Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(26)

I think about his gun.

I have no idea if he would hurt me. Physically, anyway. He never had before, but there are fifteen years between us since then and now, and I have changed, so who’s to say that he hasn’t, either? He is angry with me, for so many reasons, and I cannot guarantee my own safety with him anymore.

I stand there for ten more minutes, watching. There is no movement inside my house – at least, none that I see. The door is gaping open, letting in the cool breeze. My feet feel as though they are stuck to the ground, but I finally take a step. And then another. And another. Until I am at my doorstep, the paints left behind in the grass.

I peer around the door and see nothing but my mudroom. A fleece and sweater hang from the hooks, a pair of rain boots and heavy clogs are beneath the wooden bench. Everything as it was. I let out a breath, unaware that I had been holding it in. I move closer now. The door to the kitchen is ajar, and I push it gently so it opens further.

The kitchen is a mess. Drawers are open, dishes and glasses broken on the floor. The refrigerator door is open, too, and milk and honey and coffee grounds make a sticky mess.

Now I really cannot breathe.

I force myself to swallow, take in a couple of deep breaths. I go inside, keeping the door open behind me, just in case.

The glass crunches beneath my sneakers as I go into the living room, where the cushions have been slashed and their white cotton innards tossed around the room. My books have been tossed on the floor, pages ripped out and scattered.

The destruction is so extreme that it feels almost unreal.

The bedroom is next. The closet door and dresser drawers are open. My clothes have been cut up and left in a pile on my bed, the goose feathers from the pillows making a halo around them. I go to the closet and see the empty hangers, bare like skeletons. I glance at the floor of the closet. My shoes and sneakers are in a messy pile, but they are unscathed. I drop down and slide my hand along the wood floor underneath them. If I didn’t know what I was feeling, I wouldn’t know about the compartment. I lift up the top and peer underneath. A sense of relief rushes through me momentarily, until I drop the secret door, getting up and turning back to the scene on the bed.

I cannot take it all in. But I have one more room.

My jars are shattered in the bathtub, the stones everywhere, covered with body lotion and shampoo.

I sink down on the toilet seat and put my head in my hands, waiting for the tears as my shoulders heave. But what I thought was sadness is actually anger. It bubbles up inside my chest until I feel as though I am going to explode. It would have been better if he’d shot me with that gun. If he’d just come in during the night and shot me while I slept.

This, well, this is worse than anything I could’ve imagined.

As I sit, I realize I’d forgotten something. I jump up and go to the pantry, which is in as much disarray. I know without moving anything what is missing.

The laptop.

He has taken it away, not knowing what my decision was. Not knowing that I had changed my mind after I left him in the shower.

He didn’t even give me the chance to tell him. He just came here and destroyed my house, dismantled the life that I’d created here.

Or maybe that was the point all along.

But more logically, I know what has happened here. He thinks I have money stashed away. He thinks I still have it, from back then – money that is owed him, money that he feels I stole from him.

His frenzy to find it is clear in the destruction.

It slowly dawns on me, too, that there is something else missing. Something I didn’t see outside.

My bike.

I am disgusted with myself that I thought of the laptop before my bike. What does that say about me? I am suddenly grateful that the laptop is gone, that it’s been taken away so I have an excuse to stay away, that I have an excuse to keep from helping him again.

But my bike. I cannot live without that bike. It is my livelihood. He knows this. And even though I can easily buy a new bike, it is symbolic of what he has tried to do here.

I am a little surprised that he thought of that.

I stumble back outside and circle the little house, but the bike truly is gone.

I pull the door shut behind me and lock it, the keys nestled in my pocket. I start the walk down the hill, down the road toward the llama farm. As I pass them, they snort at me, and I make a face at them and resist the urge the scream. It is not their fault. I keep walking. Soon I am at the Town Dock. A ferry has just come in, and people are streaming off it with their bags and their bikes and their cars.

‘Nicole!’

I hear my name, and I turn instinctively. Steve is waving at me as he leans casually against his SUV, his smile warm.

In an instant, I am crying. The tears stream down my face, and I drop to the ground, hugging my arms around my knees.

‘Nicole.’ His whisper is urgent in my ear, and I feel his hands under my arms, lifting me up. ‘Nicole, what happened?’

Steve’s expression is full of worry. I have to tell him it’s nothing, that he should go back to his SUV and find a paying customer and leave me here on the ground. But I can’t. I cannot stop crying.

He lifts me up as easily as I lifted that laptop and carries me to his Explorer, gently placing me in the passenger seat, closing the door. As I wait for him to come around to the driver’s side, I stare vacantly toward the National Hotel, the shops that abut it. People are on the sidewalk – not as many as during the season, but enough, because the ferry has just come in.