CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
TRISTAN
The road narrowed after a few miles. It was paved at first, then turned to gravel.
Branches scraped against each other overhead.
The air smelled of cedar, damp earth, and something metallic that reminded me of old rain on rusted tools.
I thought of my father. His garage. The tools we used and abused growing up on off-road motorcycles and ATVs and my first car that I’d driven into a ditch the first week I’d owned it because I was a dumb little shit.
Every few minutes, I looked behind me.
Nothing.
No headlights.
No movement. Just vast darkness and me. There was a sick certainty I was doing something I shouldn’t. The trees pressed closer as I walked. My headache pulsed behind my eyes. The sleep had left something dirty in my blood. I felt heavy and wrong, but paranoia kept me sharp.
I thought about the puffer.
The keycard.
B13.
All I knew was that Oliver had thrown away two objects he didn’t want anyone to see. I had taken them. Then I had passed out after drinking from a bottle he’d handed me. When I woke, those same objects were gone.
Why?
And now I was walking toward his cabin because some part of me believed Daisy was at the center of it.
Or maybe I needed Oliver to be evil because otherwise I was only a drunk, jealous bastard chasing another man through the woods over a woman who had never promised me anything more than a few hours at a time in a hotel room.
A sign appeared between the trees, catching my attention.
PRIVATE PROPERTY.
NO TRESPASSING.
I stopped and listened.
Nothing. No voices. No dog barking at my arrival. Just trees shifting in the wind and my own breathing.
As I edged closer, I saw Oliver’s white car in the drive, shadowy beneath the trees. Even in the dark, that satin finish caught the moonlight, pale and expensive.
My whole body went still. He was here, but the cabin itself was dark. There was no porch light or glow in the windows. I saw no movement behind the glass. No sounds of a man moving around his perfect retreat, readying it for his wife.
There was only his car, the unlit cabin, and the woods around us.
For a while, I didn’t move. I watched the car, and the windows and the black seams between the trees, waiting for some kind of shape to detach itself from the night.
There was nothing.
Still, I didn’t trust it.
I moved along the tree line, keeping low, feeling ridiculous and on edge in equal measure.
I had no plan. No idea what I was even looking for.
It could have been proof that I wasn’t inventing the rot I felt whenever Oliver smiled at me, like he knew something I didn’t.
Maybe it was proof that Daisy had a reason to look so haunted whenever his name touched the air.
I reached the side of the cabin and crouched beneath one of the windows.
For a long moment, I just listened.
Nothing moved inside.
I lifted myself slowly and looked through the window.
The room beyond was dark, but the moon gave me enough. I caught the stone fireplace, leather chairs, and shelves lined with books. There was a long table with papers stacked neatly at one end. I didn’t see any sign that he had been inside. I expected a dirty mug or some form of clutter.
I lowered myself again, heart hammering.
His car was here, but the house was dead. That made no sense. I moved to the next window.
It was the kitchen. Clean counters. Copper pots hanging. A knife block. A glass on the counter, turned upside down on a folded cloth. Empty.
I looked toward the car again.
The driver’s door was shut. The windows black. But there was mud smeared along the lower edge of the door, fresh and dark enough to shine. One of the tires had dragged wet earth onto the gravel, but it wasn’t much.
There were footprints too. A few heavy impressions near the car. One set leading toward the cabin steps. Another set leading away from them and toward the side of the property.
Toward the trees.
My skin prickled.
I stared into the bush.
There was a broken branch and a dark path through the wet grass where someone had pushed through recently.
Rationalize this.
Perhaps Oliver had gone for a walk. In the night. In the woods. Fucking hell, maybe the guy liked creeping around his property at night like a lunatic. Though I knew my presence was more fucked up.
It could have been that there was a perfectly normal reason his car was parked outside a dark cabin while a trail of fresh prints led into the woods. In another setting, this would have been amusing. I wasn’t fucking amused
I stayed still, listening.
Somewhere deeper in the bush, something shifted. A branch settling. An animal. The wind. I didn’t know.
My hand found the knife in my pocket again.
I moved around the back of the property, slower now, every step careful. The back opened wider than the front. There was a woodshed and a gravel path. I passed a stack of cut logs under a tarp and a small generator. A locked storage box next. Everything was in perfect order and well-maintained.
