What Lies in the Woods(64)

I went straight to Ethan’s room. I hadn’t called him—without my phone, I didn’t even have his number—and he greeted me with surprise and alarm.

“Naomi! I’ve been trying to call you— What the hell happened to your face?” he asked.

“My face isn’t even the worst part,” I told him, sounding like I had a head cold. I pushed in past him, shut the door, and engaged the chain. “I couldn’t call you because my phone got stolen. By the guy who did this.” I gestured at my face. Scar or no scar, I liked my face. It had severe angles that intimidated people, an effect that the scar actually helped but which the puffy, purplish state of my nose completely ruined.

“What guy? What happened?” Ethan asked. “When was this?”

“A few hours ago.” I went through the sequence of events—the Camry, getting back to the hotel, the intruder. When I got to how I’d decided not to call the police, he sank down on the bed, elbows on his knees and hands laced behind his head.

“Naomi. You have to tell the cops. Call Bishop. Let her know—”

“No. I know it’s the smart thing. I know it’s the logical thing and probably the moral thing, but no. I can’t. And you can’t. Please. There’s too much at stake. Too much that could go wrong.”

“You can’t keep it quiet forever.”

“But I can until I have the answers,” I said. “I swear to God, Ethan, as soon as I know who’s responsible for all of this, I’ll hand everything we have over to the police. But I don’t trust them. They got the wrong man before. And Liv died.”

“You don’t know if Liv’s death is connected.”

“How could it not be?” I paced. He watched me, eyes dark with concern. “Either the person who attacked me is trying to cover his tracks, or dear AJ is out for revenge.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. You have no reason to think Stahl’s son is after you.”

“That letter—”

“There’s a big difference between wanting answers and wanting revenge,” Ethan pointed out. “There aren’t any threats in that letter. Only questions.”

“I ruined his life.”

“Having a serial killer for a father ruined his life,” Ethan replied.

“Except he wasn’t a serial killer, was he?”

“Don’t go down that road. Stahl murdered those women.”

“You can’t be sure of that. No one can except Stahl, and he’s dead.”

“I’m sure,” Ethan insisted. “And even if he wasn’t, none of this is your fault. You were a child. Nobody protected you. Not the way they should have.”

“Do you believe that? Or do you just want to?”

He guided me toward him, more invitation than insistence. “You need to slow down, Naomi. You need to rest.”

I let him gather me in, his hands shifting to my waist. I leaned my brow against his, letting out a long, shuddering breath. “You keep saying that. But I don’t think I know how to rest,” I said.

“I knew that about you the moment we met,” he said. “We aren’t going to get anywhere spinning wild theories. We need to start at the beginning. Go back to the attack.”

“But the attack wasn’t the beginning,” I said. “Persephone was the beginning.”

He nodded. “We found her. Now it’s time to find out what happened to her. And we will. But first, sleep. You’ll be safe. I’ll be here.” He brushed my hair back from my forehead, the motion delicate. I didn’t want to like Ethan Schreiber. I didn’t want to trust him. But I needed to.

Sometimes, surrender was the kindest thing of all.



* * *



I dreamed I was in my father’s house. I was a child, and something was hunting me. I could hear it breathing behind me. I ran through winding corridors of bulging bags and mildew-rimed boxes, trying to find the door, but they went on and on and on, and the corridors became paths among the trees. I slid beneath the lip of the boulder and tumbled into Persephone’s bony arms, and they wrapped around me tighter and tighter as the wolves outside howled in hunger.

And then I woke, shuddering out of the dream. It took me a moment to remember why I was in Ethan’s room. He was at the desk with his laptop open. No, with my laptop open.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, thrashing my way free of the blankets.

He looked up with a hint of guilt. “I’m tracking your phone. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Oh.” I should have thought of that. Blame it on the head trauma. I wrapped the coverlet around me and stood next to him. He had the Track My Phone page open, but all it showed was a last location—the hotel.

“He must have turned it off. But if he switches it back on, we’ll know where,” Ethan said.

“How did you log in?” I asked. I was hardly a security whiz, but I did have everything password protected.

“Your password for the phone was stored on your browser,” he said. “I guessed your laptop password. Took me a few tries, and I locked myself out twice, but I got it. Artemis—that was your goddess, right?”

“Cass picked it,” I said. “Probably not the most secure.”