20 Elena
Elena
Elena is inside the glass house. She sits on a black leather couch that is not comfortable at all. She takes another sip of whiskey and rests her cup on the cold slate coffee table, resisting the urge to prop her feet up there too.
She recalls how she just saw this house not two hours ago from Tom Winter’s backyard.
The shrine with bones of dead animals was one thing, but Quinn’s sweatshirt covered in her blood, the holes that looked like stab wounds?
Was it like that when they found Quinn fifteen years ago, or did Tom put those holes in it during some weird, sick ritual?
Regardless, there’s no way those cuts were from rocks.
She didn’t believe it before, but now she is certain someone took Quinn’s life.
Earlier, Elena had tried to tamp down the violent surge of anger that the visit to Tom’s stirred in her as Gael helped bring a roast to Barbara’s dining room table.
Browned potatoes, homemade rolls, freshly churned butter with chives, and a salad with radishes and blanched asparagus.
His eyes had never been so wide, the impossibility of such a feast canceling out every drive-through chicken nugget he’s ever had.
Elena had watched her son polish off two entire plates and marveled at the fact that he is only two years younger than Quinn was when she died.
Anger fired through her again, and her appetite waned.
After eating, Barbara put a firm hand on Elena’s shoulder and told her she shouldn’t feel one ounce of guilt, that she should, of course, go to the cast party, and that she should lean on her while they were here.
Besides, she wanted to get to know Gael, and this would give her that chance to get a sense of “what’s in his soul. ”
It took almost an hour to walk from Barbara’s to the glass house on the hill, since she went the long way as opposed to through the woods.
Still, she checked over her shoulder every ten steps.
Once, she thought she heard footsteps behind her, but when she turned, she was the only one on the darkening street.
Was there a chance Tom had seen them leaving his house or saw something out of place when he got home?
He could have sensed something off with the sweatshirt.
If he did, she didn’t want to think about what that meant for them.
Sitting inside here now, she feels ten thousand miles from Tom Winter’s hovel and strangely safe in this house that’s almost entirely decked out in glass.
The walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, cleaned to perfection.
There are glass vases and mirrors on every wall that’s not a window.
Whoever decorated seems to have taken the glass-house theme to the extreme and then scrubbed it clean of any life whatsoever. It sparkles with neurotic germophobia.
This house is a local legend. The original homeowners moved out in the eighties, and the place was abandoned for decades.
All Elena knows about the woman who lived here then was that she was a godless heathen—that was according to Winona Alvarez, Elena’s mother, who actually said those words, like she was some seventeenth-century witch hunter.
Elena isn’t a fan of the decor, but it does look like it’s been renovated from when they pressed their faces to the window in the early aughts.
Leave it to a film production crew to resurrect an abandoned mansion halfway up a mountain.
She observes the sterile room around her, taking in a sculpture that is maybe the one beautiful thing in here. Small enough to fit in her hand if she were to try, it’s a dense mountainscape of heavy-looking glass with three jagged peaks jutting up at different heights.
“I was like, ‘yes,’ when the location scouts told me about Whisper Ridge,” Phillip Granger is saying.
He touches her arm, yanking her away from her observations.
“It just seemed like a place with a dark soul, squeezed between these huge mountains. Choked by industry, disconnected from the pace of modern life.” His knee presses against hers.
She keeps herself rooted to the couch, waiting for the opportunity to talk about her career goals and the classes she’s taken.
She has talent—this, she’s been told more than once.
But she’s not naive. She knows it wasn’t her talent Phillip Granger was interested in when he invited her here.
Still, she thinks she can thread this needle just right to get on his professional radar.
Phillip leans forward to top up her glass with a whiskey she is sure is more expensive than her monthly utility bills.
He wants details, he says, because details are what make the audience feel like they’re really there.
He tells her he’s glad she’s an extra, that her local presence will add authenticity to the film.
She searches his face for signs that this is a joke, but there are none.
The young production assistant she met at the bar yesterday sweeps in front of them, offering to bring fresh cocktails like a nervous housewife.
Then she hurries away toward the kitchen where Nicola Bianco pinches the delicate stem of a cocktail glass and touches Cal Pierce’s arm at regular intervals.
Elena takes in Cal’s square jaw and distant eyes.
There’s something about seeing him—a bona fide movie star—here, in Whisper Ridge.
It’s jarring. He’s actually good-looking in real life in a way that most of them are not.
He catches her watching him and smiles his practiced, benign smile with those radioactive veneers.
