Chapter 26
NORA
I clutch the map against my chest, peering through the snowy trees lining the lane we’re currently driving on. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just park back down on the road?”
Jude angles the steering wheel sharply to the right to nudge the Range Rover to the side, narrowly avoiding a boulder half-obscured in the snow. “Don’t worry, Nor. We’ve got chains on. Plus, it’s at least a couple miles up this road.”
He’s right, the walk would have been brutal.
The road down below was already winding straight up the lower part of a mountain, and this lane is even more treacherous.
It obviously hadn’t been used in ages because there was a locked gate at the bottom.
At least, it looked locked at first. There was an ancient padlock—one of those heart-shaped things with an old-fashioned keyhole in it—but it had been broken, with force it looked like.
There were dents around the keyhole, and the rusted-over locking mechanism appeared bent.
“Someone broke in before us,” Jude says, peering at the heart-shaped lock.
I swallow at the broken, battered heart, reaching my fingers up to my own chest.
“Years ago,” I say softly.
“Who?” Jude wonders out loud.
I don’t have an answer to that. Her husband? JEQ?
Griffin told us the cottage was owned by George Cleary.
But he went bankrupt a few years after Eleanor’s murder, and all his assets sold.
This was one that didn’t. “Nobody wanted it,” he said.
He told us it’s now owned by a holding company that buys up old properties and foreclosures.
“They normally flip the properties or hold them as investments—this one looks like the latter. The property taxes are paid every year, but there’s no utility service to the building. ”
“So it’s just sitting there?” I ask.
“There’s no record of anyone living there in decades, or even the company doing any assessments in the past several years,” Griff said, contemplating as he chewed his food.
This man was so different from his enthusiastic, effusive brother, it was almost comical.
“Why hasn’t it been sold?” Jude asks.
Griff took a sip of beer, his eyes on the man he was protecting across the room.
“Real estate isn’t exactly bopping in that area.
Especially not for a property twenty miles out of town, and with this kind of profile.
Way up a rocky mountain. No service. Far from any useful amenities.
The closest neighbors are a swear-to-God functioning convent a couple of miles away.
” Griff had paused. “Shit, it sounds like my kind of place. Too bad I’ve got this business to take care of, or I’d join you. ”
I had the feeling this was Griffin’s version of excited.
“So you’re saying it’s safe to do a B&E?” Jude asked, grasping my hand, which was holding a forkful of torte and halfway to my mouth, and guiding it to his instead.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, laughing. Classic Jude. Luckily, he was as generous with his food as he was sneaky with mine.
But Jude had just licked chocolate from his lip and winked. Suddenly I didn’t care about my torte anymore.
“I never advise anyone to break the law,” Griff said in answer to Jude’s question.
He threw back the last of his beer, then paused, looking in the empty glass.
“I implied that the place is effectively abandoned, the company holding on to it for land value only. Of which there isn’t much.
” He shrugs. “But who am I to stop my reckless little brother from doing anything he damn well pleases?”
So here we are, about to do a B&E on a cottage that we hope might shine more light on Eleanor and JEQ. It’s beyond far-fetched to think we’ll find anything, I know, but it would be foolish not to try now that we’re here.
Besides, Griffin dropped another zinger on us, answering the question we never thought we’d have to ask—what were we going to do if we found strong evidence George killed his wife?
“I’ve got connections with a detective back at home,” Griff told us as he pulled on his coat to go. “If you find evidence you think is compelling enough to get them to reopen the case, I’ll make sure they do.”
Now, our investigation wasn’t just for fun. We could actually see justice served for Eleanor.
And JEQ, if George had killed him too.
Up ahead now, through the trees, I see a line too straight for nature. Then another. “There!” I exclaim, my spirits suddenly leaping again. I train my camera through the windshield.
It was a long drive out here—four hours instead of the two we’d planned on because a minor rockslide had traffic blocked on the highway we set out on.
Not to mention Jude needed more than one “stretch break” and I had to find somewhere suitable to pee.
I was a little nervous we wouldn’t have enough time to get back to the resort before dark, but there were already crews on scene at the rockslide cleaning it up.
But now, all that flies from my mind. Because emerging from the trees before us is the very same cottage pictured in the photo in my hand.
“The love shack,” Jude says, grinning wildly. He didn’t seem as enthusiastic about going out here as I was, but I think that’s because he was having too much fun back in the hotel room.
I mean, I was too. More than him. But this is the whole reason we’re in Switzerland.
“It’s definitely abandoned,” I say as I zoom in on the house.
The stone walls are barely visible—they’re snaked over completely with bare brown vines, several of which still have brown leaves still twirling in the wind.
The windows are boarded over, but it looks like it was done years ago—the wood is weathered and gray, warped and chipped.
And all of it’s covered in a thick layer of snow.
I should be creeped out—the place looks like the definition of a haunted house. But for some reason, all I feel is an ache in my heart. For Eleanor and JEQ…and yes, for me and Jude too. Is this the last adventure we’ll ever go on together?
When we get out of the car I can see my breath, and there’s the scent of more snow in the air. The forecast said there’d be no more falling until tonight, but I can’t help wondering if that estimate should be bumped up.
It doesn’t matter. It’s only early afternoon, and we won’t be here more than an hour.
Unless we find anything. JEQ had a penchant for hiding items of great interest everywhere he went.
I hear Jude trying the front door, which is ridiculous, because it’s covered over with vines. But it would be ridiculous not to try it either, I guess.
