Ember
THREE
I followed Jack’s dark SUV through dense forest, snaking through hills and arriving on Main Street in Marswood Harbor.
We passed a bar called Rock Bottom with about a million motorcycles parked outside it, and I saw a few grizzled men wearing biker jackets milling outside.
They watched us drive by as we continued into the town.
They were the Reapers; I’d read about them when I was researching the town.
Right after passing a burned-out shell of a building with a charred sign naming it Life’s a Stitch, we turned off the main artery through town and into a residential neighborhood made up of mostly Cape-style homes on big lots full of mature trees.
Leaves had begun to change, and they fluttered like jewels on their branches.
A few residents looked up as we passed, lifting a hand to wave at Jack and flicking curious gazes at me.
Finally, we pulled up onto a long, curving drive that circled around a stand-alone three-car garage and a big cottage.
A stone chimney jutted out from the steeply pitched roof, with dormer windows looking out over the big lot beyond.
The gardens were meticulously maintained, with lush bushes, big trees, and neatly trimmed lawn.
Jack was either a gardener or he hired one.
While he pulled into one of the garages, I parked on the driveway outside one of the closed roller doors.
The drive from Chicago had taken me three days—I limited myself to under eight hours of driving each day, as fatigue was one of the main causes of roadway accidents—and had touched eight states.
Last night, I’d stayed in a roadside motel outside Worcester, Massachusetts, and I’d gotten up early to make it here in plenty of time for my two o’clock meeting at Etta Mars’s house.
I felt like the past three days had been a trip through a portal to another world.
The air smelled nothing like the city, and I couldn’t help the urge to inhale its freshness deep into my lungs. I tasted grass, loam, and moisture.
Jack’s steps were easy, his expression relaxed as he walked out of the garage and pressed the button on his fob to close the door. He jerked his chin at my car. “I’ll help you with your bags.”
“That’s okay,” I said, grabbing my weekender bag containing my essentials from the back seat. “I’ll handle it.”
Jack ignored me and hit the latch to open the trunk. I blinked as he hauled my suitcase out like it weighed nothing. “This way,” he said.
“I can get that—”
“We’ll put you in the dormer bedroom, if you don’t mind,” he said, glancing over at me. “I always whack my head up there, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you.” He flashed me a smile, and I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he insulting me for being short?
Before I could retort, the sound of smashing glass made us both jerk our heads toward the house. A second later, a young girl’s scream shattered the peaceful susurration of the trees around us. Jack dropped my suitcase onto the damp asphalt and started sprinting. “Darby!”
I righted the suitcase—my toiletries were in there, and I didn’t want conditioner leaking all over my clothes—and followed a little more slowly.
I found an open side door at the top of three concrete steps and followed the sound of screaming.
Creeping inside, I told myself that the pounding of my pulse was a ridiculous reaction, and everything was probably fine.
The chances of encountering a serial killer were approximately one in 3.
4 million, so this probably wasn’t a murderer on the loose. Hopefully.
“Darby!”
“Get it, Dad!” Another shriek.
“How the hell—”
“My hair!”
“Open the window!”
“But that’s how it got in!”
I crossed the threshold to see a young girl standing on the kitchen counter, her face pointed at the other side of the room.
Jack stood between her and the threat. My eyes bounced to his tense shoulders to the top of the refrigerator, where a gigantic raccoon was tearing through boxes of breakfast cereal.
Jack approached, and the raccoon froze, its whiskers quivering.
“All right, my friend,” Jack said in a calm, low voice. “You’re lost. Time for you to go back to the forest.”
The kitchen tiles were littered with garbage.
I traced the path the raccoon had taken by the carnage it had left in its wake.
Through the window, it had torn into the fruit bowl and found the kitchen trash can.
Then it had scrabbled up to the top of the refrigerator, where it now watched us with beady black eyes.
It chittered, and Jack stopped his slow advance.
“Raccoons are nocturnal animals,” I said in the silence of the stand-off. “It’s strange to see one in the middle of the day.”
“It’s strange to see one in my damn kitchen,” Jack growled.
“It scratched me when I tried to get it outside,” Darby said, lifting her arm to reveal a deep red scrape.
“You’ll need treatment for rabies,” I told her.
Her eyes went wide with panic. “I have rabies?”
“Well, we don’t know that, but the raccoon is acting strangely and they’re a primary carrier of rabies.”
“Dad! I have rabies!”
