I wondered if she was talking about me or about Everest. I didn’t ask.
She huffed. “Oh, and she lost her key.”
“Keys are replaceable,” Jeb said.
“Was it a master key?” Lucy asked suddenly.
“No. I don’t leave the inn with the master key.” After cleaning the rooms, I always put it in the safe.
My uncle sighed, a deep, rattling sigh. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the type of key I’d lost though. He sounded tired.
“I’m going to call Everest. I’m not pleased with him. Not pleased at all. We raised him better than this.” He lifted his phone to his ear and watched me as he spoke into the receiver. Everest must’ve corroborated my story, because when Jeb hung up, he was shaking his head. “He says he’s sorry.” He exchanged a weighted glance with Lucy.
“Can I go?” I peeped.
He waved toward the door, and I slid by them, stepping quickly over the wine-colored runner, hoping the sconces weren’t casting too much of a glow on my face. The second I arrived inside my bedroom, I sidled against the door and crumpled to the floor.
For a long moment, I didn’t move, didn’t flick on the lights, didn’t take a shower. I just sat there on the floor with my knees tucked against me, and I breathed. Just breathed.
The adrenaline vanished from my body the same way it had come-quietly and completely.
Lucy had me start work early the next morning.
She stopped by my bedroom to ask that I vacuum the common areas and rearrange the furniture on the terrace. Neither of us mentioned the previous night’s happenings. It was easier to pretend that I hadn’t erupted into the inn like a wild animal.
I grabbed my earphones from my nightstand drawer when I remembered I didn’t have a phone, which meant I had no music to listen to during my chores. I sighed. But that was the least of my worries. I also didn’t have my wallet. And a key to my room was somewhere in the wilderness, etched with my room number and the Boulder Inn logo, which was basically an invitation to visit.
After I finished my chores, I would need to retrace my steps to Liam’s house. Would I even recognize the way? Hopefully my wolf scent still clung to the forest floor, and I would be able to follow it back.
The motor rumbled as I pumped my arms back and forth, dragging the nozzle over the thick rugs and hardwood floors. My shoulders ached, but I pressed on. At some point, my body would adjust to my four-legged activities, and my muscles would strengthen. Besides, the ache paled to the pain that had ravaged my body after the first trial.
Which reminded me that I had to meet with everyone this evening at Heath’s old place.
Which reminded me that I would have to sit in the same room as Liam.
The thought made me vacuum faster and harder. I crouched to get the nozzle underneath the couches, then plucked off the throw pillows decorated with Native American motifs and vacuumed the seats, before fluffing the pillows and arranging them like dominoes. I turned to start on another sofa when I bumped into someone.
My first instinct was to apologize, but my first instinct fizzled out the second I saw who it was.
Liam’s nose and jaw were almost healed. It was his dark eyes that looked bruised. I guessed he hadn’t slept much, and I hoped it was because of me…of what he’d done. My thighs clenched as I remembered him sniffing me, and the urge to slap him frothed upward.
“Ness?”
I pretended I hadn’t heard him. Heart thumping fast-too fast-I moved around the room, hauling the roaring nozzle over every inch of floor, even the areas I’d already scoured. If only I could suck him up inside the hose.
I heard his slow inhale again, and a bolt of indignation sparked inside my core. In my peripheral vision, I saw him step toward me. I put more distance between us. Finally, he got the message, because he walked out of the living room. It took several minutes for my breathing to return to normal.
I shut off the vacuum, and as I dragged it back through the double-storied room, I spotted something on one of the couches. Something that hadn’t been there before.
My bag and my shoes.
Making sure the doorway was still empty, I strode over and checked the contents of my bag. I even unzipped my wallet. I didn’t carry around much cash, but the little I had was there. I took out my phone, half expecting it would have died during the night, but it had a full battery. Liam had probably charged it to peruse its contents. Sure my phone was password-protected, but the code was my birthday-it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to crack it
I had two new text messages.
One from Everest: Need me to pick you up?
One from August: Heard you were still in the running. What’s going on? Call me.
I didn’t answer either. I stuffed the phone back into my bag, returned the vacuum to the closet, and tidied up the terrace. Once I was done, I stopped by the kitchen for food. During lunch, I asked Evelyn if she would accompany me on a little trek: to my old house.
Although hesitant, she’d agreed. We left the inn in the early afternoon and walked up a long stretch of winding road that ended in a cul-de-sac.
“One winter, I skidded on ice and fell all the way down the hill. Mom almost fainted when she saw me. I had cuts all over my cheeks.”
“Was it ghastlier than the way you were returned to me on Saturday?”
I flashed her a sheepish grin. “Probably not.”
She looped her arm through mine, her bad leg slowing our pace. The skid of rocks underneath her sneakers worried me-she wasn’t even lifting the foot attached to the damaged calf.
“Is this too hard on your leg?”
“No. It is good for my leg.” The ends of Mom’s silk scarf, which Evelyn had wound around her ponytail, fluttered in the warm breeze. “I do not exercise enough, and it is becoming stiff.”
I kicked a pebble that landed noiselessly inside a clump of heat-bleached grass. The road, which used to be smooth, was pockmarked. I hoped that whoever owned my childhood home was maintaining the house better than the path that led to it.
When slate shingles rose in the distance, my heart sped up and so did my pace. But then I remembered Evelyn’s leg, and I slowed.
No smoke curled out from the chimney. Then again, it was summer.
As we neared the house, I told Evelyn the story of how I forbade my parents from kindling a fire one Christmas, terrified it would char poor Santa. I’d believed he was real until we’d left for Los Angeles. After all, werewolves were real, so why wouldn’t Santa be?
Moss flecked the purple-gray stone walls, making my house resemble a witch’s hut…if witch’s huts had broken windows.
I frowned at the shattered glass.
“Was all of the land your family’s?” Evelyn ran her finger over the heavy purple blooms of the wisteria that wrapped around the beams of our porch and spilled their heady scent into the hot air. After Mom planted the vine, it took years for it to bloom, and then one summer, it purpled and pinked.
As bees pirouetted lazily next to the blooms, I peered through another cracked, dusty window. There wasn’t a trace of life in the house. It was abandoned.
“This was my bedroom,” I told Evelyn.
The previous owners had stripped the mint wallpaper from the walls and painted them a blaring sunflower yellow, but the floor was the same faded-honey color with scratch marks they hadn’t been able to sand down. I remembered leaving them there the first time I’d changed.
The only feature that remained in the room was a built-in closet that hung open like a gaping, toothless mouth.
“And in here?” Evelyn asked.