24. Atlas
24
ATLAS
E lena’s shivering.
“Come inside,” I say, wrapping my arm around her and drawing her toward the door.
But she hesitates, looking nervously up toward the bank of dark windows.
“His room is on the other side,” I remind her.
“I know,” Elena says, but her voice is tight and nervous anyway.
I hate that she’s afraid to be seen with me. I hate that she’s afraid at all.
She shouldn’t belong to him. It’s wrong. He’s wrong for her.
As we enter the hotel, Elena grows stiffer and tighter, her shoulders hunching, her eyes widening as she startles at every creak and groan of the ancient walls.
“Lorne’s up in his room,” I tell her. “He went up after dinner.”
“What if he came down, though?” Elena whispers. “While we were in the garden?”
It’s one o’clock in the morning. The hotel is silent, the lights dimmed. There’s no one around. But Elena’s only growing more frightened.
“I should go to bed,” she says. “It’s late.”
“Stay with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Tomorrow, then.” I won’t let go of her hand until I know when I can see her again. Not in passing, in the lobby, at the restaurant…I need to know when we’ll be alone together. When I can touch her again.
Elena hesitates at the foot of the stairs, biting at her lips. She’s tense with anxiety, but she clings to my hand just as much as I’m holding on to her.
“All right then,” she says, color rushing into her cheeks. “Tomorrow night. In the darkroom.”
She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me again, there in the open where anyone could see, if anyone else were awake. But the only witness is the slowly ticking grandfather clock.
When she lets go of me, she gazes up at me with those wild blue eyes, clear as a winter’s sky.
“Thank you, Atlas,” she murmurs and kisses me once more, softly. “For…you know.”
“Anytime,” I say.
And I absolutely mean it.
Once Elena is back up in her room, I still can’t sleep.
The fear on her face concerned me more than the ugliest expressions I’ve caught from Lorne. I suspected that the author had a dark side. But Elena is the one engaged to him. She’s experienced that dark side leaking out. And whether she’ll admit it to herself or not, Elena knows even better than I do what kind of person her fiancé really is.
She looks like a hunted creature.
The problem is…she’s already fallen into his trap. She’s already captured.
It’s up to me to set her free.
Which means I’ve got to figure out exactly what kind of trap this is. And what breed of hunter I’m dealing with.
I’ve started reading Lorne’s books, picked up this morning at the Books n’ Brews six doors down. An entire table was covered in tall, shiny stacks, probably five times more books than any other author in the store.
Which seemed impressive, at first.
But then I thought, No, that’s strange. That’s a huge pile of books.
I asked the clerk, “Do you sell many of these?”
“Not really.” He made a snorting sound. “I mean, some. But not as many as he brings in every week.”
Interesting.
I scooped up all seven titles. “I’ll help you out.”
It seemed to confirm something I’d heard before. Only a rumor, but from a friend with no reason to lie. No reason I knew about, anyway. You can never be entirely certain what hides inside a human heart…or their history.
Take Lorne, for instance. He’s lived in Grimstone almost all his life. But he did leave for eleven years. When he came back, he had a young daughter. And he’d become a wildly successful author, apparently, with enough money to immediately start construction on the most grandiose private property Grimstone has ever known.
Grimstone has its share of hidden jewels, tucked away deep in its hills. Places few people have seen besides their owners. My parents’ house used to be exactly that sort of place.
But Lorne’s property would outshine them all. Or so it seemed at first.
He kept changing contractors and firing architects. My brother’s friend Tom Turner was one of those contractors. He told me the plans made no sense and the orders were bizarre.
I find that interesting, too.
Three pieces of information that all seem to indicate the same thing.
One means nothing. Two could be coincidence. But three…three is a pattern.
And then there are Lorne’s books. I’ve already skimmed the first two. They’re simple, easy to read, with a clever twist at the end. But I’ve noticed another pattern.
I know it’s fiction. And in fiction, it’s foolish to assume that an author is promoting their own views or inserting their own personality. But I can’t help hearing Lorne Ronson’s voice on every page, oozing out of his characters. The good ones, the bad ones, and especially, the very, very bad ones.
And maybe that wouldn’t be so terrible…except for the fact that Lorne Ronson writes very dark books. And very dark things happen to his heroines. Sometimes they don’t survive.
So far, the odds seem to be about fifty-fifty. Whether the heroine lives or dies doesn’t seem to matter much to the author—the tone of the ending is much the same either way. All that matters is what happens to his hero.
I keep trying to figure out what happened to Lorne’s wife. There’s not a lot of information online. But what I found is suspicious.
Carbon Monoxide Leak in Clark County Kills Wife of Local Author. 8-Year-Old Daughter Spared.
I don’t want to jump to conclusions. After all, I’ve got a brother whose first wife died in a suspicious way, and I’m ninety-eight percent sure he didn’t kill her even though ninety-eight percent of people around here think he did.
So I’d like to give Lorne the benefit of the doubt.
But Ivy’s nine years old right now. And that article is from December of last year. Which means that Lorne’s wife has been dead less than a year, and he’s already got a ring on Elena’s finger. And a wedding date that he’s rushing as fast as he can.
What’s the hurry, exactly?
I don’t think the reason is the same for Lorne as it is for Elena.
I toss and turn on the huge bed in my cave of a room, the heavy fur blankets already kicked onto the floor. It’s usually as cold as a refrigerator in here, in this suspended stone slab that hangs out over the ocean, which is exactly how I like it. But tonight, it’s stuffy even in here.
Amy took over an hour ago. I’m supposed to be sleeping. But I can’t.
Something’s wrong. I can feel it.
Something’s wrong with Lorne. And his fucked-up castle. I need to drive out there again to see it.
My phone buzzes next to the bed. I snatch it up, heart leaping when I see an unfamiliar number.
Elena’s voice comes through the line, tight and terrified.
“ Atlas…there’s someone in my room!”