Hands on his hips, Aaron looked at the ground a moment before shaking his head. “No. He was wearing his coat, but nothing else. Beanie, gloves, outdoor boots, they’re still in the kitchen by the woodstove. That’s where we left them after the firewood run.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Going out as he was dressed? No.”
Opening his eyes, he shook his head again. “Ash is too smart to be impulsive that way. If he’d wanted to check it out now instead of waiting till tomorrow and hopefully a break in the weather, he would’ve grabbed me and we would’ve done it right, like we did with the firewood.”
I agreed with him—with a coda: Ash had been impulsive once. But only with Bea. She’d made him open his world, consider taking risks. He was the opposite with Darcie. More set in his ways, less apt to go off the beaten path.
I’d picked up the change even in our sporadic interactions on the group chat.
Darcie’s Ash was part of an established firm of engineers, ate a diet recommended by Darcie, and went on vacation to polished destinations twice a year. No trace left of the muddy boy who’d carried an equally muddy Bea across a creek while they both laughed so hard he’d almost fallen flat on his face.
No, the Ash of today wouldn’t have gone out into the storm on his own.
But where else could he be? We’d searched literally every nook and cranny of this house.
Once again, I thought of the ruined wing—but didn’t say anything aloud this time. Instead, I nudged Darcie back into the living area, settled her in the sofa, and left Grace and Vansi to minister to her with hot cups of tea that she ignored.
Angling my head at Aaron as the two women rubbed her hands and back, I met him in a far corner, away from the baleful gaze of all those dead animals above the fireplace. “We have to check out the ruined section,” I whispered. “Remember that staircase Darcie told us led to that section?” She’d only checked that the door at the top was locked, and left it at that—because the only key was in her pocket.
“I was thinking the same.” A quick flick of his gaze toward Darcie before he lowered his head to mine again. “He has to be there. No place else left.”
“Darcie’s too fragile. We have to slip away, check it out on our own.” I hissed out a breath. “But first we have to figure out a way to get the key from her.”
Aaron made a subtle motion. And I saw that Vansi had convinced Darcie to take off her jacket, and was now hanging it over an armchair out of Darcie’s line of sight.
I’d slid over and was sneaking out the keys before I could second-guess myself. When Vansi lifted an eyebrow, I just put a finger to my lips. She looked over at where Darcie sat rocking, and nodded.
“We should go now,” Aaron whispered when I returned to him. “Before she comes to her senses.”
Grace glanced over as we were about to slip out, and Aaron hitched his thumb over his shoulder to indicate our intent.
Murmuring that she was going to the washroom, she excused herself from the other two women—and met us in the hallway. “Give me one minute and I’ll fill up an insulated bottle of coffee for you.” Her voice, too, was a whisper. “You’ll freeze in this house otherwise.”
I wanted to rush, but she was right. We’d need the extra heat at some point. “Thanks, Grace.”
She quickly vanished into the kitchen via the hallway entrance, and was true to her word, returning a short while later with one of those tall and skinny double-walled bottles I’d seen in the shops but never bought. “It’s from the pot Darcie made earlier. I reheated it real quick on the stovetop.”
She made a face. “Not appetizing, I know, but fast.” A glance at me. “The bottle is Aaron’s,” she said after putting it into his hand. “But I figured you two wouldn’t mind sharing.”
“Thanks,” I repeated, thinking of all the drinks we’d shared back at uni. Aaron had never been much of a drinker, and I’d usually ended up finishing his drinks. Probably should’ve taken that as a sign I had a problem, but sometimes I needed things to punch me in the face.
Aaron tucked the bottle inside his deep jacket pocket, then kissed Grace on the cheek.
“Wait, I got these, too.” She thrust a small ziplock bag of cookies into my hand. “You still have flashlights?”
“Yes.” Shoving the cookies into a pocket, I checked my phone battery, saw it was at fifty percent. Safe. “We’d better go.”
“Good luck.”
As soon as she shut the door to the living room behind her, we began to jog, moving rapidly through the house to get to the blocked-off set of stairs.
“Lu,” Aaron said as we moved, “I was thinking. If Ash is on that side, then he or someone else would’ve required a key.”
“Darcie’s had them in her pocket since after she hit her head.” I didn’t huff as I spoke; Aaron was keeping the pace to one I could handle. “And that jacket’s been either hanging in her room, or on the back of an armchair. There would’ve been times it was totally unattended.”
Aaron suddenly halted.
I skidded to a stop. “What?”
“That means the key might not be in that bunch.” His jaw worked. “Darcie only checked the door was locked. She never looked for the key.”
“Shit.” I rubbed my face. “We won’t know until we try to unlock it. If the key is on her key chain . . .”
“. . . then someone returned it after—what? Locking Ash on the other side?”
The two of us stared at each other, then turned to run on in silence.
But the words unspoken, they were a bass drum between us.
There were only five of us left who could’ve done it, and unless Darcie was a grade-A actress, we could leave her out of the equation. “Why would anyone do something to Ash?” I finally blurted out, unable to keep it inside any longer.
Aaron pulled a knit cap from his jacket and tugged it on and down until it covered the tips of his ears. “Who the fuck knows?” The harsh word was an unfamiliar sound on his lips, a scratch on a smooth record. “I have no idea what is going on. Do you?”
I thought about whether to share what I’d been thinking, went to part my lips, shut them before the words could escape. I trusted Aaron, but the truth was that I didn’t know him any longer. Not as I’d once known him.
Deciding to go for another truth, I said, “I think the best-case scenario is what Vansi said—that we’ve just had a run of bad luck. I mean, no one could’ve predicted the insane weather. Without it, we would’ve driven out by now, got a signal, and called for help for Kaea. We would’ve never been here for Phoenix to fall down the stairs, or for Ash to get lost in this enormous house.”
The floorboards groaned under our feet as we reached the narrow corridor that held the internal staircase to the ruined wing. We didn’t stop. Not until we’d climbed all the way to the top and stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the locked door.
“What if Ash is behind that door, Lu? That would change everything.”
I got the keys. Immediately lost hold of them, my fingers tiny frozen sausages.
The metal sticks fell to the landing in a discordant cacophony.
“Damn it.”
Aaron was already grabbing them and handing them over. “Before you start to try them, let’s take a breath. Just . . . settle.”
My fingers tingled sharply as I flexed sensation back into them, my mind a rabbit that raced from one thought to another. “Good idea.”
“We can drink a bit of this, too, warm up.” Taking the sleek bottle of coffee out of his pocket, he unscrewed the lid and winced. “I think it’s black. Grace must’ve forgotten you like your coffee to be hot milk with a dash of coffee.”
I punched him lightly on the arm. “Smart-ass. You can have your bitter water.” Black coffee might as well be tar as far as I was concerned. “I’ll grab a drink when we go downstairs. And I’ve got the cookies for when I need an energy hit.” I patted my pocket. “No use letting the coffee go to waste when Grace went to the trouble of packing it.”
Aaron nodded and took a deep gulp of it, after an initial sip to test that it wasn’t too hot. After he was done, he put the bottle back in his pocket and exhaled. “Okay, let’s do it.”
I took out the keys.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The lock snicked smoothly open.