Hiders

by Meg Collett

  He broke first, as she knew he would.

  “Fran came by the office today. She mentioned the assault charge. Violet, she’s all bruised up. Her hands—well, she said she would drop the charges if you didn’t fight the eminent domain seizure.”

  “You mean,” Violet said, not missing the casual “Fran” he’d tossed in there, “if I allow them to steal my home. To take it from me and reduce it to rubble so they can build a golf course.”

  He sucked in a long pull of air. “Ah, well, Ms. Morgan—”

  “Ms. Morgan and her golf course can get fucked.”

  “Heavens me, Violet—”

  “This isn’t happening. I don’t care what Fran threatens me with.”

  He steadied himself—she heard it over the phone—the way most normal people did: a shift, a mental pep talk, and an assembly of words that took longer than it should have. Violet waited through it all, because she knew these little ticks: these little human tendencies people had to endure.

  “Violet, I don’t think there’s anything we can do besides take the condemnation to court. But even then, there isn’t . . .”

  With Gregory’s dry legal talk droning on in her ear, she leaned out just enough to see Arie. He was still out there, pulling at his rope and tossing whatever debris he found in the gutters over his shoulder. The iron still looked sturdy, as did his rope, and he moved with a casual strength that reassured her. She’d been wrong to doubt him. She turned away from the window and paced a few feet deeper into the attic.

  Violet avoided the damaged part of the floor, knowing all too well how the flooring slogged up around her heel, pulling her in as if it were a soft, long kiss. The moisture up here was bad, certainly, but she didn’t pay it much mind.

  “I thought we were protected by the nature preserve?” she asked, interrupting him.

  He sighed. The sound came across as if he’d already realized this. “It only pertains to the lighthouse, not the actual house.”

  “And that makes a difference?”

  “It does. I—”

  “Is there a way I can stop it?”

  “Not without a lot of legal fees, and as your adviser—” He paused. “As your friend, I suggest just letting it go. Teller Morgan Group will drop the assault charges, and you can walk away from this with a check in your pocket and no court time. You can start over, Violet.”

  She wrapped an arm around her middle to steel herself. “You’ve been suggesting just letting it go from the very beginning.”

  “Now it’s truer than ever, I’m afraid.”

  “What can I do?”

  “I don’t—”

  “What can I do, Gregory?” she asked between clenched teeth.

  “We have thirty days to contest the seizure and take them to court, but—”

  “Fine. We’ll do that then.”

  She was pulling the phone away from her ear to hang up when Gregory said, “Wait! Listen, Violet.”

  She brought the phone back. “What?”

  “Your father . . .” He cleared his throat. “I mean, things were looking bad for him—”

  “Be careful where you go with this,” Violet warned, her voice low and quiet.

  He paused for a long moment as if he were considering her words, but she was starting to wonder if he’d ever considered her or anything she’d said.

  “All I want to say,” he began again, voice trembling, “is that Hayes asked me to look after you. I promised him I would. It isn’t a promise I’ve taken lightly. Violet, I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve . . . like I’ve failed you.”

  She hunched her shoulders, her chin bowed to her chest. He was the one who’d called Teller Morgan Group. He was the one who’d led Francesca Morgan to her door. But then, he had been her father’s friend at one time. When she was little, Gregory had been a fixture in this house, sitting in her father’s study, smoking cigars, and talking the way men talk in dark wood paneled rooms with the doors closed.

  But he’d never once invited her to his home, not once after her parents had died. No Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners or Easter Sunday Specials. He knew she was in the house alone, and he’d never asked.

  And it would have been fine had he masked the fear in his eyes a little better each time he saw her.

  She could abide being excluded because she wasn’t his family or his responsibility, but she wouldn’t be cast out, not by her father’s friend, who wanted to pat her on the shoulder and give her comforting words and then dispatch a mob after her when her back was turned. Maybe he’d had good intentions, or maybe he just wanted her gone.

  Either way, she said, “Thank you, Gregory. I won’t be needing your services. I’ll pick up any important paperwork from town on Monday.”

  “Please. Wait—”

  She flipped her phone closed and shoved it into her pocket. She turned around and found Arie sitting on the windowsill, his arms braced against the ledge and his legs dangling on the inside.

  She inclined her head at him. “You heard then.”

  “Sorry.” He lifted a shoulder. “The harness was cutting off the circulation to important parts of my body, and I’ve cleaned everything out here.” He paused and straightened off the windowsill. “You want to talk about it?”

  She met his eyes. The attic was damp and hazy and a little too warm to be comfortable, even in October. Perhaps more than heat had been trapped up here and something waited in the shadows. The room beneath the roof had always scared her.

  “The Teller Morgan Group is proposing that my house should be seized under the eminent domain law and used for the public. The mayor approved it. So there’s that.”

  “They’re saying it’s not structurally safe?”

  Violet arched an eyebrow. “Of course it’s not structurally safe, but it’s not their problem. I’m not hurting anyone out here. They should just leave me alone.”

  Arie stood from the window and wound up his rope, looping it from his hand down around his elbow and back up again. Sunlight poured in from his back, casting him in warm light, while shadows settled heavily on her shoulders, pulling her back into the darkness.

