Henry clenches his right peck in anguish. “That hurts.”
I smile and shake my head. “The only reason I even recognize that name is from the movie version with Keira Knightley.”
“Me estas matando. It’s a classic,” he argues before stalking off to his bookshelf a few feet away from me and Darcy, who’s still soaking up the attention I’m giving him.
“Here,” he exclaims while pulling a book off his shelf. “I know you’re not a big reader, but I think you’ll really like it.”
I force my spine into an upward position and take the book from Henry’s hands. His fingers brush against mine for a moment, and I feel a now familiar tingle radiating through my body. I wish he’d stop finding ways to touch me. I swallow and clench onto the worn copy.
I can tell he’s read this copy many times by the faded cover and brittle spine. My thumb traces over the barely legible title, and when I look up, Henry’s eyes are glued to mine.
“I can’t take this,” I mumble. “I can tell it’s your favorite copy.”
Henry’s smile lines form as he tucks a loose curl behind his ear. “I insist. It’s helped me through a lot of hard times in my life, and I sense you could use some light in your life,” he croaks, clearing up his throat. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that. It—it can also help with your writing too.”
I drop my line of sight from him back to the book in my hands. The pit in my stomach lurches when I think about how he can see right through me after only knowing me for a short time. It’s disarming, but it feels nice to feel seen. I can’t fake a smile around him, and it’s terrifying, yet comforting, all wrapped up in one human.
“Thank you,” I whisper, staring into his eyes again. Being around him feels like I’m free-falling into a world of pain, much different from the pain I’ve experienced most of my life. This was the type of pain I wanted to dive headfirst into. But I can’t.
“We should probably get going,” I suggest, desperate to escape his act of kindness.
“Sure thing.”
It was going to be a long day.
“Is this legal?”
“You said you wanted to go somewhere abandoned, and that’s what we’re doing,” I state bluntly. “Plus, it’s only illegal if we get caught.”
I can sense Henry’s weariness as his light footsteps trail behind me. Honey Grove didn’t have a strip mall, let alone an abandoned one, but we did have a creepy elementary school that had been abandoned for years.
It was actually the elementary school I attended when I first moved to Honey Grove, but I could barely remember mytime here. Shortly after I started school, they shut it down and moved most of the county into one super elementary school.
The further we walk into the old building, the darker it gets, and I’m forced to take out my flashlight. Most of the school was cleaned out, but old desks and chairs were still scattered everywhere.
“Oh great,” Henry whines. “I’m going to be writing this book from jail, aren’t I?”
“It’s fine,” I reason before turning toward him. “We used to come here all the time in high school and never got caught. It looks like kids still come here too.”
I point my flashlight to some discarded beer cans in the corner of the hallway where we’re standing. It makes me think about when Wren forced me to go with her to a party here one weekend. That was back when Wren and Blake weren’t official but would take every opportunity possible to sneak away to someplace quiet. This was the perfect place for a teenager to make mistakes in the dark.
“Right.” He swallows.
“So, what scene are you working on?” I ask. It felt good to be the one in charge of our little excursion. When I was younger, and for most of our marriage, I followed Colt around like a lost puppy dog. But now Henry was the one relying on me to show him the way.
“It’s a pivotal scene in the book where they find out the killer is luring young kids into the strip mall to kill them.”
“That’s really the image I need right now.”
“Sorry.” He laughs. “This place is pretty spooky even in the daytime.”
“Why wouldn’t he kill them in the church?”
“What?” Henry’s footsteps stop for a moment, and I turn to face him again.
“Why a strip mall? Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to lure the kids to the church? And then he could easily dump the bodies in the cemetery. It would be more efficient.”
“I thought that would be too obvious,” he grunts. “Don’t you think?”
