Or Rivertown’s, I don’t know. I need to find blueprints and see who actually owns this hideout.
I take in the scope of the space and the escape routes, and I descend the stairs, noticing another door. I peek inside, taking in another hallway. At the end is more light, and I make out Rivertown Bar & Grill through a window that I know before I even get there is another mirror just like the one in my shop.
So…
There are three entrances. Two mirrors and a roof hatch.
Is only my family using this space, then? They moved in the exercise equipment, the beds, and the TV. I recognize most of this stuff.
Heading back out to the great room, I scan the event map-slash-timeline they’re puzzling together.
Carnival Tower…
Rivalry Week…
Winslet MacCreary…
I knew Hawke was researching the urban legends. This must be home base. I shake my head, turning my eyes away.
I start to walk out. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. My gut wants to react. Call them all and start screaming, but then what?
I pass the kitchen counter, heading to the hallway that leads back to my shop, but I put my hand on the cover of a book I don’t remember seeing when I passed by here just a minute ago.
The brown leather is soft and flimsy, like a journal, and I can tell before I open it that the paper is old. The edges are yellowed and tattered. I pick it up, seeing a thin gap inside, as if something is stuck between the pages.
I look around the hideout again. I remember smoothing my hand over this counter when I came in. Was this sitting here then? Shit, I don’t remember. I was high on adrenaline.
“Hello?” I call out. “Hello?”
No answer.
Flipping it open, the pages immediately spread to where a photograph sits. I lift it out, staring at a young blonde. She sits on the edge of a bed, I think. The headboard rests behind her, her bare arms stretched in front of her, just covering her naked torso. I can’t see anything else of her. Long locks drape in her eyes, and a pink neon light casts a glow on her hair from somewhere behind.
I narrow my eyes, studying her. She kind of looks like me.
I turn the picture over.
Don’t look at me like that. You make me wanna die.
-M
Who’s M? Not Madoc.
I fan through the pages, looking for a name, but there’s so much writing, it’s so small, and I can’t make out anything. The writing looks different in the journal versus on the back of the picture, though.
I stick the photo back inside, but her eyes catch me before I close the book. I stop, gazing at her hair too long until I feel my own tickling my cheek. And the soft lips as if they’re mine, swollen from a thousand kisses.
For a moment, I’m there—sitting on the edge of that bed, my body alive, and goosebumps spreading over my body as he takes my picture.
I peer closer, studying the headboard. There’s a crack in the wall behind it. I remove the photo again and hurry backdown the hallway, dipping inside the bedroom with Aro’s lipstick. I flash my phone behind her and Hawke’s bed, darting my eyes between the break in the wall and the one in the photograph. Sweat dampens my body.
This photo was taken here.
Different bed, but same room.
Who is this girl? How old is this photo? “M” isn’t Kade, Hunter, Hawke, Dylan, or Aro. It’s not Noah or Farrow. Who—
My phone rings, making me jump.
