The paint can’t cover the dip still left in the board. I touch my fingertips to it.
“Then he’s here, too.”
Chapter Three
“I didn’t think I would ever want to come back here,” I say, leaning back against the porch support.
“Why did you?” Xavier asks.
“I told you. For him,” I say. “It’s the anniversary of his death.”
After his breakdown just before Halloween, I thought he would understand. But the way he’s looking at me feels as if he can’t get his mind in that space. The truth is, I never know with Xavier. I don’t know what he sees when he looks at me, or what he hears when I speak. But I’m learning. We all are.
“You could have gone to his grave,” he says.
“You didn’t go to Andrew’s,” I point out. “You went to an abandoned amusement park.”
“Does this place bring you peace?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. But it keeps calling me back.”
“How about him?”
“Elliot was here for me,” I say. “He was protecting me.”
“Now you’re protecting him,” he says.
My heart aches, a sharp pain going through the center of my chest. I nod and look down at the porch. The sun has long since dropped down below the horizon. The hazy glow from the porch light creates a pool in the center of the wood. It rolls down the steps before fading into the edge of darkness coming up from the woods.
It’s a brighter light than last time I was here. After Anson was able to get into the cabin while I was here, Clancy went to great lengths to make this place safer. In each of the corners over my head a tiny camera trained on the front door ensures every person who climbs the front steps is recorded. I can’t see them, but I’m sure there are others.
“Let’s go inside,” Sam says. “Unless you don’t want to. I’m sure Myrna has vacancies. We can stay there.”
I climb to my feet. Part of me feels as if I should be crying. Or at least feeling that sting in my eyes. Something more than the crushing pressure in the middle of my chest. But maybe there’s a limit on how many tears you can cry for any particular place, and I’ve just run out for the cabin in the woods of Feathered Nest.
“No, I came here for this. I slept here the night he died, and I will be here tonight,” I say.
Just as Clancy promised, the keys are waiting for me in the mailbox attached to the wall of the cabin beside the front door. I use them to unlock the door and we step inside. Every time I come in here, it’s like going back to that first night.
It’s no different than it was when I first arrived in Feathered Nest on the undercover assignment I thought was going to revive my career and get me off desk duty, where I had landed myself. That night I drove a beat-up rental car left for me in an empty parking lot outside the train station and wound up here. At first, I thought it was a mistake, but Creagan assured me it was the right spot.
The furniture is the same. The quilt draped across the back of the chair gives me a bit of a sick feeling but is also oddly comforting. I won’t touch it. That can just stay right there, and I’ll be happy to curl up with the blankets I brought from home.
But something about its still being there makes me feel more grounded. It’s a reminder of the type of humanity people sometimes forget exists. That bit of good and tenderness that can exist in even what seems like the worst and darkest. Reminders like that help me to keep my head on straight. They stopped me from spiraling into misery and getting taken over by bitterness.
We separate into our bedrooms, and I grab pajamas out of my suitcase to bring into the bathroom. I shower off the remnants of the corn maze and go into the living room to curl up on the couch. Xavier is sitting at the other end, reading.
“Where’s Dean?” I ask.
“Physically?” he asks without looking up.
“Yes,” I say.
“In his room. He’s unpacking and said he wants to take a shower.”
“Well, Sam’s in there now, so unless he wants to get really cozy with him, he’s going to have to wait a bit,” I comment.
Xavier shrugs. “It would be environmentally responsible.”
I tuck that away as viable reasoning and stand back up. Wrapping my blanket around myself to ward off the chill, I walk over to the built-in bookshelves along the back wall and browse through the titles.
“This is why I love books,” I say a couple minutes later when I’ve chosen an old favorite and I’m curled back up on the couch.
“The cover art?” Xavier asks.
I glance at it. “No. But that’s a nice detail, too. I like that I can depend on it. It’s the exact same every time. Can’t use up a book.”
“Sure, you can,” he says. “Electronic copies of library books are used up.”
“Okay, yes,” I say. “Once you’ve gotten through your borrowing time, they disappear. But they still exist. And you can borrow them again, and they’ll be the same thing.”
“They won’t be the same,” Xavier says. “You can read a book over and over, and it’ll be different every time. It relies on the moment you read it. Just like every breath you take in is not the same. Every time you blink is not the same. Why do you kiss Sam?”
“Because I love him,” I raise an eyebrow, attempting to follow the detour in the conversation.
“Is every kiss the same?”
“No.”
“Right. Because
