“You want to try driving this thing? It takes serious finesse.”
She was silent for a long beat. “Finesseseems like a stretch.”
“Keep it up and I’m leaving you here,” I warned.
Ignoring this, she ducked lower in her seat, frowning through the window at the man. “You know, he looks sort of familiar.”
I grunted noncommittally. So long as he wasn’t shooting at us, I wasn’t really interested in his identity.
“He’s also kinda…hot,” Flo added, staring harder out the window. “Do you think he’s with Mickey? One of the other batshit O’Banion boys?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I muttered. “As far as I’m concerned, we were never here.”
Finally, the nose of the Thunderbird cleared the curb. I jammed my foot down on the gas pedal and we vaulted down the street, leaving the scene of the crime — and the watchful gaze of the tall, dark-haired stranger — in our rearview. Yet even when I turned onto the main street and headed back toward Flo’s townhouse, far beyond his sight, I could still feel the heavy weight of his stare on the back of my neck, making all the hair stand on end.
* * *
“Ouch!”
I winced as the metal tip of the hot-glue gun scorched my fingertips. Abandoning the mess of crafting supplies on the counter, I raced for the sink and shoved the burn under the tap. The cool water soothed the rapidly-reddening patch of skin on the pads of my fingers.
It was my own fault, frankly. I hadn’t been paying attention to what I was doing. My mind kept wandering to the events of this morning instead of the task at hand. I’d been distracted all day, since I dropped Florence off hours earlier — with promises to never again speak of our misguided visit to Zelda’s — and headed back home.
I’d gone for a run to clear my head, winding up at The Gallows when I was breathless and sweaty. Since we were closed-to-business, I used the rare customer-free opportunity to organize the messy bestseller section, restock our depleted candles, sort out the incense display, and (sigh) Windex until every display case shone like the day they’d rolled off the factory floor.
Once I was satisfied with my efforts, I’d locked up the now-pristine shop and headed back home. Irritatingly, my restless energy followed me, thoughts of Mickey and Zelda churning through my brain until I thought I’d go crazy. Three times, I picked up my phone to call Graham. And three times, I set my phone down, knowing he’d flip his lid if he ever found out what Florence and I were up to that morning.
I sought out any source of distraction I could find, weeding out my closet for old clothes in need of donation, cleaning my bathroom top to bottom, trying my hand at cooking an elaborate dinner — so elaborate, in fact, I ended up burning it and ordering takeout from Passage to India instead. But even their delectable chicken tikka masala wasn’t successful in taking my mind off matters. Nor was my tried-and-true fallback of cracking open my Kindle and getting lost in a fictional world to ignore the chaos of the real one I was currently stuck in. I’d read the same page of my romance novel six times in a row before conceding that my mind was too preoccupied to pay attention — even to the roguish charms of the Pirate King.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. After dinner, I’d hauled my trusty DIY kit in from the garage and gotten to work. Five hours later, my kitchen looked like a ‘dark academia aesthetic’Pinterest board threw up all over it, and I’d successfully created the foundations of a new window display for the shop. It featured suspended picture frames I’d spray-painted black along with ghost-like mannequin forms draped in gauzy gowns that would blow in the haunted winds of All Hallow’s Eve. (Okay, okay, so the haunted wind was actually a rotating floor fan I’d plug in beneath the display, but what the tourists didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.)
I’d fashioned six nooses out of coarse rope to hang around the mannequins — a nod to the shop name as well as an homage to the original Salem women who lost their lives in the infamous Witch Trials. Now, I was hot-gluing dozens of old books onto a canvas sheet, creating a textured backdrop out of torn pages. As a finishing touch, I planned to scorch some of the edges with matches. Then again, seeing as I was already nursing a smarting burn, I should probably quit while I was ahead.
The sudden buzz of my cellphone startled me. I shut the sink tap and raced across the room before the call disconnected. I’d expected it to be Florence, calling for the fifth time (“We got in a catfight! With a psychic!” she’d gasped between giggles the last time she phoned. “And a parrot!”) but the name flashing across my screen made my stomach drop straight to the cold tile floor.
GRAHAM GRAVES CALLING
I sucked in a breath. Stock-still, I watched it ring three more times before he was directed to my voicemail. He didn’t leave a message. I blew out a shaky breath of relief as the screen turned dark once more. But the relief was short-lived.
Why was he calling me? It was 10PM on a Monday night… not exactly a reasonable hour for idle chitchat. Had he somehow found out about my trip to Zelda’s this morning? I prayed he hadn’t, seeing as I’d lied straight to his face about not knowing the psychic’s address… and considering he’d explicitly warned me to stay as far away from Mickey O’Banion as possible…
There’s no way he knows,I assured myself, steeling my shoulders against the intrusive thoughts.He’s not the Eye of Sauron. He doesn’t see everything you do, Gwen.
Assurances aside, I couldn’t stop myself from dimming the lights in the kitchen to their lowest setting. Nor could I prevent peeking out the window by the breakfast nook to see if a familiar black Bronco was parked in front of my house. Thankfully, the street was dark and quiet, no signs of Graham or anyone else prowling about in the moonlight. My recent sensation of being watched had only gotten worse as the hours ticked on. I was actually looking forward to work in the morning. The chaos of customers would keep me far too occupied to worry about Graham or Zelda or rogue witch covens or the O’Banion boys.
Shaking off my lingering unease, I double checked my locks, cleaned up my crafting supplies, and made my way upstairs for the night. I wasn’t tired. In fact, I was the opposite of tired, thoughts jumping around inside my skull like popcorn kernels. I went through the motions of my evening routine anyway, changing into my favorite set of silk pajamas, washing my face clean of makeup, brushing my teeth, and climbing into bed.
I lay in the darkness, staring up at my ceiling, and conjured up what I liked to call a mental vacation. It was a tactic I’d used a thousand sleepless nights before. I’d come up with it years ago, when I was just a kid, back in the days I’d felt too exposed to sleep, too nervous to shut my eyes for fear of what might find me in the dark. The idea was to trick my brain into a state of relaxation by pretending I was somewhere exotic, in places I’d seen only in magazines and glossy textbook pages in my History class textbooks.
I wasn’t there, in that beige-on-beige trailer in a no-name town off the New Jersey Interstate. I wasn’t in a makeshift bed that doubled as our dining room table. I was far away, somewhere full of color and light and sound. The Grand Canyon, maybe, or Mount Rushmore. A white sand beach on the panhandle coast of Florida or a winding mountain route through the snowy Rockies of Colorado.
I’d envision every detail I could think of, from the sky’s shade of blue to the dirt’s gritty crunch beneath my boots to the feel of the wind blowing through my hair. Then, I’d imagine myself there, weave myself into the illusion. Notme, per se, but an older, wiser version of myself, one who wasn’t ruled by fear or held hostage by the whims of a wild mother. One who could sleep through the night with ease.
A Gwendolyn who trusted easily. A Gwendolyn who let people into her heart without anticipating the pain that would result when they inevitably broke it. A better, stronger, more capable Gwendolyn.
I was supposed to be her by now.
Unfortunately, that version of me seemed just as fictitious as my mental vacations.