MAE SET THE BOX ON the table as Lance followed her into the attic. Her stomach tensed with a flutter of nerves. They were alone now. Should she just come right out with it?
“Why does your grandpa stay up here, anyway?” Lance asked, standing too close beside her.
“It’s one of life’s great mysteries,” Mae said, and that was true because she’d asked him plenty of times and had never gotten a straight answer. “He likes the view, mostly.”
“Long way up, though. You’d think after the stroke…” Lance shoved his hands in his pockets as he scanned her granddad’s bookshelf. “I still feel bad about it.”
Mae bit the insides of her cheeks, the pain keeping her from the memory of that day. How her granddad had collapsed when he saw Lance carrying Ro’s body. How she’d almost lost both of them, all at once.
“Ro was real close to your grandpa, wasn’t she?” Lance looked her way, worry crossing his face. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to talk about her.”
She shook her head—there was so much to talk about, but she still wasn’t sure where to start. Ro would dive right in.
“Actually, I do.” Her eyes teared up and she turned, letting out a cough like she had dust in her throat, and then turned back. “Why’d you leave?” She hadn’t known what she was going to ask until it burst out. “After it happened.”
Lance shrugged, rocked on his heels. His gaze settled on the window, the one overlooking the woods and the bay beyond.
“I needed a change,” he said. “Wanted to clear my head. It just about killed me.”
He stopped then, realizing what he’d said. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, and she couldn’t help herself. “Because you felt guilty?”
The pain on his face disappeared, replaced by confusion. For a moment she caught a glimpse of the old Lance—the guy who was always lurking in the shadows, trying to catch her sister’s attention—but the confidence returned and he nodded.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, watching her. “I wished I could have saved her. Wished I could’ve got there in time.” He sighed. “Think about it, Mae. Each day ends up being a series of moments, some big, some small, and I know that’s the one I’ll regret the most. That day. That moment I missed.” He stared out the window again and she knew he was looking at the bay in the distance. “To tell you the truth, my dad wanted me gone last year so I’d quit asking so many questions. Quit talking about Ro every night.” He shook his head, let out another frustrated sigh. “Do you know what that’s like? To spend every day thinking about how if you’d just been a little earlier, found her a little sooner…”
Mae’s heart clinched and he glanced up at the ceiling and then back at her again.
“You probably do,” he said, his eyes full of understanding. He ran a hand through his hair, crossed his arms like he didn’t know where to put them. “I loved her, Mae.”
She searched his eyes, trying to catch him in the lie, but it wasn’t there. He’d loved her. He’d loved Ro, and Cage had too. They all had, but that hadn’t been enough to save her.
“Any more questions?” He sounded hoarse, like he was trying not to break down in front of her.
“Lots.” Maybe it was hurting them both, but she needed to keep him talking. “Can you tell me what happened again?”
Lance stepped toward her. “Everything’s in the police report,” he said, his voice softer now. “You know I made an official statement, Mae.”
She’d read it. A hundred times over. “Yes. To your dad.” She gave him a loaded look, let the words hang in the air.
He shook his head and then smiled as if half amused, half disappointed in her. “Kind of how it works when he’s a cop.”
“What about the differences in what you said to my dad and what you wrote in your statement?”
Lance nodded slowly, stared at the ground for a breath like he was thinking about what to say. “Like what?” he finally asked. His hazel eyes held a challenge but she wasn’t going to back down.
“You told my dad you thought Cage killed her.” She was watching his face. Lance’s jaw was firm but not clenched, his gaze steady. “But in the statement you only mentioned that you saw him standing over her.”
He nodded again. “That’s true.” He took another step and seemed suddenly taller, his skin darker, tanner, everything about him magnified. She fought the urge to back away, put distance between them.
“Why’d you say that to Sonny, then?” Mae asked. “Tell him something like that when you weren’t sure?” All of the not-knowing of the past year rose up in her throat and she wanted to cry. “Do you really think Cage did it?”
Lance rubbed at his forehead, leaned against her granddad’s bookcase. “At first I did, but I—” His voice cracked. “I remember that day, clear as clear. I just don’t know what he was doing. He was either holding her, or…”
Mae felt herself flinch, and Lance saw it too. “I should quit talking.”
“No. Go on.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans to keep them from shaking. “Please.”
“I wanted it to be his fault,” he said, and now he wasn’t looking at her anymore, like he was embarrassed. “I never liked him, Mae. He kept to himself. Never noticed anyone but her. Never spoke to anyone but her.”
Her eyes narrowed. Didn’t he realize he was describing himself too?
“That’s not a reason to think he killed her.” The black door in her mind flung open and she threw all her sadness into it, all her anger. She had to stay focused.
“I know.” Lance rubbed at his forehead again, his shoulders tensing. “That’s why I left it out of my statement. Would’ve just sounded jealous anyway.”
“So instead you told my dad you thought Cage did it.”
“I don’t know what I saw, Mae.” A hint of frustration in his voice now. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I’m allowed an opinion. I found her.” He walked over to the box on the table, his elbow grazing her arm as he passed. “I saw Cage standing over her body. I saw the blood. He ran off when I shouted at him. And that’s the truth.”
