Aaron pinned a sheet over the creepy painting,” Grace said from the stove, a shudder in her voice. “I refused to go in there otherwise.”
Stomach unclenching, I nodded, and walked inside. I couldn’t help glancing over at the painting, but Aaron had used a black sheet to ensure it was fully blocked from view, so there was literally nothing to see.
More relieved than I wanted to be, I got to hunting through the groceries for the apricots. But the painting loomed large in my imagination, a cold kiss on the back of my neck. Because the vandalism? It couldn’t be explained away as easily as the doll. Someone had taken the time to deface Clara’s art in a way designed to frighten those who saw it; there was nothing good-natured about it, nothing that could be put down to a prank.
I went to the sheet, my hand fisted on one end to pull it off.
But in the end, I decided there was no point. Looking at it again wouldn’t answer the question of why one of us—or Grace and Kaea’s mysterious unknown intruder—would do this. It also didn’t align with the theory of it being Darcie’s stalker. Anyone who knew Darcie knew she hated cooking.
No stalker who’d done their homework would count on her entering the pantry. Yes, there was the secret passageway, but even we hadn’t known about that until yesterday. And the painting had already been defaced when Aaron, Grace, and I exited into the pantry. Could one of us have managed it in the highly limited available window of time? Maybe, maybe not.
My eyes fell on the bag of apricots even as my mind circled the topic.
As I reached for them, I realized they were on the shelf that hid the secret passageway. No cans on there now—Aaron or Grace must’ve moved those to other shelves.
The plastic crinkled under my hand as I stood there, frowning.
Not sure why, I pushed open the hidden catch that I’d noticed last night when I was the last to leave the pantry. I’d pushed it shut instinctively, seen where it snicked into the wall to become nothing more than another shelf.
The door swung toward me with silent grace.
I stared at the hinges.
That was it. That was what had been bothering me. Everything in this house creaked and groaned. But this hidden door didn’t make a sound when it should’ve creaked the loudest of them all.
Forgetting the apricots, I took out my phone and used my trusty flashlight app to examine the hinges.
Shiny. No hint of dust.
And when I reached out my finger and wiped it on the metal, it was to feel the slickness of oil between my fingertips.
Someone had taken care to make sure that these hinges wouldn’t make a noise. Darcie? But why? Who else could it have been? Perhaps Jim, the caretaker? But that seemed unlikely. The man would have no reason to go searching for secret doors, and from what Darcie had said, he was the practical farmer type. Get in, get the job done, and get out.
“Did you find it?”
Jolting at the sound of Grace’s call, I yelled back, “Got it!” and pushed the door shut again.
Once more, it closed in eerie silence.
The quiet disturbed me more than all the creaks and groans in the house.
It wasn’t until I was using the kitchen scissors to open the bag so I could soak them for Aaron that I realized one other thing: cobwebs.
Aaron had walked into cobwebs.
That didn’t mean no one else had used the passage. We hadn’t thought to check for footprints in the dust—and at a lanky six three, Aaron was the tallest person in the group by several inches. A shorter individual could’ve traversed the entire tunnel without disturbing the cobwebs at the top. Especially if that shorter person hunched to make themselves even smaller.
Why? Why do any of this?
Knowing the right question, however, didn’t give me the answer.
I had to fight my wince when Darcie joined us for breakfast in the lounge. The shadows under her eyes had turned into purple bruises, her cheeks hollow, and her stunning hair in a fuzzy braid that looked slept on.
She wore the same oversize gray sweater as the previous day.
“Bad night?” I murmured. It was easy to do so privately—she sat next to me on a wide couch, with Ash on her other side. He, however, was involved in a conversation with Phoenix, who sat in an armchair kitty-corner from him.
To my right was Kaea, with Grace and Vansi seated near him. All three were chatting, while Aaron had just got up to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Vansi and I had offered to do it instead, told him he’d done enough, but Aaron had insisted. Knowing the kitchen was where he decompressed, I’d let it go.
“My head felt like it had a drum in it.” Darcie moved her spoon in her oatmeal but didn’t eat. “The painkillers must’ve worn off at some point. I spent the rest of the night in a kind of half-awake, half-asleep daze. Had the weirdest dreams.”
Her lips turned downward. “Ash said I screamed Bea’s name at one point. Sorry if I woke you.”
“I heard nothing through the wine drunk and no one else has mentioned it, either.” I angled my head to look at the back of hers, saw only the fuzzy silk of her hair. “Is the wound healing?”
