Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
At one point, I found myself stymied by a locked door. Taking a step back, I stared at it, wondering why that door of all doors was locked. An entrance to a secret passageway? No, it couldn’t be. It was right out in the open.
Yet it was locked.
“Probably where the family stashes their valuable antiques,” I said to myself, but my mind kept snagging on the pricey paintings I’d spotted on the walls. Then again, perhaps Darcie was so rich that the ones on the walls weren’t pricey in comparison.
I jiggled the door once again, even considered trying to pick the lock, but the closest I’d ever come to picking a lock was seeing it done on the television screen. I took a photograph of the door instead, the wood dark but with a gloss to it that said it had been cleaned prior to our visit.
I was about to walk away when something made me bend down, peer through the keyhole. It was an older type with a lot more open space than a more modern keyhole.
Rows of books on the wall.
Papers on the floor.
I contorted this way and that—enough to work out that the room was anchored by a large desk, and that papers sat literally everywhere.
A study.
Rubbing my lower back, I rose. And thought about Clara’s diary entry, the one that had spoken about her husband’s “secret room.” Could this be that room? But if so, why keep it locked up like a shrine?
Or maybe, it’s out of superstition that the evil within would escape.
Chilled, I moved on. I’d ask Darcie about it. Why not? Maybe it was nothing sinister. Might even be something as sad as that the office was one her parents had used while down here. An office she hadn’t had the heart to tidy up.
After all, she hadn’t exactly been complimentary about Blake Shepherd. I couldn’t see her preserving his papers or treating his study like a historical artifact.
When a chill rippled up my body again, I realized it wasn’t only because of the ghostly echoes in this building. My toes had begun to go numb. The temperature had dropped precipitously with the snow and not only wasn’t I dressed for it, I was still wet.
My stomach rumbled.
Glancing at my watch, I saw that I’d been wandering around for three hours. No wonder. At least I’d managed to wander into a vaguely familiar area, and now aimed myself in the direction of the living area and our rooms.
I emerged into a section I knew well not too much walking later—near the door to the wine cellar. Remembering to avoid looking at the painting with the obliterated faces, I carried on.
Right past the tapestry that hid the entrance to the secret passageway.
I paused, half tempted to take the shortcut, but I couldn’t get the image of Darcie’s crumpled form out of my head. Would anyone think to look for me in the passageway should I have an accident?
Or what if someone else, that elusive ninth person, was already in there?
Tugging my outdoor jacket more tightly around myself, I walked on. Until at last, my eyes sensed a glow on the polished wood of the floor—a spillover of the light from the living area. I could also smell cocoa in the air, along with what I was certain was fresh baking.
Deciding to grab a mug of cocoa to take upstairs with me, I was smiling as I passed the staircase.
Someone yelled—not a scream. A yell of surprise, of shock.
The thud when it came was loud and somehow “thick.”
It was followed by the crash of glass.
32
My eyes locked on Phoenix’s crumpled form.
He lay broken against the wall opposite the bottom of the stairs. Glass shards from the fallen painting cut slices into the skin of his face, the blood beading and spilling over with excruciating slowness, but Phoenix wasn’t crying or yelling.
Phoenix wouldn’t be doing anything ever again.
Not with his neck at that angle, his eyes staring unblinking into nothingness.
“Nix! Nix!” Vansi’s anguished cry jolting me into motion, I raced forward.
Suddenly, it seemed everyone else was on the scene at once. Grace arrived from the direction of the kitchen, while Vansi ran down the staircase and Aaron and Ash erupted from the living room.
“What happened?” a wild-eyed Aaron demanded as Vansi attempted to take her husband’s pulse.
“I don’t know.” I looked up at the steep incline of the stairs. “I was still behind the stairs when he fell. I saw him hit the wall.”
“That stupid rug.” Grace’s voice wobbled. “He must’ve tripped.”
“No, I rolled that up,” I reminded them.
“Vansi was up there with him. She’ll know.” Ash, talking to Darcie.
She hovered in the doorway to the living room, her eyes huge and sunken.
“Nix, please, wake up. Please.”
I knelt beside my best friend, putting my arm around her shoulders. “He’s gone, V.” I couldn’t make myself look at Phoenix’s shocked and broken face, was suddenly piercingly aware that he’d been my friend. A lost friend, but a friend nonetheless.