Her heart felt tight as it all sank in. Surely she hadn’t gotten Cage wrong? But he ran. And she’d known it all along. He ran.
Lance’s hair fell over his eyes as he pulled the lid off the box. Inside were the old photographs, all those faces gaping up at her, the younger Grady’s near the top. The black-and-white daguerreotype couldn’t hide his lankiness or that impression of being restless to the bone. It reminded her of herself—how she felt right now, how she’d felt all year—and she stared at him and knew she had to try harder.
“Tell me what else you didn’t say in the report.”
Lance smiled, but he looked sad. “Kind of seems like you’re interrogating me,” he said, forcing a playfulness into his words. Maybe he couldn’t stand the pressure in the room either. Maybe that heavy sadness that was pressing down on her was pressing down on him too. “Planning on keeping me a prisoner up here?”
Mae folded her arms across her chest. “Do I have a reason to?”
“No, but I wouldn’t really mind, long as you were here.” He stepped toward her and she could smell his cologne again, and something like sand and salt—that scent from being outdoors in the sun. “Listen, I know there’s things I could have done better,” he said. “I know that.” His words struck her as odd, but his eyes were serious when he looked her over; she could see the depth of his gaze. “Mae, I want the same thing you want. I—”
“Lance?” Elle’s voice filtered through the open door. “Mae?”
They both turned at the sound of her shout, and then Lance shrugged.
“Best not get in trouble with both of you.” Suddenly his hand was on the side of her face and he was leaning toward her, warmth radiating from his skin, his hazel eyes pinning her right where she stood. “Believe me,” Lance said, his voice breaking, all his words coming in a rush, “I would have done anything for her. I still would.”
And then he was gone, his footsteps pounding down the stairs.
Mae was left alone in the attic. Frustrated, she shut the cardboard lid over Grady’s picture. She hadn’t learned anything from talking to Lance, not really. And she’d gotten nothing from Cage last night.
She sat down on the edge of the table. Maybe Lance would open up to her if he trusted her more. He’d seemed honest enough, willing to talk, but her gut told her he was holding back. She needed to go downstairs and small-talk him, start slow. Use every minute before nightfall to lure out whatever he wasn’t telling her about Ro.
As she stood, gearing herself up for the task, she heard a scratching noise. She took a step toward the stairs and heard it again. It sounded too loud to be mice. Her next thought was Lance; but she’d seen him leave. Maybe it was another bird, or some small animal had gotten trapped inside the attic?
Beyond her granddad’s tidy room was the storage space, full of stacks of old furniture and books, over a century of clutter, all put away behind the newer plywood wall. The sound had come from back there. Curious now, Mae started into the warm shadows. This was the unfinished part of the attic, lit by the window on the far wall.
A wail came from somewhere—slow and drawn out. The room was still, and she couldn’t see anything hiding among the boxes. She kept going, treading as lightly as she could, all the way to the back of the attic. When she got close to the window, she felt fresh air against her skin—the glass pane was crooked, halfway open. The scratching came again, and her breath went shallow as she realized it was coming from beneath her.
Mae hesitated and then heaved a nearby box aside to clear some space. A small rug was rumpled under it and she pulled it away, revealing warped floorboards with wide cracks between them. Had an animal gotten trapped down there? She shoved the box with her shoulder to move it against the wall, but it was stuck. She shoved it again, glancing down to see what it was caught on, and then sank to her knees.
A brass hinge. She was staring at a pair of hinges in the floor. In another moment it registered: she’d found a trapdoor.
A chill shot down her back. Running her hands along the wood in the opposite direction of the hinges, she found a dime-sized furrow in one of the boards. She hooked her finger into the little groove and lifted.
A wave of heat hit her face as she stared at a narrow ladder, dropping away into darkness. Her heart quickened. Why had she never seen this before? And the bigger question: What was down there?
The scraping was louder now and Mae tensed. Part of her knew she should find a flashlight or go get Elle. But the other part of her couldn’t turn away. It felt like she was on the edge of a discovery and if she blinked it might disappear. Don’t blink. She gripped the floorboards and then started down the ladder, one foot at a time, going slow to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. When she got to the last rung, she was in a tunnel—some sort of crawlspace underneath the attic floor, running along the wall of the house. It was dark and narrow and hot, and hard to breathe.
Ahead light splintered through a small hole. The ceiling slanted even lower and she ducked down, her fingernails digging into her palms as she veered deeper into the tunnel.
And then the end came into sight. It looked as if it had been boarded up recently, planks of blond plywood stretched over what appeared to be a brick step. Mae turned, searching the corners of the tunnel, but nothing was on the ground. No animal lying there hurt, nothing to make that scratching noise she’d heard.
She stepped closer to the barrier. In the trickle of light, she saw that the boards nailed to the upper half of the boundary were dusty. She ran her hands over the wood and her fingertips hit air. An opening.
A brick at the base had been pushed through: there was a hole to the other side. The scratching started up again and she bent down, her pulse thudding in her ears.
