Page 31 of In the Bones
A shiver rolled down Nicole’s spine. “What did he say?” she asked. “When you told him?”
“He said I had a good imagination. He laughed. I even showed him the footprints. He insisted that they were mine.” Her eyes darted around the empty hall. Maybe it was because Nicole was decades older than Eva, but she suddenly felt fiercely protective. The woman had known something was wrong, and Mikko had made her feel like she was crazy. Gaslit her, even when she had proof. Nicole knew what that was like. She’d felt it with Woody just last night.
“There was a message, written in the dust on the bar. I saw it the first day I came to clean.” The words were out before Nicole could stop them, a ragged, nagging cuticle she had to rip away. “It said:I’m watching. Did you ever see a message like that?”
Eva shook her head. “God, that’s terrifying. You think the trespasser wrote that? I don’t get it. Was shetryingto get caught?”
“I don’t know. That’s what bugs me too,” said Nicole. “What she did is totally illegal. She can’t have wanted us to find her, right? So why leave that message? I thought …” Nicole paused, bit her lip. “I thought maybe it was Mikko.”
If Nicole was wrong—about him, his deal with Woody, his shady behavior—this would be a defining moment. The opinions she’d formed about Mikko Helle, the attractive young former professional athlete who’d sidled into her family’s life, were largely based on instinct. Nicole wasn’t like her sister, with a radar finely tuned to duplicity and danger. That didn’t mean she couldn’t sense a snake in the grass if it was coming, fangs bared, for her children.
Eva’s full mouth inched its way into a frown. “I get that,” she said. “Mikko likes to play games. Mess with people for fun. He likes to see how they’ll react.”
Games. Was that why Mikko had targeted Woody? Was this simply a case of a bored rich guy fucking with a trusting local?
“Nobody ever calls him on it,” Eva continued. “They’re too afraid of confronting him. I’ve seen his so-called friends take all kinds of shit back in D.C., but they just keep coming back.”
“Why?” Nicole was incredulous. She couldn’t imagine choosing to spend time with someone like that.
“Fame?” Eva shrugged, her cotton-clad shoulder nearly touching her ear. “Money? Mikko loves to party, and he pays for everything. People use him. If he realizes it, he doesn’t care. He’s using them too.”
All at once, the sweet drinks that had settled in Nicole’s stomach started to churn. “I’m sorry,” she said, doing her best to keep them down, “but Eva, if that’s what he’s like, why are you with him?”
“I’m not. I ended it,” she said, her expression hard. “Last night, when we got back to Clayton. I need to find a rental car so I can drive home to D.C., but until then I’m staying here.”
“Oh.” Nicole laid a hand on her arm. “I’m sorry, Eva.”
“Don’t be. I’m not,” she said, though a tear was sliding down her rosy cheek. “We weren’t together for that long, just four months in all—and it isn’t just the partying that’s the problem. The way he reacted to the bones, it was creepy. Like they were this big inconvenience. I mean, somebody’s dead. They were rotting away down there all this time.” Eva squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I thought I knew him pretty well, but now I’m not sure. I wouldn’t call him heartless, but … I just don’t think I can trust somebody like that.”
Trust. That word had many facets, all of them reflecting the light in a way that left you blinking and half blind. Trust was about confidence and faith, but also conviction. Knowing a person would do what they promised. Not needing to worry they’d double-cross you like a secret agent in the night.
Eva had known the man for four months, in the most intimate of ways.
If she didn’t trust him, what did that say about Mikko Helle?
TWENTY-SEVEN
Mac
It was perfect, the mood joyous and the evening spark-bright. Mac had stood in the corner of the large room as she thought it, drinking in the scene. When Nicole realized the lengths that Mac had gone to, her face had been pure elation. So many times in recent months, Mac would have given anything to see that kind of happiness. It was comforting to know it hadn’t been snuffed out completely by what Nicole’s husband had done.
Between the bar and the dancing and the crowd circling the room, Mac had quickly lost sight of the guest of honor, and by the time she spotted her again, Nicole was swaying on her heels.Let her be, Mac told herself, fending off the voice that urged her to press a glass of water into Nicole’s hand. Old habits die hard, and Mac had years of experience looking after her sister. It was the timing that worried her, the possibility that too much saccharine alcohol would dissolve whatever barricade Nic had put up, allowing the terror of what had happened in Mikko Helle’s house to come flooding in.
Mac had just gotten back from the ladies’ room when she caught sight of Woody. His face hovered in the window, spectral in the light-spangled glass. He was standing outside, beyond the floor-to-ceiling doors that—in summer—the hotel opened to create an indoor–outdoor dining space. As she watched, Woody flickered like a glitch on a screen before vanishing into the night.
Mac went to the door, and followed.
The staircase off the hotel’s second-floor deck led down to a walking path along the river. The landscaping seemed greener in the moonlight, a sign of the season to come, but the air held the memory of ice floes and frozen water. As she walked,Mac folded the lapels of her navy blazer over her chest to seal in the warmth.
Woody was approaching the Adirondack chairs, the row of seats in rainbow colors facing the St. Lawrence and Boldt Castle beyond. Mac arrived just in time to watch him stumble and drop heavily into a yellow chair. If Woody and Nicole wanted to drink, that was fine; Blair or even Nash could drive the family home. Woody wasn’t his usual happy drunk like at the cookout, though. He looked sullen, and Mac spied the sizzling red cherry of a lit cigarette. She hadn’t seen her brother-in-law smoke in years.
“Room for one more?” The question was rhetorical, a way to announce herself more than anything else. Eleven empty chairs stretched out beside him.
“Shit,” he said when he saw her, stabbing out his Newport in the cool grass. “Didn’t see you there. Don’t tell Nic, OK? She doesn’t like it when I smoke.”
His words were slow and sibilant, his tongue a fat slug in his mouth. Mac figured his smoking habits were the least of Nicole’s concerns, but she promised not to mention it.
“Nicole seemed surprised,” she said as she took the seat next to him, her own chair painted sky blue. “Thanks for your help with that.”
