“Ooh.” The sheriff winces. “Nasty. Better get some antihistamine and an ice pack.”
I nod, clutching my arm, trying to will my tears away.
“Well, I’ll leave you to tend that,” he says, turning to walk away. But after a few steps, he swings back and locks eyes with me. “Move careful round dangerous creatures, Miss Ruth. They get cornered and desperate, their first instinct is always going to be to sting you.”
17
NOW
Everett Duncan’s house is haunted. Though, like his father, supposedly it had potential once. It’s not small—bigger than my parents’ before all the additions. In the center of the front door is a beautiful stained-glass inset, one of many expensive details that signal once upon a time, someone had big plans for this place. It’s as far away from my rental as I could get, but edges up to its own lonely forest just like my house does, forests being easy to come by around here. Behind it, you can see an ocean of pines stretching in an undulating wave.
These days the stained glass is so filthy you can barely discern the colors. There are permanent oil stains on the driveway, and the wild has crept in and run roughshod, sweeping tall grass up the walls and vines over the roof, choking the house so much the gutters are falling off. If I was being romantic, I’d say Everett’s house looks like the castle in “Sleeping Beauty” after the thorned plants have held it in their clutches for a thousand years.
But I do not feel romantic. This house is an unhappy place for unhappy people. I’ve asked Everett a million times why he doesn’t just sell it, and a million times he’s replied that he can’t in good conscience burden someone else with his family’s ghosts.
His convertible is in the driveway when I drive up, flooding me withrelief. I pull up next to it, leaving the garden shears, and pound on his front door. The pain from the sting on my arm is still white-hot. “Ever,” I call. “It’s me.”
After a moment, the door cracks open. Ever’s black hair sticks straight up like he’s been electrocuted, though I know it only means he’s run his hands through it a million times. He has dark circles under his eyes and leans against the doorframe like he needs it to stay upright. “I thought you had work.”
“That’swhat you have to say?” I shoulder in past him, brushing my long hair out of my eyes. The house looks exactly like it did four years ago when his father died. There’s the sad, dilapidated couch and worn armchair Killian lived in when he wasn’t at the garage, facing the same rabbit-eared TV. Other than the omnipresent half-empty liter of vodka and crumpled Coke can on the side table, Ever hasn’t changed a thing. The sight of the room works like a time machine, taking me back to when we were teenagers. I shiver.
“Where’ve you been? I can’t believe you took off on me.”
“Left you a note.”
“Where, Ever?” I don’t have time for evasiveness.
He runs a hand over his face. “I drove to Durham.”
I cross my arms, then wince. “You think now’s the time to go on vacation?”
He peers at my arm, having clocked my pain. “I didn’t go on vacation. I went to see Sam. I’ve decided to sell this shithole.”
This is enough to sidetrack me. Everett Duncan, cutting his last tie to Bottom Springs. Though I’ve bugged him about selling for years, now that he’s actually doing it, I realize I expected him to resist forever. This house is the one piece of insurance I’d clung to when I wondered if he’d ever come back. The news is such a gut punch it takes me a second to process the other part. “Sam as in SamLandry?”
“I needed his help.”
Sam had, as I’d predicted, moved out of Bottom Springs and never looked back. He’d graduated top of his class at Duke and was now at Duke Law. I kept track of his accomplishments through his momma, the only other person who felt a similar bittersweet mix of pride and pain at Sam succeeding out there in the world.
Ever takes my arm, twisting it gently. “Wasp?”
“Yes. What did you need Sam for?”
“Ice,” Ever says, and tugs me into the kitchen, where he cracks open the old freezer and pulls out a handful of brown-tinged ice.
“Ew.”
“You’re not drinking it.” He presses the ice to my wound and I inhale sharply at the cold.
“What did you need Sam’s help for?” I repeat through gritted teeth.
Ever looks at my wound. “Sam’s a lawyer—”
“Law student.”
“Well, he knows things. More importantly, people. He was able to get me what I needed. Think I spooked him, though. Appearing out of thin air like a ghost.”
“Doesn’t he study estate law?” Sam was going to manage rich people’s money, his momma told me. Help wealthy people like the kind, generous benefactor who’d paid his way to college.