“I don’t even know if it’s locked so much as jammed,” he says.
There’s a split in one of the boards at the front window—the very same one we saw the shadow of Eleanor’s lover in—and I cup my hands over the wood. But it’s too dark to see anything.
There’s a crack behind me and I whirl, my stomach jumping.
“Easy,” Jude says, laughing and holding up his hands. “You scared, Nor?”
“A little,” I admit. “You?”
“Shit yeah,” he says. Then I rise up and kiss him. A warm glow spreads over me.
“Better?” I ask when he pulls away.
“A little,” he says, grinning dopily. “Remind me why we left the hotel again?”
I narrow my eyes. “Because this is the mystery we’ve been trying to solve since quite literally the day we met.”
“Right,” he says. “Better stop kissing me then, horndog.”
I laugh, shoving him. Then I pick my camera back up. But I hesitate before hitting record again. “Jude,” I say, my breath hitching. “What if we can’t get inside?”
“We’ll get inside,” Jude says confidently.
He walks over to the side of the house, and I hit record, following him. I’m zooming in on his face when he turns to me and grins. “See?”
I go over to see what he’s looking at.
There’s the slope of a cellar door there, layered over in snow.
Both of us get down on our knees and sweep the snow from the surface, revealing a latch and a lock attached to a rusted bar spanning the width of the door. I keep filming with one hand while I grasp the lock with my other. This one holds.
“Shit,” I whisper.
But Jude’s unbothered, and it only takes me a moment to see why: he lifts the metal bar clean off the door, taking the lock with it. The hinges were completely corroded.
My heart dances in my chest. We’re going inside.
The door opens up into a root cellar. Like an actual root cellar: dirt floor and dirt walls, with roots protruding from both. It smells like damp decay, and is only about five feet in height, so both of us are hunched over—Jude more so than me.
I don’t know about Jude, but my heart is thundering in my chest.
“It’s like a horror movie down here,” I squeak. Luckily, I’ll be cutting out all this audio when I edit this footage later.
Jude reaches for my free hand. “This was your idea, Shotgun Annie.”
His voice is strained. Jude’s not a fan of horror movies.
Our only light is Jude’s phone flashlight, sweeping left and right. I follow it with my camera, telling him to go slow. There are mostly only crates down here, and ancient jars filled with black sludge.
I shiver, and I’m just starting to think there’s no way to get upstairs from here when I spot a glint up above: a latch on the ceiling, directly over Jude’s hunched shoulders.
“There!” I whisper, pointing up.
Jude has to twist his body to see, but I hear him mutter, “Thank Christ,” as he reaches up and twists it open. The trap door swings easily up, and a moment later, Jude’s upper half is gone up the opening.
“Holy shit!” he exclaims.
I lower the camera as he hoists himself up.
A moment later, I’m by myself in the basement, and suddenly, I’m terrified. “Jude!” I exclaim.
Nothing.
I don’t have a light, and the only source of it now is the faint light filtering down from the hole.
“Jude!” I cry again, my voice pitched high.
I rush to the hole, and the moment I stick my head up, Jude’s hands are under my arms, hoisting me up onto the floor.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs when we’re both up.
I lean into his chest, ashamed of how terrified I got for a minute there.
Then I look around.
The space is small and dark, but not so dark as the crawl space downstairs. Light streams in from cracks around the plywood on the windows and under the door. Otherwise, it’s dim, freezing, and dank smelling. But there’s furniture draped in sheets, just like in an old haunted house.
I can’t help shivering a little.
“Yeah,” Jude says. His voice has a little reverence in it.
“Should we look around?” I ask.
“I guess? It feels a little weird being here, knowing this is someone else’s place.”
“Technically a holding company’s,” I say. “But yeah, I agree. Let’s be quick.”
Even if we do find anything, I don’t think we’d feel right keeping it. Still, I pick up my camera and begin filming, following Jude around with his light like we did downstairs.
The main room is the biggest. The tour is quick: there’s what looks like a couch and table and chairs, something low that might be a chest, and a kitchen area with a giant wood oven and a tall structure Jude peels the sheet back from.
“A buffet,” I say of the shelves. They’re lined with plates and dishes. Somehow this evidence of someone living here—eating off those plates—makes this place more real.
Jude looks at each of them like he’s going to find something there. Then he goes to the low piece of furniture. He pulls off the sheet—it’s a chest like I thought. But inside, there’s only ancient quilts and blankets.
Jude wrinkles his nose. “Mothballs.”
“No notebooks?”
Jude gets to the bottom, then shakes his head.
Disappointment squeezes at my chest. I know it would have been too much to hope for after finding two diaries already.
I aim my camera at the other side of the cabin, where there’s a closed door.
“The bedroom,” I whisper. If this really was a love shack, would that be where JEQ and Eleanor would have holed up? I cross the floor—it’s only a few feet—and push tentatively on the wood door. It gives with a loud creak.
This room is darker than the main room—only one window, and barely a crack at the top letting light in. Most of it comes from the main room. But my eyes and camera adjust.
There’s a bed frame and chest of drawers, neither of which are covered, and a tiny iron-grill fireplace.
But on the other side of the bed there’s something that makes my breath hitch.
“Jude!” I cry out.
“Nor?” Jude comes thundering over in a few quick strides. “You okay?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “But look!” I point to the corner.
There, nestled in the corner under a wilted mobile of birds hanging from the ceiling, is a baby’s cot.