Chapter 3
LILA
I sneak into the kitchen, making sure no one is watching me, grab my food, and run upstairs, where I stuff my mouth like a petty criminal who just scored their first big win.
I’m still not convinced he hasn’t watched me, and I forgot to ask whether I could expect any privacy in the house.
I’d be surprised if cameras didn’t surveil the pool and the lawn.
An hour later, steps ring on the floor I’m on.
I pull up from the chair and rush to the door, a bottle of water in hand.
Once his steps fade into the night, I open the door and make a beeline for the stairs.
The main door is cracked open, as if someone left it like that on purpose, while a black sports car slowly leaves the driveway, heading to the gate.
Huh.
So, he’s been in the house all this time. What was he doing?
I don’t necessarily want to know the answer to that question as I step down the stairs and watch him slowly roll his car along the smooth road toward the exit.
Soon after, he slides through the open gate, which quickly moves back into place, and I stare into darkness.
Wow.
Who knew my summer break would start like this?
I wish I could call Keira and tell her about my new experience with this man, but then I remember his words and decide to sit on it a little.
See where things are headed.
Strange couple. Strange place. Although stunning in every other aspect.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I glance around the foyer. The place is spotless, decorated in great taste.
If I didn’t know who lived here, I could swear this place belonged to a lovely family.
It has a nice feminine touch, although every fiber in my body screams that it’s not the woman of the house, but the decorator he had hired.
Henrietta has always had an air of impermanence about her.
She’s always reminded me of someone reluctant to set roots down, commit to something, and give her all.
It was one of the first things I didn’t like about her.
That air of overzealous confidence tinged with a dash of hypocrisy.
I could never buy her stories, her professed sentiments for my father, and how hard she had had it in the past.
She behaved like a guest in her own home, and that was my first clue.
She always had an eye on what might happen next, giving off vibes of a mystified ghostly traveler through other people’s lives.
That’s how I saw her, and nothing could change my opinion of her.
I never thought my father would depart first, and for sure, I couldn’t envision that she and I would be forced to spend some time together after his death, but life is strange like that sometimes.
What seems even weirder is that she’s not here now. She knew I’d arrive on Sunday. Her own husband doesn’t seem to know or care where she is.
This is another level of strange stuff.
I wait in front of the house a little longer, sipping water and wanting to make sure that no one else is in the house or comes back, before I step down, walk around the place, and inch closer to the pool.
“What a life,” I murmur to myself, setting my water down and walking barefoot by the pool.
The lights look like bonbons spilled out of a Halloween basket at the bottom of the pool. A mix of vibrant colors. Quivering lights.
The breeze unsettles the flowers, sending their potent aroma to my nose.
“This is lovely,” I say to myself again before swinging my eyes to the house.
There’s no one there.
I can see the first and second floors clearly. I can even see inside my room.
At the other end of the second floor, a large bedroom with dim lights is noticeable through the French doors leading to the terrace.
That must be his. Or theirs. The thought of them together makes me shudder, and it has nothing to do with meeting him.
I just don’t like the entire story and suspect unsavory things concealed in it.
I hope I’m wrong.
A few more moments of perfect silence pass before I make up my mind and pull off my shorts and top.
Wearing only my panties and my bra, I slide quietly into the pool. A grin of satisfaction pulls at my lips.
The water is perfect. Not too cold, not too warm.
I swim for about an hour before I pull out, grab a towel from a lounging chair, pat myself dry, pick up my clothes, and walk back into the house.
Still thinking about the rest of the pecan pie waiting for me in my room, I make the trip back.
Patting at my hair, I enter the room. The first thing I see is the empty plate on the narrow table by the wall.
“What the… fuck?”
My towel drops from my hand as I turn to stone. So do my clothes. A few drops of water slide off the tips of my hair and meet the floor.
Thunderstruck, I move my eyes around the room, not knowing what to do. Should I run out? Scream out for help? Call the police?
Is someone in the house? Henrietta?
Who ate my pie?
Is my memory failing me?
Barely breathing, I move toward the table and check the floor. Maybe it fell to the floor. There’s not much to check.
The floor is clean.
I remember it clearly. I ate half of the slice and left it on the plate next to a bottle of water. There was a napkin next to the plate. The napkin is gone.
