I woke up to Lily grinding her wet pussy up and down the length of my already-hard cock, letting the head of it rub against her clit. She seemed barely aware of what she was doing, her hips lazy, her body speeding up when I kissed her. I lifted her hips and slid deeply into her pussy without waiting, fucking her good and hard first thing in the morning just like she wanted. I didn’t know how I’d ever be able to wake up happy without her in my bed again. So far, we had no idea how long Lily would have to stay at the retreat. We hadn’t heard back from the cops after what had happened to Michael—I was told that there would be an autopsy before they could move on with the investigation, and in the meantime Lily was to stay put, which kept her in bed with me for as long as I could hold her there during the day.

I got up eventually, taking a shower and getting ready to go. Lily had taken to staying in the room, and I felt bad that she felt like she had to avoid the rest of the guests at the retreat. She didn’t feel safe there—people believed she’d killed Michael, and though I wouldn’t admit it to her, I wasn’t quite sure myself that she hadn’t. She refused to talk about it, which made me think that something had happened she didn’t want to mention. I knew better than to bring it up with her. After what had happened when I’d accused her of sleeping with Michael, I never wanted to see her get that angry again.

I left Lily in the bedroom and made my way downstairs, stopping in at my office to grab a few things before I went down to examine the burnt-out room. The inspector had come the day before and cleared the room for people, though it was to be limited to staff until repairs had been made and the inspector had been out to check them again. I sighed when I got to the doorway and looked over the damage, knowing it was going to cost a fortune just to get the east wing of the building up and running again.

I heard a noise in the room and paused before I went in, straining my ears to listen. It was a soft sound, and at first I thought it might be an animal—maybe a kitten crying, stuck in the debris. I crept inside, looking through the shelves to see there was a woman sitting on the remains of one of the chairs in the lounge, her face buried in her hands. She was crying, and from the look on her face, she had been for a long time. For a moment, I thought I should leave her alone, but she really wasn’t supposed to be in the room and I was compelled to make sure that she was okay. I stepped closer to her, clearing my throat so I wouldn’t startle her before I spoke.

“Miss?” I asked. She looked up at me, her eyes rimmed red. I recognized her face as one of the lawyers from Lily’s work. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, sniffling, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Just fine. I just needed a moment alone.”

“You’re Marilyn, right?” I asked. “Lily’s friend.”

Marilyn snorted, giving me a dry look. “Right.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You do work together, right?”

“Yes, but we’re not friends,” she said sharply. “We used to be, but not now.”

“What happened?” I found myself asking her curiously, though I knew it was none of my business. The woman huffed, tilting her nose in the air.

“That’s none of your business. But if you must know, Lilian isn’t exactly who she pretends to be. And I wouldn’t feel safe around her if I were you.”

I felt something cold run through me. “What does that mean?”

“It means that she’s capable of more than you think. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

I shook my head after a moment. “I can’t let you stay in here. This is closed off to the public right now.”

“Fine,” she huffed and walked out without another word. I watched her as she left, shaking my head before turning and walking over to the edge of the shelf Lily had been talking about. The wood was burnt—almost black—but when I touched the wood I could feel the distinct grooves of letters that had been carved into it. I looked closer, tilting it so the light would hit the shelf in just the right way to allow me to see the words carved there. As it had been on the log, it was just a jumble of letters, meaningless gibberish with only one word that mattered. I shook my head when I saw it, scrawled in all capital letters: DIE. A warning and a threat. It made me shudder to think about it, how close Lily had come to the person who had written this on the shelf, on the logs, the one who had probably nailed those carcasses to the trees in the woods.

I pulled out the notebook I’d brought downstairs with me and placed it against the shelf, rubbing the page faintly with a pencil to trace the outlines of the words. I folded the paper and hid it in my pocket, starting to pick through the burnt debris in the room to get to the doorway. I heard the voices before I even got there and paused, then crept toward the doorway, careful to keep my footsteps quiet.

