Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Without thinking, I slip the paper under my top, just as , a brown-haired man with a sharply defined jawline emerges from the trapdoor. He’s tall and thin, and when he takes the final step, he has to stoop to avoid his head cracking into the rafters.
“Did Grace say you could come up here?”
Shit. I’m about to get fired, and my car is out of gas. What am I going to do? I can’t go back to Neil. But if I call a friend, I’ll be sucked right back into his orbit. I can already feel the gravitational pull back into that life.
I can’t let that happen.
“Sorry, I was just—”
He raises his eyebrows, a faint smile on your lips. “I feel like you started that sentence before you knew where it would end.”
I can’t seem to speak.
“I think ‘being nosy’ might be the right way to put it. What do you think?”
“Better than snooping? But I was actually following the cat.”
To my surprise, he laughs.
“Ah, that old excuse.” He crosses the room and holds out his hand. I take it, and he holds it tight. I have the weird thought that maybe he’s about to kiss it, but instead, he maintains eye contact until I feel myself blush. “You must be Brie.”
“Professor—” I catch myself. “Assistant Professor Little?”
“Assistant!” He hoots, and I see a row of perfect white teeth.
“That is, unfortunately, correct. Though hopefully not for much longer. But call me Bradley. I hate all that hierarchical bullshit. It drives me up the wall.” He drops my hand and points to the stairs.
“Better get out of here. Grace doesn’t like anyone coming up, including me.
That’s why she’s kept the stairs like that.
She needs perfect privacy to imagine her next murder.
It’s not working very well, though, because she hasn’t written a book in five years.
But that’s why she’s got all this gruesome stuff in here.
It’s a perverse sort of inspiration, I guess. ”
“Yes.” I glance around the room. “It’s very intense.”
“That’s the right word. I’ve always thought it must be a strange feeling, having all these dark stories swirling around your head.
It must be like having the real world and the imagined one all mixed up.
I think, for her, the imagined world is much more important.
It’s an unusual psychology. You’re not a writer, are you? ”
“No. Not in the slightest,” I say, taking the stairs backwards like a ladder. “I’m not any kind of artist. I studied birds at college. Zoology.”
“A scientist! Fantastic. We need a dose of rationality around here. There’s not much about Pine Ridge that you’d call strictly logical.
” He follows me down, cursing as he knocks his head.
“I hate going up there. So claustrophobic, don’t you think?
It’s like a prison. You could lock someone up there, and no one would ever know. ”
“What about the window?”
“Hrm, you’d have to board that up first.”
“And soundproof it,” I add. “What if you had guests?”
“A psychopath wouldn’t have guests. But if they did, they’d just give her sleeping pills. Crushed into her food.”
“I was thinking of Jane Eyre,” I say.
“Yes, though that would make Grace a prisoner, wouldn’t it? I’m not sure I have the power to force Grace to do anything.”
“Why is it always a her?” I ask as he leads me down to the ground floor. “Why not a he?”
“It’s always a her. And this is one part of the patriarchy I can live with, by the way. I don’t want to be locked up in an attic. Or a basement.”
“I don’t think that happens very often,” I note. “It’s a bit of a cliché.”
“Don’t let my wife hear you say that! Her first book featured a woman in a basement.
” He leads me to the front door, and it’s only then that I realize I’m being subtly, politely, kicked out of the house.
“Did you mention birds? ‘The birds around me hopped and played, their thoughts I cannot measure.’ Don’t suppose you’ve heard that one? I was teaching it the other day.”
When I shake my head, he raises his finger.
“Wait here.” A few seconds later, he returns with a tattered copy of Wordsworth’s Prelude.
“This is my entire life. I wrote my master’s thesis on this book, my doctorate, and my first book.
It’s strange to have your entire life pegged to interpreting the work of a single dead Englishman. ”
“Thanks. I’ll read it,” I say weakly. “I don’t usually like poetry.”
“It’s not about liking. Or even loving.” As he looks down at me, I feel he should have a pair of spectacles balanced on the edge of his nose. “It’s about the complete and utter transformation of your soul.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone speak so seriously or pretentiously about a book. I wait for Bradley to smile, but he doesn’t. He’s staring at me again, without a trace of sarcasm, and it’s disarming.
“You must be a good teacher,” I say.
At the moment, the cat comes trotting up behind me. Bradley kneels and scratches its chin, eliciting an alarmingly loud purr. “I’m the best. Literally. I don’t mean to brag, but—”
“But you just did.”
He laughs again. This is a person who laughs easily, I think. How strange that he ended up with Grace, who has such a different, almost opposite energy. He’s a golden retriever, while she’s more like a sphynx.
“The truth is, no one cares about teaching. It’s all about reputation in the academy.
” He leads me down the steps to the driveway.
“I’m facing tenure review right now, in fact.
Would you believe it? I’m nearly forty and still being graded like an undergraduate.
It’s humiliating. And if they say no, the entire house of cards collapses.
Twenty years of grind, subservience, and sucking up—all for nothing. ”
“That’s an exaggeration,” I say. “You can still teach.”
“With no job security. Or I can become a high school teacher and live on food stamps.”
“Isn’t Grace—” I begin, before stopping. Once more, I feel like I’ve gone out on a limb. But Bradley doesn’t seem to mind.
“A famous novelist? She is. But fame doesn’t pay the bills.
She only published one book. It did well, but it’s been years.
The royalties are barely enough to keep the lights on.
” He laughs again. “If they reject me, I’ll probably lose my mind.
Do something shocking. Maybe join a cult to replace the one that’s kicking me out. ”
“Or lock your wife in the attic?”
He doesn’t immediately respond, and I feel a blush forming around my neck. What am I doing? This man is my boss, and I’ve already done and said enough to get fired three times over.
“Always an option, I suppose,” he says eventually. “Don’t think I’m built for that, though. I’m more the self-flagellating type. Grace might lock me up. What a plot twist that would be.”
We soon arrive at my dilapidated cottage.
“Hey, are you able to take out the shutters?” I ask. “They seem to be nailed shut.”
“Ah, no-can-do,” he says, slowly shaking his head.
“The wood is rotting, so if I try to take out the nails, the shutters themselves might break apart. We’d need to replace them all.
Besides, it keeps the weather out. I know it seems nice now, but we do get some storms out here.
And smoke from wildfires from time to time. ”
Given the size of the homestead, I’d think he could afford to replace them, but I keep this to myself. I’ll just have to get used to my tomb.
“And you never said what you wanted me to do. Do you want me to clean the house? It doesn’t seem to need it.”
“I suppose you performed a thorough inspection.” He looks at me quizzically, as if this were the first time he’d actually thought about what I’d do all day. “Let’s start with weeding out the vegetable garden. Grace wants us to be self-sufficient.”
“And supplies? Grace said you would bring some stuff over.”
“Come to dinner tonight, and you can take it back after.” He holds out his hand again and pulls me into a hug. His right hand rests firmly on the small of my back, and I can feel his muscles through his shirt. “I’m so happy you’re here. Welcome, Brie.”
I’m waiting for him to step away when I hear shots ring out, and I fall to the floor with a scream.