It’s something Ben would say.
“I’m sorry,” says Caleb. “Come back to bed.”
As she burrows into his arms, the thing that’s been nagging her all evening finally puts itself into words. “Caleb,” she whispers, “why would you think Elijah killed Ben?” Elijah is so sweet, so vulnerable, and Caleb normally treats him like a child. It doesn’t make sense.
Caleb’s reply is a murmur; he’s falling back asleep.
Of course he’d assume Elijah had done it. She’s the nice girl in need of rescuing, utterly harmless.
Her last thought before sleep overtakes her is that maybe she should lock the door.
* * *
She doesn’t know what time it is when she opens her eyes and sees Elijah standing at the foot of the bed. “What is it?” she wants to say, but her mouth refuses to open. She’s curled up and frozen stiff, like Ben in his salt-filled coffin, weight pressing against her from all directions. If she opens her mouth, it’ll fill with salt.
She can’t make out his face, only the boxy silhouette of the shearling coat. Maybe there isn’t anyone wearing it. Or maybe there is, but it’s not Elijah. She expects the apparition to growlSomeone’s been sleeping in my bed,but he remains silent. She grunts, trying to remember if she locked the door. Why didn’t she lock the door? Caleb always told her to. Or was it Elijah? She can’t keep track of who said what anymore.
The howling wind lets up. It’s not her pulse stuttering, but an engine outside. Is Ben pulling up to the house? Is he finally home? Will he come into the room and slip into bed beside her, or go to sleep on the sofa? The freshly cleaned and sterilized sofa? She grunts again but still can’t move.
The apparition in the shearling coat tilts its head toward the window, listening.Ben’s coming,she wants to yell.Get away, Elijah. He’s coming.
Broken glass tinkles in the distance. Terror curdles on her tongue. She’s huddled in the bathroom at the Suicide Motel, the floor tiles cold and hard under her bare feet, shoulder blades digging into the door.
The weight pressing against her back stirs. It’s only Caleb. The wave of terror breaks, and her eyes pop open.
“Elijah,” she croaks.
It’s too late. The figure has disappeared, leaving behind the scent of tobacco and turpentine.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sarah is alone when sunlight breaks through the front windows, rousing her from sleep. For once, it’s not snowing, but the sky is the color of an old soup bone. She stretches in the enormous bed, disappointed there’s no sign of Caleb except the scent left on the sheets. He smells like soap and fabric softener, simple masculine scents. Unlike Elijah’s cedar-and-turpentine or the faded tobacco Jacob Vass left behind. Or the metallic tang of Ben’s blood.
She rescues her abandoned pajama top and pads to the bathroom. When she comes out, there’s a knock on the door. She was afraid it would be awkward but no, Caleb grins down at her holding a tray, this time carrying breakfast for two. They drink coffee and eat muffins together in his father’s bed, her bare legs hooked over his. After staring death in the face, this feels so easy. It’s always easy, at the beginning, she reminds herself. But she pushes the thought away as Caleb kisses her neck. She’s unbuttoning his jeans when his cell phone rattles against his hip.
He groans and takes it out of his pocket. “Shit,” he says, glancing at the screen. “It’s Uncle Isaac.”
The name sends a bucket of ice water over Sarah’s skin. Caleb rolls away and strides to the other side of the room. Sarah clamps a hand over her mouth and tries not to giggle, tries not to even breathe for fear of setting the bedsprings squeaking. Isaac can’t know she’s been considerably less than six feet apart from Caleb.
“Uh huh?” Caleb raises his eyebrows. “Both families? Okay. I need to stop at Murry’s for more plywood. See you as soon as I can.”
He hangs up and rubs the back of his neck. “Shit. I’m sorry. I have to go right away. I can’t give Uncle Isaac an excuse to swing by looking for me.”
He’s right. The moment is ruined, anyway. He shrugs his shirt back on and hurriedly buttons it up. “I’ll be back for dinner,” he says, leaning over the bed to kiss her.
She gets dressed, and then brings the dirty dishes down to the kitchen. Elijah wanders downstairs a little later, and she brews another pot of coffee and sits with him in his studio. It’s all very cozy and domestic.
If he had come into the main bedroom the night before, he says nothing. He doesn’t mention her newfound intimacy with Caleb, and neither does she. He seems pleased to have her attention, and to answer her questions about his painting. Probably no one has ever shown this much interest in his work, not even Caleb, who would’ve been too busy at the motel all day to offer anything more than vague compliments.
Sarah curls up on the loveseat with a book, occasionally glancing up to admire Elijah’s progress. Thick brushstrokes drag down the canvas, wet and gleaming and reeking of linseed oil. Her head swims at the smell and vision. The impression is of black pines at night, bleeding from their branches. This is what Elijah sees when he walks in the woods, and when he looks through the layers of plastic that should have been the sunroom’s back windows.
This is what Sarah sees too when she looks out at the woods, what Jacob Vass and the other men must have seen.Do you hear the screaming?
Elijah moves stiffly, although his eye looks less puffy today. Sarah doesn’t want to let him out of her sight. She saved his life, and now she feels responsible for him. Caleb may have gotten rid of all the knives, but maybe one day Elijah will go into the woods and never come back, as his father did before him.
After lunch, the book slips from her hand, and the comforting scent of turpentine and cedar lulls her to sleep on the loveseat.
She’s woken by a light touch on her hand. The sky has dimmed, and Elijah has turned on a floodlight. She stirs and discovers Jacob Vass’s shearling coat tucked around her. It’s warm and heavy and smells faintly of tobacco.