  “What if you fixed it up?”

  Her fists clenched at her sides. There was nothing wrong with her house. “No.”

  “No, it wouldn’t work or no—”

  “It’s not happening, Arie. Just drop it.”

  He stopped wrapping the rope and frowned at her. “Hale and Cade could have it done in a month or two.” He cast his eyes around the space, thinking it through. “Maybe a little longer than that, but it would be enough to stop the seizure. If you could prove it was structurally safe—”

  “Please,” she said, angling away from him and squeezing her eyes closed. “Stop.”

  “Let me help.”

  There was a plea in his voice, but she didn’t glance back to see his face, to question the possibility that he cared. She couldn’t stand the thought of strangers pulling and prying at her house. It might sway, but it was steady. It was all she had.

  “I’m fine. Everything is fine.”

  “It doesn’t sound fine.”

  She shot a glance at him, and indeed, his face was creased with worry. “Arie, I can’t, okay?”

  “Is it money? I’m sure Hale and Cade would work something out with you. They want to keep iconic homes on the island. They would help you, I know it.”

  “Just drop it.” The fight left her as suddenly as air leaving a popped balloon. She felt deflated in every way. “Please.”

  He studied her for a long moment, his attention searing into her flesh. She met his gaze and waited. He must have seen it, that she couldn’t push past the fear today and needed some time. She watched him store her resistance away in his steady calculation of her, from the way she held her middle to the hunch in her back and the desperation in her eyes. He nodded once, then said, “Can I see your phone?”

  “Why?”

  “Let me put my phone number in it, just in case you change your mi
nd.”

  She wouldn’t, but she handed him the phone anyway. His fingers flew over the numbers, his eyes scanning the screen, and handed it back to her. “You’re not alone. You can ask for help.”

  She nodded back at him because that was all she could do.

  Maybe tomorrow. Maybe then she could ask for help, but not today.

  10

  Violet sat in the bath water with her knees tucked beneath her chin, her fingers spread above the water as she stared at the slow-burning candle. The flame flickered from a stowaway draft in the bathroom. The fall storm moving in from the ocean beat against the house’s outer walls, causing the lights to flutter and the ceiling to groan.

  She’d run the water almost unbearably hot just to warm up. Now, the water was as tepid as the cup of tea she’d left for too long on the floor beside the old cast-iron claw-foot tub. The skin along her shoulders prickled from the cold, and a shiver worked down from the base of her neck. Her hair floated next to her thigh, resembling a damp cobweb.

  She had a headache from being out in the sun, her eyes aching deep within her skull. It was a fine balance between how much sunlight she could stand before a headache settled deep within her head. Even now, the water wavered in a blurry haze that made her dizzy and faintly nauseous. The call with Gregory had left her tired on a bone-deep level, as if her marrow had withered and floated away with the dust. She was sinking, sinking, sinking, and with each wave, she lost the strength to keep afloat.

  They were going to take her house.

  The offer she’d received from the Teller Morgan Group would be rescinded, and the Georgia state government would give her a much lower offer. She could either accept it or go to court and prove her land wasn’t suitable for public use.

  It was the end of the line, Gregory had said, as if this was his house and his life and everything he had left of his family. He’d spoken as though they’d been beaten and there was nothing else to do but let the ink dry on the new offer.

  She swirled her hand across the water, little waves lapping against her shins. Settling her cheek against her knee, she closed her eyes.

  Even if she had agreed to Arie’s plan of bringing Hale and Cade in to fix the house, and even if she wanted to pay for their services, there wasn’t enough time. It would take every person on Canaan Island working on her house to fix it within the thirty days they had to contest the condemnation. Even then, she doubted just having the house fixed would be enough to convince the state that her land wouldn’t be better served for public use.

  She stood from the bath water, having had enough, and splashed out onto the old, chipped porcelain tiles. As she toweled herself dry, she tracked the rivulets running from her feet across the floor. They flowed with the slope of the house tilting straight toward the ocean. She sighed. Holding on to this house was more impossible than reversing the ocean waves.

  She rubbed lotion over her skin and through the ends of her hair, which she’d loosely braided. It was cold enough tonight that she’d forgone her mother’s shifts and pulled out a chunky-knit sweater, fleece-lined leggings, and her father’s wool socks. With the tub draining behind her, she left the bathroom, taking the candleholder with her. The tiny flame sent shadows dancing along the walls on her way back to her room.

  She had no clue how she would endure the night, not when she could almost physically feel her house falling out from under her.

  Back in her room, she sat the candle on the bedside table to go stoke the small furnace in the corner. It wasn’t nearly enough to heat the entire house, but it worked perfectly for her little room. She’d stacked a good portion of the wood she and Arie had cut in her room, the smell of oak and sap fresh. She added another log to the stove and left the little door open to feed oxygen to the fire.

  Through her window, she watched the storm advance over the ocean, flinging gusts of wind toward land. The house creaked and groaned around her, settling and sighing, bearing down for another squall. She ran a hand through her hair, adjusting her braid over her shoulder, and crossed back to pull her covers down to warm the blankets.

  A crack sounded from downstairs.

