33. Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-three
Remington James
“ G o find the rest of your dress,” I tell Natalie when she comes out to show me her micro dress with a deep v cut down the front. “You’ll give your dad a heart attack. More material. Go.” That and Mitchell already has jealousy issues, the added attention her outfit will garner is a faulty plan.
I try to help by consulting the trunk, but most of it’s in poor shape anyway. I hold up a cowgirl themed vest. “Ehh, nevermind.”
Digging around my fingers graze the edge of Katie’s diary. I pull it out, placing it on my lap. The plan was I’d give it to Charlie. With Katie gone, it would give him a little piece of her back. I’d wanted to share it with Wilder, especially after Carlotta’s letter. Honestly, it felt wrong to do that instead of going to Charlie. Conflicted, I’d done nothing, letting it sit wrapped up in this trunk.
Discovering a sheer wrap in a pale pink, I give it to Nat. “This works, just look.” While I drape it over her shoulders, I steer her to the mirror.
“I guess.” She makes a face, adjusting the way the wrap lays on her shoulders.
“... and the world takes a collective sigh of relief,” I say under my breath. No one at the Country Club this evening needs to hear a Nat and Mitchell fight.
“Remi, why are you keeping all this stuff?” Natalie holds up a handful of costumes from the opened trunk. “You don’t dress up much anymore, you’re angry that your mom put more into these costumes than your relationship…” She frowns dropping the musty smelling and torn ankle length prairie dress. “If I were you, I’d get rid of all of it.”
Holy hamburger help me. Natalie not only made perfect sense, but her thoughtful words also make me tear up. “Wow.” I clear my throat, while Nat looks ready to retract her words. I put my hand up. “Nope. Don’t try to take it back. Nat.” I grab her hand to pull her closer, “You are completely right. I have been holding onto all that crap, even though every time I look at it my anger is reignited.” No matter what I tell myself, the ‘life is performance art,’ ‘social experimentation… whatever I explained away to myself… I’m over it.
Breaking cycles and all. This trunk full of old costumes may have been treasures to Relia but my prizes are intangible. It’s the relationships I’m building with the men I love, the repair I’m doing with Nat, the friendships I’m fostering here in Lake Hollow. It’s feelings, memories, it’s time… Relia wouldn’t get it.
The guys managed to see past it all and see me . I know them better than I’ve ever known anyone. Each of them is a part of me now. Wilder’s sweet covered by gruff consideration, Charlie’s protective daddy-material energy, Cal’s playful passion, and Grady’s deep, sensitive strength. All of them.
Every belonging of mine that had been tucked into the trunk is relocated to a steamer trunk that Ceily let me buy for a ridiculously low price. Lined in a lush indigo velvet, I carefully put hat boxes, sketchbooks, art supplies, trinkets, gifts from the guys, Nat, Keenan inside. It barely fills half of it.
Tucking Katie’s diary under my arm, I step outside. The energy in the cabin for the past two days has been peaceful. No bathroom light shenanigans, the kitchen window keeps at it, but the mysterious dark oppressive energy has been silent.
Spotting Grady outside carrying a bag inside his cabin from his car, I whistle for his attention. Waving him my way, I double check to make sure Wilder’s bike is parked at his cabin. “I need to show you something,” I say as Grady approaches. Taking his hand, we barely knock on Wilder’s door before throwing it open.
He’s doing pullups on a bar he put up in his bedroom door frame. Dropping, he says sardonically, “No. By all means, come right in.”
I urge Grady to tell Wilder about Katie Gibson. It’ll be a weight off his shoulders, and I’m positive that Wilder will understand the feelings of distrust he’s had. One step in the right direction for healing.
Wilder takes it in with no expression on his face, until he hangs his head, one hand rubbing over his mouth. “She watched what happened.”
I sit the diary on the coffee table. “I found this in our cabin. It’s Katie’s. It was in the wall of the bathroom.”
Eyes widened, Wilder picks it up, his hands shaking. “I knew she’d hidden it somewhere at The Bends.”
He pages through it, stopping to read entries, commenting under his breath, closing it fighting tears a couple of times. “Who else knows you found it?” he asks me.
Grady takes it from him, paging right to the last entry in the diary. “There’s pages missing.”
“I know. I think… I think the person she witnessed kill Sara found out she’d seen it. They could’ve destroyed those pages. They may have hidden it after that or… this seems more logical; she hid those pages somewhere else?”
Wilder puts the diary back down, looking at Grady. “I’m willing to try rebuilding trust between us, but you have to tell me the truth right now. Why did Sara blow up at me that night? You said or did something…”
It’s a big move in the right direction.
“You could say that.” Grady chews his lip for a few seconds. “The night before when I’d been over to work on the song bridge with you, I dropped a condom filled with some conditioner in your bedroom, just behind the nightstand. I told her I had proof you’d cheated on her, to look there.”
“You fucking what?” He bites out, “Why the ever-loving fuck would you do that?”
Grady grimaces. “She was upset that you wouldn’t have sex with her, just heavy make outs. I knew she thought you were cheating on her, and…” He rubs his arm looking away. “I didn’t want you two together.”
This conversation was a long time coming between them. I try to gracefully excuse myself from it, but Grady puts his hand on my leg holding me in place, a plea unspoken with his eyes to stay.
