Chapter Eight
The sinking look on Josie’s face when she had abruptly stopped telling her story earlier was like a scar in Peyton’s memory.
Of course, she felt bad about it. It wasn’t like she was a soulless human being with no feelings or emotions.
It was just that when Josie had mentioned the captain’s late wife lost to the sea, Peyton had instantly left her body, and detached herself from all the pain worming back into her chest that was building up like a pressure cooker.
Sorel wasn’t dead, and she hadn’t technically been her wife, but she most certainly was lost to the sea.
Peyton was just grateful Josie hadn’t continued with the story on their trek back up to the parking lot.
Not that she had a chance, anyway. The climb was steep, and they were both huffing and puffing when they finally stepped foot on level ground.
“Uh oh,” said Josie from a few steps ahead. The woman stopped dead in her tracks, her shoulders tensing, rising to her ears. When she spun around to face Peyton, it looked like she was wading through water.
Every instinctive fiber in Peyton’s body shot into overdrive.
She could feel them buzzing like a live wire, humming in her ears, heating up her feet while a million different scenarios shot into her head.
A dead body slumped against the tree. Someone had broken into the car and stolen their belongings.
Or worse, the car was gone, and the world was on fire.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, softly, tentatively, reluctantly, as if the answer would be the end of everything she knew and cared about, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Josie bit her bottom lip, or more so chewed on it. She broke eye contact, glanced back over her shoulder to the navy-blue Kia parked at the south end of the lot, one of the last cars there, and flinched when she said, “I can’t find the car keys.”
It took a moment for Peyton to absorb the information, process it, and reflect on the consequences.
Her lips parted to speak and then closed again.
Only when Josie patted the pockets of her jean shorts and slid her hands across her waistband and her bra, did Peyton manage, “What do you mean you can’t find the keys? ”
“They must have fallen out somewhere on the hike.”
“Well, why are you just standing there? Go look for them.” Her tone was abrasive. She would feel bad about it if the situation wasn’t so dire.
Josie pulled a face. “It’s getting dark. There’s no way we’ll find the keys without a flashlight and even then, it’s like half a mile to cover. The keys could have fallen out anywhere.”
Everything came in sharp strokes of color, mostly red—a hot, bloody red stinging her periphery. Peyton’s cell phone was in that car, her wallet too. Not to mention her sanity, which was beginning to dwindle faster than hot coals in the rain.
But there was light at the end of the tunnel. There had to be. Just like this had to be some sort of sick joke. Josie seemed more than capable of a prank. The woman exuded a sort of mischievousness, as if she had a trick up her sleeve or a bouquet of pink flowers.
“Ha. Ha. Good one, Josie. Very funny.” Peyton stammered. Her voice was as shaky as a leaf in a storm. “You’ve convinced me. I believe in fate, so bring out those keys and let’s get back to Morro Bay.”
But everything about Josie’s expression, the way her brows were knitted together, the way she kept sticking her hands in her pockets as if she couldn’t believe it herself, and the way she kept her distance from Peyton as if she feared for her life, made it crystal clear that it wasn’t a joke.
“Well, you’ve got your phone on you, right?
” asked Peyton with little confidence. She already knew the answer.
After staring at Josie’s soft, long legs, her jean-clad hips, and her small waist lost in that tucked-in oversized T-shirt for minutes on end, she knew there was nothing in those pockets besides air.
“I left it in the glove box,” muttered Josie softly, shaking her head. “I didn’t want any distractions.”
Peyton couldn’t even shout since she, too, was guilty of leaving her cell phone in the car. The only difference was that she had done it without thinking clearly, desperate for air when she jumped out of the front seat when they had first arrived.
“What the hell do we do now?” her voice bordered on shrieking, tinted with a hint of mania, which worsened when she noticed that the sun was already more than halfway down the horizon.
Only slivers of orange leaked across the ocean, while indigo spread across the rest of the sky like a painter’s brushstroke.
Of course, something like this would happen.
It wasn’t fate, it was bad luck. Or in Peyton’s case, punishment.
Maybe she truly was being punished. Maybe all the moping about, all the callous retorts to concerned family and friends—Gabby and Harry were the only people she even talked to right now—all the guarding and pushing people away had finally caught up to her.
Had she hit rock bottom? Was Josie the lowest point Peyton needed to reach before she could start climbing back up again?
“I’ve got a spare car key at my house. I can get my sister, Kelsey, to get it and bring it here.”
“That’s good,” said Peyton, relief flooding her veins but drying up just as quickly when Josie dragged her fingers down her cheeks, clawing at the skin. She left pink streaks down her face and then breathed in so deeply that Peyton watched her chest expand like a balloon.
“Your sister’s not at home, is she?”
“No,” Josie muttered, staring at her feet. “She and Mark and the kids are visiting his parents in Santa Barbara. They won’t be back until tomorrow, but it doesn’t even matter because I can’t exactly call them.”
That same kind of miserable dread Peyton experienced in those first few days, after the wedding that didn’t happen, after Sorel had packed her stuff when Peyton had gone home to an empty house, ate at her insides.
It was one of the reasons why she had sold the place and bought the new house, the one with the lemon tree.
“Of course they are!” If there was ever a time Peyton wanted to rip something to pieces with her bare hands, possibly Josie, it was now.
But instead, she took another breath in, hoping it would miraculously make everything better, even though its track record stated otherwise.
