Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(77)

“Lock the door behind me,” said Hannah.

“Why?”

“There’s a stranger on this property. Who knows who it is or what’s going on?”

She tried for a smile but it didn’t take. “Okay, Captain Safety.”

Hannah’s forever nickname—don’t run on the pool deck; don’t go to the bathroom alone; never go back to someone’s hotel room. That last one; Cricket wished she’d taken it. That was the last time she’d had occasion to see that expression on Hannah’s face. A midnight call to her old friend brought Hannah out in the night to a downtown hotel to collect a weeping, sick-drunk Cricket.

I fucked up, Hannah.

Oh, Crick.

What did people without a Hannah do? Who cleaned up their messes and fixed their problems, who talked to them when they were depressed, came to get them when they’d screwed up?

“Be careful,” she told Hannah.

As the words left her, she felt a sudden rush of panic, a strong sense that they should stay together. Wasn’t this like the biggest horror movie “don’t”?

Don’t split up.

She was about to say so, but Hannah slid the door closed, and Cricket locked it, watching as Hannah disappeared down the deck stairs.

A rumble of thunder sounded distant but ominous.

Hannah knew best, of course. She was a wife, a mother, all the things that made you a real woman, right? Cricket still felt like a girl, a kid, just barely an adult at all. When did a person start to feel like a grown-up, in charge of her life, brave. What was that word she kept hearing? Self-efficacy, the ability to succeed, to solve problems. She didn’t have enough of that.

She did as Hannah asked, went for the phone and tried to call 911. But the call failed. She tried again. Another time.

Just those frustrating beeps that meant there was no service.

“Come on,” she said. “Please.”

“There’s no service, Cricket. Just—stop.”

When she turned around Joshua was on his feet.

“Oh,” she said surprised. “You good?”

He stood by the couch, looking tall and strong. He’d put the ice pack down. The wound, now that it was clean, didn’t look so bad. And Joshua? He didn’t look dazed and out of it—at all.

In fact, he wore an expression that Cricket hadn’t seen before. There was a hardness to his face, a strange coldness to his gaze. She looked over toward the sliding door, hoping to see Hannah or the guys coming back. But there was just the darkness.

How long had Hannah been gone? Not even fifteen minutes. The guys not much longer.

Her throat went a little dry. What if something had happened to them? What if they weren’t coming back?

“What’s up?” she asked, fear gripping her. “What’s wrong?”

She started moving toward him but something made her stop. Instinctively, she reached for her phone. It was up on the kitchen island; she grabbed it and dialed the number again. Just those beeps. Goddamn it. She fucking hated nature. The woods totally sucked.

“Cricket,” Joshua said, now moving slowly toward her. “I have some things I need to tell you. I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

She squinted at him, tried for a smile as she backed up a step, another. In the kitchen she knew was a magnetic strip with big knives. She’d noticed it, thinking when she had a real house with a real kitchen someday, she’d have something just like that.

“Ookaay,” she said, still inching back as he inched closer. “Why so serious? Are you feeling all right?”

“Just have a seat, okay? We need to talk.”

“Joshua,” she said. “You’re scaring me.”

She saw something flash across his face, sadness, regret. But then it was gone.

“Have you ever done something that you deeply regret?” he asked.

She laughed a little. “Lots of things.”

“Do you know what it’s like when you do a bad thing, and then you have to do other bad things to keep that secret?”

Like when you sleep with your best friend’s brother, cheating on his wife, your boyfriend, then you have to lie. Or end the pregnancy that results from your affair, and keep that secret forever—from him, from your best friend, from yourself? Yes, she knew all about regrets, secrets, and lies.

“Do you think it’s possible to get close to someone for a dark reason, but then fall in love anyway? And wish you could go back and start again?”

She felt tears well to her eyes. “What are you saying, Joshua?”

His gaze drifted behind her, and she turned to see another form standing on the deck, tall, hooded. Not Hannah. Not anyone she knew. A cold dump of fear hit her belly. The person at the edge of the lake.

“What’s happening?” she asked, not liking how girlish, how afraid her voice sounded. “Who is that?”

When she turned back to Joshua, he was standing right beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder, a finger to her lips.

He was a stranger suddenly, someone powerful and threatening.

The form outside knocked insistently on the glass.

“What’s happening?” she asked again. Everything was so not what she thought, what she expected, that it was the only thing she could think to say.

“Shh,” he said. “Just stay quiet, okay? Don’t scream. Don’t make a scene. And we’ll get through this.”