We touched down soft, doors opening to the cooling night. Elias led the way back toward the front, path lights guiding subtle. "Anything you need while you wait?"
I did. Mobility. "A car. Nothing flashy."
His first smile—small, real. "Follow me."
We took a new path, bricks underfoot, massive oaks arching overhead like guardians. A structure emerged, disguised as an old carriage house, huge doors blended into the facade. Elias pulled his phone, tapped twice. Four bays yawned open in perfect sync, interior lights flooding on. Racks rose four high, depths vanishing into shadow: Range Rovers in midnight black, Bugatti Chiron shimmering blue, Lamborghini Aventador in screaming orange, McLaren 720S sleek silver, Pagani Huayra BC carbon fiber menace, Koenigsegg Jesko stark white, Rimac Nevera humming electric threat. Machines I'd only seen in target dossiers on high-value marks.
Elias nodded to a black Pagani Huayra R. "That’s my current favorite."
I shook my head, still trying to make sense of it all. For some reason the Montana wind ghosted through my mind—open ranges, Daisy's mane whipping in my face. "Got any motorcycles?"
His grin sharpened with a smartass edge. "Do you have a brand preference?"
7
HAZEL
Ilined the three seashells on my dresser so their edges made a perfect crescent—conch, scallop, whelk—then adjusted the mirror until the crack in the glass split the ceiling medallion exactly down the middle.
A strand of hair tickled my neck. I reached for the elastic on instinct, refastening my bun tighter than it needed to be. The room smelled like lavender soap and old wood and the faint metallic bite of rain-soaked pipes.
I tried to focus on practical things. Phone on the charger. Notebook on the pillow, pen clipped at the top. Order kept the world from spilling. Order kept the screams in my head at a distance.
But the longer I stood there, the worse the itch grew. The front door. Had I locked it? I remembered turning the deadbolt after dinner. I could picture the motion in my mind—my hand, the brass, the solid click—but the picture felt like a movie I’d watched instead of a thing I’d done. What if I hadn’t?
It was ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous. This was an inn. People were supposed to come and go. Guests would need keys,need to arrive late, need to leave early, to carry luggage at odd hours and make the bell ring for help. I couldn’t chain the place shut at sundown like a nervous widow and call it hospitality.
Still, the idea of a door I wasn’t watching made my scalp prickle.
“Just check,” I told myself, shame mixing with relief. “Check and then sleep.”
I slipped into my sneakers because walking barefoot on the old wood didn’t seem like a good idea. The hallway was a tunnel of shadows, wallpaper vines climbing around the corners.
The foyer yawned open, the chandelier throwing fractured light. The desk sat obedient and empty, guest ledger closed. I reached for the deadbolt and turned it, gentle, just enough to feel resistance—locked—and yet I still tugged the handle. It didn’t give. Solid.
I stared through the antique panes. Night pressed its face to the glass, humid and intimate. The porch was a pale rectangle of moonlight and silvered sand beyond, the dunes a low black line. I held my breath without meaning to.
My gaze drifted to the staircase again. I didn’t mean to look for light under his door, but I did. From here, I couldn’t see the hallway to Room 4, only the bend of the banister and the faint seam of shadow where the second-floor landing met the wall. Still, some part of me reached for him the way you reach for heat on a winter morning.
Gone. The word arrived clear and cool as a wave around my ankles. He’d gone somewhere. For a walk, maybe, though the night was heavy with the threat of more rain. For a drive? He didn’t have a car. For a smoke? He didn’t smell like cigarettes. Or perhaps he’d simply disappeared into the island like a ghost, the house letting him in and out without a sound.
It shouldn’t have mattered. He was a guest. A stranger. A single line written in my ledger: Gideon Dane. A man with avoice like velvet rubbed backward and eyes I couldn’t name a color for because they kept changing when I looked at them.
I found my mind supplying him like a reflex.
Gideon on the porch, arms crossed near his chest, beard catching the wind. Gideon in the dining room, watching exits with that soldier’s awareness that made me feel safer even as I bristled. Gideon leaning forward just enough to make the chair joints complain—not a threat, not a promise, just a reminder that he could move if he wanted, and fast.
I pictured his hands again, because I couldn’t not: broad, nicked, powerful. Hands that could fix a railing or hold me still. Hands that would know how to take a body apart and put it back together, how to find a weak point and press—gently or not—until it yielded.
Heat skimmed under my skin. A treacherous, liquid hunger unfurled low in my belly, and the house felt suddenly too big, the night too close, my body too restless for routines.
I went back upstairs because there was nowhere else to go. The stairs talked under my weight, familiar now after a day of trips up and down, and the second-floor hallway exhaled when I reached it, the air cooler, saltier. I locked my bedroom door out of habit—click, test, click—and then checked the window again, because sometimes the second check was the only one that counted.
In the mirror, I looked like I’d had a long day: bun too tight, skin damp from coastal air, T-shirt soft from too many washes clinging to a body I didn’t think about on purpose, if I could help it. No makeup. No jewelry. No armor.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at my hands. My fingers didn’t look like anyone’s idea of trouble. They looked like work—typing, sorting, underlining, making lists. But my mind was already somewhere else.
He’d said dessert could be better.
