Chapter 14
Torin
Hannah follows me along the hall. At the far end, I open the door to the stairs and step aside.
She peers into the stairwell. “What’s up there?”
“Come and find out,” I say, grinning at the curiosity on her face.
I start climbing, and she follows close behind.
Nobody bothers with the upper floor anymore. There are too many rooms downstairs for the four of us, and over the years anything we didn’t know what to do with ended up here. I haven’t been up myself in a long time.
At the top, I push open the door to the landing. Hannah steps through behind me. Doors line both sides of the hallway.
Her face lights up. “There’s a whole other floor.”
“Sure is.”
“Can I look around?”
“That’s why we’re here.”
She goes straight for the nearest door. The handle sticks, but she puts her shoulder into it, and it gives with a scrape.
Dust rises in the sunlight. The room is crammed with old furniture and boxes. A bed frame leans against one wall. Rolled rugs stand in a corner beside a stack of lampshades. Someone has balanced a broken chair upside down on a dresser.
Hannah goes straight to the boxes.
“Old guest books.” She crouches beside one. “Why would anyone keep those?”
“No idea.”
“I want to know.”
She lifts the lid and pulls out the first book. A folded receipt slips from between the pages, and she catches it before it reaches the floor.
“Nineteen ninety-eight,” she says, unfolding it.
“What is it?”
“Someone’s bar bill.”
“Exciting.”
“You laugh, but I want to know what they were drinking.”
Yeah. This was a good idea.
She puts the guest book back and heads into the hallway.
“What else is up here?”
She’s already trying the next door.
I follow her along the hall as she opens rooms that haven’t seen daylight in years. Most are more of the same—old beds, boxes, curtains, crockery, things nobody could be bothered to throw away.
Then she reaches the last door at the end of the hall. She tries the handle.
“Locked.”
I take the old key from the hook beside the frame.
She catches on. “You know what’s in there.”
“I know what used to be.”
I hold out the key.
She takes it.
It takes some persuading, but eventually the lock gives with a heavy click.
She pushes the door open.
A big oak desk sits beneath the window. Filing cabinets cover most of one wall, and the shelves behind the desk are packed with ledgers, folders and binders. There’s an old computer on the floor, a dead plant in the corner, a corkboard still covered in notices.
“Oh!” Hannah looks around for a moment, then she goes over to the filing cabinets. She pulls open the top drawer, then pauses. “Can I?”
“That’s why I brought you up here.”
She pulls the drawer all the way open and flicks through the files.
“Guest complaints. Supplier invoices. Maintenance requests.” She pulls a face. “Okay, this one’s not very promising.” She keeps going.
“You could try another drawer.”
“I haven’t finished with this one.”
I laugh.
She pulls out a file and opens it.
“Oh, here we go. Someone complained that a bear stole their cooler.”
“Sounds plausible.”
“It says the manager reimbursed them fifty-seven dollars.”
“Expensive bear.”
She smiles and puts the file back. Then she opens another.
I watch her for a while, enjoying how quickly she’s forgotten everything except what’s in front of her.
Then she finds some photographs in a thick folder beneath a stack of old paperwork. She carries them to the desk.
The first few show the lodge years ago, the timber fresh and flowers running the length of the porch. Cars fill the parking lot. People sit outside with drinks while kids run across the grass. In another, the lounge is packed around a huge Christmas tree.
Hannah picks up a photograph of the lodge from the front. “It was beautiful.”
“It still could be.”
She picks up another.
A wedding. The bride and groom are standing on the front steps beneath an arch of white flowers, with guests crowded behind them.
Hannah turns it over.
“Nineteen ninety-four.”
The next one is a Thanksgiving dinner in the lounge. Then a birthday party on the porch. People fishing at the lake.
Soon she’s spreading them across the desk, checking the dates on the backs and going back to ones she’s already seen when something in a new one catches her attention.
I watch her pick up the first wedding photograph again, check the back, then reach for another.
I could stand here and watch her for hours. Not because I give a damn what happened at some stranger’s wedding thirty years ago.
Because every few minutes, I’m learning something new about her.
The way she reads faster when she’s excited. The way she goes back and checks something instead of trusting that she remembered it right.
All these little things—I want to know all of them.
“Hannah, I’m heading downstairs.”
“Mm-hm.”
She reaches for another file.
“Have fun.”
“I am.”
I head for the door.
“Torin?”
I turn.
“Thanks for showing me this.”
“Anytime.”
By the time I reach the stairs, I can already hear another drawer opening behind me.
Orson is halfway through replacing one of the loose boards on the porch when I step outside.
He glances up. “Where’d you leave her?”
“Upstairs.”
“Doing what?”
“Going through the old office.”
He pauses, frowning. “There’s an office?”
“Uh huh.”
“So, what’s in it?”
“A bunch of papers and shit.”
“Sounds fascinating.”
“Yeah.”
He shakes his head and lines the replacement board up with the edge of the porch. “Hand me the drill.”
I pick it up from the toolbox and pass it over.
For a while, the only sounds are the whine of the drill, the dull thud of the rubber mallet and the wind moving through the pines.
Orson tightens the last screw and straightens, wiping the back of his wrist across his forehead. “You were right.”
I look at him.
“About what?”
“She fits.”
I don’t answer. Because there isn’t anything to say. I’d known that from the moment I first caught her scent. The difference is, now Orson knows it too.
He picks up the toolbox. “I’ll go do the one on the other side.”
I nod. My gaze drifts back to the lodge. Orson’s here. Hannah isn’t alone anymore.
“Orson.”
He turns.
“Can you stay here with Hannah for a while?”
He looks at me for a second. “Where are you going?”
“East Ridge.”
“Gunnar will be back in a few days.”
“I know.”
“Better to wait.”
“I can’t.”
He looks at me for a long moment. He knows me well enough not to bother arguing.
“I’ll watch her.”
“Thanks.”
I head down the steps.
“Does Hannah know where you’re going?”
“No.”
“You want me to tell her?”
I look back at him.
“No.”
Then I head for the truck.