I look around the room, trying to spot a garbage bin.
There is no garbage bin. There’s no need for one. I go to the bathroom. The one next to the toilet is empty. The place is tidy. There is nothing out of place, except my pie and napkin are both missing.
Good luck sleeping in this house now.
I grab a plush bathrobe and slide it on. I might need to call the police, after all, or him. Did I get his number? No. Hers? Hell, no. She won’t answer anyway.
Who am I supposed to call?
Well, had I not been so mesmerized with that man’s broody eyes, maybe a few brain cells would work right now.
Am I allowed to call the police?
And even if I called them, what should I tell them?
I’d like to report that my pecan pie is missing?
I slide a hand into my pocket and walk to the table again, hoping that the rest of the pie has magically reappeared.
There’s not a crumb of pie on my plate, not a pinch of sugar or cinnamon on the porcelain edge, and as my eyes casually move to the pool outside, my mouth opens in surprise.
Standing by the pool, with his eyes pointed down, a hand stuffed into his pocket, Damon West checks something on his phone, having no qualms with me staring at him.
He seems unaware of my presence, or maybe he doesn’t care that I look at him as if I’ve lost my mind, my brain trying to understand what just happened here.
Wait, didn’t he leave an hour ago?
When did he come back?
I didn’t hear his car approaching the driveway.
I back away from the patio doors, and once I’m out of his line of sight, I run to the stairs, and a few steps down, enough to look outside.
His car is not in front of the house.
Could it be in the garage? Yes, it could. I don’t know this house that well.
I suppose there’s a garage, or more than one, attached to this house.
The smart thing to do would be to turn back, but I’m also so curious about this story that I have to do what I’m about to do.
I go back, put on some slippers, and return to the stairs. Not caring much that I might run into him and need to offer him an explanation, I slip out of the house and move as quickly as I can toward the gate.
What if the gate has lights, a camera, and some security system that will start blaring at me in the middle of the night?
It probably has all of the above, but I need to make sense of all this.
Once I reach the fence surrounding the property, I keep away from the gate and try to sneak a peek outside.
Is he that crazy that he left his car parked outside his property and returned on foot for whatever reason?
Hopefully, it wasn’t because of me.
I barely finish that thought, and I notice the black car sitting on the shoulder of the road with its lights on.
The man is crazy.
What matters more is that I’m not.
Sighing with relief, I laugh quietly but not for long. A beeping sound alerts me to the presence of someone else not far from me.
The gate opens while I flick my eyes in that direction.
He slides his suit jacket on as if that was the sole reason he had returned to the house.
“Next time you take a night stroll by the fence, wear something nice. The cameras––he points up––take pictures every five seconds. For the cops,” he adds leisurely, no longer looking at me, about to step out.
“About that.”
He stops and turns to me, an eyebrow lifted, a silver or platinum necklace glinting at the top of his chest.
He’s hot like sin, this man.
He’s also bad news.
“I’m listening.”
“Never mind,” I say, swiftly changing my mind.
He dismisses me with a flick of his hand, his car greeting him with a mellow sound.
“Go get some sleep, Lila Skye,” he tosses at me over his shoulder, and I watch him slide into his ride and veer away, this time for good.
LILA
I spend an hour coming up with something nice to wear on Monday morning.
Come to think of it, I could call Keira later in the day and ask her to take me to a few stores in town so I can update my wardrobe.
Keira was born and raised in the South. We met at a bookstore in New York and quickly struck up a friendship. She studies political science and plans to enroll in a master's degree and then teach.
Other than school, we share a love for hiking, snorkeling, southern food, and traveling.
There hasn’t been much traveling in our lives because of our hectic schedules. That doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it and plan to travel around the world one day.
We also love to shop, which comes in handy since I want to wear something other than jeans and T-shirts this summer.
A bright sun weaves fire through the leaves outside as I walk out of the bathroom, wearing a white short dress with bell sleeves and flat sandals.
My long amber hair is loosely gathered at the nape of my neck and tied with a red scarf.
I slide my phone and wallet into a small bag and walk out the door, expecting to meet no one other than maybe the staff.
The house is quiet, as always, and not a single person crosses paths with me as I head to the kitchen to maybe grab a cup of coffee and a water bottle.