BABY JON CRIED softly in Bethany’s arms while Bethany waited for Jon at the Willow Inn’s registration desk. The lobby smelled of potpourri, and the throw rugs on the pine floors depicted upland scenes of feathery setters and flushing game birds, hunters at the ready with shotguns. Frosted glass sconces cast a tarnished light on the dark woodwork, lending the air of a tobacconist’s shop to the space. It was all too much for Bethany, the naturalist romanticism was tired and staid to her mind. Just because the inn had been built in the 1860s, did it mean the décor had to be ancient too? Perhaps the market expected doilies and gun dogs, so that is what it got. How would she know, she wasn’t in the bed and breakfast industry. Whatever the case, the place would have to suffice. For now.
Jon burst into the lobby from the blustery day, stamping his wet boots as he pecked Bethany’s cheek and put out his pinkie for baby Jon to squeeze. Baby Jon ignored the gesture.
Jon tapped the service bell, too loudly, so the tinny ring seemed to clang in Bethany’s skull.
A woman bustled from the back room where a television played Family Feud. She fastened her white hair behind her head with bobby pins, then smoothed out the front of her corduroy dress. Even a Marriott or Double Tree would have been better than this, if there was one within fifty miles, Bethany thought.
The woman took a key down from a pegboard shaped like a maple leaf. She gave Jon and Bethany a broad smile that seemed genuine enough but must have gotten tiring after a while.
“We have you in the Ruffed Grouse Room,” the woman said. “A crib has been set up.” She put the key on the counter. Jon snatched it up.
“We offer a full breakfast in the Ethan Allen Fireplace Lounge,” the woman continued. “Right behind you through the French doors. Dial zero if you need anything. Anything at all. Anytime. I’m here all night.” She smiled.
“Thanks, Anna,” Jon said. How he knew the woman’s name, Bethany did not know, or care. He knew everyone’s name, it seemed.
Jon put his hand to the small of Bethany’s back, picked up the suitcase, and guided Bethany up the stairs.
IN THE RUFFED Grouse Room, Jon and Bethany collapsed on the edge of the canopy bed.
The mattress was too soft and the place smelled musty.
Jon tugged off his boots. The room exuded the requisite colonial charm: the antique armoire, a dry sink, a stone fireplace, crown molding, wainscoting. The bathroom doorway was outlined with stenciled vines. A Homer knock-off print of waterfowlers caught in a gale graced the wall above the fireplace. Doilies lay on the bedside tables. Doilies, doilies. It felt more like a museum than a place to spend a night.
The room was cool and drafty. Around the window, cold air bled in from the outside. The lace curtain rippled. “Can you turn up the thermostat in here?” Bethany asked.
Jon looked around the room helplessly, then went to the fireplace and flipped a switch. From beneath faux ceramic logs, gas lit to weak flames with a whoop and the faint smell of propane. At least we don’t have to build a fire from rubbing two sticks together, Bethany thought and sagged against the headboard with the baby. She didn’t know if Jon could start a fire from scratch. Not without bitching. Anything manual, Jon ended up bitching.
The events of the past day had left her beleaguered and bitchy herself. Is nothing ever good enough for me? she wondered. Her mother had often thought not.
Baby Jon whimpered. “Shhh. Baby,” Bethany said. “Momma’s tired.” Her voice was a frayed thread about to break.
Jon touched Bethany’s cheek and, unexpectedly, Bethany began to weep, taken aback by her own tears. She was so tired. So scared. Whoever had killed the girl in their house was still out there. What if they had been hoping she and Jon had been home, and killed the babysitter as a consolation? What if they still had sights on Jon and Bethany? And why did she keep thinking it was they. Two killers? It was irrational. The cops needed to locate the boy, whoever he was.
“I’m sorry,” Jon said and put a hand on her shoulder as she stifled her tears. She despised crying. Put a good face on it, her father had said when she was upset as a girl, tilting a martini glass or waggling his practice putter at her for emphasis.
“It will be all right,” Jon said.
“No. It won’t.”
“I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.” She clutched baby Jon.
“You’ll see,” Jon said.
“I’m not going back there.”
“That’s why I arranged to come here. We’ll rest, give ourselves a break and—”
“I’m never going back.”
Jon lifted his hand from her shoulder. “What are you saying?”
“I can’t live there.”
“It’s our home,” he said. “Your dream home.”
“Not anymore. Sell it. Sell everything in it. Sell the clothes and the furniture. The appliances and TV. Everything. I don’t want anything from that place. Burn it to the ground for all I care.”
“The house didn’t do anything.”
“You’re shouting,” Bethany said.
“I am not shouting.”
“You’re scaring the baby.”
Jon looked up at the ceiling and shook his head, as he always did when she called him out.
He let out a long breath, as he always did. Predictable Jon. “A person did it,” he said.
“A sick person. We had a monster in our house. Because of you.”
Jon cringed. “It was that boy, whoever he is,” he said, but his voice held no conviction, and the lost, searching look in his eyes seemed to betray thoughts to the contrary. “And they’ll get him. They will. And we’ll move back in just like we were. And that will be that.”
Bethany sat up rigid against the headboard. The baby was awake now, struggling to get loose of his swaddle and mewling. Sometimes the kid sounded like an animal instead of a human, Bethany thought. “No. That won’t be that,” she said. “That girl will still be dead. That house will still be where she was murdered. I’ll still be the one who found her. And I’ll still be the one who insisted we go out to dinner. Pushed. To have my way, knowing you’d go if I pushed. That is never that.” Her gaze wandered about the room as if her eyes had come loose in her head.
“Fine,” Jon said. “You want me to sell it. I’ll sell it. Sell everything. But you need to rest. Collect yourself.”
He attempted to help her lie down, but she shrugged him off.
“Sell it,” she said.
“I said I would.”
How did our conversations ever devolve to such a state? Bethany wondered as she closed her eyes and tried in vain to wish it all away.