have a bag at the gym. And again and again and again. He mercilessly unloosed a tangle of emotions on the vehicle. The noises leaving his throat were inhuman. They spoke of fear… and something far more potent.

I didn’t try to stop him. Diem came apart at the seams, but I knew better than to move or interrupt. He wasn’t hurting me. The pain was inside of him, and he needed to let it out. The thing growing in his chest over the past few weeks had burst. I knew Diem. I saw all he didn’t say, and this unspoken thing terrified him every time it surfaced. He’d succeeded in pushing it away… until now. Now, it overwhelmed him. It consumed him. It took over.

The punches eventually stopped. His knuckles bled. His cheeks shone in the moonlight with tears he’d been unable to keep at bay.

Diem’s breathing hitched as he slowly and gently rested his forehead against mine. “Tallus.” My name weighed a thousand pounds on his tongue.

“Can I touch you now?”

He nodded, and I wrapped my arms around him, burying myself against his solid chest, trying to soothe his tormented soul. “It’s okay, Guns.”

He embraced me and cried. His body shook with release.

Five or ten minutes later, he pulled himself together and spoke. The words came out thick with emotion. “I love you, Tallus.”

I squeezed him tighter and smiled. “I know, D. I love you too.”