“Nix examined it before Ash and I came down, and he says that while it’s swollen, it doesn’t seem to be much of a cut. I guess it’s true, head wounds just bleed like crazy.” She tried out a faint smile. “Vansi shared more of her magic pills with me just before, so hopefully I’ll start to feel a bit more human soon. Especially after all of Aaron’s delicious food.”
Ash said something to her then, and the conversation drifted. I didn’t take too much part, content to listen. Content to think. The oiled hinges continued to niggle at me, until I took the opportunity to ask Darcie, “Does Jim maintain the secret passageways in the house?” It didn’t seem likely when she’d said the passageways had always been her and Bea’s private secret. “Does he even know about them?”
“Hardly.” Her eyes were brighter now, her laugh fuller. “Not worth the potential liability. He could get trapped in one of the passageways, and the next thing I know, there’s a dead body on our family estate.” She shuddered. “No one who comes to work on the estate knows about the passages, but still, I make sure they’re locked up.”
As she finished speaking, Phoenix asked Kaea how he was doing, got a thumbs-up in return.
“This hasn’t exactly worked out as I hoped,” Darcie said to the group after accepting a top-up of her coffee from Aaron with a smile of thanks. “Do you think we’ll laugh about this one day when we’re old and gray? The disaster of a reunion I organized in the middle of nowhere?”
Aaron chuckled and poured me some coffee, too. “It hasn’t been that bad.”
The others all chimed in, and since I didn’t want to be the rain on everyone’s parade, I said, “I have thousands of photographs already—it’s a fantastic place to shoot inside and out.” Which reminded me. “With the rain and all, I thought I might explore the house a bit more, if that’s all right with you, Darcie, take more internal photographs.”
“Go for it,” Darcie said, her fingers curled around her mug and her smile fading as she looked down into the dark liquid. “Sometimes, I think it’d be better if I just got rid of this place. Too many memories, you know? If I do end up making that choice, it’ll be nice to have photographs to look back on.”
“Big decision,” Grace murmured. “Wouldn’t it be tough to lose touch with such a solid piece of your legacy?”
Darcie’s fingers tightened on the mug. “I swim between two extremes. Cling to all that once was—or start brand-new. No haunts trailing in my wake.”
“I guess it’s your decision to make.” The edge to Grace’s tone caught my attention, had me focusing on her.
When Darcie shot her a sharp look, Grace blushed. “Gosh, I’m sorry.” She ducked her head. “I grew up rich, but I’m adopted—from one of those infamous Romanian orphanages.
“My entire history is what I remember from the time I was old enough to form memories. Even my parents’ wealth doesn’t help when it comes to finding my birth family—they’re ghosts in the system. I guess I’m jealous of you having access to over a hundred years and more.”
Darcie’s face softened. “God, that must be so hard. I never thought about it that way.”
I knew what was coming even before she glanced at me. “Luna’s adopted, too.”
I’d never hidden that. But for some reason, I didn’t like how casually Darcie shared an intimate part of my history. Or maybe I was just irritable because I couldn’t stop thinking about those oiled hinges.
“Aaron told me,” Grace said before I had to answer, and I wondered then if that was part of why she felt so comfortable with me. “He said your family is amazing.”
My heart softening toward this girl who’d clearly not been as lucky in her adoptive family, I plucked at my sweater. “My brother knitted me this.”
Everyone exclaimed, and then we were talking about siblings.
Darcie didn’t mention Bea.
Afterward, while the others were involved in another conversation, I shifted to stand by the fireplace with Grace. “So, your family? Not too great?”
Her face became pinched around the eyes and the mouth. “My mum was sweet and kind. But she died when I was seven, and my dad . . .” A shrug. “He only adopted me to make her happy. My stepmother bore him his real children. He’s thrown that in my face over the years, that I’m just a foundling with no past and that the only reason I have a future is because of the trust fund my mother left me.”
“My God.” I wove my fingers through hers, too angry for her to keep my distance. “What an asshole thing to say.”
She squeezed my fingers. “Sadly, that’s not even the worst of it.”
After shooting a quick glance at the others to make sure no one was paying attention she lowered her voice and murmured, “I lost it for a while, to be honest. Drugs, the whole thing. I just . . . was lost.”
My heart hurt for her. “You’re a strong person, Gracie.” Aaron’s pet name for her just slipped out. “It would’ve been so easy to become bitter and hard after that kind of treatment.”
“I met a friend while I was at my lowest,” Grace told me, her voice choked up. “Someone kind and wise. They helped me find my way out, made me see my own value as a person.”
“I’m glad. Are you two still close?”
Grace nodded. “That bond, it was formed at the worst time in my life and it’s forever. You know what I mean?”
“Of course.” That, I thought, was akin to my relationship with Bea. It had been formed in joy rather than in pain, but it was forever.