Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“No! No!” Vansi screamed and struggled, but I held her tight until she finally collapsed in my arms in a shudder of sobs.
I didn’t know how long she cried, but she did so into exhaustion.
Darcie came, took Vansi from my arms. “Luna.” A meaningful glance at my cameras, her gaze more alert than earlier.
I nodded. “Go with Darcie, sweetheart.”
My friend’s face was scarily blank as she allowed Darcie to lead her into the living room. She mumbled something.
“What did she say?” I asked Darcie.
Darcie frowned. “That she was only a minute behind him. Told him to go ahead because she realized her period had started. She was getting a tampon.”
Everyone looked at each other. But when Aaron would’ve gone upstairs, I stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I need to photograph everything before we move Phoenix.” Because we were stuck out here with no reception, and couldn’t leave his body where we’d pass it every single time we wanted to go up or down the stairs.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving in a jerking lump. “I want to cover him.”
“Not yet.” It hurt me to speak, but one of us had to be rational, had to think of a future when Vansi would want answers. “Not until I’ve documented everything.”
With that, I put the camera to my eye and began to shoot without seeing him. Just a mannequin, I told myself. According to Vansi, who’d gained the knowledge via her true crime podcasts, that was what people who’d found bodies often initially believed—that they’d stumbled upon an abandoned mannequin.
The human mind trying to protect itself from horror.
Just a mannequin.
Not Dr. Phoenix Chang. Not V’s Nix. Not secret smoker Phoenix.
Just a mannequin.
I lowered the camera after who knew how long, having taken a photo from every angle I could think of—on two different cameras, to guard against the failure of one set. “Where are we going to put him?”
Ash, who’d stayed—as had Grace and Aaron—while Darcie took Vansi away, said, “Ah, fuck.” He thrust both hands through his hair, squeezed his eyes tight. When he flashed them open, it was to say, “There’s another cellar under the kitchen pantry. It’s empty. And with the snow, it’ll be freezing.”
“You serious?” Aaron said. “Under the kitchen?”
“They needed it back before fridges.” Ash’s voice was flat, without affect. “We can take him to the wine cellar, but it’s a mess of dust and cobwebs. The cellar under the pantry is kept clean, because if the power goes out, it can be used to store goods that need to be cold. We treat him with respect, wrap him up and put him in a safe place.”
“He’s right,” I said, ashamed at myself for being surprised by Ash’s raw empathy.
Our friend was dead. We had to care for him. “Before we do that, though, why doesn’t someone go up to the tower to see if we can get a signal? If we can get through to the authorities . . .”
“I’ll do it,” Ash offered.
“I’ll come with you.” Grace held up a phone encased in a sparkling case. “My phone’s new, seems to get a signal when everything else fails.”
“I’ll stay with Nix.” Aaron’s voice held a tremor. “Lu?”
“I’ll finish doing the photographs.” With that, I turned and walked up the stairs.
The floor runner that had almost tripped me up that first night lay tangled at the top, half on the landing, half on the first step.
It hadn’t been there when I’d last been on this landing.
Cheeks burning but gut cold, I began to photograph everything. I made sure not to touch the runner as I walked around to photograph the hallway on either side. For good measure, I even took shots of each of the doorways, whether open or closed.
And, after a slight hesitation, I went into Vansi and Phoenix’s bedroom and captured every inch of that. I saw the fallen box of tampons as soon as I entered the bathroom. The white tubes rolled around the floor near the sink, while the box itself had fallen into the sink.
As if Vansi had been opening it up in order to take one out, but had dropped it and run when she’d heard Phoenix cry out. I’d have to tell the others that this room was off-limits. As far as I was concerned, this was evidence that she was in no way responsible for her husband’s fall.
“Cops always suspect the spouse,” she’d said to me more than once. “Half the podcasts I listen to where it’s a spouse murder, it is the husband or wife. Ugh.”
“Not this time,” I muttered, certain that Vansi wasn’t responsible for Nix’s death. If I knew one thing in my life, it was that Vansi loved Phoenix more than her career, more than her family, more than life itself.
I’d pull the door to the room shut behind myself, leave it as it was for the police. Vansi could borrow my clothes for the duration and I had a spare box of tampons. Though I did stop by her open suitcase and grab her bag of underwear. Probably shouldn’t have, but my friend was already hurting. I wasn’t going to make her feel worse.