Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
He lets the bar go and picks up his towel, walking up to me.
“I don’t mind sharing this place with you, though,” he tells me, gesturing to my pants. “As long as you keep that thing out of the fucking showers.”
I have no idea what the hell he’s on about, but I force a laugh at his last joke. I offer my hand before I go. “Lucas Morrow,” I tell him.
“Deacon,” he says, taking it. “Doran.”
I nod. Never heard of him. Maybe he doesn’t know Quinn’s family, after all.
“See you around.” And I jump on the treadmill, determined to stay there until I’m too tired to think about breathing, much less the panties still in my bed.
Quinn
Sitting at the worktable in my shop’s kitchen, I flip through Winslet’s diary, trying to concentrate on something other than Lucas.
I won’t tell him, but I liked last night for more than just the orgasm. He felt close to me again—like he still belonged to me in the way that I grew up with.
Different, but still a pair. Him looking out for me. Indulging my curiosity and my need to learn and to keep it a secret, except now we’re adults, and I need other things.
Oh, God. I don’t hate him like I said I did.
I just wish his attention didn’t give me whiplash. Half the time, I’m walking into a wall, and the other half, he’s as gentle as a breeze.
Blowing out a long breath, I blink my eyes back into focus and train them on the diary. I’ll see him later and “think” about him tonight when I’m alone.
I flip through the pages, trying to discern some sort of timeline from the clues.
Her entries are similar to the ones in my journals, whereas they’re not arranged as a narrative, so to speak. Neither of us tell stories.
I make lists.
And she rages in single-word thoughts, as if she’s trapped deep inside her head and doesn’t even know her own language.
Clusters of blank pages appear in between scribbles, notes, and hand-drawn maps. A blue pen running out of ink would disappear in favor of pencil or Sharpie or a fountain pen, but then reappear later in the book.
It’s all the same writing, though. I turn a page, seeing the upside-down script and pinch my brow as I turn it around to read. It’s like she just grabbed the book in fits, flipped it open, and spit out emotions wherever she could find space.
The only times she displays any semblance of control are when she draws. Cars are a common theme. Illustrations, only in black and white, of a vehicle underwater. Another of a scarf hanging out of a trunk as a hand pries open the lid. The Shelburne Falls High School black pirate flag adorns the end of the fabric just before the tassels. Is the scarf hers? Or is she trying to say the car belonged to a Pirate? If they were planning on shoving someone, especially one of their own, into the river, they wouldn’t have left evidence in the car.
There are drawings of a second vehicle too. I turn the page, widening my eyes at the sketch of the ’72 black Dodge that followed me the other night.
Rain crashes onto the windshield as it races down a deserted road in the forest, looking like something out of a comic strip in simple black ink. Words float around the scene.
*parents
*clock
*firewood
*clothes
*food
*scream
Is it a to-do list?
I do kind of understand these short, one-word thoughts more now. In my house with Lucas last night, and later on the phone, all I could think were in feelings.
He’s not satiating me. I just want more.
Winslet’s not so different.
I glance at the clock on the wall, seeing it’s after six. I’ve been here for twelve hours, working alone, but I’m finally ready for the holiday. Everything is baked, frosted, and stored until tomorrow when we transport it all to our booth in the park. In twelve more hours.
Still have to get through tonight.
I fan the pages, reading various entries written in no intelligible order and studying drawings. Fists gripping a steering wheel. A boy running away from a car. Blackhawk Lake and the waterfalls our town is named after.
Death Falls reads the title above the drawing of water pouring down over a mountain.
Took them from me, took them from me, took them from me...she scrawled on another page.
I shake my head as I run my finger over the deep indentation of the letters, carved into the paper. Maniacal and desperate.
*dark
*water in the air
*scent of earth
*keys like claws
*headlights
*now
*now
*now
*now
*now
*now!
My heart beats faster, like I’m her. Like I’m feeling the keys between my knuckles. Like claws.
Vengeance.
It starts to come together. Winslet MacCreary went missing, and everyone thought it was Weston. Hawke, Dylan, and everyone surmised it was specifically the Doran brothers.
But this notebook makes it sound like it wasn’t.