Page 104 of Call Off the Dark

Only a minute later, Wade entered, towel around his waist and rivulets of water running down his legs, wet footprints left behind on the hardwood floor as he stalked to the closet. He started digging through it, grumbling under his breath. Helen watched him curiously.

Finally, he found a briefcase and tossed it on the bed. It was old brown leather, fraying at the edges. She knew it held papers and things of his, but she’d never examined its contents. He snapped it open and shuffled through it, water dripping from his hair onto the papers.

“Here, here. Look!” he said, and he handed her a paper.

She scanned the document. “Okay, fine. So I can see you owned the farm alone.” It was the deed to the property from when his father had died fourteen years prior, and it was in his name only.

Wade snatched the paper back from her. “And good for that, because it shows I didn’t stand to gain anything financially from Isaac dying. Otherwise, maybe the cops would have tried to pin an accident on me.”

He tossed the deed back inside the briefcase.

Helen watched him warily. Regardless of which brother held the deed to the property, it seemed only fair to her that they should split any inheritance.

She worded her next question carefully. “Had Isaac not . . . died, would you have given him half of the money from the farm?”

Wade snapped the briefcase shut. “Honestly, I don’t know, Helen. In case you can’t tell, I don’t like my brother all that much. And not just because he’s haunting me.”

Ten o’clock.

Eleven o’clock.

Midnight.

As Helen lay in bed next to Wade’s sleeping form, she knew that Isaac was waiting for her in his room. She could feel it in her body, floating and falling on these new and mysterious tides. She could feel it in the pull of the moon from the night sky. She could feel it because she knew Isaac was feeling it too. The circle had completely closed around her.

Isaac, Isaac, Isaac.

One o’clock.

She wouldn’t go to him though.

She couldn’t do it again. One time was a mistake. Two times made her a calculated adulteress.

Two o’clock.

Helen ran her hands over the front of her wrinkled silk nightgown, the memory of what had caused those wrinkles still vivid from the night before. She wished she were wearing one of her regular nightgowns, but strangely, she hadn’t been able to find either of her two long-sleeved ones in the laundry hamper when she had gotten ready for bed. She hadn’t asked Wade if he’d seen them, because she didn’t want to draw attention to how wrinkled the silk one was. Helen had been so distracted lately, perhaps she had washed them without remembering and accidentally put them away with the kitchen linens or bedding. She would have to search for them tomorrow when the men were gone. When she had pulled on the silk nightgown again, she’d felt as though she were displaying her scarlet letter.

Beneath the silk nightgown, she wore a pair of black silk panties. There had been a clean pair of beige cotton underwear in her dresser right next to them, but she had reached for the black silk.

Three o’clock.

Helen finally drifted to sleep and awoke with a start shortly thereafter. It must have been the faint noise of the door opening, the hall light shining into the room. She sat up in bed and saw him.

Isaac stood at the threshold of the bedroom door, backlit, so all she could see was his silhouette. She shook her head, but he didn’t move from the spot.

“Go,” she whispered.

To her surprise, he did. A moment later, the hallway went dark.

Helen felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

She waited a minute before she got out of bed to close the door. As she reached for it and began to push it shut, Isaac’s hand closed around her wrist.

Part of her knew he would be waiting just outside the door. Part of her knew if she went to close the door, this would happen.

She let him pull her into the hallway. Each of his hands encircled each of her wrists, so lightly that she wished it were more pressure.

“I thought you’d come see me,” Isaac said.