1849 Cherry Mountain Road
Cherry Hollow, CO 81627
Date: March 31
Time: 7:00 P.M.
I read it several times, but I don’t take it in. It’s like when you’re reading a book and realize you’ve been rereading the same paragraph for ten minutes without absorbing a single word. My eyes scan the address line by line until I could recite it in my sleep. Until it finally sinks in.
This has to be some kind of mistake…
Some kind of joke…
I recognize it. Of course I do. Heck, I was at 1849 Cherry Mountain Road yesterday afternoon, sleeping in a guest room.
This is Flint’s address.
The highest bidder. The man who won my virginity.
It was my boss.
For a long time, I stare at my phone, barely breathing.
Tomorrow. Flint’s cabin.
I’m numb. Too shocked to move. My head is buzzing, a swarm of bees invading my skull, and I stay like that for what feels like hours, staring at the text until my eyes are watering.
I don’t make a conscious decision to stand up. My body acts of its own accord, carrying me into my bedroom where I pull on some fresh clothes. Then I grab my car keys and leave my apartment, climbing down the steep staircase and out into the crisp night air. My movements are automatic. I feel like a puppet, instinct pulling the strings as I get in my car, turn on the engine, and begin the drive up Cherry Mountain.
It’s nearlyten by the time I pull up outside Flint’s sprawling cabin. The windows are all dark except for one, lit up with the flickering glow of a fire. I don’t remember the drive. Heck, I don’t remember leaving my apartment at all. I’m running on pure adrenaline right now, every logical thought buried too deep to hear.
As I climb the stone steps, the automatic porch light flashes to life—blinding me like a deer in headlights. But I don’t stop walking. I reach the front door, raise my fist to the wood, and knock hard.
Flint doesn’t leave me waiting. He opens the door a moment later, filling the doorway with his giant frame. His features are shadowy in the darkness, but I can still make out his expression, the intensity in his eyes.
Any possibility that it could have been a mistake, a mix-up of some kind, vanishes in an instant when I meet Flint’s gaze. He knows exactly why I’m here. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, chest rising as he takes a sharp breath.
“It was you,” I say.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he steps back from the door and beckons me inside. I hesitate for a moment, then step over the threshold, the door swinging shut behind me. I follow Flint into the living room, where a fire is roaring in the hearth. A tumbler of whiskey sits on the coffee table in front of a dark leather couch, the amber liquid dancing in the firelight.
Flint stands in front of the mantel and turns to face me, but he still doesn’t speak.
“It was you,” I say again, quieter this time. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The word lands between us with the finality of a gunshot. My head is spinning, a million questions bubbling to the surface as I stare up at Flint.
“How…how did you know?” I stammer. “About the auction…”
“I heard you on the phone with your friend.”
My heart jolts as I think back to my conversation with Everly by the creek. I try to remember everything I said. Everything Flint must have heard.
“You followed me down to the creek.”
It’s not a question. There’s no other way he could have listened to the call. No way he could have heard it from the office.
