It doesn’t look like anyone’s disturbed the room for a long time. I wait here until my legs cramp, before getting painfully to my feet. I rub the ache out of my shoulders and stare at the peeling walls.
Amanda. Amanda.
What happened to you?
I sigh heavily. The builders will be heading home soon. Thank God.I can slink downstairs, make a coffee, grab something to eat, and go to bed. I turn slowly and stare at the dark hallway, thinking.
Which bedroom was hers? There are four upstairs.
I creep down the hallway, breathing in the sourness of the air. It takes fourteen steps from the third bedroom to reach my room. The murder room. I pause at the door, peering in, but my room is just how I left it this morning. The hummingbird quilt cover is thrown back, there’s a pillow on the floor, and it’s too dark out the window to see anything but the silvery outline of the graves. It smells like old cheese in here.
Surely, Amanda wouldn’t have chosen this room. Even Joe doesn’t step foot in here. But still…
I crouch and examine the baseboards, not even sure what I’m looking for. I reach up and carefully peel back the wallpaper where it hangs off in large strips like flaking skin. I run my fingers across the entire length of the back wall, stopping only once to glance at the graves out the window. There’s a creak of floorboards behind me. I spin around, heart pounding. A hulking shadow stands at the door, blocking my exit, holding a hammer tight in their fist.
I stagger back, frantic with fear. “Don’t!” I squeak out. “Don’t!”
“Mrs. Slade?”
Warily, the man steps inside my bedroom. It’s Dan, the foreman. God.
I breathe again, gulping down a rush of stale air. “I thought you were…” I pause.I thought you were Bill Campbell, back from the dead and about to smash my head in.
He stops in the middle of the room, scratching his jaw with a meaty hand. He’s a short man with a thick stomach and a giant laugh. Nice enough.
“Sorry to scare ya,” he says lightly, like there’s nothing weird about him stalking into the murder room, carrying the death instrument. “Was just gonna say that me and the boys are knocking off for the day. Be back tomorrow mornin’.”
He looks around with amusement, twirls the hammer in his palm likehe’s a trick shooter, and whistles. “Is thisthe room? You know, where…” He makes a throat-cutting motion across his thick neck.
I nod, wishing he’d hurry up and go home to his simple wife, ten children, and fridge that’s probably full of beer and bloody meat. His eyes finally rest on my bed, and he raises his eyebrows. “This where you sleep?”
There’s nothing sexual in his voice, more an underlying question:Why would you choose this room? Lady, what the hell is wrong with you?
The windowpane is cold against my back, and I wrap my arms around myself. “Would you sleep in here?” I don’t know why I ask him this.
His eyes drop to the bloodstain next to my bed, and we both stare at it silently. For a long moment, he doesn’t speak. When he lifts his eyes again to mine, there’s a hint of sadness in them. “Nah,” he says. “You couldn’t pay me to.”
He nods goodbye and turns around.
“Dan?”
He looks back in surprise. I don’t think I’ve called him by name before. I clear my throat and wrap my arms tighter around myself. I’m so cold. “You’ve lived in Beacon for a while, right?”
He smiles. “Yeah,” he says proudly. “The missus inherited the house from her dad a few years ago.”
Typical.
“Do you know if anyone lived here before me?”
He twirls the hammer again like he wants to leave. “The Campbells, you mean?”
“No, not them,” I say quietly, then bite my lip before adding, “Someone else. A woman. About my age.”
Abruptly, he stops twirling the hammer, and it bangs against his thigh. He looks away a bit too quickly, like he’s been caught out. And I have my answer.
Does everyone in this bloody town know?
I wait for him to speak, but he doesn’t. He’s purposefully not lookingat me. His tired eyes roam the room before settling on the bloodstain again. He looks hypnotized by it. “No,” he finally says, his eyes drifting back to mine. “I don’t know anything about that.”
