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  Cellar Door

  Trisha Wolfe

  Contents

  Quote

  Prologue

  1. The Moment Before

  2. Target

  3. Strike Twice

  4. Him

  5. Nefarious Design

  6. Enemies

  7. Darkness Calls

  8. Catacomb

  9. Below

  10. Stone Cold

  11. Ghosts

  12. Voices

  13. Watchdog

  14. Bone to Ash

  15. Smash It

  16. Wicked Pain

  17. The Sickness

  18. Rabbit Hole

  19. Catch Fire

  20. Crown

  Epilogue

  Cruel

  Also by Trisha Wolfe

  Darkly, Madly Duet

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by Trisha Wolfe

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

  Prologue

  Vault

  Makenna

  I can’t remember who said it, but the claim was made that cellar-door is likely the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Heard out of context, the two words paired together evoke a melancholy that settles deep in my bones. An echo of beauty that feels forbidden.

  I probably heard this in school, from some pretentious English teacher. There were a few of those. People who moved in and out of my life with no purpose.

  Pieces of my life filter in past the dark, shallow glimpses, the light finding the cracks. I place my hand to the cold floor and capture a splinter of the rays.

  Cellar door.

  Cellar door.

  Cellar door.

  I repeat the phrase over and over, trying to force my mind not to recognize the meaning of the words. I want to hear them with a foreign ear; I want to know what they might mean to another woman.

  His shadow moves across the light, blotting out the only warmth in the room.

  My lungs cease to breathe.

  I can’t inhale until the light returns.

  I used to hold my breath during storms, counting the seconds after the strike, waiting for the roll of thunder. But the storms vanished the moment he stole me. A beautiful monster full of anguish and wrath tore me from my life.

  Now, I’m his captive.

  A way out always exists.

  Only my mind rebels, insisting it’s the way in that must be found. A window to the soul. Through the eyes. I must’ve heard that in school once before, too.

  He watches through ice-blue stained glass.

  How does he see me?

  How do I appear out of context?

  Like the cellar door that conceals our secrets, if I repeat the truth enough, reciting it over and over, it loses meaning—becoming an obscure and distant version of our reality.

  There is more than one door. There is an infinity of doors. All leading to where the bones of our darkest secrets haunt. We all have a cellar door of our own design.

  My door is made of bone and ash.

  1

  The Moment Before

  Makenna

  During a storm, there’s a moment between the flash and the strike where I hold my breath. A charged, suspended moment, as oxygen pulls in like the receding tide. Pressure builds. The current in the air penetrates my atoms.

  I don’t breathe.

  Then, like the crash of a wave, I’m released. The roll of thunder resounds through my body as I exhale the tension from my muscles and sinew.

  In the seconds before the strike, I’m only aware of the wait, the anticipation, the dread, for what comes next. It’s a relief when the lightning crashes—a confirmation that storms go unchanged.

  Most people spend their lives in a sort of waiting pattern. A mantra built around the same tune: I’ll do it when it happens.

  In other words, we wait to start living—really living—for when life falls into place. For that perfect thing we’ve been yearning for to land in our lap. A promotion. A significant other. Being thinner. Smarter.

  I’m just as guilty. In the city of Seattle, securely nestled by water and concrete and everything trendy, I set up shop in the Lower Queen Anne district, heaving my bloated career over the hurdle of my last major failure. I got this space because I can view the Space Needle from my industrial, corrugated metal balcony. It was a beacon for resurrection.

  Carpe deim.

  Only I never quite seized anything but my grande mocha from the corner café across the street. Two months in my loft, and I’m still staring at the Space Needle from my glass desk, counting the seconds before the strike.

  And waiting for what comes next.

  File in hand, I ease out a breath with the bass roll of thunder, then flip to the first page. Jennifer Myer sits across from me in my loft apartment. She’s thirty-seven. Dyed blond. Dressed in a Chanel pantsuit. And likes to spend her husband’s millions.

  Mr. Myer has recently put a cap on Mrs. Myer’s spending allowance due to “the economy,” and it’s made her suspicious. Especially since Mr. Myer hasn’t stopped spending money. Receipts she discovered for hotel rooms, nightclubs, risky lingerie boutiques, and other various, skeptical activity.

  She wants to hire me to eke out Mr. Myer’s cheating ways, so she can file for divorce.

  I sip my mocha and set the file on the desk. “I’m not cheap,” I say to Jennifer.

  She lifts her chin, collagen-filled lips pursed in firm resolve. “I have my own bank account,” she assures.

  Good to know. I jot down a note on the back of her background check. I always do a surface check on anyone who wants to retain my services. That’s a given. But Jennifer is special. I already know she has no priors, other than a handful of parking tickets. She hails from the California coast, where she dropped out of college to marry Milton Myer and raise their son.

