No, just stupid. Truthfully, I wanted Black Wood House the second I saw it. When I want something, itconsumesme. My wants have always straddled the unhealthy-obsession line. When that bony look was in during high school, I starved myself with watery soup until my rib cage and limbs were picked clean of flesh.
When the quiet blond boy with the easy smile started dating my rival, I silently borrowed his mannerisms, hobbies, quick smile, and even his hair color for a while until he looked at me and saw himself. Two months later he was mine.
That was Joe.
It bewildered him whenIstarted slowly emerging. But it was too late then because the Incident happened. The one we don’t speak about. So, we left our hometown of Scarbour, north Queensland. Actually, we fled. A fresh start, I stubbornly called it. My life has been made up of very sudden fresh starts.
“Do you know much about the Campbells?” I ask.
She shakes her head, and her long blond plait swishes softly. “The…incident with the Campbells was a bit before my time.” She hesitates, rolling a bead between her fingers. There’s something she wants to tell me.
“Emily.” I lean forward quickly, and my chair squeaks a protest. “What is it?”
She bites her lip. “Did anyone tell you about the previous owner?”
“The Campbells, you mean?”
She gives me a curious look. “Not them,” she says. “I meant the last owner. The one before you.”
I lean back. “What?”
“I had a feeling Rodney didn’t tell you. Not that he had to, of course. But it would have been nice for you to know.”
Know what?
“You bought the house through PeakeProbates.com, didn’t you?”
Yes, we did. I found the house online and rang the agency without once discussing it with Joe. We inspected it forty-eight hours later.
I see Rodney Peake now, hastily signing the deed, careful not to touch the paper.It takes a certain kind of someone to buy a murder house,he said grimly.
I guess you won’t be coming over for a cup of tea, then?I asked.
And he gave me a sour look.No, I don’t think I could…
“Someone bought the house before us?” I fight to keep my voice steady, but even I can hear the wobble in it. The uncertainty.
“Black Wood was on the market for years, as you probably know,” she says in a lower voice now.
I bounce my knee impatiently. “Forty, I was told.”
“I mean, yes, that’s technically true.” She avoids my eyes.
“Technically?”
“Last year, someone else bought it,” she says. “She lived there for a few weeks.”
My knee stops bouncing. “I should have been told this,” I blurt out a bit too aggressively.
She bites her lip apologetically. “It’s like I said. Beacon’s a tight-knit community. Suspicious of outsiders.”
Like me.
My head throbs. “What happened to the woman?”
“That’s the thing,” she says quietly. “Nobody really knows.”
“She can’t have justdisappeared.”
