But now that I was grown, I knew better.
My father ran away from us. Anything else was just a story I told myself to try and feel better. I was done with stories, and I was done with towns that told them. Getting yourself all worked up because there was a wolf or a mountain lion thirty miles away didn’t make any sense. God, a night in a real city would put all of these bumpkins in the looney bin.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to stay here, in some place where they spun tales tall enough to make your best friend sleep with a gun under her pillow.
I didn’t want to be that person, not for anything. And something told me that if I stayed here long enough, I wouldn’t be able to help it.
No, I would go to sleep, get up, pick up the supplies I needed from town, and fix the stupid fence. Then I would get a job, save up like crazy, and make a break for it. Maybe I could call my (former) agent and beg him to take me back.
Hell, the Sears Catalog always needs models.
I punched my pillow, trying not to think about this ridiculous place, about all it had seen me lose.
“Idiots,” I muttered, climbing into bed. “They turn their town into a pressure cooker and then they make monsters out of thin—”
A sudden howling cut off my words.
Tensing, I threw my covers off and lurched for the window. The sound was nothing. A dog, or something. I would prove that to myself.
I glared out into those goddamn woods. See, nothing. Absolutely—
A shadow moved between the trees, hulking and burly, but also tall—too tall to be an animal.
I blinked hard, once, and then again. When I looked back, there was nothing there.
Stop it, Char.
This place would drive me crazy if I let it. It was nothing. An animal.
I got back in bed, trying to feel more New York and less New Haven. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t let go of the howl … or the markings … or the dead girl who looked just like me.
Chapter 3
I set my alarm for 6:45 the next morning, thinking that if I got a handle on the whole fence issue, I might be able to wrestle the pistol out of Lulu’s hand without incident. Of course, after my internet escapades last night and that howl in the distance (which was absolutely positively a coyote … right?) I didn’t really need help waking up. I’d completely missed my “window” and was on my second wind when the clock radio sprang to life, blaring ‘My Humps’ and telling me that the night was mercifully over.
I opened my closet with all the aplomb you would expect in the morning from someone who had spent her formative years sleeping until noon.
Crap. Laundry day.
Scanning the rack, I found the only clean thing I had was a dress the good people at Seventeen Magazine allowed me to keep after a particularly breezy photo-shoot. I wanted to be low key at the stupid open market. How could I do that in a sundress that featured a dangerously low cut top and a sparkling gold sequins?
Oh, screw it. Might as well give these stuffy losers something to talk about.
I grabbed the matching sky high heels, because when you jump down the rabbit hole, you do it with both feet. Quietly, I snuck out of the house, closing the door behind me, my heels clapping against the sidewalk like a runway model on her first trip to Milan.
A slight breeze cut through the springtime warmth, and birds sang in the trees as if they were serenading some cartoon princess. The open market was just through town, a half-mile walk at the most if I went straight. But straight meant I would have to pass by the cemetery, and I wasn’t ready to do that, not yet. I made a quick left and hummed along with the birds, trying to keep my mind in a light place.
The streets were obviously emptier than what I was used to back in New York. Even at this time of morning, the city would be a mass of people all buzzing about. But aside from some joggers (a few of whom did double takes when they caught a glimpse of my outfit), I was pretty much by myself.
To stave off the boredom, I popped in my earbuds and shuffled through my downloads. If people judged me by the way I looked, they would probably assume there was some bubblegum club song jamming through my head, but the truth was, I had always been more of a book girl. After all, there was no law that said models couldn’t enjoy Steinbeck.
Ten minutes and half of an audiobook chapter later, I was pulled from my third visit with Holden Caulfield by a hand on my shoulder. I spun around, removing the buds from my ears.
A burly man with a five o’clock shadow and a baseball cap that read ‘John Deere’ stood grinning at me. A wad of chewing tobacco protruded from his lip and his tongue flicked disgustingly in and out of his mouth.
“Well, how you doing, sweet thing?” he drawled. His smell—whiskey and sweat—nearly knocked me down.
“Fine ‘til a minute ago.” I jerked away from him. “You need to sober up, dude.”
“Me?” He scoffed, but his half-open, bloodshot eyes agreed. “I ain’t the one taking the walk of shame.”