“They don’t know anything about it,” came a male voice, one that I recognized immediately as Richard’s. “And they’re not gonna know anything about it if you just shut up.”

“Well, I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Richard’s voice cut off the other, a woman’s. “Just keep quiet. She’s digging her own hole with that one. She’ll be locked up before she steps foot off this retreat.”

“She’d better,” the woman hissed, and I knew then that it was Marilyn. I recognized the coldness there, even from the brief conversation I’d had with her. “Or else—”

Marilyn cut herself off and I froze, holding my breath.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she said after a moment, and I heard the sounds of her heels clicking against the floor while she walked in the other direction. I took a deep breath and stepped into the room where Richard was still standing.

“Hello, Richard,” I said to him stiffly.

I had no idea what he’d been talking about with Marilyn, but I had a feeling in my gut it was something to do with Lily. My first instinct in that case was to protect her, even if it meant having to face Richard beyond what I normally would be forced to do.

“I didn’t think you were still here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Richard said. “I already told you, Logan, I’m not going anywhere until I get my money. The only way you’re going to get out of this is if you die.”

I felt a chill run through my spine when he said the words.

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged in a nonchalant, noncommittal way.

“It just seems to be a pattern in this place,” he said, then winked at me in a way that made me shiver. He left and I watched him go, my eyes on his back as he made his way down the stairs. I looked up at the fourth-floor railing that Michael had tipped over, wondering again exactly what had happened that afternoon and what Lily wouldn’t tell me. It was driving me crazy, but I knew that pressing her wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It was one thing for Lily to keep things from me, but it was another for her to refuse to answer the cops’ questions. I only hoped she wouldn’t be too stubborn and get herself into worse trouble than she needed to be in if she hadn’t had anything to do with Michael’s death.

I made my way to the shed outside, just at the edge of the retreat center. It was where we kept the gear we used to go back and forth from the worksite, and I made my way through the fresh snow, looking around. The valet was busy running back and forth from the lot, bringing cars around to disgruntled guests who I knew would probably never come back. Attendance though was the least of my worries right now—half of the building had to be inspected and fixed, something that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars I wasn’t sure the retreat had.

I sighed as I opened the door to the shed, going inside to find the place where I usually hung my winter coveralls. I got dressed quickly, slipping into my boots, looking around for a spare pair of gloves. I noticed one in the pile, picking it up to look at it closely. I pulled the other glove out of my coat pocket—the one I had found at the worksite, and wasn’t surprised to find that it matched. I flipped it inside out, searching for a pair of initials or anything that would mark them as belonging to someone on my crew. We often just had a pile of work gloves sitting out to pick and choose from, so unless somebody had marked it, there was no way of knowing who’d had them last without asking the men directly.

I shoved the glove in my pocket, making my way down the hill toward the worksite. I saw the men standing around the truck waiting for me, and as I approached them, I held the glove out in front of me.

“Anybody know where the other grey glove went?” I asked them.

Eddie raised his eyebrows.

“No,” he said, taking a bite out of an apple. “Are they yours?”

“They are mine. I can’t find the other one. I was wondering who had them last.”

Eddie shrugged. I looked around at the rest of the men, noticing they all had strange looks on their faces as if they’d been talking about something just before I’d walked up.

“What’s going on?” I asked. They looked at me quietly, exchanging glances with each other.

“We can’t find Jerry,” Harold said.

“You can’t find Jerry,” I repeated dumbly. “What do you mean, you can’t find him?”

Nobody answered. I stared around at them impatiently, turning my eyes to Eddie.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I commanded.

He took a deep breath. “We all showed up here this morning like normal, ‘bout an hour ago. Jerry was with us. Then he just—he just disappeared.”

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“You’re going to have to explain this to me a little better,” I said to them. “You’re telling me Jerry just vanished into thin air.”

“Well, no,” admitted Eddie. “He went for a leak or something. But he never came back. We went looking for him, but—”

“But what?” I asked impatiently when he didn’t continue.

