It’s wrong.
I sit back on my heels, my gaze moving over the room like the answer might appear if I keep going. People always leave things behind. Proof they’ve lived somewhere, that they’ve been someone before this.
But Carrson…there’s nothing that tells me who he is or who he was.
Discomfort sets in, even though I tell myself it means he’s careful. Private, which fits everything I already know about him. Maybe it does.
But as I sit there, I can’t shake the feeling this isn’t about what he’s hiding. It’s about what was never there to begin with.
Either way, I haven’t found the information I need, so I tiptoe to the door. I stop in front of it and hesitate, not because I’m unsure, but because I can almost hear him, the commanding tone in his voice, the way he’d glare at me if he were here.
Don’t leave. No matter what.
I wrap my fingers around the handle.
“We’ll see about that,” I whisper.
I turn it.
Chapter fifteen
Access
Becky
The hallway outside is empty.
Closed doors line one side, but the other opens to a wooden railing that runs the length of what must be the second floor, overlooking a room below. My bare feet are silent on the thick maroonrug as I move toward it. With my hand on the banister, I glance down into a living room with low-slung couches and polished dark wood furniture.
It’s a mess down there. Empty beer cans litter the tables, some tipped over, spilling amber liquid. Paper plates are stacked or abandoned where someone left them, bits of food clinging to the edges, not old but not fresh either.
It smells faintly sour, even from up here.
“Well,” I murmur, “this is a fraternity.”
I turn back to the hallway, where the doors are all identical, all closed. The kind that don’t invite curiosity so much as warn against it.
I go to the first one and ease it open. A bedroom. Curtains drawn, the bed neatly made, everything arranged in a way that’s impersonal. Generic, almost. Not untouched, but more like someone lived here once and then simply stopped.
I don’t step fully inside, only far enough to reach the dresser by the door. My fingertip drags lightly across the surface. When I lift it, a thin layer of dust clings to my skin. I rub it between my fingers, watching it smear.
No one’s been in here for a while.
I step back into the hallway and close the door carefully. In between this door and the next one is a gilt-framed portrait of a man. I recognize that dark hair, those dark eyes. An ancestor of Carrson, from the late 1880s, judging by his clothing and the long watch chain at his waist.
I step closer.
The paint has faded with age, the edges blurred, but his expression hasn’t. It’s severe, unyielding. The longer I stand there, the harder it is to tear away. His gaze holds mine until I lose sense of time, and for one strange moment, I feel like if I were the right person, or said the right words, the portrait might speak to me.
Hurry up.The thought hits hard enough to break whatever hold the portrait has on me. I jolt back, the air rushing in again, aware again of where I am and what I’m doing.
I turn to the next door. The room is identical to the first. A bedroom. The same furniture. The same air of abandonment.
I glance around, confused. I know men live in this house. I saw them at that party, but where? On another floor? Is Carrson the only one here?
I file the question away for later and go to the third door, knowing before I even touch it that this one is important.
It’s the doorknob.
