“What address did you give for them to return it?”
I freeze. “I… didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Because I have no home. Because I’m a fugitive. Because my last living blood relatives would kill me if they knew I was still alive. My tongue darts out to lick my lips. “My bags weren’t valuable.”
“Cut the bullshit. Now isn’t the time for lies.”
The words hit like a punch to the throat. Breath hitching, I try not to shriek, “It’s the truth.”
The man pauses long enough to make me squirm. “No friends? Family? Surely there’s someone out there to send your luggage.”
“I didn’t want to bother anyone,” I say, my voice dropping.
He studies me through the rearview window. “Mr. Rochester values discretion. If you plan on sharing his business with people at home, tell me now. He’s given me orders to return you to the airport.”
My pulse hammers. I sit up straight in my seat. They can’t send me back. I have nowhere else to go. “He has nothing to worry about,” I blurt. “There’s no one. I’m all alone.”
He nods and drives on in silence, seeming satisfied with my answer. I stare at the tinted glass, my reflection pale, ugly. Why the hell did I allow myself to get so desperate? A knot forms in my stomach at the realization. I just told him I was all alone in the world. That nobody would ever come looking.
The driver pulls into a road, which narrows in less than half a mile, with trees closing in overhead like the ribs of some enormous beast. Fog rolls between the trunks, thick enough to swallow our headlights whole.
I glance through the divider at the back of his head. This silence is making my skin crawl.
My gaze darts toward the tinted windows. Somewhere during that interrogation, we left the highway and are now racing through a narrow country road bordered by tall shrubs. I fumble with the duffel’s leather handle, not quite realizing Helsing Island could be so vastcompared to how it looks on the map. What if he’s taking me to the middle of nowhere?
“How far is the house?” I ask.
“Sixty miles.”
“What’s the place like?”
“Cliffs to the west. A thousand acres of forest to the east.”
My stomach drops. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? Isolation? A place where I wouldn’t be found?
The Facebook Marketplace ad promised a live-in nanny gig, discretion essential. In my right mind, I would never work with kids. Two years of being a teenage stepmom to that old bastard’s brats is enough for one lifetime, but I don’t have any other ideas.
I try not to think about what I’ll do if something goes wrong with the job. I’ll just have to make it work until I can figure out a plan B. We drive for what feels like hours through cliffside roads and dense forest. There are no streetlights, no turn-offs, just this endless expanse of road. Just as my eyes start to droop, the headlights catch iron gates rising from the fog like the entrance to a graveyard.
I sit up, my breath catching. “Is this Rochester Manor?”
He nods.
We crawl along a winding path where hedges grow wild and trees lean in like they’re whispering secrets. I suppress a shudder and tell myself it’s going to be okay.
An old mansion rises ahead, a black mass against the storm clouds. Every window is dark, like a skull with empty sockets. Wind howls through the trees with a sound like something dying.
The car stops. In the sudden silence I can hear mypulse hammering in my ears like a countdown to something ominous.
“Congratulations. You’ve passed your interview.” He tilts his head toward the house. “Mrs. Fairfax will take it from here.”
My stomach drops through the leather seat. “What interview?”
The divider rises, sealing him off. All traces of fatigue vanish, replaced by creeping dread. I clutch my duffel, shove the door open, and flinch as the rain hits my face like freezing fingers.
I step onto gravel that crunches under my boots like broken bones. The chauffeur drives away, leaving me alone in the fog with whatever waits behind those dark windows. A shiver runs down my spine and settles in my gut. I’ve escaped prison, so why does it feel like I’m no longer free?
