Page 21 of Pretty Psychos
"That's not ominous name at all," Leif said. "You haven't brought us here to kill us, have you?"
Forrest shot him a look over his shoulder, but turned away without responding.
"Of course he hasn't," I said. "If he wanted to kill us, he could have done it back in the city."
"No, I'm with Leif," Woody said. "If I was going to take you anywhere to kill you, it would definitely be to a place called Saltgrave."
"Keep following the road," Forrest said.
After a few more minutes of driving, we reached the town itself.
The town was a little bigger than I remembered, but still cute.
Right on the coast, it looked like the kind of place where at least a dozen of the houses were haunted. The rest looked like they came straight out of the Beach Cottage handbook, with colorful siding and porches facing east.
"Hey Woody, watch out for headless horseman riding past," Leif called out.
"If I see a headless fucking horseman, I really will turn this car around and go home," Woody said. "The rest of you can stay if you want to."
"If I see a headless horseman, I'm coming with you," I said.
"This isn't Sleepy Hollow," Forrest said, tapping on his phone screen and gesturing at a house at the end of the road. It sat on a corner block, opposite the beach, all white timber siding and blue trim.
Vague memories suggested my parents’ property was several miles south of here. Out of sight, but not out of mind.
"Keep an eye out for headless chickens, then," Leif said.
"You'll be headless if you don't stop," Forrest growled. There wasn't much heat in it though, his mind still seemed to be elsewhere.
Leif didn't look intimidated. Why would he be? Forrest wasn't going to cut off either of his heads.
Woody stopped the car and killed the engine. "Okay, are you going to explain what the hell we're doing here?"
Forrest rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "My house in the Hamptons was burned to the ground this morning. I just got the news." He was quietly pissed off.
"Let me guess, it wasn't an electrical fire," Leif asked.
"I had the whole place rewired a few weeks ago," Forrest said. "My son did it."
"Any chance Jules set in on fire?" That was Leif again.
"No," Forrest said firmly. "We've had our share of bad blood between us, but we've put it behind us. This isn't his style anyway."
"It wasn't an act of Woody either," Woody said, before anyone else could. "You're all alibis to that." He almost seemed regretful. If Forrest's house was going to burn down anyway, he might as well have been the one to do it.
"No, but it wasn't an accident," Forrest said. "No one else knows about this place. It'll give us a chance to regroup."
"If no one knows about it, they won't come after us here," I said.
"No, we might go after them." Forrest got out of the car, leaving us no choice but to do the same.
The moment I stepped out, the smell of sea air hit me, clean and fresh. The sound of the waves pounding against the nearby sand was consistent, soothing.
"I do," Forrest replied. He headed to the back of the car and started to pull out bags and suitcases. "I don't come here very often, but it's a good place to escape to. Before anyone asks, yes, there's Wi-Fi."
Leif fist bumped the air. "Hell yeah, Wi-Fi!"
"You'd think he'd never accessed Wi-Fi before," Woody said dryly, pulling out the last of the suitcases and closing the back of the car.