Everything was pristine and perfect. Except beyond the storage box, it was not. The grass there had been pressed down in a narrow line. Leaves clung wetly to the earth. A smear of dark soil marked one of the flat stones near the path, like a boot had come down too hard and twisted.
I stared at it, trying to make it mean something, but it didn’t.
Then I saw the other shed.
Not the woodshed.
This one sat farther out, near the tree line, almost swallowed by shadow.
Smaller. Dilapidated. As I slowly approached, I noticed the door had been reinforced with a newer lock, the metal shining faintly when the moon moved out from behind a cloud.
I found that strange. To have a nice fucking lock on such an ugly-looking shed.
The grass was longer here, wet against my shoes. A moth battered itself against the side of the shed, wings tapping, tapping, tapping like a tiny, frantic knock.
The lock was heavy but not latched properly, like it’d been left in a hurry. My pulse lurched. A voice in the back of my head told me to stop, turn back, and don’t return. But I touched the metal and pushed instead. The door opened with a soft groan.
The smell hit me first.
Stale air. Old paper. Damp wood. Kerosene. Something sour beneath it all. I stepped inside, and instantly, this felt wrong.
The darkness was almost complete, but moonlight leaked through gaps in the boards. Thin stripes of light fell across the floor. Across a small mattress. Across a chair positioned in front of the mattress.
Something clinked beneath my shoe.
I looked down, and my body went still.
No thought came.
For a few seconds, I was nothing but eyes.
What the fuck?
There was a short chain.
I knelt and followed it to the spot where it was bolted into the floor. My fingers ran along the cold metal. I followed the other end to the bed and paused at the cuffs.
Real fucking cuffs.
With senses sharper, I looked around some more, my pulse picking up.
I pulled out the small flashlight from my pocket and shone it across the room.
There were lanterns on the ground and an empty glass.
An old textbook with a cracked spine. I edged closer, my heart thudding at the unease of this place.
Like I was being watched.
Like there were eyes.
Eyes everywhere.
I shone the light over the textbook.
Classic Philosophers.
The title stared up at me. Seneca. Plato. Socrates. Marcus Aurelius.
My throat tightened.
Just philosophy, I’d said to her.
I didn’t understand then. I’d watched her laugh at those words like she’d been struck, like the idea of philosophy being casual was the wildest freedom she’d ever heard of.
Now I understood enough to feel sick.
I opened the book.
Pages were marked with neat little slips of paper. Notes and tasks filled the margins, written in an elegant hand.
Define justice.
Explain the cave.
Why does pain clarify the soul?
What does obedience reveal about character?
My fingers tightened on the page.
Then I saw the name. Just faintly, in pencil, at the bottom corner of a page was writing from a shaky hand. My heart dropped so hard, I nearly fell over.
Never forget Rowe. Rowe is still here. Rowe still lives in your memory. Rowe and June. And you are still here. You are still Daisy. We are Daisy—
With shaky fingers, I tore the page free, folded it, and pushed it into my pocket. I backed away so fast I hit the chair.
The chain rattled. The sound exploded through the shed. I shut the flashlight off and froze. Outside, the woods held still. I waited.
Nothing.
I forced myself to breathe.
Daisy.
It was Daisy who had been here.
Here.
In this shed.
On this stained bed.
With these cuffs.
With this book.
With this empty glass.
My stomach twisted so violently I thought I might be sick.
What did he do to you?
I had asked her that. Like a fucking idiot, I’d asked a question that had an answer I wouldn’t have understood.
On the wall beside the cot, scratches marked the wood. Some were short, tally-like. Some dragged downward, desperate and uneven. At first, I thought they were random.
Then I leaned closer.
Words.
Not all of them. Most had been rubbed away or carved over. But I could make out pieces.
stay awake
eyes
eyes everywhere
watching
do not cry when he comes back
June was right
My chest cracked.
June.
The name meant nothing to me and everything at once.
I didn’t know who she was. I only knew Daisy had carried the name like a bleeding wound.
That and Rowe. Instantly, my mind wandered to my dreams, to the images that plagued me.
I swallowed hard and moved back to the textbook.
Under it sat loose papers. There were more questions.
More proof of whatever sick education he’d forced into her.
That sick fuck.
His words suddenly made sense now.
I gave her structure.
There was actual pride in those fucking eyes. That motherfucker—