Wait, he’s not hurt?I tilted my head back to study him. Given I remembered him putting his arms around me before the car impacted with… what?—I had no memory of the crash itself—it was unreal that Tyler wasn’t injured as well. Unease wriggled through me. That wasn’t right. He didn’t seem to have a visible scratch. He’d also been carrying me for a long time, which was more than most healthy men could claim they were able to do. I felt along the mound of his bicep, and he smiled down at me.
“Probably not,” I breathed out, and that was as good as me saying I approved of this insanity.
Tyler bent and kissed my forehead gently, although he never took his eyes off the forest in front of us. Apprehension bit at me. We weren’t on a path; he knew the way. Something about this wasn’t adding up, but I couldn’t focus enough to think.
I stared at his face, then beyond him. A strong gust of cold wind cut through the branches, making the trees around us roar like ocean waves while they lurched. Small, golden maple leaves chased down from high above and one landed on me. I picked it up and twirled it. The scent of… something earthy and wonderful teased my nose. People talked about the smell of autumn, and this must be it. My chest squeezed.
If someone hadn’t died to get us here, I would be excited to have Tyler walking with me through these woods. There was a bright carpet of ruby, brown, and yellow leaves all over the forest floor, spreading away from us like in a picture book I’d had as a child. When I was younger, my mother had always promised we’d leave the city on a trip like this, but with so many of us kids, it had never happened. As an adult, I’d never had anyone to take a vacation with me.
“Did you kill Mr. Enoch?”
“What do you need me to say?” he asked quietly but gave me a tiny shake as if he wanted me to drop the topic.
“That you love me and wish you had, but you don’t have the stomach for murder.”
Tyler’s tired smile made the corners of his eyes crinkle, and my heart warmed. “Okay, pretend that’s what I said.”
“I trust you. You wouldn’t kill anyone.”
Blinking, he glanced down at me. “Why do you say that?”
I shrugged, face heating. “You make me feel good. Cared for. Someone who is as nice to me as you are couldn’t kill a man.”
Tyler kissed the top of my head. “Good. I’m glad you think that. We’re here.”
We left the tree line and he walked us out into a clearing. It took me a while to realize we weren’t still in the forest because he picked his way through grass that was nearly to his waist, but when I glanced ahead there was a massive old home looming on the horizon. It took us another ten minutes to get to a slightly less-wild lawn. We went up a small slope toward the front door.
“Is it a Victorian?” I asked.
He grunted. “I believe that style is called Gothic Revival.” He screwed up his face like he was in pain. “Yeah, the Walker Estate is Gothic Revival and was built by Edwin Walker.” He said all of that as if he was a tour guide and it wasn’t his own family history.
The hulking four-story house appeared to be constructed of brick, and the gray blocks were mostly bare with a few sad chips of white paint holding onto the outside. It wouldn’t have mattered if the manor was perfectly painted, though, because the severely angled dark gray roof reminded me of something out of an old horror movie. The windows were arched and pointed and thick, not like normal glass, so I couldn’t easily see inside, even as we got closer. The eaves were spectacular with detailed spires pointing downward on each corner. Gear-like wooden circles decorated the spaces where the roof joints met. The porch we were headed toward wrapped around the house, and at the corner facing us it bowed out in a huge circle that might’ve been a spot for an outdoor table, but the roof over that part had caved in.
There wasn’t a single light on.
There were no cars in the driveway, but it had been taken over by weeds anyway.
I’d never been anywhere that felt thisabandoned.
“I wouldn’t look for any help here,” I mumbled.
Tyler laughed as he walked up the porch steps and finally set me on my feet. I swayed on the spot, and he steadied me. I wasn’t even the tiniest bit ashamed of how I clung to him until the world stopped imitating a merry-go-round. Once I wasn’t about to fall on my butt, he went and pissed off the side of the porch, and while he did that, I stared around. This home would have been magnificent once. Edwin Walker must’ve had a ton of money. I tried to stare through the windows but they were cloudy and the glass had streaks in it, almost like it had gotten too hot and had begun to melt.
My mouth went dry as I considered thatsomeonehad murdered Mr. Enoch and the police had their fingers pointed at us, probably more now than they had before Tyler ran. “Do they think I’m a suspect, too?”
Tyler shot me a look over his shoulder as he shook his cock. Seconds later he was turning back to me with a shrug while he zipped his fly. “Doubtful. You wouldn’t have had the physical strength to strangle him to death.”
Shuddering, I put a hand to my throat, and his eyebrows dipped into a dangerous scowl.
“He got what he deserved.” Tyler brushed past me and pushed open the door. He didn’t seem afraid to go into an unlocked house in the middle of the country, but then again, he probably never felt scared because he was so big and usually carried a gun. I trailed behind him inside, trying to have as much faith in him as he appeared to have in himself.
With the ease of someone familiar with the house, Tyler led me through a musty entryway with polished wood paneling and carved molding on all of the walls and the ceiling, onward through an archway into what appeared to be a sitting room. The curtains had been ripped off the windows and laid in mauve heaps on the floor. Arranged in front of a cavernous, dirty white marble fireplace was a velvet fainting couch that matched the damaged curtains. There were unfaded spots on the floral wallpaper around the room, as if someone had come in and stolen all the artwork. Chopped wood had been carefully stacked onto a grate beside the fireplace. Clearly someone had been here recently enough to want to be warm.
Tyler showed me through a doorway in the corner of the room to a small half bathroom that had running water when I flushed the toilet, then washed my hands. I tried to flip the light switch but there was no electricity, which was confusing. How was the water flowing? The place was an odd level of cared for and defunct. I went back to the mirror over the sink and stared at myself. My eyes were still a little bloodshot from Mr. Enoch trying to strangle me. My throat was a rainbow of healing bruises. A greenish-purple tinge crept down onto my temple from the side of my head that thudded in pain. There were bags under my eyes.
I looked like hell.
Silently I began to freak out. What if I had a concussion? Scratch that, I was overly tired and a tad dizzy, so I was fairly sure I did. But what if I had a brain bleed? I let out a long breath. Probably didn’t or shit would have gone downhill already. I’d live.
