Dylan’s house was quaint and took me by surprise. It was a small yellow colonial with dark green shutters just a few blocks from Germantown Avenue. A white picket fence wrapped neatly around the tiny front yard encircling the house in suburban perfection. He didn’t seem like the white-picket-fence type. He didn’t seem like the historic-colonial-type either. I would have put him in one of those penthouse apartments I’d seen near the art museum, in the middle of Philadelphia.
I sat on the toilet seat while he picked gravel out of my hand with a pair of tweezers. He was perched on the edge of the tub concentrating very diligently on his task.
“I don’t believe you could be so dumb. How did you manage to fall?”
“Bad choice of footwear for a sprint in the woods.” I winced in pain
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“That house was incredible. Like something in a movie. Have you ever been inside?”
“No, Nick never invited anyone home with him.”
“He was talking about that house right before he died.”
Dylan stopped poking at my hand for a moment and studied my face. “What did he say about it?”
“He was given morphine so I thought he was just delirious. He described it for me and kept telling me I had to come here…“ I stopped. I didn’t want to say anything more.
“Did he say why?”
I shook my head. “No. He did say something terrible had happened there. Did it?”
“Nick disappeared when he was sixteen or so.” He hesitated. “People whispered about it, like there was some big secret behind it all.”
I didn’t realize I’d been running my hand all along the knee of my slacks while he was talking.
“You’re getting blood on your pants.” He motioned to my leg. The once khaki fabric was soiled with dirt and red smears from my wound. He took my hand back in his. “If I were you, I’d go back to Maine. You got millions out of the deal. Take it.” He continued poking at my palm with a sharp object.
“What did they say happened?”
“Some people said he ran away because his mother was abusing him. A maid that worked there said Nick ran off with the groundskeeper’s fifteen year old daughter. Then I heard he took something really important with him when he left.”
“Do you know anyone named James, by any chance?”
He glanced up quickly but didn’t seem alarmed by the question. “Probably five off the top of my head. Why?”
I took a breath. “Someone from school maybe? Or someone Nick knew?”
He stood and opened the medicine cabinet. “None that come to mind. Why?” I said nothing for a few moments. He looked down at me. “What?”
“One of the last things he talked about before he died was about someone named James.”
He pulled my hand to the sink and poured antiseptic onto my palm. It stung and I pulled back. “What about James?”
I shrugged. “He insisted I had to come here and find him.” I wanted to tell Dylan all of it but I couldn’t I had no idea if I could trust him and I’d already said too much.
“So what are you going to do now?” he asked.
“Send Cora a note to let her know about the accident. Ask her to meet me. If she ignores me, then…I don’t know, but if she agrees, I’m going to take her up on it.”
He wrapped my hand clumsily in gauze and taped it in place. “That’s the best I can do for now,” he said. For a moment we were both silent. “Just be very careful, Mackenzie.”
“You think she’s dangerous?” I stood to face him.
He shrugged. “Just tread lightly and go with your gut. You’re trained to read people, right?”
I wasn’t sure I had done such a good job with this family so far. “I will be careful and I will tread lightly, but I’m not going home right now. Not until I meet Nick’s mother and figure out if anything Nick said to me was true.”
“God help you both.” His words were soft. “Come on. I’ll take you home.” He walked out ahead of me, saying nothing more.
* * *
I wrote the note on creamy stationery and read it over until I knew it by heart. I told her in the gentlest terms possible that Nick had died in an accident and summarized the details. I told her I would like to meet her and gave my address at the hotel. It had no warmth to it but I didn’t feel that it needed any. Nick wasn’t fond of his mother. Maybe she wasn’t fond of him either. I tucked the note into the matching envelope and held it over the clear mail slot in the hallway. The textured paper slipped from my fingers and I watched its decent from my view; part of my sanity spiraled down the hole along with it. I headed back to my room, my stomach twisting with anticipation.