  Now that she’s no spring chick anymore (her words; not mine), she fears being traded in for a newer model, like the Bentley convertible her husband just upgraded to. She wants to strike first.

  I lean back in my comfy swivel chair, interlace my fingers over my stomach. “I’ll need a list of your husband’s automobiles, along with a sure time he’ll be away from home for at least two hours.”

  Her sharply groomed eyebrows draw together. “Why?”

  “I need to install GPS trackers on his cars.” And search the residence.

  Most men aren’t as secretive—or stealthy—as their women counterparts. You’d be amazed at what one can discover right out in the open. Credit card receipts left in pockets. Hotel registrations. Lingerie purchased for a mistress. I’m not even joking. I once found a silk nighty in the closet of one client—the nighty three sizes two small for said client.

  “Fine,” Jennifer says. “Of course.” She uses her own pen to make a list of cars, then glances up as she slides the notepad across the glass desktop. Her watery blue gaze flicks to my ponytail. Messy brown, natural strands escape the band. I can feel her disapproval.

  “Thank you.” I slip the list into her file, noticing first the four cars listed. Nice.

  Even if nothing pans out, this will still be a worthwhile job.

  Jennifer flips her silky blond hair off her shoulder. She flips her hair with purpose, in a way that states every woman she’s ever met must be envious of her.

  And truthfully, I am.

  I envy her very simple, uneventful life—a life where her biggest worry is fine lines cropping up around her eyes, so she tries not to smile as much.

  Maybe I’m being too judgmental but, according to her background check, I can’t believe Jennifer Myer has suffered any real pain, the unbearable kind, where it hurts to breathe, to move, to live. Come on, her marriage is a farce.

  I’ve seen women devastated by a cheating spouse. Their whole life shattered in one meeting. I doubt Jennifer will shed a tear. Too worried she’d smudge her Dior mascara.

  I envy Jennifer, and so many people like her their boring and drama-free lives.

  My story might not be an original one, but it’s a painful story just the same. My small family was torn apart by drugs. I suffered the deep-seated kind of pain, the torment of loss, where you don’t want the next minute to pass, fearful of what the future will punish you with next.

  Instead of letting that loss consume me, I took my pain to the police precinct and found a way to channel it.

  Then I found someone to get lost with.

  What life has taught me—what it continues to teach me—is that if you’re breathing, you’re fighting. Even if it feels like death.

  Growing pains. My insides are marred with the metaphorical stretch marks of personal growth.

  The woman in my office doesn’t sit at her window and focus on breathing through the storm. But that’s okay. There’s a place for everyone. If you’re not one of the Jennifers of the world, then you’re the other type.

  The me type.

  I try not to let that reality make me rife with bitter resentment.

  I try.

  “How often are men actually caught?” Jennifer
asks, bringing my attention back on her and her dilemma.

  A lot of women come to me because they want their suspicions, their gut instincts, to be proven wrong. They don’t want to do the dirty deep dive into their husband’s lives themselves, fearful of what they’ll uncover.

  I’m like an interpreter of sorts. They see the signs, sometimes even the proof, but they need me to decipher the meaning—to make it absolutely clear, leaving them with no doubt.

  I’m paid to give broken people confirmation that their relationship may be over.

  I always tell them exactly what I’m about to tell Jennifer Myer: “If you’re here, then you probably already know the truth.”

  Which in Jennifer’s case is cha-ching to her ears. She picks up her Prada purse from the floor and stands over my desk. “Milton is going away on a business trip tomorrow. You can come by the house then, but I would like you to start tonight.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “Milton will want to see his…mistress,” she says, “before he leaves town. That makes sense, no?”

  “Sure. Logically. I can start right now.”

  “Good.” She secures my services with a check, which covers the four GPS trackers and monitoring for a month. Any field work I’ll bill out in hourly increments.

  “Thank you, Ms. Davies.” The title has a niggling sting in her snide tone. Which really, that’s more on me than her. Jennifer has no idea that I’m used to being addressed as Detective Davies.

  Used to, I mean. I wasn’t a detective for long, but I had gotten used to the title.

  “Makenna is fine,” I say.

  “All right, Makenna. Please report any updates to the cell number I gave you.”

  Her secret phone—the one her husband doesn’t know about—that I’m sure is being used for her own tawdry affairs. But, hey, who am I to judge? The check she just wrote will pay my rent for three months.

  As she climbs into the elevator, complaining about having to use the rusty old building lift, I swivel my chair to face the row of windows that highlight the Seattle cityscape.

  Six months ago, I’d have balked at the idea of becoming a private investigator. Hell, I’d have been insulted. It’s depressing what we accept when our options are limited.

  In as little as five years with the Seattle PD, I made detective, and I lost the position in under a year. The soggy bottom just fell out from beneath my feet.

