The stress was too big for her, physically. It seemed to spread past her skin, in a haze of panic she couldn’t seem to shake. Delilah resisted the urge to glance at her phone again. She knew it hadn’t been more than a couple of minutes since she last looked, when she’d calculated the bank would open in ten minutes.
How long do I stand here, she thought, before I decide something has happened and I go to the house? How can he possibly expect me to move forward without him?
She thought back to the night before, in the music room, with Gavin’s hands and body all over her in a fever. She still felt tender from what they’d done, and she let herself remember every bit of it for just a moment, only a heartbeat: his breath warm and fast on her neck, teeth dragging to her collarbone, the sight of his smooth, muscled shoulders moving over her first slowly and then with abandon. How he’d started so carefully but listened to her when she told him she wanted none of that.
And then later: his warm, satisfied mouth pressed to her bare stomach and his promise that he would be here today. But that was before he knew his mother had called.
“Take everything worth anything,” he’d said as he’d backed away toward the door leading out of the music room, “and if I’m not there by eleven, get out of town. I’ll find you.”
Delilah swallowed, looking down at her phone just as the doors to the bank clicked open.
She’d held on to the hope that Gavin would be here now, that he would have gone in and escaped easily, or changed his mind at the gate and managed to dodge all of the trees swiping at him as he ran back to her here, in the middle of town.
It was only nine.
He wasn’t late.
She shouldn’t worry yet.
But her panic was a cold, slithering thing, as if the house had crawled into her this time, finally possessing her. But she knew it hadn’t. She was completely alone on the sidewalk outside the bank, because if Gavin was trapped there, House had everything it needed already.
? ? ?
The bank was empty but for a few tellers, a manager speaking on the phone in a glass-enclosed office, and a smiling, clean-cut, fair-haired man behind a desk. Taking a deep breath, Delilah walked over to him and sat down with shaking legs.
“I need to access a safe-deposit box.”
The man, whose desk had a name plate with KENNETH engraved into brass, smiled again and turned to his computer. “Well, great. I can help you there. What’s your name?”
“I’m Delilah Blue.” He began to type her name into his computer, but she quickly added, “But it’s not my box.”
Kenneth’s smile faltered as he looked back at her. “Whose box is it?”
“Hilary Timothy.”
He typed in the name and then shook his head, eyes genuinely apologetic when he looked back to her. “You’re not listed as a user on this account.”
“I have a key, though,” she said, hope causing her voice to crack halfway through.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. You need to be an approved user.”
Was it something in Delilah’s expression that made him so sincerely concerned for her? Something in the way her voice shook and she looked like she’d seen a ghost, maybe a thousand of them? She could see it in Kenneth’s face that if this rule could be bent, he might just do it.
“What if. . . ?” She paused, taking a deep breath before saying, “What if Hilary died?”
Kenneth blinked, surprised. He collected himself quickly enough. “Well, she does have someone else on the access form. Maybe you can contact them?”
Delilah shook her head, not understanding. A key was a key, after all. She only needed to open the box, not take anything with her. “I just need to see what’s in there. There are answers in that box, sir.”
“There are standard security features set up with a safe-deposit box,” Kenneth explained patiently. “You can’t access the box with only the key. Whoever requires access to the box needs to be present with their identification when the box is created, because they have to sign the signature card. Only the individuals that have signed the signature card have access to the safe-deposit box. Everyone who signs is given a key to the box. Does this make sense?”