Instead, she walked over to the car. It looked as innocent as any Kia.
She put her face against the passenger window, looked longingly at the side compartment where she had slipped her phone in earlier, and stepped back. “How about we just break a window?”
“The windows are all smash-proof,” said Josie matter-of-factly. “And it’s not like we can drive anywhere without a key.”
“So, what now?”
“I have an idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“What is it?” asked Peyton coldly, well aware that she hadn’t liked any of Josie’s ideas so far.
“We walk into town, book a place for the night, preferably somewhere with a phone, and first thing tomorrow morning, I’ll get Mark to come out here with my spare car key.”
“Or,” suggested Peyton, whose brain was beginning to hurt. “You can walk to the nearest house while I wait here. And then you can convince your sister to make the trip.”
“It’s getting dark. I don’t want to leave you alone here and if you knew my sister, you would know that she would rather battle a snake than miss her mother-in-law’s lamb roast.”
“I’ll take my chances,” said Peyton grimly, although she wouldn’t actually let Josie walk off by herself either.
They weren’t friends, far from it, but Peyton wasn’t completely heartless.
She couldn’t ignore how a walk by yourself in the dark, along an unfamiliar road, was asking for trouble.
Peyton had watched all the sequels of Wrong Turn to know that.
“Fine,” she relented. “But only if we get separate rooms.”
How they were going to afford lodging was a prominent question in Peyton’s mind, especially considering they had no money. Yet she decided not to dwell on the thought. Ignorance was bliss and all that, and after everything so far, she needed a little bliss in her life.
The minute they started walking, Josie burst into a babble.
She talked non-stop, sharing stories about her sister, her niece, and nephew.
She babbled on about how cute they were, how she could watch them for hours, how at first, she was terrified of being a godmother but now couldn’t live without the title.
She then mentioned the time she responded to a fire call and stumbled upon an orgy next door.
Then she added in a few other crazy work scenarios and had just gotten started on a story about her dad when they stumbled upon a sign showing: Cozy Cove Inn.
You’re Nearly There, with an arrow pointing in its direction.
Peyton, who had been silent most of the walk, had to clear her dry throat to speak. “Why do I feel like we’re going to be characters in some movie about a deranged innkeeper with padlocks on every door and hidden passageways behind the walls?”
“You’re a horror fan, aren’t you?”
“The biggest.” Just as some people devoured romances like they were potato chips, Peyton indulged decadently in the theme of horror.
“Me too.”
“You are?” frowned Peyton, strangely perplexed that they had something in common when she had been so sure they were polar opposites. Order and chaos.
Josie nodded, a glint in her eye. Or maybe it was just the light from the lamppost reflecting in her pupils.
Peyton found the woman’s eyes strangely magnetizing, like glaring at a fire and seeing shapes of galloping horses and huge fantastical lions.
She only just managed to shake herself out of the trance when Josie said, “My celebrity guests would be Mike Flannagan and Stephen King. I’d love to pick their brains apart like flesh-eating maggots. ”
Peyton laughed loudly, then caught herself and choked.
Coughing and spluttering, she turned away from Josie, embarrassment heating her cheeks.
If she didn’t know any better, she would call the hypnotic spell, the impulsive laughter, and the vicious thumping of her heart in her chest all symptoms of severe exhaustion.
Not attraction.
Not lust.
And certainly not a deep, hole-filling craving to hear more about Josie’s favorite horror movie.
“Are you alright?” asked Josie, moving closer, her brows knitted. Those perfectly thick lips were just slightly parted. She had her hand out, fingers spread as if she wanted to pat Peyton on the back.
“I’m fine,” said Peyton, coldly. Not that she had meant the chill in her voice.
For some reason, her body was reacting far more sporadically than normal.
In fact, Peyton was suddenly feeling all over the place, as if she couldn’t quite root herself to the ground.
It felt as if Josie had somehow snipped the tether that held her to reality.
She had to get away, even if just to catch a breath, and so Peyton sidestepped to the small white gate, unhooked the latch, and sailed up to the porch of the Inn.
Cozy Cove Inn was what a person would call charming.
It was a two-story Victorian, with its weathered shingles painted in soft sea foam green, and a row of white trimmed windows framed by cascading bougainvillea vines.
On the front porch were rusty lanterns that were attached to the wall, and two wooden benches holding striped cushions.
When they were both standing on the porch—Peyton keeping a respectable distance—Josie pushed the tip of her finger against the bell, waited, and then pushed open the door.
“Evening,” said a plump woman with full bosoms and a sixties-style updo, ambling across the foyer. She was wiping her hands on her apron, a flush on her cheeks. The smell of something tomatoey drifted through the air and Peyton’s stomach grumbled.
“How can I help?” said the woman, smiling warmly despite their untimely arrival.
“We need two rooms please,” said Peyton loud and clear. Two or nothing. “And a phone, if possible, to make a call.”
“That will be $150 per room. There’s a landline in my office you can use, and we also do dinner. You’re a bit late, though, but we’ve got some food left over. Would you like me to get two plates ready?”
Josie glanced back over her shoulder to Peyton, pulled a face that made little sense, except maybe an apology, and then pulled cash out of her back pocket before she deposited the bills on the countertop. “I can only afford one room and two dinners.”
“You can’t be serious,” grumbled Peyton, who had no trouble putting the pieces together.