Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The world is fuzzy and rapidly fraying at the edges as I rush back to the golf cart, stumbling over my own feet and the hem of my dress, mission forgotten. I can’t breathe—can’t think. My mind is struggling to make sense of it, to force pieces into holes where they no longer fit.
Maybe I should’ve suspected something when I heard Vic and Preston up last night, but why would I? Why shouldn’t they spend time together? He’s her brother-in-law. They’re friendly enough. It’s not a crime.
Still, now a new puzzle has appeared from the mist. And it’s one where Duncan and Polly are going to get very hurt. One where I know a secret that could destroy this family.
I swallow. My hands tremble as I press the button to start the golf cart.
If I tell anyone about this now, it’ll ruin things for Marlie. If nothing else, I have to protect her. But how? How can I possibly live with this secret for even a day?
I tell myself that if I can, it will be to protect someone I love. That has always been my driver. Always.
As I near the house, something to the right catches my eye, a blip of white in the woods. I freeze, stopping the golf cart at once. My eyes follow the tree line ahead, searching.
When I catch a glimpse of movement again, the word fills my head like a black fog.
Pierce.
What is he doing walking through the woods in the middle of the rehearsal dinner?
Still unsteady, I slide out of my seat, keeping my steps slow and cautious as I follow behind him.
I dart from tree to tree, hiding. It’s embarrassing—even as it’s happening.
If anyone saw me, I’d be mortified. But I have to know what he’s up to.
Lately, everything feels like a conspiracy.
My stomach tightens when he stops in front of the gardener’s shed where Simon and I were yesterday. He glances over his shoulder, then pulls open the door and steps inside. My thoughts swirl, questions dancing against my skull.
When the door opens again, he steps out. He slams one hand into the other several times, long enough for me to realize—oh, he’s…smoking. He lifts a cigarette to his lips and lights the tip, inhaling deeply and blowing the smoke into the air, fanning it away from him.
This must be his hiding spot.
I smile to myself, briefly relieved as I imagine my all-powerful, CEO father-in-law having to find somewhere to hide his cigarettes and lighter. There are worse things to hide.
I watch carefully, almost in a trance and too terrified to move, as the cigarette burns down.
He stamps it out, then picks it up and shoves the burned butt into the pack.
He disappears back inside the shed. I hear the metallic clang of things being shoved this way and that, then a wooden thud.
He’s in there for longer than expected. Longer than it took him to retrieve the pack.
I wait for him to leave, hiding behind the tree as he walks near me, whistling to himself. I hold my breath as he moves past the path where the golf cart is hidden, only exhaling when he’s far enough gone that there’s little chance of it being discovered.
Alone, I move toward the shed again, curious.
I open the door and look inside. It’s unchanged from yesterday, still dusty and stale, still cluttered.
I should be getting back.
If Simon hasn’t realized I’m gone yet, he will soon.
I turn but stop. Look back over my shoulder. My mind ticks to a halt, a wind-up toy slowing down.
There, in the corner of the room is a box I didn’t notice before. A box that couldn’t have been here before.
A box with my name on it.
I take a step toward it, everything frozen and foggy. I move around one box beside the mower and?—
“Astrid? What on earth are you doing?”
Pierce is back.