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)
It was supposed to just be Farrow, my family, and maybe Mace. If I knew I was supplying alcohol to a bunch of minors I don’t know, I would’ve chickened out. Luckily Mace has someone at the door, collecting keys.
I tuck my hair behind my ear, glancing at the window where one of the cameras sits outside. I stare at it as it stares back at me.
Are you watching?
I’ll bet he is. If his notifications are on, then he’s getting one every time movement is detected. And there’s a lot of movement in here.
“My dad is going to freak,” Dylan says over the music.
“Eventually,” I add. “Here’s to you guys being just as good about keeping this secret as you did Carnival Tower.”
She winces but taps my cup when I offer it. I’m sure the guys brought her up to speed.
I examine the list of people who know I bought a house, and to be honest, no one is a weak link. Lucas might spill the beans in a moment of reaction, but as much as Hawke hovers, or Dylan sometimes just word vomits all over the place, they’re both tight ships when it comes to parents.
“So you talked to Deacon,” Hunter says.
I dart my eyes up to him, his skin already golden from the summer and his blond hair laying in different directions as usual.
“What was he like?” he asks.
That eerily calm voice through the phone coils into my ear again, kicking up my heartbeat. What was he like?
I shrug. He felt like he was on a timer. An image of a fuse burning quickly drifts through my head.
When I don’t reply, Dylan tells me, “This was their house.” Her eyes do a circle around the room. “He and Manas hosted Winslet here for the prisoner exchange more than two decades ago. No one has seen her since.”
I guess I knew all of that from the murder map they built in Carnival Tower, but the history of the house weighs down, and I think about him. That voice. The man, much younger than he is now, in here with her. Was she talking about him in her diary? Or was she referring to the other one? Manas.
Which one did she love? And which one did she not?
I notice Dylan and Hunter are still looking at me. Do they think I’m not concerned enough?
I am concerned. One of the brothers, at least, is calling me. I have an old car stalking me, and I’m in possession of, not one, but two places that used to belong to the men who quite possibly were the last people to ever see Winslet MacCreary alive.
Do they still think this house belongs to them? I drop my gaze for a moment. I anticipated buyer’s remorse, but I kept pressing forward, the desperation for freedom winning out. But I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
I look behind Dylan, seeing Noah toss Kade a beer. “Noah?” I call.
He glances at me.
I joke, “I think Dylan would feel better if you checked my bedroom for ghosts.”
“Her room, you mean,” Dylan taunts.
Winslet’s.
I take my drink, jogging up the stairs, aware that Lucas’ security camera can see me disappearing around the corner with Noah on my tail.
I enter my bedroom, glad to find it empty. I half-suspected someone would’ve snuck up here to fool around. The curtains billow with the wind coming through the window I’d left open. Peering out, I crane my neck, seeing people in the street to the right. White hair blows in the breeze coming from a girl sitting on the trunk of an abandoned car at the curb. She drinks from a Hydro Flask.
The hair reminds me of Tommy Dietrich, but I can’t tell for sure.
“You don’t have much of a bed,” Noah says, trailing in.
“But smell that breeze.” The wind caresses my scalp. “I’m going to make it smell even better by next summer after I revamp the kitchen and bake something good.”
Squeezing in next to me, Noah leans his hands on the sill and looks out into the small path between mine and Farrow’s houses. The bigger bedroom only had the twin bed—big enough for one person—but I didn’t expect any furnishings, so I’m grateful for it until I can get my own moved in.
I’m anxious to get that couch downstairs replaced too. The kitchen table is some mid-century Ethan Allen. I’ll keep that. I like it.
Another camera sits perched above my window, facing the street.
Noah turns to me. “Couldn’t use a roommate, could you?”
I straighten, pulling myself back inside. Huh?
He ponders, his blue eyes dancing with a little alcohol. “Your brother is a steady paycheck, and I’m gone a lot, so it would almost be like free rent money for you.”
Not a bad proposition, especially since I need to get a business vehicle, and I don’t want to take anything more from my parents. They paid for college and gave me the bakery for a damn good deal on money my mother gifted me when I was seventeen. The irony doesn’t escape me. Is it really independence if I used money I didn’t make on my own to get it?