Chapter Six
SIX
Nicole
From the front door that faced the water, which rippled in the May wind, Nicole raised a hand to shade her eyes and watched the Tesla hum out of the driveway.
“We’re doing a boat tour of the islands today,” Mikko had explained, while Eva, her dark hair parted clean down the middle, dug at the black pebbled driveway with the toe of her shoe. “Let me know when you’re done and I’ll come to lock up.”
Nicole promised she would, even though the house would still be empty. There was nothing to protect.
Once Mikko and Eva were gone, Nicole unloaded her supplies from the car and got to work.
She took cleaning seriously. Her mother had been the same way.
Nicole’s childhood home in Chippewa Bay, which had been her half-sister Maureen’s home too, was an outdated 70s bungalow built with cheap materials and even cheaper carpeting, but it had always been spotless.
Her mother never said as much, but Nicole thought it might have been her way of giving her children the best life she could.
Making up for the family’s shortcomings, most notably the missing dads.
Nicole did the same thing for her girls.
Their house, in the town of Theresa, was showing its age, roof shedding shingles like snakeskin and the appliances rusty from decades of use.
She and Woody had bought it before Blair was born, skimping on a newer build and bigger yard for the sake of the mini putt business.
Now that they were older, she knew the girls were embarrassed about the state of their home, even if they were too polite to say it.
Nicole’s cleaning obsession was about control.
She had no dominion over her fate, couldn’t even manage her own fucking husband, but at least she could make sure her girls always came home to a house that was polished, scented, safe.
She started in the master bedroom, ready to tackle the house floor by floor. The moving truck was coming the next morning, and Nicole had promised Mikko a clean slate. It was what she had to deliver if she wanted to make sure he asked her back.
As she cleaned, Nicole opened the nearest window to let in some air.
It felt fresh and faintly damp, and when she drew a breath, she tasted the herbal tang of the river.
She could hear the distant drone of motorboats.
The sky heaved with clouds. They were the billowy sort that oscillated between pristine white and storm-gray, the kind that made shapes if you were paying attention.
Spring storms on the river could be as vicious as the autumn ones, and offered little in the way of warning.
Crossing the room to the closet, she opened the door and stepped inside to find the light had been left on, illuminating empty rods and still more built-ins.
No safe, though. Good to know. She had hoped to find some luggage she could search through, or better still a briefcase, but the closet floor was bare.
Back at the window, she scrubbed tacky residue from the glass. When she shifted her weight, her toe met the side of her cleaning bucket, the clatter ringing out like a gong. In the massive empty bedroom, every sound had power, every echo heft.
It was hard not to think how much money Mikko must have spent on renovations and add-ons, what kind of investment it had taken to transform the farmhouse into this.
It didn’t have the feel of a typical summer home in the Thousand Islands, lacked the Adirondack flair so common in Upstate New York.
That kind of thing was happening more often lately, people modernizing old homes in a style that, in Nicole’s opinion, didn’t quite fit.
She hadn’t delved too deeply into Mikko’s career, but whatever he’d accomplished on the ice, it had earned him a goddamn fortune.
She had just finished dusting the sconces that would soon flank a king-size bed when the thump of a door on the floor below gave Nicole a jolt.
Had Mikko forgotten something? Or Eva? They’d left less than an hour ago, and she knew the boat tour was far longer than that.
The bedroom faced the back of the house, so she couldn’t see the driveway.
She gave the sky another glance. It did look as though it could storm, and while the tour boats ran rain or shine, it was possible Mikko had reconsidered. Put off the outing for another day.
A second noise sounded below.
A bead of dread, cold as river water, slid down Nicole’s back.
The North Country wind was intense. Some of the trees, especially those on the islands, grew crooked and witchy, pressed into submission by the squalls.
If Mikko or Eva had left a window open downstairs, that might account for the sound.
But the noise she’d just heard was different.
The sticky-slow creak of a foot on a stair.
Burglaries weren’t common in the Thousand Islands.
The area was just too remote. The few break-ins she’d heard about had been targeted acts of intimidation or revenge.
It’s an old house, she told herself. Probably just the bones settling.
For the first time, though, she registered the size of the property.
The isolation of the homes on the peninsula, which ended at Tibbetts Point Lighthouse and the lake.
“Hello?” She said it tentatively, straining to listen. Hoping to hear Mikko’s chipper voice and an apology for startling her. When her call yielded no reply, Nicole tried again. Construction just ended a few days ago. Could it be a worker down there, a forgotten toolbelt bringing them back?
Nicole closed the window and crept toward the bedroom door.
From the doorway at the top of the stairs, she had a clear view of the first-floor hall.
No shadows flickered on the light wood flooring.
The noises had stopped. It’s nothing, she told herself, letting the affirmation soothe her like a balm as, heart racing, she slowly made her way downstairs.
Through the sliding glass doors of the great room, Nicole could see the clouds had darkened to the color of campfire ash. She checked the dining room. The powder room. The study.
The main floor was empty, all of the doors and windows shut tight.
In the bright-white empty kitchen, she pivoted slowly to take in the space.
There was a film of dust on every surface, the fine white particles she knew had come from sheetrock work.
Mikko’s contractor had reconfigured the whole first floor to create the open concept living space, though Nicole saw no evidence of incongruent hardwood or inconsistent trim.
Terry’s a magician, Stacy said about the guy who’d done the renovation work. She’d referred him to Mikko too.
Old homes made noises, even when given a sleek new skin.
Nicole was about to head back upstairs to her dust rag and mop when she noticed the bar that connected the kitchen with the great room.
A rare original feature, it had been updated with black paint so glossy it looked wet, and finished with a slab of gray marble.
It was the countertop that caught her eye, the particles on the marble disturbed.
Her mouth hung loose as a chill rolled through her body.
Finger-thick lines had been carved into the dust. She’d passed this nook an hour ago, on her way upstairs to the bedroom. She remembered admiring the antique built-in.
Now, the dust displayed two words.
I’m watching.
Nicole’s gaze slid to the house’s front windows, and the empty pebbled driveway outside. No car, no couple.
There was no one else at all.