Stone lets out a sound of frustration, turns, and pulls his fist back to punch the wall. I step through the doorway, stopping him in his tracks. A myriad of emotions play over his face until he pushes past me, storming from the room. A few seconds later, the front door slams.
“What’s his problem?” I ask, pretending I didn’t hear their conversation. I don’t think any of what they just said to each other was for my benefit. Something else is going on with these notes, but I’m also not convinced it isn’t Jacobs related.
“Explaining just one of his many problems would take forever,” Wyatt says, sighing.
At first, I think he means it as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh. I drop the dustpan on the floor and go to work sweeping. Lucas and Wyatt pick up the bigger pieces of the broken lamp and rearrange things in the room, so it doesn’t look like a bomb went off. When they drag a broken cupboard outside, I wait until I hear the front door open and close, and then I run to the loose plank in the wall. I feel inside, and my fingers close around a set of keys. I let out a long sigh. My heart’s been in my throat this whole time waiting to make sure that this was still here. The one piece needed to get to my father’s most important papers. “Thank fuck,” I whisper.
I slip the keys into my pocket and continue sweeping up every last bit of glass but end up getting a big pile of dust bunnies and dirt too. It’s been ages since anyone has cleaned up in here. I quickly sweep everything into the dustpan and head to the kitchen to dump it in the trash.
It would be impossible to figure out if anyone took anything from here. My guess is they were looking for something specific and didn’t find it. In that case, it’s a damn good thing they didn’t find the keys. Though, if they did, they wouldn’t know the hiding place.
Or this could be something else entirely. Just another scare tactic like with my dorm and the letter I got in the mail.
I don’t know what they’re referring to in the last two notes though. The first said, GOOD GIRL. The second, STUPID GIRL. They’re obviously referring to me, but what exactly are they referencing? A cold shiver runs through me. If they’re picking apart my life, then they must be watching me too.
I’m so deep in thought about being watched that when the door slams behind Lucas, I jump out of my skin, a scream working its way up my throat. I stop it before I let the whole thing out, but Wyatt and Stone run back into the house as Lucas places his hands on my shoulders to calm me. “Christ,” I breathe out when I’m no longer worried I’m going to scream bloody murder.
Stone gazes at the house and walks right back out. No doubt he thinks he’s going to catch a disease just by being in here. Unless it’s the poor disease, which isn’t even a fucking thing, he’s wrong.
“There’s really not much we can do here right now,” Lucas says. “You want to go back to the house?”
I glance around the room. I can feel my father everywhere. I’m not saying I had the best childhood. Obviously, that would be a lie. But I am saying that I miss him. Being here brings me that much closer to him too. It makes me feel like he’s still alive out there somewhere, and that I have a chance to find him. I hope.
I nod, and Lucas steers me out of the house. I lean the broom against the countertop and exit, sifting in my pockets for the front door keys instead of the other. I’ll have to hide the other set of keys in my room at Jacobs Manor somewhere in case whoever is looking for treasure shit comes there next. Then again, as they’ve already pointed out, we’re much safer there than here. To think I thought about coming home when my dorm got trashed. Who knows what would’ve happened if whoever did this would’ve found me here alone.
The drive to Stone’s house is much more solemn. Even Wyatt doesn’t joke. There’s no pulling me onto his lap as punishment that wasn’t a punishment at all—for either of us—unless you count blue balls as one. Stone beats us there, pulling into his spot in the garage. Wyatt follows, parking in the other bay, and then we all get out.
“I don’t know about you,” Wyatt says, “but I don’t feel like cooking.” he lets the sentence hang in the air for a bit before he says, “Oh, that’s right. None of you assholes cook at all.” He playfully hits himself in the forehead. “I forgot who I was talking to.”
“Just use the credit card to order some pizza,” Stone says, ignoring Wyatt’s jab.
“Yes, Master,” Wyatt says. He starts walking like Quasimodo. “You know I only live to do your bidding.”
When we get in the house through the garage door, Stone apologizes. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just stressed.”
Wyatt claps him on the back. “I know, bro. Just keep the dickishness to a minimum before Dakota up and leaves us all.”
Stone tracks his gaze to me, lingering there for a moment, before he retreats further into the house, turning down the glass-lined hallway.
Wyatt goes to a drawer in the kitchen and pulls out a credit card. “What do you like on your pizza, Tits?” He smirks to himself. He’s really too proud of himself for that nickname.
Lucas speaks up. “Dakota had pizza for lunch.”
“Oh right,” Wyatt says. He grins. “That was fun, by the way. I loved seeing you stick up for yourself in front of those bitches.”
“Weren’t you just talking about shoving your dick in one of those bitches this
