Page 81 of Reading Between the Lines
My skin prickled with sweat under my coat, and my nerves were shot. I wouldn’t see or hear a bullet if the man was as skilled with the rifle as I assumed. Like I told Tallus, I doubted we would get a second warning. And what if the bullet came for Tallus instead? What if… I clenched my fists, warding off the visual my mind so readily painted.
Silence persisted, and we made it to the cabin without incident.
Having a solid building protecting one side of us reduced my anxiety, but until we were back in the Jeep, back in the safety of the B&B, I would not let my guard down. Thoughts of the previous night returned unexpectedly. Tallus asleep in my arms. Tallus’s soft breath ghosting my skin. His body against mine. His scent. The soft brush of his hair against my cheek.
It was a gift not meant for a man like me, but I’d greedily soaked it up. For as awkward and uncomfortable as I’d felt atfirst, as the night had deepened, I’d found myself settling. I wanted it again. Every night. Only in my arms could I know that Tallus was safe from this unforgiving world. What that said about me was a question for another day. I didn’t have enough spoons to process it right now.
The cabin wasn’t much bigger than a single-car garage. The overgrown vines covering the rotting beams suggested it hadn’t been used in a long time. I had a hunch it might have acted as a hunting cabin.
Tallus moved to peer in a nearby window, and I joined him, keeping a fist coiled in the back of his jacket in case I needed to yank him to safety at a moment’s notice. Dingy light penetrated the interior from three sides, illuminating the single room beyond in a hazy glow. A film of sappy dust coated the pane and obscured our vision, but not enough that we couldn’t take in the sight beyond.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Tallus whispered under his breath.
It wasn’t a decrepit, abandoned space as I predicted. Despite the portrayal of the exterior, the interior was immaculate. Furnished and homey. Tall bookshelves lined one wall. A stone fireplace occupied the opposite. Two plush couches and an oversized chair surrounded a wooden coffee table centered on a thick area rug. An antique wooden desk took up space in a corner. Shaded lamps and art fixtures decorated random places around the room.
But the wall hangings and plastic models were what drew my attention. Diagrams of the human body with a complete anatomical breakdown, charts describing blood splatter, graphs explaining the various indicators of head trauma, a table depicting the methodology of fatal stab wounds, a poster showing the dissection of a human cadaver, along with written lists of autopsy protocols, and many, many more.
A poster near the desk contained dozens of tiny photographs of faces, and at first, I couldn’t make out who they were. Then it hit me. It was a poster of famous serial killers dating back to the 1800s.
A whiteboard, balanced on an easel in the center of the room, was filled with someone’s neat handwriting. A suggested murder plot topped the board, underlined several times in blue. Under it, pros and cons had been listed, along with alternate ways the murder could be performed to lessen the risk of exposure.
“Are you seeing this?” Tallus hissed. “I think we found Murder Club headquarters. Fuck. This is nuts. These kids are fucking sadistic, D. Look at this shit.”
I shushed him as he moved away from the window. Grabbing his arm, darting my attention to the vast woods to ensure we were alone, I whispered, “Where are you going?”
“Around the side. There are two other windows. I want to see what’s on the bookshelf and desk, and I can’t tell from here.”
A rumble arose in my chest, a protest stinging my tongue, but the forest was as empty as it had been when we arrived, so I moved with him, circling the building on silent feet.
Tallus took his phone from a pocket and opened the camera app. Smart. Why hadn’t I thought of that? At the next window, he snapped pictures at every angle, zooming in at times to get clearer images. When he lowered the device, he went to his toes and squinted at the bookshelf.
“They’re all nonfiction,” he said.
I glanced over his shoulder. He was right, and every one of them was about famous serial killers by the look of it. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jack the Ripper, a few on Dr. Death, and many more. Some I’d never heard of. The collection topped thirty or more books easily.
“Wait. The ones by the desk are different.” Tallus pointed. “See? They’re a collection or something. The spines match.”He tilted his head and read aloud while I scanned the forest again. “The Crimson Veil,The Forgotten Corpse,The Unseen Hand,The Deceitful Stranger… The… I can’t read the next ones. They’re too far away. There’s… about eight of them. They sound like fiction, and they’re all by the same author. Some guy called Ambrose Whitaker.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Me neither, but that’s not saying much. I hate reading.”
“Hence why you haven’t finished the course.”
“Get off my case about that freaking course. Fifty hours is a lot.” Tallus slipped from my hold and scampered to the last window.
I followed, a low hum of uneasiness vibrating in the pit of my stomach. The tingling feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away, but no matter how fiercely I strained, I saw no one.
“We should leave,” I said when I caught up.
“Can you pick the lock? I want to go inside.”
“No.”
“CanIpick the lock? It would be good practice.”
“No. The tools are in the Jeep, and we got our answer. If that dog sniffs us out—”
A loud crack echoed through the forest, freezing my blood. Tallus jumped, and I roughly snagged his jacket, yanking him to the ground and using my much bigger body as a shield.