“You haven’t got rabies, Darbs,” Jack growled, tearing his eyes off the raccoon for a bare second to glare at me. “Not helpful, Ember.”
“The mortality rate of rabies is one hundred percent once symptoms appear,” I protested, edging away from the animal and moving closer to Darby, who was staring at the scratch on her arm with a horrified frown. “There’s no sense downplaying the risk.”
“I’m going to die?”
“You’re not going to die!” Jack snapped, then he took another step toward the animal. “Go on. Get out of here. And that goes double for you, raccoon.”
“Funny,” I deadpanned.
The raccoon growled, sharp little teeth appearing.
“Maybe we should call animal control,” I suggested.
“Animal control is one guy called Harry who covers the whole county. By the time he gets here, the raccoon will have taken over the mortgage and made himself at home, and Harry will be halfway through his daily case of beer. We’re on our own.”
I’d reached Darby’s side, so I took her wrist in my hand and turned her arm to look at the scratch. “We need to wash this to prevent the risk of infection.”
“I’m infected?” Her blue eyes were wide as saucers and quickly filling with tears.
“I said prevent the risk of infection,” I told her. “It’s basic first aid.”
“Dad!”
“Ember, just, stop saying things that make it sound like Darby’s in mortal peril.”
“Did you hear what I said about the mortality rate of rabies?” I shot back. “A hundred percent, Jack. That’s a one with two zeroes behind it, and it means every single person.”
He shot me a withering look over his shoulder.
“Who even are you?” she asked me, bottom lip trembling.
“Um,” I said. Now didn’t seem like the optimal time to tell her I’d married her father.
“This is Ember,” Jack said. “Just—let me deal with this raccoon first, and then we can talk.”
The raccoon snarled as Jack approached, back rounding as it clutched the top of the refrigerator. I edged away from it, even though I was across the room. I’d need to look up how far raccoons could jump in the case of a future encounter.
Thank God I wouldn’t be in this town for long. Between the fresh air, the silence, and the freaking animals, this place creeped me out.
“Come on, buddy, out the door,” Jack cajoled, taking another step toward the animal.
That was a mistake.
The raccoon snarled, then launched itself off the fridge toward Jack. He screamed—we all screamed—and ducked out of the way, and the creature landed on the tiles before skittering up the cabinets and standing trembling on the counter. It was only a few feet away from me and Darby.
“I’ll help you wash out the scratch,” I told Darby, edging away from the animal. “Let’s get away from the raccoon.”
“Because you don’t want to die of rabies?”
“Exactly,” I said, relieved that at least one of them understood.
“There’s a bathroom just here,” Darby said, ducking into the hall.
We stopped at a powder room tucked under the stairs, and I found some soap and a clean towel that I used to help her wash the wound.
It wasn’t bleeding, but it was very red.
She gritted her teeth as I ran some water over it, but she didn’t cry. Tough cookie.
“Are you my dad’s girlfriend?” Darby asked.
“No.”
“Oh.”
“Does he have lots of girlfriends?” Now why did I ask that? It wasn’t any of my business.
“Sort of,” Darby said. “He pretends like he doesn’t go on dates, but I’m not stupid. Everywhere we go, all these women are like, extra nice to me, and I know it’s because they want to get with my dad.”
“That sounds…” I tried to think of what a thirteen-year-old girl would feel. “Really annoying.”
“So annoying. Like, I don’t want any of them in my life. They’re just being fake because they like my dad. And a lot of them only like my dad because my grandma’s rich.”
“Right.” She was tough and perceptive. I began to wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew by joining her family—even temporarily. “Okay, I’m washing this out with soap, and then I’ll pat it dry. We want to keep it clean.”
Down the hall, Jack shouted and swore. There was a crash.
“So if you’re not his girlfriend, who are you?” Darby watched me with her father’s eyes, suspicious. Her brown hair had been gathered into a ponytail, and she wore a black T-shirt over jeans.
“Um,” I repeated. “I’m, um…a friend.” I did my best to hide my wince.
“He doesn’t seem very friendly with you.”
“That’s because I kept telling him things he didn’t want to hear.”
“Like how I’m going to die.”
“Well, only if the raccoon has rabies, and only if we don’t get you post-exposure prophylaxis treatment before symptoms start. Those are shots the doctor will give you.” I patted her arm dry and gave her a tight smile. “The likelihood of you dying is extremely low.”
She stared at me for a while. “You’re weird.”
I nodded. “I get that a lot.”