Chapter 14

  

Penelope sat up in bed, shaken from a deep sleep by a nagging feeling, the wisps of a dream evaporating into the darkness of the room. She heard a dull thud she couldn’t quite place outside, a car door maybe. Penelope went to the window that looked down on the courtyard. The clock on the nightstand said it was 3:20, the red numbers glowing in the darkness. Penelope sighed and rubbed her eyes, worrying she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. She stared out the window at the yellow halo of light that crept across the cobblestones and illuminated the front doors of Festa. The door on the left shifted slightly, blown open at the seam before settling back against the other. At first Penelope thought it was her imagination. She looked again, forcing her sleepy brain to focus. The doors puffed against the wind again and Penelope tried to see if the deadlock was bolted, looking for a glint of silver between the doors. She decided they couldn’t be secured if they were moving like that. All the lights were off inside, at least in the front dining room as far as she could see.

“I can’t believe the police left the doors open. They couldn’t come find me?” Penelope said quietly to herself. She considered texting Ava to see if she’d locked up when they were done, but then decided disturbing her in the middle of the night, especially after they day they’d had, wasn’t the best idea. Pulling Ava out of bed and asking her to drive over seemed ridiculous when she had a set of keys and could lock up in two minutes.

Penelope stepped into her fleece-lined snow boots and slid her puffy jacket over her flannel pajamas before heading down the front stairs of the inn. She felt for the keyring in her pocket as she made her way, the wooden steps creaking under her boots. The cuckoo clock chimed once to mark the half hour, causing her to pause. The bar and great room were deserted, and Penelope wished she was still asleep like the rest of her coworkers.

When Penelope reached the front doors of Festa, she pulled one of them open with her gloved hand, confirming they’d been left unlocked. The night air was still, not even sounds of wildlife coming from the forest. The temperature was well below freezing, and Penelope assumed most of the animals were hibernating, or at least tucking themselves away until the sun rose and warmed everything up again. She thought briefly about Randall and Max camping out in the woods and shivered.

Penelope slipped the orange key into the lock, then froze when she saw a flicker of light inside the darkened dining room. Penelope dropped the keys back into her coat pocket and stepped into the foyer, squinting through the inner vestibule door to get a better look. The hair on her arms stood on end when she saw five black pillar candles burning at the far end of the bar. The candle wax dripped down the sides, and they all sat in a puddle of liquid on the bar. They gave off a pine scent that lay thick in the air. Penelope stared at the candles as she approached the bar, certain she’d never seen them in the restaurant before. Jordan used unscented tea lights in small glass votives on the tables, preferring to not have competing aromas from candles or flowers that might detract from the flavor of the food.

Penelope reached the bar and pulled off a glove, gingerly touching the sticky substance under them with her finger and holding it up to her nose. “Whiskey,” she whispered. Her stomach did a flip when she heard a thump from behind the kitchen doors. “Ava?” she murmured, then dismissed the thought quickly, considering it was the middle of the night. Penelope reached into her coat pocket for her phone, realizing too late she’d left it on the nightstand next to her bed.

Penelope heard faint laughter and the thud of the kitchen’s back door closing. She approached the doors on shaky legs, moving carefully toward the sound. When she was pretty sure she was alone, Penelope pushed the kitchen door open with her fingertips, slowly at first then all the way. The overhead lights glared in the empty room, and Penelope sucked in her breath. Someone had been in the kitchen, and it hadn’t been Ava. Unless Ava had completely lost her mind.

Meat Is Murder! was scrawled in spray paint across the walk-in, and several boxes of food had been dumped on the floor. Penelope let the door swing closed behind her as she took in the scene. Raw steaks and chicken parts were piled on the floor, a bucket of red paint poured on top. The vibrant red was jarring and unnatural, like a cartoon.

The sound of a vehicle pulling out of the parking lot brought Penelope back to the present. She hurried to the door and pushed it open, but only saw the taillights of what she thought was a truck speeding away. Exhaust vapors wafted in the air.

“I can’t believe this,” Penelope said as she stepped back inside, heaving the door closed and sliding the deadbolt home. She shook out her hands and hurried to secure the front doors too, worrying in the back of her mind that she might be locking herself inside with someone. She dismissed the idea when she thought about the truck pulling away, doubting the vandals would leave one of their accomplices behind. But to be safe, she’d check for anyone who might be hiding. After she called the police.

“Please send someone quickly,” Penelope said to a weary-sounding woman at the police station. She tried to explain what had happened in a calm voice, forcing herself to slow down when she thought she sounded frantic. Hanging up the extension behind the bar, she blew out the candles and saw the empty whiskey bottle tucked into the well, which she hadn’t noticed until she’d stepped behind to make the call. It had been dumped completely out, the amber liquid pooling on top of the wood and dripping into the reservoir on the service side of the bar.

Penelope picked up an unopened bottle of vodka by the neck and held it like a bat as she walked to the bathrooms, quietly opening the doors and ducking to look under the stalls, confirming she was indeed alone. Afterwards, she doubled back to the kitchen’s office to wait for someone to come.

She called Ava, running her finger down the list of phone numbers pinned to the board behind the desk.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Ava said, her voice groggy.

“I’m telling you, I just missed whoever it was,” Penelope said. “The police are on the way. I thought you should know.”

“Of course,” Ava said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Penelope hung up and walked back out to the kitchen. The pile of frozen meat and paint was a disturbing sight, and she fought the urge to start cleaning it up. She looked at the drying paint on the walk-in door, the black drips sliding down from the bottoms of the letters. A small pentagram had been carved in the metal, angry scratches with some type of blade.

“Satanists?” Penelope said, thinking about the black candles on the bar. “Do Satanists not eat meat?” An upsetting image of animal sacrifice from a movie she’d seen flashed through her mind. Penelope tried to match up what she was seeing in the kitchen with what she remembered reading about those who proclaimed to worship the Devil.

Penelope went back to the office and sat behind the desk, staring at the blank computer screen. “Who would do this?” she wondered out loud.

Rubbing her chin with her finger, she turned the computer on and pulled up the admin screen. She clicked on Jordan’s avatar and scanned the files, nothing changed since the last time she’d poked around. She quickly searched online for Forrestville Indiana Satanic Cults and clicked on the top result, an article dating a few years earlier about a group of devil worshipers in the area being arrested for vandalizing cars in town. Penelope skimmed the article, none of the names sounding familiar. She zeroed in on a picture of three men who looked to be in their late teens or early twenties, the caption below saying they were ordered to pay five thousand dollars each in fines and serve probation. She jotted their names down on a piece of paper on the desk.

Hearing the familiar rapping on the back door of the kitchen, Penelope exited out of the article on the screen and went to let the police in again.