  She froze.

  The sound was of wood splintering, and she knew it well—just as she knew every sound this house made. That wasn’t one of them. The hair along her arms stood on end as she waited for another sound to follow.

  Her shoulders had almost relaxed—her brain working to convince her thundering heart it was just the storm—when a loud thump echoed down the house’s lower hall.

  Thump thump thump

  Boots. Boots caused that kind of noise across the old hardwood. She’d heard it earlier today when Arie came upstairs.

  She spun toward the door to her room. She’d closed it behind her to seal in the heat. Her socked feet flew across the space between her and the barrier in two long strides, and she twisted the lock of the ancient knob. It spun uselessly, broken long ago. She backed away, eyes wide, unable to think.

  Until she remembered her candle.

  Thump thump thump

  Downstairs, glass broke and a laugh followed. Someone else hushed them, then laughed too. They sounded drunk. Young. Male. At least two. Maybe three.

  She blew out the candle. There was nothing she could do about the fire. They would follow the smell of burning wood straight to her.

  Below her, on the first floor, she tracked their progress into the main hall, which led straight to the stairs. They must have come in through one of the boarded-up windows of the lower bedrooms. The windows she’d never gotten around to replacing, even though she knew it was dangerous. But she’d nailed them up tight to seal everyone out, or so she’d thought.

  And it wasn’t summer. Normally, she only had trouble with tourists thinking the place was abandoned. But this late in fall, the smoke from her furnace would have given it away that the house was occupied. It was too late in the year for naive, drunk tourists.

  She counted the footsteps and the muffled exchanges. There were at least three of them. Two were certainly male and drunk. If she shouted down at them, they might leave. They might be new to the island and not know she lived here.

  Unless, of course, they knew exactly who lived here.

  A useless whimper escaped her lips.

  Her phone! She spun toward her bedside table where the clunky flip phone normally sat charging.

  The table was empty, aside from the candle with a drop of wax trickling down its stem.

  She’d left her phone upstairs, in the attic. She’d been distraught after Gregory’s call, and Arie had been talking to her. He’d taken the cell from her to put in his number, just in case she changed her mind that evening about having Hale and Cade come out the next day. He’d handed it back to her, and she’d left it on the windowsill to walk him back downstairs when he was ready to leave for the evening. In her mind, she saw it sitting there.

  “Shit,” she whispered.

  The intruders were directly underneath her, almost at the stairs that would bring them straight to her.

  She had to get out of her room and head upstairs. If she reached the attic, she could pull up the ladder, lock them out, and call the cops.

  From downstairs came a shaking rattle followed by the hiss of spray paint and more laughter.

  Her stomach threatened to heave up the clam chowder she’d eaten earlier, but she forced herself to move, right as more glass broke downstairs—a window, perhaps—and more spray paint hissed onto the floors or walls. But the racket gave her the chance to pull open her sticky door. The bowed wood screeched against the frame. She froze, listening.

  Silence echoed back from downstairs.

  A beat later, the hissing resumed.

  Violet crept out into the hall, her attention locked toward the stairs. Beams of light bounced around on the first floor from numerous flashlights. A man asked, “What’s this?”

  “Play it!”

  The Temptations started up, followed by a wail as the needle skipped across
the vinyl. Then a skittering and scratching. They turned the volume all the way up.

  If she wanted to get upstairs, she had to get to the stairway while they were distracted.

  To navigate the squeakiest parts of the hallway, she hopped two planks over then skipped to the side, shuffling and half running down the hall. She knew the creaky, sticky spots by heart, though her mind was dizzy and her thoughts jumbled, and she pretended her movements were a dance she had to perform just right.

  Get upstairs, she told herself, keeping on her tiptoes to move through the dance. They can’t get you in the attic. The attic is safe. The phone is there. You can call for help. Just get there.

  At the steps, the flashlight beams were much brighter than she’d anticipated. The pain behind her eyes flared hot and spiked through her skull. Her eyes watered. The stair beneath her let out a loud creak.

  “I thought you said no one was home, man!”

  Another person hushed him. The flashlights, as one, all turned to the stairs.

  “You want to go see?”

  “No! What if they call the cops?”

  “Don’t be a pussy.” The words all slurred together.

  Violet was moving up, up, up. Half blind from the lights, she kept stepping on the wrong steps, in all the wrong places.

  “I want to go,” said a girl.

  A girl. Two guys and a girl.

  Violet’s heart squeezed. They were the three teenagers from the bakery, the ones who’d mocked her and called her diseased. They were in her house, breaking things and spray-painting it. But would they hurt her? She could reason with them and apologize and maybe they would leave.

  She paused on the steps and glanced back. If they were just young kids—

  A silhouette stood behind her on the steps. The flashlight swept up beneath his chin, casting his face in red shadows.

  “Boo.” The Hollister guy leered at her, eyes stretching wide.

  Violet ran.

  He crashed up the stairs after her, his heavy boots thunderous. His friend was shouting at him to stop, but he didn’t. Socked feet slipping on the well-worn stairs, Violet almost fell to her knees, but she hauled herself back up with the banister and stumbled forward. A hand closed on the back of her sweater. He yanked her back.