Chapter Eleven
ELEVEN
Nicole
“Nicole, hello. Welcome back.”
The corners of Mikko’s mouth turned up when he opened the door and held Nicole’s gaze with eyes so clear they looked like cobalt glass. This moment, his reaction, was important. She had hoped it would be telling, but the intentions behind his smile were unreadable.
It had taken all her mettle to get in her car and drive back to the house near Tibbetts Point.
Two days had passed since her last visit, and the prospect of returning had loomed over her like a guillotine blade.
She’d hardly slept at all the previous night, lying wide-eyed on the too-soft mattress listening to Woody’s steady, unbothered breaths.
Sometime since the previous summer, the gorge that was opening between them had found its way to their bed.
They were partners now in the most formal use of the word.
Not lovers. Barely even friends. Nicole couldn’t remember what it was like to drape an arm across his body without effort, or to press herself against the wide warmth of his back.
Every day eroded their relationship a little more, like soil at the river’s sloping edge.
Nicole had bigger concerns. She needed to know whether her plan was still viable.
She needed Mikko and Eva out of the house.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t finish the other day, but … wow,” she said as she hauled her vacuum and bucket of replenished cleaning supplies through the door. “Am I in the right place?”
Mikko laughed, his bleached teeth glinting. “It’s beautiful, yeah? All it needs now is your magic touch.”
The magic, she thought, was in the way the house had been transformed.
With the furniture neatly arranged, formerly blank walls adorned with gallery-quality artwork in shades of blue and gray, the house was magnificent.
Mikko had clearly sprung for the “stress-free” delivery service, empty boxes hauled away and nothing left for him to do but arrange the knick-knacks on the mantel.
Even those were classy: a glass bird the color of a polar sea, a hammered metal fish.
The style of the home was Scandi Chic, all blond wood and shades of cream.
Nicole felt like she was in some Stockholm boutique hotel rather than small-town northern New York.
“Everything is brand new,” Mikko said, watching with haughty satisfaction as she took it all in. “Do you think you could wipe down the furniture too? We’ll leave now so you can get started—babe! You ready to go?”
“Be right down!” Eva called back.
“We’re going across the border to Kingston for the day. Text me if you finish early, yeah?”
Nicole promised that she would just as Eva appeared in the hall, a swinging curtain of hair covering her face. She barely glanced at Nicole before heading for the door.
Once again, the house was empty.
It was agonizing to pass the study without going in, especially when she saw the minimalist desk centered in the room.
There was a stack of papers pinned to its surface with a heavy glass globe, a closed laptop resting beside it, but she couldn’t risk Mikko and Eva coming back inside.
There would be time for the study later, when she was certain they were gone.
She decided to start in the master again, now staged with a low, king-size bed and long wooden dresser, the doors of which were carved to look like undulating waves.
She’d made some good progress on the walls, windows, and floor already, but she needed the house to sparkle like a cushion-cut diamond, and that meant giving everything a second pass.
There was tidying to be done now, too. Nicole’s attention trailed to the rumpled bedding and unzipped overnight bag on the floor, a bra lolling out like a black tongue.
If Mikko and Eva were slobs, all the better.
If all went well today, he’d invite her back once a week, and that was what she needed. Steady access. An in.
Snapping on a pair of rubber gloves, she took her bucket to the freestanding bathtub.
No sooner had she knelt down on the tile than Eva appeared at the door.
Seeing her up close gave Nicole a start. The circles under the woman’s eyes were as dark as fresh bruises, and her face was wan. Eva looked exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept in days.
“Oh,” said Nicole. “You’re still here.” Did that sound rude? She forced a smile as she twisted off the tap.
“Mikko had to take a call.” Eva’s voice was robotic. “I’m looking for my striped sweater. I can’t find it anywhere.”
Nicole straightened up, soapy water trickling down her arms to pool in the crooks of her elbows.
She hadn’t given the tap enough of a turn and the faucet was dripping, a rhythmic plink.
Eva wore a sundress with a cut-out that showed off her taut midriff, a style that looked European, and Nicole wondered about her background.
Was Eva from D.C., where Mikko had played hockey?
Had he met her right here in Cape Vincent?
People with money were chameleons, their clothing no more than a costume for the role they intended to play.
“Want me to help you look? I saw some clothes on the bed,” said Nicole, “or I could check the closet—”
“No! No. I’ll find something else.” Eva’s lips twisted. “We slept here last night. Did he tell you?”
“First nights in a new house are exciting.”
Eva said nothing in reply, though her eyes were shiny now, the whites laced with red.
