Page 75 of Tourist Season
When I smile, he does too, the dimples appearing in his cheeks. I think this is the lightest I’ve seen him since that day we met at A Shipwrecked Bean. But even now, I can see the mounting worries that haunt his eyes. “I’ll see you later?” I ask.
Nolan runs his hand over my hair. Presses a kiss to my forehead. “Yeah. You will. Try to get some rest.”
I stay in bed to leave him some space to gather himself up and depart. But my thoughts follow him like a storm that hugs the horizon. I know I’m putting him in danger, especially if it’s true that Sam is following me around and taking photos and notes. Sam has already broken more than one law in pursuit of his story. Who’s to say he won’t find a way into Lancaster Manor to look for something concrete that will finally connect Arthur to La Plume? I don’t want anything damning in my possession, or Arthur’s, that could be linked to Nolan if he does.
I slide my phone off my nightstand, chewing my bottom lip as I send a text to Lukas.
Hey, Lukas.
A short moment later, I receive a text with a meme of an octopus chasing a scuba diver onto a boat and a joke I’m sure Lukas has been dying to make:
I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going.
Har har har. You’re so hilarious, Lukas.
I’ve been waiting to use that! How are you feeling?
A little sore, but getting there. I need to ask a favor.
Sure, what’s up?
The thing I gave you for safekeeping. Can you please get it for me and drop it by the cottage?
Sure, but it’ll have to wait until next week if that’s okay? I’m in Chicago for a whiskey conference.
I expel a long breath, pressing my eyes closed. I don’t like what I see when I do. It’s not just memories that surface on the black canvas, it’s threats to an uncertain future too.
On the shelves by the boiler, right?
Yeah … you can’t wait until I get back?
I wish I could, but I’m not willing to put Nolan at risk. I already left him once to the hands of fate. I’m not going to do it again.
I’ll be okay.
With a final note of thanks to Lukas, I head to the shower. In half an hour I’m entering Lancaster Manor, where “Leonore Overture No. 3” from Beethoven’s operaFideliorolls down the hallway from Arthur’s sitting room, one of his favorites. But I don’t go to see him. Instead, I’m standing at the entrance of the basement door by the kitchen.
Every beat of my heart scrapes at my bones. Sweat slips down my spine. My breaths come in short pants. My palms are slick before I’ve even gripped the brass handle. It takes everything in me to turn it. Only one thought keeps me going.
I need to give it back.
I flip on the light switch, the old incandescent bulb doing little to illuminate the cavernous dark. The smell of dampness and mildew rises to greet me like a noxious fog. I avoid this place for a reason. It smells exactly the same as my worst nightmares. I’m desperate to shut the door and run. But I grip the cold iron railing and take my first step on the wooden plank.
One more step. One more step. One more.
By the time both my feet are on the packed dirt floor of the cellar, my whole body is shaking. The stone walls emanate the musky smell of earth that never dries. The exposed raftersoverhead are covered with white curtains of spiderwebs that waft in the breeze as I walk beneath them. Decaying boxes rest on rusted shelves. The skeleton of a mouse lies curled next to a set of long-forgotten gardening tools.
“It’s not the same place,” I tell myself between shuddering breaths. I repeat that mantra with every step I take toward the furnace and boiler. I can see Nolan’s bag, the one item on the shelf not covered with a layer of dust. I’m nearly there when I catch sight of the cellar doors that lead to the exterior of the house.
They’re exactly the same as the ones in Harvey Mead’s house.
I turn and vomit on the floor.
I’m shaking. Blinking at the floor. But I still see them. Those two cellar doors and the light that slid between the slats during the day, a heavy chain locking them closed from the outside. There weren’t any stairs. I could just barely touch the doors when I jumped. The first two days we were trapped there, I would get up on Adam’s shoulders and try to test the hinges or smash the wooden planks with my fist. Then Harvey Mead broke both Adam’s legs so we couldn’t reach them anymore.
I hear my own voice. Begging from memory. “He has an infection,” I’d pleaded on Adam’s behalf, pounding on the second door that led to the bowels of the house. This one we had no hope of breaching. It was made of iron with a slat in the middle where Mead would toss us bottles of cloudy water and half-eaten hamburgers, the patties covered in fly eggs. By that point, we’d become so desperately hungry that we stopped bothering to pick them off and consumed whatever he gave us, eggs and all. “Please help him.”
Eventually, he came to the door. Unlocked it. Dragged Adam away. And I should have fought him with my bare hands. Ishould have donesomething. But I was too afraid. Just like I was too afraid to sit with Nolan on the road and put myself square in the public eye that I was so desperate to escape from. I was the social media influencer who’d escaped a serial killer there at the scene of a hit-and-run. A target for the press and the public. I thought I couldn’t take the pressure of the publicity that would descend on me a second time. I feared the scrutiny I’d been trying so hard to avoid.
