Page 30 of Never Lie
“Because you said you did!” Beads of sweat are sprouting on my palms. “At three in the morning, I asked you if you put the painting up again and you said you did!”
“No. You asked me if Imoved itlast night. And I said I did. I moved it when we were sitting on the couch. I took it down. Yousawme take it down.”
Oh God. This isnotwhat I needed to hear. “Ethan, last night when I went downstairs, the painting was back up. So if you didn’t do it, somebody else did.”
He drops the frying pan in the sink with a clank and turns to look at me. “I don’t understand what you’re saying, Tricia. You think somebody came into the living room and put the painting back up? Then later in the night, they took it back down? That’s what you think?”
Well, when he says it like that… “I know it sounds crazy.”
“A bit.”
“But I know what I saw.”
“Do you?”
I glare at him. He is seriously losing all the good-husband points he earned a few minutes ago. “Yes.”
“I’m just saying…” He folds his muscular arms across his chest. “It was three in the morning. The house is really dark. You were kind of sleepy and out of it. Is it possible you could be mistaken?”
“No. It’s not possible.”
“Are you sure?”
I want to shout at him that I know what I saw. I could neverimaginethose green eyes staring at me. It’s not something I could make a mistake about.
But the more times he asks me about it, the more I wonder. Itwasthe middle of the night. And the houseisvery dark. Is it possible that I could havethoughtI saw it, like a mirage?
“I guess it’s possible,” I mumble.
Ethan seems satisfied with this. But I’m not. Something is going on with this house. I’m sure of it, even though he doesn’t believe me.
Chapter 18
After breakfast, we regroup at the kitchen table and come up with a plan to get out of here.
Neither of us has cell service and there are no land lines to be found in the house. Moreover, the storm last night dumped what looks like about ten feet of snow on the area surrounding the house. We can just barely see Ethan’s BMW from the window, and it looks like it’s just a big mound of snow. He’s got a shovel in the trunk, but it won’t be enough. Not enough to get out of here, anyway.
“I’m hoping a plow will come at some point,” Ethan says. “I assume Judy would have called one.”
“Yeah.” He looks more optimistic than I feel. “Maybe.”
“Look, worst comes to worst, we may be stuck here for the day. We’ve got food and water and electricity. It’s not that bad.”
“Yeah…”
He places his palms on the kitchen table and pushes himself to his feet. “I’m going to head over to the car and get my laptop so I can do some work. Do you want me to get anything for you?”
My stomach sinks. “You’re leaving me here?”
“Just for like fifteen minutes.”
It won’t be fifteen minutes. It took us almost fifteen minutes to walk from the car to the house last night in all that snow. “I want to go with you.”
“Absolutely not. Tricia, you’re pregnant. And you have wholly inadequate footwear.”
I suppose he’s got a point. It wouldn’t be right to make him carry me piggyback to the car and back. Of course, I could borrow a pair of Dr. Hale’s boots. We do seem to be the same size…
No. I’m not doing that.
