Page 54 of Savored Sins
twenty-six
AUTUMN
Autumn: Hey.
Zeke: Sup
Autumn: Sorry about Patrick. He’s a dick.
Zeke: Lol no prob
I’m absolutely mortified about what went down at my store today. And the thing is, I don’t know what mortified me most: Zeke’s little comment to Patrick about me ‘coming’ or the fact that he walked in and heard what we were saying about him. I don’t know how long he was there or what he heard—and I didn’t dare ask him when I texted to apologize—but the whole thing definitely sucked.
There was also the part where Patrick threatened to evict me from the building if I don’t ‘clean up my act’—whatever that means. And that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? That kind of vague condition could extend to all manner of things that Patrickdeems inappropriate—which is the kind of control I was trying to get away from when I divorced him.
God fucking dammit.
The doorbell rings, and I go to open it, already knowing it’s going to be Zeke. He flashes me that same gorgeous grin—the one that still does things to me even though I know it’s the one he gives everyone—and steps inside.
“Hey,” he says, walking past me into the living room. He drops his bag on the floor in a heap, slides the tripod case he’s carrying off his shoulder.
“Hey.” I’ve already promised myself I’m not going to bring up this afternoon unless he does, so I put on my best chipper voice.There’s nothing wrong, Autumn.Nothing at all.“Feel free to set up wherever. Do you want me in the footage tonight?”
He’s screwing the tripod in place, but looks up at that. One brow raises, his lips forming a thin smile. “Well, you tell me. You could always, you know, keep things below waist-level.”
I give him a swat. “Youknowthat’s not what I meant. I mean do you want me to be?—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Zeke says, waving a hand, the smile gone. “Of course I do. You want to find out about Lena, right? If our suspicions about her spelling out ‘murder’ are correct, then she started tellingyouabout it first—which seems to mean she’ll want you there.”
“Okay...”
“Aw, don’t get cold feet now, hot stuff,” Zeke says, another grin flashing on his face. He fits his camcorder onto the tripod and fishes around in his pocket for a lighter.
“I’m not. I just…” I trail off. Because how do I tell Zeke that the only thing I’m getting cold feet about is spending another evening alone in the dark with him? Whatever this is between us, whatever the hell we’ve been playing at, has to end. I need to get serious. And this is going to be my first test.
Zeke scoffs. “You’re thinking again, babe. I told you not to do that. That shit with your ex today? Water under the bridge. Let it go.”
He stoops to light the candles on the coffee table and spreads out the spirit board again, which gives me an eerie feeling. The last time I saw that board unfolded, it had just spelledmurderand scared the living bejeezus out of me.
But this time’s not like that time. This time, I remind myself, I’m with Zeke. He’ll work his magic and keep things under control—although Zeke and ‘under control’ are not two things I ever thought would go in a sentence together.
Zeke props up his phone against a stack of books on the coffee table again and plops down on his ass in front of the spirit board. He gestures at me to hit the lights, and the room is immediately flooded with darkness. This time, not even the moon streams through the windows. All is quiet.
As I take a seat next to Zeke on the floor, he leans into the frame of his phone camera and starts his narration.
“Okay, so I’m here at Autumn’s house again—there she is, say hey, Autumn—and we’re hoping to get a little more communication going with the spirit who lives here. Earlier this week, Autumn had the wonderful idea to use the spirit boardwithout me—which, spoiler alert, trash idea—butanyway, she made contact with our ghost, who spelled out that her name is Lena. What shethenspelled out shocked Autumn to her pretty little core: M-U-R-D-E-R. What’s that spell, Autumn?”
He pans the phone cam to include me in the frame and gives me a wide-eyed, faux-shocked look. He’s clearly making fun of me, so I just roll my eyes and go along with it. At least he’s not saying what happenedafterthat. “Last I checked, it spells ‘murder’.”
“Right. You hear that, kids? Murder. Now, at the time, Autumn thought that meant Lena was planning to murderher—which, that shit’s fucking scary, dude—but since then we did a little digging on our own, and it turns out that—” He leans into the camera, raises his eyebrows, and lets his lips curl up into a smile. “—there was a Lena Reeves who used to work in this very home as a member of the household staff, who up and vanished in June 1937.”
Zeke allows a silence to fall over the room. He’s still looking into the camera, but he’s breathing heavily, like he’s trying to wrap his mind around the enormity of what he’s saying. He’s ridiculous, for sure, but I’ve got to hand it to him: he puts on one hell of a good show.
“So,” he says, lowering his voice and turning to gaze at me. “Autumn and I are going to attempt to make contact again tonight—to ask Lena about the stuff we learned about her. And maybe—just maybe—to find out what happened to her. Because if we want to know the truth, who better to tell it… than Lena?”
He gives me a look, and we place our fingers on the planchette together. Zeke closes his eyes, and I watch as he takes a few deep breaths, then opens them again, asking in a loud, even voice, “Lena Reeves, we ask that you join us now. If you’re here, please make yourself known to us.”
The candles flicker. I’m about to ask Zeke if Lena’s in the room with us, but then, slowly, slowly, I start to feel the planchette sliding beneath my fingers, tugging my hand and Zeke’s along with it across the board.
