Page 97 of Haunt Me

By the time he finally lets me point the truck toward the cottage instead of another parking lot, my hands have stopped white-knuckling the wheel every time another car passes.

“Take a left up here,” he says.

I signal, check my mirror, and ease onto a gravel road that cuts through the trees. Something eases in my chest with every mile that puts the motel further behind me.

“You’re getting good at this.”

“That’s high praise coming from you.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” he says, but there’s a warmth under it now, easy in a way that wasn’t there three weeks ago.

“You know, for someone who acts like teaching me to drive is a chore, you sure showed up early today.”

“Had nothing better to do.”

“Liar.”

He doesn’t argue, which is somehow more telling than if he had.

The cottage comes into view at the end of the gravel road. It’s small and weathered in a way that looks more like character than neglect. I find myself holding my breath a little, looking at it instead of just hearing about it.

I park and cut the engine. For a second, neither of us moves. Knox stares at the cottage through the windshield. His jaw works once, twice, and for a moment his eyes fill with tears before he catches himself. He blinks it back and reaches for the door handle instead.

“Ready?”

It doesn’t sound like a question meant for me.

“Ready,” I say anyway, because it’s the only answer I know how to give him.

Knox carries the bigger of my two boxes in without being asked and sets it down just inside the door, pausing a beat too long. As though crossing the threshold costs him more than he’s willing to say.

I step over the threshold behind him. The floorboard just past it lets out a soft, worn-in squeak under my foot.

“Sorry,” Knox says, already setting the box down. “I’ll bring tools by and get that fixed for you.”

“Please don’t.”

He glances up.

“It’s a good sound.” I press my foot down again just to hear it. “Feels like the house has a voice. I think it belongs there.”

Something shifts in his expression, quick and unguarded.

“My sister said the same thing,” he says, quieter now.

The place is smaller than I expected, but it doesn’t feel suffocating, not the way the motel did. Everything in here has the worn-in comfort of a home that was loved, not just lived in. A quilt is folded over the back of the couch in colors that don’t quite match anything else in the room. It looks hand-stitched instead of bought to complete a set. A row of paperbacks lines the windowsill, spines cracked from being read more than once.

“Your sister really loved books,” I say, running a finger along the spines.

Knox’s jaw does that thing again. “Yeah, she did.” A small smile finds his face. “Called herself a hoarder of other people’s stories. Never met a used bookstore that she didn’t walk out of with an armful.”

“I love that,” I say quietly. “A home can never have too many books.”

“Yeah.” His voice goes quiet again. “She would’ve liked you.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I just nod, my throat tighter than I expect it to be over a compliment from a woman I never met.

“When do you work next?”