Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(44)
Post–Labor Day meant the off-season. Rates lowered, fewer check-ins. Each cabin had an adjoining parking spot and almost all the spots were empty. Mid-week, bad weather. Not many guests. I found Karen’s convertible parked at the last cabin, farthest from the driveway. It was surrounded on three sides by tall trees. A tradeoff. No ocean view, but the most privacy.
Whatever you’ve guessed, it’s much worse.
I wondered if that was true. A lot of people who found me were badly scared of something. Sometimes they were right to be scared. Sometimes their fears were exaggerated. I liked to form my own impressions. The small cabin looked uninhabited. Blinds down, no light visible, no smoke from the chimney.
I knocked softly. No response.
Knocked again. Still nothing.
The night was quiet. Far below I heard an engine, a car passing on Highway 1. The noise grew, then faded without slowing. I turned the knob slightly. It was unlocked. I opened the door. The cabin was dark. I walked in and shut the door behind me. Felt around for a light switch and flicked it up. A rustic, homey décor came into view. Wood-paneled walls, a closed door leading to the bedroom, a kitchenette off to one side next to a bathroom. Music was coming from a radio. Some ’40s pop song, a fuzzy big-band sound, a man crooning about love and heartbreak. On a desk, there was an open bottle of red wine next to a black corkscrew bearing the same little Narwhal logo that was on the card she’d given me.
All normal.
Except no Karen Li.
I walked around the living room. Looked around. No sign of her. I checked the bathroom, saw an electric toothbrush, a few containers of makeup and facial lotion, contact lens solution, a hairbrush. Someone was staying here. Drops of water beaded the sink. The faucet had been used in the last hour or two. Maybe she was eating a late dinner at the restaurant. So close to the cabin she wouldn’t have bothered to lock the front door.
I took another look at the bedroom door. My neck prickled. The door was closed but not latched shut. It couldn’t latch. Not anymore. Someone had forced it. A heavy blow, probably a kick. I saw scrapes where the brass lock had dug into the soft wood of the doorjamb.
The song continued. Romantic verses of moonlight and love-struck couples.
I opened the door. The small room was empty. A big queen bed in the middle of the room. No one had slept in it. The sheets were still perfectly arranged. A closet set into one wall was empty except for a black raincoat, hanging like a silhouette.
No Karen Li.
I shivered, feeling a gust of cold air. Coming from a window set at head height on the opposite side of the room, across the bed. The window was closed. I took another look and saw that one of the panes had been broken. That was where the cold air was coming from.
I walked around the bed and then I saw her.
She lay slumped against the wall under the window. Whoever had hit her had used something blunt and hard. The left side of her face was fine. The thin eyebrow, the snub nose and eye, although now bloodshot and unfocused. The right side of her face was different. Ruined. Blood matted into her black hair. I swallowed hard as I saw the white of bone through what would have been her cheek. Blood had pooled over the wood floor. I bent to check her pulse. Knowing there was no point.
She’d removed her makeup and was wearing flannel pajama pants and a cotton sleeveless top, no bra. Comfort clothing. The kind of clothes you put on when you were in for the night. In bed, maybe, watching a movie with a glass of wine before going to sleep. The kind of clothing you put on when the only guest you were expecting was another woman coming over to talk. I saw a pair of wire-framed glasses on the floor nearby, smashed. She’d taken her contact lenses out. Gotten comfortable. Waiting for me.
Because I had said I’d help her.
There was a vivid red-yellow bruise on her left shoulder. I bent close. The bruising was worse on the back deltoid. Her left forearm was bent at an unnatural crook. Probably broken.
Imagining what had happened was easy.
I could already tell that not imagining it was going to be much harder, for a long time.
Whoever had come to the cabin hadn’t wasted time talking. Hadn’t bothered to pretend everything would be okay. She must have come to the door, maybe hearing a knock. Expecting me. Maybe wondering why I was early. Maybe relieved.
And then seen whoever was at the door and known, more or less, what was about to happen.
She’d gotten away from the front door without having the chance to lock it. Maybe a foot had been pushed in the frame or a shoulder set against the door so she couldn’t get it shut. Fled into the bedroom because there was nowhere else to go. Locked that door and then frantically tried to get through the window.
Knowing it was her only chance.
I looked at her hands. Her right hand was badly cut around the knuckles. A shard of glass embedded in the palm. I closed my eyes for a moment. Pictured her expression as she’d punched through the windowpane, too rushed, too panicked to bother trying to open it. Probably barely aware of the glass that had splintered into her hand. There was something on the floor by her left hand. A small glossy square, maybe two by three inches, creased and crumpled as though it had been squeezed. It was a grainy photograph of a young Chinese couple, posing formally for the camera. The woman bore an unmistakable resemblance to Karen Li and held a little girl of about six or seven. A family photograph. Whoever had been inside the cabin couldn’t have missed it, had clearly deemed it unimportant. I looked around the cabin again. Envisioning Karen fleeing to the bedroom. Maybe she’d been holding the picture, looking at it, when she’d answered the door.