Page 98 of Snake

Knox

Iwatch Nim go up the stairs until she’s out of sight, my gaze immediately switching to an intense scan of the ground level of my home. Old habits die hard. I used to do this whenever I got home from school. An attempt to figure out what had transpired since I’d last been here.

A painting slightly off-center. A dirty plate left out. The smell of Lorenzo’s cologne in the air.

That’s howI spot the note propped up on the kitchen island. I walk over, see Nim’s name on the front, flip it open anyway.

Nim gives me a double take when she comes downstairs and sees my expression. “Um...is everything okay?” She’s holding a shoebox tied with a black ribbon and her duffle bag with her clothes in it.

She was looking slightly melancholy before she spotted me. Perhaps thinking that at least she was leaving Cinderhart with more than what she arrived with.

Now she just looks uneasy.

I cock my head to the front door. “After you.”

Her shoulders sag a little, but she leaves without protest.

The drive back to town is quiet. Eerily so. I guess we all have a lot on our minds after our evening with Nim. Mason and Silas both look gloomy now, Mason actively avoiding eye contact with me in the rearview mirror.

Nim cradles her box in her lap almost protectively. I know what’s inside. Mother keeps all her mementos in old shoe boxes.

I asked Vicky about the Winters family, and she lied to me. She knew them...and she knew them well. She’s not a hoarder. My mother only keeps things that are truly special to her.

So why did she keep a box of photos she was planning to give away? And since I assume they’re photos of Nim’s parents, Vicky must have kept them for decades.

I press a hand to the note I folded up and slipped into the front pocket of my jeans. “We can’t let you go back to the city looking like that,” I say, giving Nim’s hair a cursory glance in the mirror. “This town already has a reputation for having a strange fashion sense.”

Nim looks like she wants to argue, but then closes her mouth again and gives me a nod. Maybe she thinks we owe her this. After all, if it hadn’t been for us, she'd never have landed on Eliza’s radar.

There hasn’t been any time to figure out how we’re going to take our revenge on Jackson yet, but as soon as things settle down around here, I’m going to have a word with the others.

Eliza has to pay for what she did. And I have a feeling I know exactly how to make her suffer.

“One condition,” she says, eying me carefully in the mirror.

“Anything.”

“You buy me breakfast first.” She pats her stomach. “I’m absolutely starving.”

I smile at her, and she smiles back. But I feel we’re both forcing them. Which makes me wonder why she’s suddenly so eager to stay in town a little while longer.

* * *

The salon only opens at nine, so we treat Nim to breakfast at Whole Latte Love, after I nearly had to go toe-to-toe with Mason to get him to agree. He can go on all he wants about the diner’s burgers, but if it’s breakfast you’re after, WLL is the only place to go.

He wasn’t as vocal after he tasted their coffee, though. All of us appreciate a good, strong cup of joe. Although I limit myself to one or two cups a day, at most.

Except if I don’t want to go to sleep.

As the sun rose, the tension between the four of us slowly started easing. Mason was cracking jokes, pulling Nim onto his lap and calling her baby girl every five seconds. Silas’s usually stormy face saw an occasional break in the clouds when a tentative smile could glimmer through.

But I keep thinking about the note in my pocket, and the box Nim had left in the car. Eventually, I can’t take it anymore. “You got this, Mason?” I ask, standing as the waitress approaches us with the bill folder. “Gotta go take a leak.”

Everyone eyes me, but it’s only Nim whose gaze lingers. “Me too,” she says.

Sneaky girl. She knows something is up, doesn’t she? “Meet you at the car,” I tell them, not waiting for her as I head for the restrooms at the back of the restaurant.

Nim follows, and I hear her sneakers scuff on the tiled floor as she hurries to catch up to me. I push through into the men’s bathroom, straining to hear her opening the woman’s side. As soon as she does, I turn around.

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