Page 49 of What Lies in the Woods

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” he said, voice rough.

“I’m not the one being taken advantage of here,” I assured him. My fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt, fingernails nicking skin, and he took a sharp breath. “Tell me to leave, and I will.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said softly.

“Good.”

He kissed me, his kiss as hungry as mine, and we tumbled toward oblivion.

We lay with the motel sheets tangled under us, breath still quick, pulses settling. Ethan’s hand rested on my thigh. I rolled away, sitting up at the edge of the bed and snatching my clothes from where they’d fallen.

“In a hurry to leave?” Ethan asked, and I could hear him trying to figure out if he should be hurt.

I pulled my shirt over my head and looked back at him. He didn’t have a single scar on his body. Just that tattoo and a look in his eyes I couldn’t quite read. “Should I be?” Most people were happy when I didn’t try to stick around. Most of them could tell I was more trouble than I was worth.

He didn’t answer at first. He sat up and pulled on his pants. “Why did you come over here?”

“I told you. I didn’t want to be alone,” I said. I stood, crossing my arms against a chill.

“And now? Do you want to be alone?” He turned, half facing me.

“No,” I said. One word and still my voice cracked it down the middle. I rubbed my upper arms. I couldn’t seem to get warm.

“I can help you, you know. If you’re looking into Stahl, I mean. I’ve done a lot of research into the quiet summer already. If you’re trying to find a missing victim—”

“I found her,” I said, cutting him off. He looked startled.

“How? The number of women that go missing every year—evenjust narrowing it down to a few possibilities is next to impossible. And without a body, there’s no way to be sure it’s one of Stahl’s victims.”

I drew aside the curtain, looking out at the nearly empty lot. I should leave. I’d gotten what I came for, and I had no reason to rely on Ethan Schreiber for more than that.

I watched him approach in the reflection in the window, quelling the little shiver of fear at the sensation of someone at my back. I closed my eyes. His palms ghosted over my shoulders. His lips brushed against my hair, not quite a kiss. It was as if he was afraid that if he actually touched me, I would vanish.

“Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re holding on to, you don’t have to do it alone,” he told me.

I’d come to Ethan’s door to make a mistake. It was what I always did. If I knew what mistake I was making, I wouldn’t be surprised when it hurt me. I’d needed this. Needed him.

Maybe I still did.

“I have to know that if I tell you, it’s going to stay between us,” I said. “At least for now. Until I know all of it.”

“All right,” he said easily.

I met his eyes in the reflection. “You can’t just say that. You have to mean it.”

“I do,” he promised.

“This isn’t a story. It’s my life.”

“I don’t care about the story,” he said. I made a skeptical noise. “Naomi, when you are ready to tell your story, I’d like to help. But that’s never really been why I came here. I wanted to know the truth for myself.”

I nodded slowly. I believed him, or I wanted to believe him, and the difference was so small it didn’t matter.

“You said that the only way the attack made sense was if there was a body in the woods,” I said. I watched his reflection, the image of him as half real as his touch. “There was. That’s why we were there, too. We found her that summer, and we never told anyone. But Liv found outwho she was. That’s why she asked me to come. Liv knew who she was, and now I do, too.”

I turned toward him. It was easy to tell Ethan secrets. I understood now what he meant about people talking to him. There was no judgment in his eyes. “Tell me what happened,” he said. And for the first time since that summer, I found myself telling the truth.

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