Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
I pluck one of the other ornaments between two fingers and study it. Clear glass, maybe? And what looks like…hair clippings suspended inside? I release it and it sways back and forth. Creepy. I understand why she keeps them hidden here. I grab another ornament, This one’s not suspended by velvet. It looks more like a shoelace or more specifically, a round boot lace. Same strange hair clippings inside. Another one has the hair and what looks like a fucking tooth encased in it. This part of the closet dead-ends. Unless I’ve totally lost my bearings, I think the back of the hall closet must be on the other side of the wall.
Between that and the armoire with the freaky ornament collection, there’s a flat space with nothing. Margot has every inch of wall space in this closet covered with something. The blank space seems strange. I press my palm flat against the dark-stained wood. The faint edge of a seam scrapes along my fingers and I push.
A piece of the wall swings open. No, not the wall. A hidden door. Similar in size to a cupboard. Someone Margot’s height can probably stand inside but I’d have to duck.
Keenly aware that I’m naked and exploring hidden compartments in my girlfriend’s home, I swing the door shut. Never mind how much I hate small, dark, confined spaces. With my luck, I’ll walk through it and somehow end up in her cousin Paul’s dining room with a condom in my hand and my dick on display. That’s not the impression I want to make on her family.
“Jigsaw?” Margot’s voice comes from what seems like miles away. “Where are you? The shower’s getting cold.”
Keeping my distance from the “ornaments” I return to the long corridor leading back to Margot’s bedroom.
And bump right into her.
Hair damp and a plaid flannel bathrobe wrapped around her body, she stares up at me with alarm flashing in her eyes. “What are you doing back here?”
When I don’t answer right away, she cocks her head.
“I was looking for your robe,” I say.
She turns slowly and points. “It was right inside on that hook by the door. You didn’t need to come all the way down here.”
Breathing hard, I just stare at her.
Ask about the eyeball? Or pretend I didn’t see it?
“This closet is something else. Was it another room or something originally?” I step forward, but she’s blocking my path.
Her gaze drops to my fist. “What’s in your hand?”
I slowly uncurl my fingers, revealing the crumpled condom packet. “In case we got frisky in the shower.” My voice comes out flat and hollow, the furthest thing from frisky imaginable.
My heart pounds with the need to get out of the closet. To grab Margot and drag my beautiful, sweet, innocent woman away from whatever’s back there in the corner.
No. I can’t run. From the day I returned to my father’s farm, whipped him raw and slit his throat, I’ve never hidden from anything. I do whatever my club asks, get bloody when I need to, and protect the people I care about without hesitation.
I back up a few steps. Margot follows.
I reach up and tap a fingernail against the eyeball ornament. “What the fuck is this?”
Please say a cheap ornament from The Dollar Tree. Please don’t tell me you keep the eyeballs of your clients.
The unhinged version of Margot who’s peeked out from time to time makes a full appearance. “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, right?” She beams wide and bright.
A chill runs over me. Obviously, she’s referencing a biblical quote but it doesn’t explain why there’s an eyeball in her closet. And the sin talk reminds me a little too much of my father.
“I’m familiar with the concept,” I say slowly. “And all the ways anything from the Bible can be twisted to fit someone’s needs. Believe me.”
“I believe you.” She nods and seems to drift into thought, weighing several explanations. “Remember how you told me your father is scattered across the country? So he can never hurt anyone again?”
A dark cloud of impending doom fills the small space around us.
I claw at my throat while trying to hang onto my sanity. “I told you that because I trust you.”
“And I trust you.” She tips her head back and studies me. “I struggle with this all the time.” She paces in front of the armoire, keeping her eyes fixed on the ornaments above her. “I’m supposed to offer comfort to our clients and their families. I see things no one should ever see. Things bad people do to innocents. I have to sit through sermons all the time. And when someone pulls quotes from Genesis and claims they’re about God’s love, I want to rip out my hair and scream.”
“‘Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son from me.’” The ancient line I couldn’t have recited yesterday if someone held a gun to my head suddenly falls from my lips.