Caroline gasped for breath, blood pooling on the floor of the dilapidated cottage.
The bullet pierced her sternum. She didn’t die instantly, but she knew, as soon as she hit the floor, that this was the end.
“You asked me why,” the older woman says, standing over the body. “Why I’m doing this. Why I stay with him. But I can’t explain it. Most of what matters in life can’t be explained.”
I know these must be notes towards a murder scene, but the mention of a dilapidated cottage makes it feel personal, as if I’m Caroline in the scene, and Grace is my murderer.
I carefully ball the paper back up, and place it on the floor. At the corner of the desk is a statuette of a pen dripping with blood—some kind of award for crime writing—and under it is a small pile of papers. I quickly lift the statuette and take the top sheet. It takes me a minute to figure out what I'm reading.
She wanted to take him all at once, but he was teasing her, holding off, letting the anticipation build tointolerable heights. He touched her breast with his rough hand, and even that was almost enough…
I feel myself blush. This isn’t a crime novel. It’s erotica. Is Grace writing romance now? It reads like one, but I see one strange detail at the top of the page.
5/10.
It’s a date. Why would Grace date a scene from a novel? The tenth of May was only a few weeks ago. I look at the page again and read it in full. It describes everything—how he feels and tastes, the scratch of his beard.
His beard. I remember the man I saw in the window.
I reach for my phone to take a picture when I hear a voice behind me.
“What are you doing here?
CHAPTER FOUR
Without thinking, I slip the paper under my top, just as , a brown-haired man with a sharply defined jawline emerges from the trapdoor. He’s tall and thin, and when he takes the final step, he has to stoop to avoid his head cracking into the rafters.
“Did Grace say you could come up here?”
Shit. I’m about to get fired, and my car is out of gas. What am I going to do? I can’t go back to Neil. But if I call a friend, I’ll be sucked right back into his orbit. I can already feel the gravitational pull back into that life.
I can’t let that happen.
“Sorry, I was just?—”
He raises his eyebrows, a faint smile on your lips. “I feel like you started that sentence before you knew where it would end.”
I can’t seem to speak.
“I think ‘being nosy’ might be the right way to put it. What do you think?”
“Better than snooping? But I was actually following the cat.”
To my surprise, he laughs.
“Ah, that old excuse.” He crosses the room and holds out his hand. I take it, and he holds it tight. I have the weird thoughtthat maybe he’s about to kiss it, but instead, he maintains eye contact until I feel myself blush. “You must be Brie.”
“Professor—” I catch myself. “Assistant Professor Little?”
“Assistant!” He hoots, and I see a row of perfect white teeth. “That is, unfortunately, correct. Though hopefully not for much longer. But call me Bradley. I hate all that hierarchical bullshit. It drives me up the wall.” He drops my hand and points to the stairs. “Better get out of here. Grace doesn’t like anyone coming up, including me. That’s why she’s kept the stairs like that. She needs perfect privacy to imagine her next murder. It’s not working very well, though, because she hasn’t written a book in five years. But that’s why she’s got all this gruesome stuff in here. It’s a perverse sort of inspiration, I guess.”
“Yes.” I glance around the room. “It’s very intense.”
“That’s the right word. I’ve always thought it must be a strange feeling, having all these dark stories swirling around your head. It must be like having the real world and the imagined one all mixed up. I think, for her, the imagined world is much more important. It’s an unusual psychology. You’re not a writer, are you?”
“No. Not in the slightest,” I say, taking the stairs backwards like a ladder. “I’m not any kind of artist. I studied birds at college. Zoology.”
“A scientist! Fantastic. We need a dose of rationality around here. There’s not much about Pine Ridge that you’d call strictly logical.” He follows me down, cursing as he knocks his head. “I hate going up there. So claustrophobic, don’t you think? It’s like a prison. You could lock someone up there, and no one would ever know.”
