Page 4 of Investigation of a Quest

“Ruby East,” Bel whispered.

“What?”

“Her name. Ruby East.”

“You knew her?”

“No,” Bel said. “She randomly showed up, introduced herself, and then there was blood on my face.”

“So you don’t know why she was here?” Griffin asked, and Bel shook her head. “No one else recognized her, so they have no idea why she was on the property. Did she say anything?”

Bel shook her head again.

“Did you see what happened?” he asked.

She shook her head for the third time, unable to erase the burned images of those red heels from her memory. “She was saying her name, and then there were her shoes.”

“I’m so sorry.” Griffin tightened his grip on her fingers. “But I’m glad you aren’t hurt.”

Bel stared down at where he clutched her like a terrified father, and she pulled her hands free. She hadn’t spoken to this man who loved her in months, and she didn’t want his sympathy. Not when she didn’t deserve it.

“I’ll have a deputy drive you home,” Griffin said, downplaying his rejection. “I don’t want you behind the wheel.”

Bel nodded, and he helped her to her SUV. “Yates!” he called. “Drive Emerson home and have a squad car follow to pick you up.”

“Yes, sir.” The deputy jumped at the chance to escape the macabre scene, and with a sympathetic glance that was half wary of the woman who’d abandoned their station, he climbed into her driver’s seat. They rode in silence, but when he offered to help her inside her cabin, Bel ignored him and floated in oblivion through her front door. She barely noticed Cerberus’ greeting as she drifted through the numbness to her bathroom, but when she saw her morbid reflection staring back at her in the mirror, her heart rate doubled. Haze evaporated; sheer panic replaced the apathy, and she tore her bloody clothes off and stormed into the shower without waiting for it to warm. She cranked the cold water to scalding, and with hysterical fingers, she grabbed the soap and started scrubbing. No matter how much scented body wash she lathered on her skin, all she could smell was the metallic decay of death, so she kept scrubbing until her cheeks burned from the friction.

“Isobel?” Eamon’s voice slammed into the bathroom a second before his mass burst through the door, and without so much as pausing to remove his shoes, he barged into the shower fully dressed. “Isobel, are you⁠—?”

The minute his hands grabbed her shoulders, she screamed, her knees giving out. Eamon caught her before she cracked her skull on the tub, and he pulled her convulsing body into his lap. He held her, expensive suit ruined by the steaming soap and water, and he didn’t let go as she wailed. He whispered soothing words, but she didn’t hear a single thing he said. All she saw were ruby-red shoes and Triton’s head snapping backward as she punched a bullet through his brain.

Eamon knew Bel wasn’t in bed before he even opened his eyes. His heightened senses felt the coolness of the pillow beside his head and scented the absence of her skin beneath the sheets.

“Isobel?” He scanned the room to find her fully dressed, keys in hand, as she slid on her boots. “Where are you going?”

“Work,” she answered as if this were an ordinary weekday.

“Are you sure you’re okay to go in today?” He sat up, Cerberus’ weight trying to keep him pinned to the bed. It seemed Bel’s erratic behavior had him clinging to his spare human.

“There’s a lot to do before Halloween,” she said, an unspoken conversation passing between their eyes. She knew she wasn’t okay. She knew he was worried, and she knew fleeing the cabin would strain their relationship, but it seemed she couldn’t bring herself to face the music.

“We should talk about what happened,” Eamon pushed anyway.

“I’m going to be late.” She shut him down without so much as a goodbye and fled her house. He knew why she couldn’t wait to escape his presence. The last human she’d seen die was the man she believed she murdered, and her committee’s contest had just inflicted an inhuman death inches from her face. He didn’t need to read minds to know that her glitching brain was drawing too many parallels, or that she didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t want him to justify her actions yet again, so she’d opted to hide. Hide from him, hide from herself, hide from the world.

Eamon’s stomach knotted as he grabbed Cerberus’ thick neck for comfort. How much more of this could he endure? How much more avoidance could their relationship survive? Before long, she’d hide herself away so deeply that not even he could find her, and he’d lose her. Maybe he already had.

“Isobel?” Eamon stood in the doorway, wearing only boxer briefs and wide eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Cerberus wouldn’t sleep without you,” she said as her pitbull rushed through the mansion’s front door and aimed straight for the staircase on his way to bed. It was a blatant lie. She’d woken her dog from a snoring slumber and dragged him to the Reale Estate at two in the morning because she couldn’t sleep, but she wasn’t about to admit that. Chances are, Eamon had already figured that out, but he was gracious enough to ignore the elephant in the room and stepped aside to let her in.

After she’d run out on him that morning, he’d texted to say he was going home but would come back if she needed him. He also extended an invitation for her to sleep at his house. She did neither. She couldn’t face his sympathy, his words of encouragement. She was used to seeing dead bodies, but she would never get used to watching people die. Just that summer, she’d killed a man, and now, while working her new job that was supposed to sanitize her life, she’d watched a falling dollhouse crush a woman. She’d heard the squelching of crushed flesh, the snap of breaking bones. She’d tasted the spraying blood. She’d spent so long carefully folding herself into a too-neat box, and Ruby East’s death threatened to spill her gutted emotions all over the floor like a hack-crazy butcher. So she’d avoided her boyfriend, only to find that living without him was worse than living with his concern. So here she was at two in the morning, lying about her dog’s attachment issues.

“Well, should we follow his example?” Eamon gestured to where Cerberus had made a beeline for his bedroom, and Bel nodded. They climbed the grand staircase together, and halfway up the ornate steps, she slid her hand into his. Without missing a beat, Eamon tugged her close and picked her up, carrying her the rest of the way to his bed.

Bel slid the final piece of her costume into place with a devilish smirk and admired her reflection in the mirror. She couldn’t wait to see Eamon’s reaction to her outfit, and she prayed he found it funny and not offensive.

Days had passed since she’d appeared on his doorstep in the middle of the night, and life had returned to their new normal. Work progressed without any more accidents, and the first judging had arrived. The haunted houses would remain open to the public until Halloween, but the judges were visiting only one a day so that they could fully experience each production. The competitors’ neighbors had also committed to spreading the holiday magic, so most homes were decorated within an inch of their lives, the streets blocked off to complete the spooky parties.