“There were better ways to express that… friend,” Wilder says sarcastically. “Do you know why it hurt like hell when you turned on me? Because I cared about you. Every other fucking dickhead in this town could say whatever they wanted to about me. They didn’t know me. I could tell myself they didn’t know me.” His face flushes in anger. “But you did. You fucking knew me best.” Eyes bright with tears, Wilder continues, “Now you’re telling me that you tried to fuck with me on another whole level. Sabotaging my relationship with Sara. Why the fuck would you do that?”
Oh, Wilder. He has to know why.
Grady leans close to him, nerves causing his leg to shake next to mine. “I did it because I wanted you. I loved you. Because I was a mess. Confused as fucking hell. You’d kiss me or we’d wrestle around, then you’d say you were joking. I didn’t understand how to deal with my emotions. I was just a fucked-up mess.”
Grabbing his arm, Grady pulls Wilder in kissing him with a flurry of fiery emotions. He tries to back away, but Grady doesn’t back down. “I loved you,” he says through tears against Wilder’s lips. “I just fucking loved you.”
Letting go of Wilder’s arm, Grady leans back. The look on Wilder’s face a cross between fuming and resigned. “You loved me? You had a terrible way of showing it.”
Their chests are heaving, looks measured. I tell them both I’m proud of them for being honest. Clearing the air about all the feelings they’ve pushed down. Then I say I’m sure they know how much I love them both. Grady wraps me in his arms, his head resting on mine.
Wilder taps his index finger on the pink and turquoise striped diary. “To recap; You,” he points at Grady, “believed that Katie Gibson, little twelve-year-old… our sweet as hell friend was responsible for Sara’s death that night… that explained to you why she stayed away from The Bends and us. It’s why you refused to sing at her funeral when she passed away two weeks later. You also thought she killed herself over it.”
Deep breath releases as he replies, “That sums it up. I went back and forth. I tried to convince myself it was you. That your visions proved you were guilty.”
I add, “But she couldn’t have been. Her diary proves otherwise. She saw who killed Sara, and they probably killed her two weeks later.”
Heaviness falls over us. Did Carlotta Marlow know as much? Did she conclude that the suspect list would be people close to Katie? Is that why she didn’t tell for two weeks what she’d witnessed?
“We need to tell Cal and Charlie everything,” I assert. No more secrets between us. If Carlotta’s letter was partially right… that there is a murderer in Lake Hollow, we need to work together.
Wilder stares at the diary. “Remi, let’s hold off. Katie knew the person; she didn’t want to tell. I don’t like saying this and I can’t picture it, but they’re both…”
He doesn’t need to finish that thought.
Grady doesn’t know about Carlotta’s letter, and I hope he never does. He’d be crushed to know her suspicions before she passed away.
“Okay, for now. But I trust them both completely.”
**
It’s cathartic burning Relia’s old chest and the costumes inside. Cycles can end with me. I don’t need to hold onto anything from Relia anymore. The resentment needs to go too, but there’s no quick fix for that.
“It’s getting smoky.” I cough, waving the billowing cloud of dark smoke from my face.
Wilder pulls Droolius away from the crackling and growing bonfire. “Should we put it out? It could spread.”
I invited Cal and Charlie to join Wilder, Grady, and I for my ceremonial burning of the battered old chest. The costumes going up in flame, a private goodbye. Signifying to me personally, the end of act one: Remington’s searching for life direction. Got one. My heart is full, my hands eager to create, and a mission to heal all my loves. We’ll get answers one way or another.
All of us stand in a circle watching the one thing Relia was proud of, her costumes, go up in smoke. Nat’s right, that’s such a wild thing to think. I giggle to myself. I don’t need to be anyone else but me. I’m learning more about who that is each day. My wheezy laugh of exhaustion is followed by, “Anyone else tired as hell?”
A smoky haze hangs in the air, I go back to the cabin to make sure we have all the windows shut. Noting the one over the kitchen sink open. Again. Winifred, I think mentally shaking my finger at her, you’re tiring me out.
The window sticks, as I haul myself onto the counter giving me more stability to tug on it. I almost miss a small inch by inch square of space open at the bottom of the window casing. A light-colored paper stuck inside. I can’t get my finger inside to fish it out. Hopping down, I grab a pen to help work it out.
The light in the kitchen is too dim to read it, so I run into the bathroom, where the light is already on. Thanks so much Wini, babe. Maybe we can come to some agreement. My restless spirit friend and me.
My hand flies to my chest, my body starts to shake.
I just found the missing page of Katie’s diary.
Panic grabs onto me with full force.
There’s no doubt now, the rain we’ve had damaged the page, but she names the person she saw kill Sara. Their name clearly starts with a ‘C’ the rest of the name washed away from water damage.
No.
There is no way.
Frogs and birds. My freedom and survival.
Two men I have fallen madly in love with.
A wail from my deepest recesses lets loose as my heart breaks. The pain is excruciating.
Cal or Charlie? Charlie or Cal?
My very worst fears are being realized.
I didn’t heed the warning Carlotta left.
This is not the end…
****Book 3, the final book in the series is coming August 2024****
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Lake Hollow Fears