“We heard noises in the trees. Like footsteps. Only none of us could see who it was. We called for Jerry for about an hour until just before you showed up.”

“Why did nobody call me?” I asked them. They stared at me again, a blank look that was starting to grate on my nerves.

“We tried to call you. Phone service is bad out here, you know that.”

“Well, get up,” I said to them, lifting my arms.

“What?” Eddie asked.

“We’re going to look for Jerry. I can’t search the woods by myself.”

“We can’t—”

“We are going to look for Jerry,” I said firmly. “And I don’t want to hear shit about a curse. He’s new—he was probably just out there fucking around and got lost. We’ll find him.”

The men grumbled, standing up. I shoved the gloves back into my pocket, cursing as we made our way through the trees. It was getting dark outside, though it was only late morning—the clouds were covering the sun, threatening to dump inches of snow on our heads at any moment. I shivered in the cold wind, looking around at the men before we entered the forest.

“I want you guys to pair up. I’ll go by myself. Spread out as much as you can but keep within shouting distance. If it starts to snow—”

“If it starts to snow, we’re heading back, boss,” Eddie said. The other men nodded in agreement.

“Of course,” I said, sighing as I waved them off. I started through the trees, looking around as I walked.

“Jerry,” I called out, my voice ringing out through the trees. “Get the fuck over here, kid.”

There was no answer. I heard the sound of Eddie shouting, but nothing close to me. I kept my eyes on the ground as I moved, looking for footprints, but I saw nothing. I pulled out my flashlight when I got further into the dense trees, watching my breath as it puffed in front of my face. My whole body was tense and my skin like it was crawling, like somebody was touching me or scanning me with their eyes. I froze, looking around, aiming the flashlight through the dimness. I found myself holding my breath, afraid for a reason I didn’t understand. It made me angry, and I gritted my teeth as I yelled out for Jerry again.

I started walking again when there was no answer. I couldn’t hear the other men anymore and wondered how far out I’d gone, how long it would take to turn around and go back to the worksite. A fine snow had started to fall but all I could think about was Jerry, wondering what would happen to him if I left him out here. I shook my head, continuing to walk through the snow, knowing the men must have turned back. I called out for Jerry again, listening to the silence around me, growing increasingly frustrated the more time passed.

I was walking quickly when my foot caught on a root and I tripped, stumbling forward, nearly falling on my face. I landed on my hands and noticed when I was close to the ground the faint impression of boot prints in the dirty snow. I stood up, leaning forward and following the almost indistinguishable footsteps through a path in the snow that seemed nonsensical.

I noticed the red immediately. It was scarlet, blazing in the snow, burning through it in a puddle on the ground. I held my breath as I walked toward it. It was big—at least four feet across, a puddle that was almost like a circle. I looked around, listening for any noise, but couldn’t hear anything above my own breathing.

“Jerry?” I called out again and noticed my voice was shaking. I didn’t see Jerry anywhere, nor any other blood. There was no sign that anything had been out here except for the stain, which was almost obscene in such a stark contrast with the snow.

I heard a branch break behind me but I didn’t stop to see if it was Jerry. I didn’t even consider looking. I took off through the trees toward the worksite, running as quickly as I could through the trees. Even as I started to lose my breath, I pushed forward, pumping my legs until my lungs were burning with effort as I made my way back up to the truck. There were no men at the worksite, and for a moment the thought occurred to me that perhaps none of them had made it back. Maybe all my men were lost to the woods, to the curse of this area and the retreat.

I took a deep breath, taking a long drink of water before I made my way back to the shed. The lights were on at the retreat and I could see the shapes of people in the windows. I was glad to see that some were in the lounge, others in the dining room, hopefully enjoying the rest of their time as guests. I went inside and up to my office, picking up the phone to dial 911. It was the last thing I wanted to do at this point, but my only option, and I only hoped that things wouldn’t turn out for the worse.