A minimally furnished room was illuminated under overhead can lights. In contrast to the other rooms in this house, this one looked almost stark, a large high table at the center with two metal stools.
I hesitated, then stepped into the room, leaning over the worktable to look at the big piece of paper stretched across its surface, three of its corners held down with an empty beer bottle, a bulky utilitarian watch, and some kind of heavy square radio.
Except now I saw that it wasn’t a piece of paper: it was a blueprint.
Rooms were sketched onto its surface, circles drawn in various configurations, but I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
Pulling back, I scanned the room, painted dark gray. There was no art, no shelves, nothing on the walls.
Except… I walked closer to one wall and realized there was something: a constellation of tiny holes, like something had been tacked to it and had since been removed.
In the corner, a shredder stood silent.
Weird.
I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me, then opened the second one to a comfortable room much more in keeping with the rest of the house. This one was painted dark gray too, but it had a sofa and two chairs, a coffee table, floor lamps, even a refrigerator.
Two abstract paintings, the canvases a swirl of chaotic color, made the room feel intentionally decorated rather than utilitarian like the first room.
My gaze swept the room and landed on a cabinet, its contents hidden by doors, running the length of one wall.
I crossed the room without turning on the lights and pulled open one of the doors, then blinked when I saw what was inside: bottles of disinfectant, bleach, and what looked like other cleaning agents. Was this where Reva, the housekeeper, staged her cleaning binges?
If so, it was a strange choice. Why not the kitchen or the laundry room?
I closed the cabinet door and opened another one, then reached in to touch the black duffel bags lined up inside. My mind spun, turning over possibilities, before I closed the door, more loudly than I’d planned.
This was all really weird.
I left the room quickly, my stomach fluttering with the unsettling feeling that I’d seen something I shouldn’t have.
It was stupid. The doors had been unlocked, and I had the sense that the Hawks were more than willing to invite a stranger into their chaos.
They were like sirens, beckoning me into the deepest waters of the ocean. I didn’t know what waited for me there, but the knot in my stomach made me think it would drag me to the bottom before I had time to take even one deep breath.
Back in the hall, I hesitated outside the final unexplored room. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know what was behind the door, but I reached for it anyway.
I was already under the surface, already drowning. Why fight it now?
And there was something else too, something I didn’t want to acknowledge even to myself: I wanted to know what was at the bottom of the sea. My heart was pounding, my mind swimming with possibilities, but instead of wanting to turn away, I wanted to look closer.
I turned the knob. It was locked.
I rattled it a little harder, wondering if it was stuck since the first two doors had been unlocked.
But nope. It was definitely locked.
Now I was really curious. Why was this door locked? What were they protecting in there?
What were they hiding?
I stepped back, feeling oddly disappointed.
I thought about the first two rooms, my mind spinning, as I made my way downstairs to the kitchen to dig through the fridge for food.
By the time I plowed through half a container of chicken lo mein, an egg roll, and two crab rangoons my mind had quieted. It was none of my business what the Hawks got up to in their regular lives. I was here to do my ninety days and move on.
And I had a bigger problem, namely the fact that Bram was due home with Maeve, Poe, and Remy any day and I was still trying to figure out how to explain what I’d done. Still trying to figure out how to keep him from killing the Hawks for something that had been my decision or forcing me to leave before I did my time.
