I’m frustrated.
And irritated.
And crawling out of my own skin.
“Get off the stairs. If one more of us is falling in, it’s my turn.” I grab the metal detector, flip it on, and insert the head into the opening under the stairwell, aiming it at the walls.
Sloane returns to the basement, but I can feel her bouncing on her toes behind me.
We’re standing over bones of indeterminate origin, potentially stuck in here until authorities arrive to investigate, and she’s swigging water and bouncing on her toes like we’re at a tennis match.
Or possibly she’s nervous.
People with overdeveloped guilt complexes tend to also have overdeveloped nervous systems.
In my experience.
I reach as far as I can into the opening under the stairs, sweeping the metal detector every which way that I can without disturbing the bones, and?—
Nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
Which means either there’s nothing here, or there’s nothing metal here, and it’ll take tearing the cabin apart board by board, rock by rock, to figure out if there’s anything else hidden in here.
I should text Vanessa.
But the minute I text Vanessa that I found bones, that’s the last minute I get any peace.
“Can you tell how old bones are by looking at them?” I ask Sloane.
“Me? No. I just recognize what they are. It’ll take a forensic scientist doing some testing on them to really get an idea. The fact that it’s just bones though, hidden under the ricketiest stairwell to ever exist—they’ve probably been here at least a few decades.”
I tilt my head at her as I set the metal detector on the lowest step, and before I can ask if she’s also a true crime junkie, the metal detector goes fucking nuts.
We lock eyes in the ambient light of our flashlights.
Sloane acts first.
She stomps onto the first step, then jumps.
“Stop.” I grab her by the arm and pull her down. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
“We can’t pry it up. That’ll be super obvious when the sheriff gets out here to investigate.”
I look up at the ceiling.
She snickers. “Frustrated,” she says in a sing-song voice.
“And that makes you happy?”
“Yes. Because for all of the years that I’ve lived here, the only expression I ever saw you make was this.” She aims her flashlight at herself and goes blank-faced with unfocused eyes.
“That is not the expression I make.”
“I only started doing impressions of you right now, so please forgive me for needing to work on it. The point is, you didn’t laugh, you didn’t smile, you didn’t glower, you didn’t yell, you justexistedlike you didn’t have any emotions at all. So yes, it’s nice to verify that you’re capable of such human things as frustration.” She drops the phone from her face, and her voice softens. “And I appreciate that you let me see it. Like we’re friends. Or something.”
Friends.
