I try to steady my racing heartbeat. "You mean you can see him?"
"Large as life," Henry confirms. "I just knocked him out with this shovel."
I suck in a deep breath and close my eyes. "Then I can finally go to sleep."
When I wake, pale sunlight frames the curtains and I take a moment to place myself. I'm in my blanket nest at the cabin, with my weighted blanket tucked under my chin. Usually it takes some time for me to connect with any aches and pains in my body, but my head is pounding from Micah's violent hair pull and my foot feels heavy. The cozy smell of coffee drifts down the hallway, and my empty stomach gives a responsive growl.
I struggle out from under the covers. My phone is lying face-up on the night table, but it's dead once again. I have no clue how it got there, much less what time of day it is.
Using the bed to help me rise, I cautiously stand up. A lightheaded sensation sweeps over me, nearly knocking me over. My first move, besides coffee, should be taking some ibuprofen.
I cautiously move down the hallway, pressing my palm against the wall for support. Someone's moving around in the kitchen. As the island comes into view, I see a dark, curly head of hair.
Movie-like memories unspool, blinding me to the here and now. Renard's death. Mariah in the chicken coop. Quincy, lying on the gazebo floor.
Strong arms suddenly wrap around me as I teeter on my feet. In a rumbling, deep voice, Henry says, "It's all over. You're okay now. The water went down enough that I was able to walk you over the bridge."
I pull myself into the moment and look at his concerned face. Those downturned dark eyes that seem to hide a thousand unspoken thoughts. That hesitant smile, slow to come, but dazzling when it turns on me.
He awkwardly releases his grip, then wraps an arm around me. He leads me toward the table, where he pulls out a chair and helps me sit down.
As pancakes cook on the griddle, he moves toward the stovetop, grabbing a spatula to flip them before they burn.
"I thought you'd appreciate some restorative carbs," he explains. "I brought some local maple syrup and some bacon, too."
"Thank you." As I say those two words, I start to release all the murkiness and uncertainty of the past week. Here, at this mountain retreat I never wanted to come to, I've become whole again—with all my memories, both pleasant and terrifying, at peace in my mind.
Renard is dead, yes. But it wasn't my fault. And Mariah traveled here, placing herself in danger, to try to protect me. She hadn't hated me, like I thought.
And Quincy. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, plain and simple. If he hadn't crossed that creek to get his book signed, he wouldn't have ended up in Micah's way.
I place a steadying hand on the white countertop. "Micah?" I ask.
Henry keeps his sturdy back to me. "The sheriff came to my place. He took Micah to get him stitched up since the shovel gave him a big gash. He also got a concussion. But he'll survive to go to prison." His voice darkens. "I've also let Roger know about Quincy, so he'll have officers drop by soon. I found Quincy when I brought you back over—what a senseless death."
"I'm sorry I couldn't stay awake. I—I'd gone through a lot with Micah, then I had to cross that creek to get to your house." I force myself to breathe, trying to quell the vertigo that's toying with my head. "Listen, Quincy isn't the only one Micah killed. He left the writer, Mariah, in the chicken coop."
He whirls around, plastic spatula in hand. "No. Why?"
I heave a weary sigh. "She came to warn me about him. Somehow she'd found out he was a killer." I try to organize my thoughts. "He admitted to killing another boy when he was just a kid. Maybe she somehow stumbled onto information about that and suspected him. But I'm thinking it's more likely she was friends with Jordan."
"Jordan," he repeats. "What about her? I always felt like there was something wrong about the way she died, but the police said it was just the sauna malfunction."
"He told me he killed her, too," I say quietly. "He was crazy, Henry. I think he was trying to recruit fellow murderers, like some kind of Charles Manson."
"And he was after you?" He flips a pancake, turning its perfectly golden side upward. "He thought you would join him?"
I stretch my arms flat against the cool marble, trying to decide how much to tell him. No one really needs to know that I was there when Renard died, because I had nothing to do with it.
"I do write suspense," I say finally.
He gives a thoughtful nod, but in that nod, I get the feeling that he'd still see the best in me, even if I did have some killer potential.
He busies himself with buttering the stack of pancakes. After artfully drizzling maple syrup over them, he adds a couple of fresh strawberries and hands me the plate, along with a fork.
"Coffee? Cream and sugar?" he asks.
"I'll take it black." I'm thankful he's let the subject drop. I'm sure the sheriff—or even the F.B.I. that Micah had likely never notified of my stalker—will have plenty of questions for me soon.
I take several drinks of coffee, which jump-starts my senses. By the time I've eaten several bites of the perfectly-buttered pancakes, I feel more steady. Maybe my lightheadedness was a result of low blood sugar. I pushed my body to the breaking point and beyond last night, and I went hours without food or drink.
Henry gets quiet as I eat, turning to look out the kitchen window.
"You should get some pancakes for yourself," I offer.
He turns my way and shakes his head. "I'm not hungry yet. Seeing Quincy...it's thrown me. But I knew you would need food. You were in bad shape."
"Thank you," I say, taking another bite.
As he looks out the window again, he says, "There's that cat you mentioned, skulking around the woodshed. I guess it doesn't belong to anyone."
With newfound clarity, I say, "Actually, it belongs to me now."
TWENTY-SEVEN
When I finally cajole the cat into coming into the house, I'm able to determine that she's a girl. I decide to name her Poe, in honor of my writer obsession. I'm able to set up a vet appointment for Friday, so I ask Robin to push back my return flight until Saturday, which she's only too happy to do. She can't stop apologizing for believing that Micah was in Hawaii, but I tell her it was an act that would've fooled anyone.