Something was definitely in there now—it needed help—just beyond the barrier. She yanked the wood at the edge of the crack, trying to make it bigger. A plank swung loose and then gave way in her arms, and she staggered back, setting the board down and grabbing the next one. She tugged harder this time, dust showering her face as the wood pulled free. Now the gap was big enough to squeeze through.
“Hello?”
Mae heard the sound of breathing. Her heart was skidding in her chest as she forced herself to step through the hole she’d made. And then she was on the other side.
It was dark, the air blanket-thick.
She took a small shuffle forward, her foot knocking against something sharp. It thudded to the floor and she leaned down, her hand finding a box no bigger than her palm. She picked it up, its contents rattling—a box of matches? Her fingers worked fast to open it, strike a match.
There was a whiff of phosphorus and she gasped, blinking, as the light flared over glass. At her feet was an oil lantern, just like the one in the old photographs. She stared at it in disbelief and then the wail came again, behind her. Mae whirled and saw glowing eyes.
In the corner of the cramped space was the little black stray. It huddled against the far wall, trembling.
How had it gotten all the way in here? But she didn’t even know where here was. She’d expected the tunnel to winnow out, leading to another doorway or trapdoor, some other location in the house, but the small flame revealed yet another barrier, closing in the cavelike space. The cat had somehow found its way in and gotten trapped.
She lit the oil lantern and knelt down, holding out her hand. “Here, it’s okay.”
The cat flinched away before circling toward her, its nose nudging her wrist. She ran her hand over it, felt its ribs sticking out. It was half starved, its fur clumped with dirt and cobwebs, dried blood between its claws—it’d been trying to scratch its way out. She took another look along the floor for the calico, just in case it had gotten trapped too, but didn’t see it.
“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Mae said, picking it up. “I’m glad I found you,” she whispered. It was small and warm in her arms, and she thought of the breathing she’d heard—too loud to be from the stray. Her imagination had gotten away from her in the darkness of the tunnel.
When she turned to leave, the light fell over the wall and she froze. In front of her was a charcoal drawing that spanned the entire length of brick. She held up the lantern to get a better look and felt her jaw drop.
At the top, near the ceiling, was an arc of stars and the moon. A foreign word was written beside it in capital letters. CHANA. She whispered it aloud and then remembered seeing it before. In the green book, maybe, jotted in a margin. It was so hot it was hard to think and she didn’t know what it meant. The lantern was flickering across the wall, casting shadows, and she wanted to leave, to breathe fresh air again, but her eyes were seduced by the charcoal.
Underneath the moon and stars was a rectangular shape, jutting up from what was meant to be the ground. It was a sketch of a grave. The cat trembled in her arms and she tucked it closer as she squinted at the drawing. Leading up to the large headstone were little lumps spaced out in a row.
A trail of animals. A bird, a cat, a snake, and a deer, or a horse, maybe. All sleeping, their eyes in the shape of little X marks.
Not sleeping, then. The animals were supposed to be dead.
Next to them was a woman in a dress, rising up toward the charcoal moon. She was suspended—there was air underneath her feet, almost like a ghost. Standing on the ground beside her was another figure, this one darker, filled in like flesh.
Mae searched for a signature and found a small scribble in the bottom corner. Setting the heavy lantern on the floor, she crouched down to read it, but the artist had left only a single word, followed by numbers. Psalms 3:5. A Bible passage.
Sharp pinpricks ground into her arm. The cat was digging in its claws as it trembled. Mae felt the same way inside. Anyone in her family could have drawn this sketch, even Ro, and someone had tried to keep it hidden by walling up the room.
The cat wriggled again, letting out a cry this time, and Mae shifted it in her arms. “You’re right,” she whispered, “let’s go.”
She picked up the lantern with her free hand, carrying the cat in her other. One last glance at the charcoal and then she wedged through the small opening and raced into the tunnel and up the ladder, shutting the trapdoor behind her. She quickly pushed the rug and the box over it, trying to make it look exactly how it was before. Maybe this was why her granddad never wanted to leave the attic, insisted on sleeping up here too. Maybe he’d been trying to protect its secrets.
The cat squirmed, its claws hooking into her thin shirt. “Come on. We’ll get some food in you.” The stray twisted itself, diving off her shoulder. It hit the floor, darted onto the box she’d just moved, and then jumped up to the windowsill.
“No,” Mae said, making her voice soft. “Come down.”
Before she could coax it further she heard a piercing whistle, and the cat lunged through the opening, disappearing out of sight. Shocked, Mae ran to the window, expecting to see the stray clinging to the roof or sprawled on the ground.
But there was only the sandy driveway, the beech trees by the old fountain, the woods swelling out under dark clouds.
She held on to the windowsill, a tingle creeping down her spine. Her chest felt tight from all the dust, and she took in deep gulps of fresh air. The tunnel, the cat, the drawing, the book, everything whirled in her head, and she didn’t know what door to put it behind and she didn’t want to hide it away anyway, because she needed answers. She blinked, leaned farther out the window as she gazed at the lawn below. What was that?
She rubbed at her eyes. Someone was standing by the fountain, staring at the house.