  The patter of rain plinks against the windowpanes. Before the storm builds into a downpour, I grab my bag and jacket and head out. More reconnaissance on Milton Myer is needed, and now I’m getting paid to dig into the man.

  I close the grating to the elevator just as a flash of lightning illuminates my cold loft.

  I hold my breath on the way down.

  2

  Target

  McKenna

  Colony Park Cafe is central in downtown Seattle. Situated up the hill from Pike Place, it’s far enough away from the tourist flurry of the marketplace, but located in a prominent enough area that I imagine most of the city walks by at least once a week.

  That’s why I chose it as my base.

  I come here every morning and every evening. Twice a day—twice as many chances to spot him.

  I don’t actually drink this much coffee, despite what most think about locals. This afternoon I’ve traded in my regular for a green tea. I sip it slowly as I watch the after work crowd scurry along the street on their way home.

  How many times has he passed me?

  Every man above six feet tall sends my heart racing. The sight of a black hoodie strangles my lungs. I get that flutter in my chest…it’s him…and then disappointment coats my stomach like oily film when I search the eyes.

  There are at least five men in this city who I’ve stopped in the street that think I’m bat-shit crazy.

  The constant surge of adrenaline is exhausting. I imagine it helps me sleep at night, though. Without the nervous system crash, I would never rest. I’d only ever see his piercing blue eyes through the storm.

  I look down at my hand, flex it to stop the tremor. The weight of my gun in my shoulder harness bears down on me, a morbid taunt.

  I had one chance to pull the trigger…and I froze.

  Pulling a quick breath in to fill my aching lungs, I roll my shoulders and ease back against the metal chair. The air is abuzz with the pending rainstorm. I can taste it in the atmosphere, the charge. With every hovering rain-swollen cloud comes the memory of that night.

  I’m close.

  I’ll find him.

  Admittedly, as a detective, staking out a coffee shop isn’t the best way to search for a suspect. But I’ve beat to death all other resources. While I was still a detective, that is. Those resources run a little dry outside of the precinct. I maintain a number of connections, but when those people think you’re cracked…

  Yeah. So this is what I have. My one-woman PI firm, and a base that I obsessively state out twice a day, waiting for him to walk by.

  But now I have Milton Myer’s wife as a client. That changes the game. I have a piece of the puzzle. It’s the first glimmer of hope I’ve had in a very long time, and I cling to it.

  At closing, I toss my cup in the trash and head across the street toward my car, my boots clomping through rain puddles. I have a job to do. According to Jennifer, Milton might want to see his mistress—but I know better.

  I unlock my car and settle behind the wheel, inhale a steadying breath. I take the long way toward Milton’s office building, adrenaline coursing my veins.

  Let’s see what my target is up to tonight.

  Most cheaters have at least one thing in common. They’re unoriginal. Honestly, even with the abundance of information online on how to evade being caught, they typically make the same mistakes. It’s human nature to believe you’re of above intelligence, especially for a self-made business man like Myer.

  At around 11:00 p.m., I’m parked across the street from Myer Keystone Enterprise, Nikon camera lens trained on the floor-to-ceiling windows of Myer’s office on the fourth floor.

  Men are lazy when it comes to cheating. They work within their immediate environment. Most settle on the hot young secretary. It’s a cliché for a reason; it’s convenient.

  Milton Myer isn’t alone in his office, but he’s not entertaining his secretary, either. I zoom in the lens, trying to get a clear view through the tinted office window. Another man around Myer’s age stands adjacent to him, hands balled into fists at his side. His countenance appears hostile.

  I capture a picture.

  Milton holds up his hands in defense as the other man storms his way. I straighten up and press closer to my car window. The lens butts the glass. I whisper a curse and hit the control to lower the window, and in the short time it takes to do this, the man has wrapped his hands around Milton’s neck.

  Shit.

  I glance around, looking for someone to intervene. There’s no one. The office building is closed. I reach inside my jacket and unclasp the snap on my gun holster, then grab the door handle.

  I’m not a cop.

  Not anymore.

  PIs watch; they don’t interfere.

  I’m not a real PI.

  But I’ve taken too long to make my choice. Milton has broken the man’s chokehold and races for the door. I grip my camera and refocus the lens. In a matter of seconds, Milton is through the door and barreling down the hallway. I lose sight of him…and the man enters my view.

  A gun outstretched in his hand.

  Through the camera lens, I make out his black suit. He’s tall. Broad shoulders. Short-cropped dark hair. He’s the right build…

  Without thought, I snap a picture, then toss the camera on the passenger seat and open my door.

  A shot rings out.

  One foot planted on pavement, the other inside the car, I hold my breath. A second shot is fired, forcing me into motion, and I move.

  I tear across the street, Glock held at my thigh, my other hand dialing 9-1-1 on my cellphone. I give the operator a brief rundown of what I witnessed and the address before ending the call so I can grasp the weapon with both hands.