“Try again,” Penelope says tightly. “Callie’s going to tell him to leave you the fuck alone.”
My skin prickles. Do I want that, though? Really?
“Are you there?” I call out again. The lake swallows up my question.
“I don’t think he’s here,” I say into the phone.
Someone sighs; I’m not sure if it’s Penelope or Callie. I scan the darkness, but I can’t see anything. Just shadows and stars.
“Go back inside,” Callie says. “Bar yourself in your room and keep your phone on you. If he shows back up, call me.”
“I’ll text you the number,” Penelope adds.
“Okay,” I say distractedly, still staring out at the dark lake. Fear quivers around in my belly, but it doesn’t quite seem to match Callie and Penelope’s worry.
I don’t want to hurt you, he said, and I think I believe him.
13
CHLOE
Theo Shorn doesn’t come back. I wake up the next morning to warm sunlight falling across my face, my office chair jammed up under my bedroom door knob. Something tells me that wouldn’t have actually kept him out, but it’s undisturbed, regardless.
I send a quick text over to Penelope.
Just checking in. I’m fine. No sign of him.
Then I leave my phone sitting on my bedside table and go downstairs to investigate.
The house feels like it did last night: quiet and empty. I forgot to close the curtains when I came back inside, and the living room is flooded with hot sunlight. Through the glass, the lake ripples with miniature waves, and the sky is an endless, cloudless blue. It looks nothing like it did last night, when it was all just empty darkness.
I fix a quick breakfast, granola and yogurt and slices of the plump, juicy peaches I picked up from the little farm stand that sits on the highway between here and Pinella. Brew a cupof coffee. And then, because it’s what I’ve done most mornings since I moved in, I take it out on my patio to eat.
It’s nice out. The sun is warm on my skin, but the breeze blowing over the lake is cool. As I eat, I watch the thick wall of trees across the water. The wind makes their leaves shimmer in the sunlight, but there’s no sign of Theo Shorn. Or of anyone.
Thereisa strange, hollow knocking sound, though. I hear it occasionally, and I think it’s an animal at first, maybe a squirrel hunting for nuts in one of the oak trees growing on my property. But when the wind gusts, it gets louder. And it isn’t coming from the direction of my yard, either.
It seems to be coming from the lake.
My breath quickens, although I wouldn’t say I feel afraid, exactly. I reach instinctively for my phone, only to remember I left it upstairs.
“Hello?” I call out softly. No answer.
I get up from the table and take a few steps forward, trying to follow the sound. There’s a distinctive pattern to it: the wind gusts, and the knocking echoes a couple of times, then fades. Wood on wood, that’s what it sounds like.
And it sounds like it’s beneath my pier.
I jump off my patio, into the damp, marshy grass that rolls into the lake. I’ve never been down here, and I know it’s stupid, what I’m doing. At the very least, I should have Penelope on the phone with me. Or her sister.
But I keep creeping forward, hand out on the pier for balance. There’s another particularly strong gust of wind, another round of knocking. And this time, I see what it is.
A boat.
There’s a boat tied to my pier.
It’s not Oliver’s boat. This boat looks a lot older, the red paint so worn down it’s almost pink. When the wind blows, the rippling waves push it up against the pier post.
I suck in a breath of air and lift my gaze to the crowd of oak trees growing up around my yard. Is he still here, lurking somewhere? Watching me right now?