“Can I say something, Eva?” Nicole asked it quickly, determined not to lose her nerve in the face of those blank, bloodshot eyes.
If it was Eva who’d written that message in the dust—and Nicole had her doubts that it was—she wanted to know.
To get on her good side somehow. She still didn’t know Eva’s story, whether she’d be living with Mikko full-time, but she needed the woman to see her as useful, ideally even as an ally.
Whatever it took to give Nicole as much time as possible in Mikko’s house.
“I just wanted to tell you I’m here to help,” she managed with a sheepish smile. “If I’m ever in your way or overstep at all, please let me know. It can feel weird to have a stranger in the house, but hopefully I won’t feel like a stranger for long.”
Eva was staring at the tub. The faucet released a trickle that made her jump, but her gaze remained on the porcelain.
Had Nicole come across as overbearing? She was so used to seeking out teachable moments with Blair and Alana that she sometimes got preachy.
Eva wasn’t much older than her girls, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be treated like a child.
Oh God, thought Nicole. Eva’s eyes had gone glassy, her attention shifting to the floor’s octagonal tiles.
“I want you to be here,” she said, not looking at Nicole.
“Oh. Well, good.” Part of her hoped Mikko was lurking in the bedroom, close enough to witness Eva’s approval. Drip. Drip.
“Don’t, like, feel the need to hurry or anything when you’re here. The longer you stay,” Eva said, “the better.”
Nicole cocked her head. The words were mild enough, nothing odd about the sentiment, but coupled with the blankness of Eva’s features, they blared like an alarm bell in Nicole’s ears.
With a cold sense of dread, Nicole wondered if she’d been reading the situation wrong.
Maybe it was Mikko who’d left the message. A warning that the house had eyes.
Maybe the message hadn’t been meant for Nicole at all.
“Are you OK? Do you … need help?” It was instinct, decades of life as a woman and mother to girls, that had made Nicole ask.
She hadn’t seen Mikko mistreat his girlfriend or noticed any signs of abuse, but the woman emitted an urgent, twitchy energy that made Nicole uncomfortable.
It was sounding an awful lot like Eva didn’t want to be alone with Mikko.
She didn’t answer Nicole’s question. Instead, Eva asked, “What do you think of the house?”
“The house? It’s gorgeous.”
“You’ve only spent a few hours here. It’s not enough.”
“Not enough for what?” Nicole couldn’t parse her meaning.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind,” Eva said. “Mikko doesn’t believe me, but—”
“Eva! Come on!”
The man’s voice made Eva flinch. “I have to go.” She cast one final glance at the bathtub before backing toward the door.
“What the fuck?” Nicole muttered to herself once she was gone.
The interaction had left her on edge. For a long time, she sat next to the tub, trying to work out what to do next.
She heard the front door close and then the house fell so silent that, if she strained, Nicole could hear the ice machine in the kitchen releasing a shower of cubes.
She was alone. Alone with all of Mikko’s stuff.
Those papers in his office, the laptop in plain sight.
When she got to her feet to go downstairs, she saw something that gave her pause.
A long hair, plastered to the outer edge of the tub.
Not dark and straight like Eva and Nicole’s, but curly. Bright red.
That was when she heard it. It wasn’t a creak this time, but a muffled groan. Like something heavy had shifted. It had come from the bedroom—no. It had come from the bedroom ceiling.
Nicole went to the doorway and, raising her gaze, crept across the bedroom floor.
There it was again, the unmistakable sound of movement just above her head.
For a moment there was nothing and then the noise returned, this time closer to the hall.
All of the blood had pooled in her legs, which felt heavy as stone.
In a strange, detached way, as if the danger concerned someone else, she wondered if the pressure on her chest would prove to be more than her body could bear.
Nicole came to the decision quickly. She had to get the hell out.
This wasn’t her house and she had no responsibility to protect it, especially if she was right about Mikko.
Who he was. What he’d done. She had to protect herself, for the sake of her girls, so she ran, fingers gripping the phone as she stumbled over the edge of the rug, her eyes still on the ceiling.
Her breath fluttered in her throat like a moth in a jar, wings beating in desperation as she hurried down the hall.
When she reached the landing, she lost her grip.
The phone clattered across the hardwood, landing screen-up near the stairs.
Frantic, Nicole dropped to her knees, her gaze darting once more to the ceiling.
What she saw there was a grate of decorative metal, designed to conceal a vent. She’d noticed them on the first floor too, whorls of iron in a wide paisley pattern that allowed the air to flow through.
Between the metal eddies was an eye, the white of it bright as the fresh ceiling paint.
As white as the set of clenched human teeth beneath it.