Nicola, who looks tan and tiny in her blush V-neck sweater dress, says something that pulls his attention back to her.
Last night, Nicola mentioned that she has been staying down at the inn instead of up here at the big house with the boys.
Elena is curious why, especially when it’s rumored that Nicola is secretly dating Cal Pierce.
But then, maybe she gets it. Secrets require discretion.
The party is strangely intimate. Cal and Nicola have their corner of the open-plan room, and Elena and Phil have theirs.
Everyone else dips in and out of conversations, and as they do, Elena begins to feel territorial.
She has another sip, assessing her odds of getting him to look at her demo reel tonight.
She’s just a lowly background actor with too-big dreams, and she needs his help.
That is how she’ll spin it, anyway. He’s a man with an ego. He’ll bite.
Ridged potato chips spill out of the art deco glass bowl as Phil digs a hand in.
“Any good Whisper Ridge stories to, you know, add color to this place?” he asks.
He seems at home here, despite the sharp, clinical surroundings.
He leans back, chewing, and slings an arm behind her.
Never mind that it’s not the kind of couch for lounging.
On cue, the stiff leather squeaks beneath him.
“What kind of color?” she asks.
“Sordid insider knowledge, that kind of thing. Local lore.”
As if he’s just spoken a trigger word, Elena feels the room hush around them. In the space of a breath, she glances up to see Cal and Nicola staring at her over their drinks.
“Let me think,” she says to buy time.
She rifles through her mind, unsure which sordid tale would fit the bill, but she keeps hitting a brick wall. They’re all too personal.
“Well.” She shifts and looks up to the ceiling to show she’s thinking hard about the question.
“It was magical growing up here. The way the sun hides behind the mountain after four o’clock every afternoon, casting the town in shadow.
The way the winter closes the town off from the rest of the world, like you’re living in a palace of snow and ice.
” It makes her slightly nauseous to describe Whisper Ridge like this, since it was always the exact opposite for her, but she says it because she thinks this is what he’s fishing for.
Nicola and Cal round the couch then, taking up position in the chairs opposite. The rest of the cast and crew seem to follow their lead. The party, at Phillip Granger’s apparent command, is now listening to Elena.
Phillip, though, looks disappointed. “But what about grit? Lawlessness, anarchy, the Wild West? Because I think that’s what you have here. Desolation.” This last word he slows down for emphasis.
“Oh, that goes without saying.” She pivots without missing a beat, realizing she missed the mark and trying a different tack instead.
“You know, there are legends here of miners who came back from the dead. And it’s believed that gold and silver deposits created a dark and mysterious magic in the woods.
” At this, he shifts toward her. She has his attention now.
She doesn’t look at the others but can feel their alert silence.
“There are tales, too, of stranded prospectors who ate each other to survive and of ghostly tommy-knockers haunting the old mines. And the Ute people had their own legends, long before they were forced to leave. There is plenty of local lore to make your skin crawl.” She watches his face broaden with interest and is happy she’s struck the right chord.
“And now?” Phillip asks.
“Now?”
“What is it like now? Give me something I wouldn’t know unless I was from here.”
“Rumor has it, they’re filming a high-profile Phillip Granger film as we speak.”
Breathy chuckles fill the space, but then a hush.
They are waiting for her real answer. She considers what to say since she may never have another chance to captivate quite like this.
Any one of these powerful industry players could take her seriously if her story is memorable enough.
She’s suddenly buzzing with the thought.
The game is in her control now. Ironic that being from Whisper Ridge has turned out to be a winning card. Play it right, she tells herself.
“About fifteen years ago, a girl fell off a cliff in the woods nearby,” she hears herself say.
“Her name was Quinn Winter.” Phillip raises his eyebrows expressively.
She pauses and uncrosses her legs, feeling a tingling as blood rushes into her foot.
“Police said it was a hiking accident, but there are some locals who don’t believe it. They say she was pushed.”
At once, she can see the resonance of what she’s said splashed across their faces. It’s raw, delicious excitement, like she tossed them a New York strip when they were expecting kibble.
Phillip cradles his chin with a thoughtful hand.
“Fascinating,” says Nicola, whose eyes glitter with delight.
Spirited conversations blossom around her, but Elena isn’t listening.
She looks out the window, wishing she could see anything beyond the glass of this monstrous house.
Still, there’s nothing but her own reflection.
It’s not as if they couldn’t have found out about Quinn online if they looked, she tells herself.
It’s not like she revealed a secret. But she feels an intestine-twist of guilt anyway.
She has just crossed a line.