Regis frowns. “That was just the first two victims. The third was found in Tupper Lake, to the west.”
“And the last?” I ask.
“North of here. Off a remote trailhead.”
“I’m not worried,” I lie. It comes out wobbly, uncertain, a table missing a leg. The Saranac Strangler feels like a joke Henry is playing on me, as if he knew what I was planning and decided to beat me at my own game.
“I can drop you at the nearest motel,” he says. “Pick you up in the morning, drive you wherever you want to go. Just please, don’t get out of this truck. Not like this.”
He is pleading like a wounded man, eyes creasing with worry. It stuns me, forces me to rethink, wonder what this means to him, whatImean to him, the stranger he only just met. Most people would wash their hands of me as quickly as possible, feel no responsibility, and never look back. Regis, I realize, is not most people. Regis is unique, special. The thought is like a blast of cold, fresh air. Clearing. Restorative.
I pause, take my hand off the door handle, staring at him frankly. “I don’t have any money.”
“Not a problem,” he says, relieved, a smile inching its way over his face. “I’ll pay.”
But the nearest motel, it turns out, is a lodge off a county road twenty miles from here that is already fully booked when he calls. He puts his phone down, a hangdog expression pulling at the corners of his mouth, and eyes me like an abandoned puppy he has picked up after being told the shelter is full. “Don’t get the wrongidea,” he says after a minute, “but what if I take you to my place? Just until I can get the road cleared and drop you off in Crow Lake. I’ll sleep in the truck if you want. You can lock me out of my own house.”
I watch the way his brows lift and lower when he speaks, as if they are trying to send me a secret message, and the pudge of his bottom lip puckering around the words. I look out the window to where the dark is desperate to get in. A night so complete you could lose yourself in it forever.
“Acacia?” he asks when I don’t respond.
My eyes meet his, wary, spooked. At worst, Regis is an unknown. But out there, in the pitch, is a monster I am very familiar with, a murderer lying in wait. After Henry, I am so tired of fighting. I don’t need to run from the arms of one killer straight into the grasp of another. “Okay,” I tell him. “Take me to your place. One night.”
He nods briskly and swings the truck through a three-point turn, hurtling us back down the road. When we pull off into a dark cove of trees, a pocket of land hidden from the world by a wall of eastern white pine and hemlock, the headlights settle over a small, L-shaped cottage with a storybook stone exterior, quaint chimney jutting up at one end like a schoolhouse bell tower.
“This is it,” he says, beaming, his own little slice of heaven. He hops out of the truck.
I’m climbing down when something catches my eye, glowing faintly near a thick parcel of jewelweed off the corner of the house. I move toward it, crouching down carefully. It’s a mushroom, white as a ghost with a long stem and flat cap, smooth as stone. I’ve never seen anything so ethereal. The hunger I was battling, satiated at last by peanut butter crackers, suddenly flares to life, causing my mouth to fill with saliva. My fingers are inching forward when he stops me.
“I wouldn’t,” he calls, near the hood of the truck. “It’s a destroying angel.”
I look at him. “A what?”
“A mushroom. The pure white ones like that are poisonous. It’ll shut your liver down in a matter of hours. You’ll be dead before daybreak.”
I take a step away from it.
“You wouldn’t be the first to mistake it for something edible. The lack of color makes people think it’s safe. It’s deceptive that way, lures you in. They think the toxic ones are all bright red or orange, but it’s the ones that aren’t obvious that are the deadliest.”
I get to my feet, meeting him near the front door.
“If you’re still hungry, I can cook you something inside,” he says. “I make a mean grilled cheese, best in the forty-six High Peaks.”
I nod my consent as he shoulders the door open and follow him into the house, my eyes lingering only a moment longer on the moon-white skin of the mushroom splitting the dark.
Regis shrugs out of his flannel shirt, an army-green T-shirt beneath clinging to his torso. “Make yourself comfortable,” he says as he pulls an iron skillet from a low cabinet and quickly gets to work on the promised grilled cheese.
I peer from room to room. He lives neat for a man. Not immaculate like Henry—there are jackets crowning the backs of chairs and at least one empty mug left in every room—but the floor is clean, the sink empty of all but a few dishes, the living room confidently arranged for comfort. My eyes travel from the gleaming wood paneling to the butcher-block table to the suede sofa. A small corner cabinet displays a few choice pieces of enamelware. The hearth has a long, half-log mantel set with German beer steins. It looks like Snow White could live here. On a side table, I find a framed picture of a young girl, shiny brown hair in braids, freckles speckling her cheeks, eyes merry. A half-burned candle sits in front. I lift it for a closer look. His daughter, perhaps?
Regis ducks his head into the room. “Ready,” he says, smiling bashfully as though we are old friends, reunited at long last.
I turn, setting the picture back down. His eyes glide over it,falling, sinking behind his brows. “Sorry.” I don’t know what I’m apologizing for.
“My sister,” he tells me. “Once upon a time.”
It is a strange choice of words, as if she belongs to a fairy tale.
“You have siblings?” he asks after I seat myself at the kitchen table and bite into the gooey decadence that is melted cheese combined with toasted bread.
