Page 48 of Forbidden War (Forbidden 2)
A chime. Subtle, but enough to nag at my memory. I know that note. The monotony of it used to drive my mother crazy.
A grandfather clock should have a pleasant tune, not sound like a dying whale.
It sat on the second-floor landing, the jarring chime audible through most of the house every hour on the hour. My mom complained about it so much, my uncle finally agreed to move it to the house in—
“She’s in Bear Valley,” I say aloud, wonderingly. I stand up and wave the tablet at the Bellantis. “That’s the house in Bear Valley!”
“The ski town?” Dante asks. “I thought that place was closed down.”
I nod. “Exactly.”
As they rush over to me, I look at the frame frozen on the screen. That’s it, I know it. That’s the rough, creaky wooden floor that my mother always complained about, scratched and marked from years of foot traffic and little tending to keep the planks in good repair. The wood paneling on the downstairs walls had also grown discolored and cobwebbed, not at all suitable for company.
We don’t entertain here, my dad had reminded her. This is where we come to get away.
The Bear Valley house was the one place my family could go to escape the pressure of my uncle’s thumb. It wasn’t luxurious or fancy or even very comfortable. Just an old property someone had signed away to my uncle to settle a debt, a place he rarely—if ever—visited.
Everyone is looking at me.
“Keep talking,” Armani demands, brow furrowed.
“It’s in the mountains. It’s not a safehouse or a storage place; it’s just a rickety old house my uncle owns, but nobody ever goes there.”
“What makes you think this is the place?” Marco asks gently.
“The clock, I heard the grandfather clock chime. That’s where the clock is. I would never mistake the sound of that thing. Livvie’s got to be there. Maybe the den, or a spare room upstairs. The master bedroom has a big closet, maybe there.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, a clock?” Armani sidles up to me and grabs the tablet back. “Show me.”
Frankie and her mother return, and Frankie asks what’s going on.
After I briefly explain, I rewind the video and hit pause. “Here. Everybody listen.”
I hold my breath, hoping like hell that I’m not wrong about this. I mean, I can’t be; I feel it in my gut. There’s nothing else on Earth that would make a sound as dissonant and ugly as that old clock. The sound replays, the chime muffled and hard to hear, but if you listen closely, it’s unmistakable. I see hope light up Frankie’s eyes, her mom’s hand going over her mouth.
Armani insists we play it again. Frankie looks at me, her gaze searching and desperate.
“Where is this place?” she asks.
“It’s about four hours away,” I tell her. “My parents used to take me there when I was young. When they needed a break from my uncle. But then he forbade us from going anymore, so we stopped. It’s probably really run-down by now, and—”
“Address,” Armani cuts me off.
Marco’s arm slips around my shoulder and he pulls me close. I don’t realize until just then that I’m breathing fast, that I’m short of breath.
“I don’t know, but once we get to Bear Valley, I can point it out. I’ll remember it.”
“No fucking way,” Armani says. “Draw a picture. Or we’ll check Google maps.”
Marco nods. “He’s right. It’s not safe for you to go there. Can you try to draw it?”
“I can try.”
Frankie turns quietly into her mother’s arms beside me. Armani is already on his phone, looking at maps of the area. Dante hands me a legal pad and a pen and I sit on the floor beside the coffee table and hunch over the paper. It’s been so long, but I can visualize it in my mind.
I sketch the front of the house, the wraparound porch, the thick trees closing in on both sides. The living room has a cathedral ceiling, which gives the roof a sharp pitch on one side of the house—a feature that I hope will help the Bellantis correctly identify it. Then I draw a crude blueprint of the house, marking the handful of places that have the white walls and wood floors I saw in the video. The basement is out, since it’s all concrete and cinderblocks, and so are all the rooms with paneled walls. Luckily, the place isn’t very big. They’ll have to be fast, though.
“There’s a two-pump gas station and a little general store down the road and to the left, kind of old-fashioned looking, about an eight or nine minute drive from the house,” I say, sketching a little map on another sheet of paper. “Or at least, there was. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. I can only tell you what I remember from last time I saw it. The house was dark green, peeling paint, and the porch is screened in, but the screens are in bad shape.”
Dante asks for more details, anything else that I can remember, and I provide all I can. By the time I’m done, I’m trembling, and Marco has me firmly in his arms.
“Well. Looks like your wife has proven herself after all,” Armani says.
“She had nothing to prove,” Marco shoots back. “Be grateful that she could help at all.”
“We are.” Frankie gives me a hug, and so does her mother.
I feel a thrill, but it isn’t about convincing Armani—it’s about the way Marco is looking at me. I only pray that I’m right; that the clock wasn’t moved somewhere else, or that I’m hearing a sound that’s not what I think it is.
Marco takes my chin in his hand. “Thank you.”
The kiss he delivers is tender, his expression proud and loving. My chest swells to see it. He joins his brothers and soon, they’re gone, leaving the women behind to wait.
As for me, I’m hoping with everything inside me that I haven’t made a huge mistake.
