19. Daisy
Chapter 19
Daisy
W e crashed back to reality hard on Sunday by putting in a full day of work on the house. I was avoiding the kitchen — I didn’t have the bandwidth for such a huge upheaval — but we were running out of other things to do. It was all finishing touches now, and Otis spent the day installing some of the new light fixtures stacked in boxes around the house while Wolf replaced molding that had been replicated by a restorer in the city.
Decorative molding in the mid-1800s was made out of plaster, not wood, and Wolf was uniquely good at handling it, his musician’s fingers skillfully installing the delicate pieces that had been created out of custom molds.
My house budget — dwindling at a rapid rate — had taken a hit with the decision to have the moldings restored to match the original but I’d compromised in other places to make it happen. I wanted the house returned to its former glory, wanted it to be whole even if I wasn’t quite feeling that way yet.
I spent the day on the third floor covering holes in the walls with fresh plaster in the last of the rooms that needed it.
I was a mess by the time I was done, and I took a shower, then had takeout Chinese with Wolf and Otis before heading to bed early while they played video games. I was exhausted but I still spent some time with Blake’s phone — a nightly ritual since I’d gotten it back — before sleep.
So far I hadn’t found anything useful, just a bunch of pictures of him and the Beasts in happier times and texts between them weeks before the final tense exchange on the day of the party.
If I hadn’t already known what had happened, his phone would have told me something was wrong between them. They hadn’t been texting regularly for months before his death, and the last pictures of them together were almost a year before his murder.
My eyelids were drooping by the time I finally set the phone aside with a frustrated sigh. Wolf and Otis had told me about their latest visit to see Aloha, but I had no idea how to even begin looking for Blake’s email, let alone his passwords. I could go back to my dad’s house and look for the alleged missing phone, but the thought was overwhelming. I was starting to feel like we were never going to find out who was behind the kidnapping of the girls, and every day I held my breath, waiting for more breaking news that another girl had been kidnapped.
The police gave a press conference every time someone went missing. There were posters and search parties, pleas from family and friends if the girls had them.
But the boundaries between cities, towns, and villages cut through mountains and rivers, and the girls had been taken from a variety of areas around Blackwell Falls. Three different police departments were involved in the investigations, all of them more accustomed to dealing with brawls at one of the dive bars in Southside or a fender bender on one of the mountain roads than a missing person.
Eventually the missing girls fell into the background, the public moving on to the next tragedy.
I sank into my bed with a sigh. I loved sleeping with Wolf and Otis, but our all-night fuckfest at the inn and work on the house had caught up with me.
I woke up hours later sandwiched between Wolf and Otis, both sound asleep. The house was quiet, cool air leaking in from the cracked window. My heart was beating strangely fast, like I’d woken from a bad dream even though I didn’t remember having one.
I listened, feeling like I was missing something, but the house was quiet.
I waited for my breathing to return to normal, then lay in the dark, trying to settle back into sleep.
Ten minutes later, I knew it was a lost cause. I was awake.
I climbed over Otis since he was the soundest sleeper.
“You okay, sunshine?”
I turned around and found Wolf looking at me through the dark.
“I’m good,” I said. “I think I’m going to make some tea.”
“Want company?” he asked.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
“Let me know if you change your mind. I’m here.”
The words caught me by surprise.
I’m here.
Two simple words and yet I hadn’t realized until I’d moved in with the Beasts that I’d been alone before. Not alone alone — my dad had been there, and Ruth — but I hadn’t felt close to my dad in ages, if ever, and Ruth had been a kid. It had felt like it was my job to be strong for her.
But Wolf and Otis — and Jace before he’d died — had always been there for me, whether for a cup of tea in the middle of the night or dragging me back to the land of the living when I’d fallen so far into my depression that I hadn’t seen a way out.
They also knew when to leave me alone, and I was glad that Wolf let me go. Maybe it was the fact that I’d been looking at Blake’s phone right before I went to sleep, or maybe it was the fact that I’d been woken up out of a dead sleep, but I felt unsettled. I didn’t want to make small talk over late-night tea.
I let myself out of the room and made my way to the back staircase, the one servants had used to ferry food up and down the stairs when the house was first built. It was strange to think about a time when my mom’s family had lived here with a full staff of servants occupying the third floor, waiting on them hand and foot, but there was nothing I could do about that now.
Life was weird. Time was weird. Progress was weird.
The old grandfather clock ticked in the downstairs hall, the pendulum swinging steadily back and forth. I’d gotten used to its on-the-hour chime, its rhythmic passing of time.
I didn’t bother turning the light on in the kitchen. The moon was full, casting enough of a glow that I could easily make my way around the familiar kitchen. It was hard to remember a time when the house had seemed foreign, my three roommates like enemies.
I filled the kettle and set it on the stove, then pulled a mug from the cupboard. I hunted through our supply of tea while I waited for the water to boil, finally settling on chamomile lavender from Cassie’s. She was always trying new teas in the coffee shop and it had been one of my favorites.
The kettle started to whistle and I turned it off fast, before it could wake up Wolf or (more unlikely) Otis. I filled my cup and replaced the kettle on the stove. I was turning back to my cup when something caught my eye in the shadows of the kitchen.
I froze. Adrenaline flooded my body. My heart beat wildly in my chest.
Someone was there. I could barely make out the form, a darker smudge in the shadows.
But it was there.
I gripped the edge of the counter. I’d already replaced the kettle on the stove. I had nothing to use as a weapon except the measly cup of tea in front of me. Hot, but not exactly a deadly weapon.
“Who’s… who’s there?” My voice sounded stronger than I felt. “I’m not alone here.”
I’m not alone here.
It was true. Wolf and Otis were upstairs. One or both of them would come running at the first sign of commotion.
The shadow shifted and I braced myself for… I don’t know, an attack, I guess.
“You can leave.” Now there was a note of fear in my voice. A note of desperation. “I haven’t seen your face.”
There was a beat of silence before the voice, deep and familiar, came from the shadows. “I’m not going to leave, princess.”
And then the figure stepped from the shadows into the moonlight.
Shock tore through me. I shook my head. “It can’t… You can’t…”
His face was caressed by both the light and shadow, as familiar as my own because I’d touched that face, had traced it with my fingers, had touched it with my lips.
It was Jace.