Chapter 4

Three different kinds of dead bolts stood between Lucky and her goals. That felt excessive. Xander must have been worried about break-ins, but…why? The maintenance schedule ensured someone would be on-site at least once a day, every day of the week, not to mention the installed over-the-top security system.

Motion detectors guarded the house’s exterior and both yards. Cameras recorded every entrance and window. Xander had spent a solid half hour going over the location of each one, hammering it home that there wasn’t a single unmonitored spot outside of the house.

She’d laughed and asked, “Why stop there? Why not have cameras in the house too?”

He’d pursed his lips into the unhappy grimace she’d come to know, love, and openly mock during preproduction. “Because they all mysteriously stop working within a week.”

“Maybe someone is breaking them.”

“No one has lived there as a permanent resident in years. Because of its unfortunate location and…proclivities, the most my family has ever used it for were temporary getaways. Every repair tech reports the cameras are functional during tests and for the first six days post-installation. Something makes them go offline on the seventh.”

She’d begun vibrating with excitement by that point, barely able to hide her fascination. “Wow. How long has that been happening?”

“We made the decision to stop trying a few years ago.”

As soon as Lucky opened the door, the alarm began beeping directly on her left. She entered the code on the first try, brought her suitcases inside, and shut the door, pushing firmly against the old wood despite the latch sliding home without resistance.

Not a creak, not a groan, not a hint of warped wood to be found.

She’d read somewhere that dogs understood everything their people said, and relatedly, that plants responded to warm, soothing voices. An alleged haunted house might appreciate the effort as well.

“Hello, Hennessee House.” She smiled. “My name is Lucky Hart.”

Every curtain had been closed. She surveyed the foyer, the stairs directly in front of her, the rooms on either side, and the hall to the right of the stairs that led farther into the house.

Temperature—warm, almost perfect.

Notable smells—hints of a pine-scented cleaner and fresh laundry.

Appearance—identical to the pictures.

Her instructions said to go straight. She assumed that meant the hall next to the stairs.

No rugs on the aged hardwood floor. No paintings or pictures on the walls. One lone table rested in the middle of the hallway with a flowered vase on top. The same exact purple flowers dotted along the light brown and cream wallpaper.

“At least it’s not yellow,” she mumbled absently.

After passing the length of the stairs, and the intriguing door in the wall underneath it, the hall suddenly split into two. On her left, a short perpendicular offshoot led to a dead-end window with a door on each side.

Her eye twitched in defiance. She wanted to go that way. She needed to go there.

Xander could’ve lied about the cameras not working in the house as a test to see how well she followed directions. They absolutely had some method of keeping tabs on her—she didn’t believe for a second they didn’t. Alternatively, her forced first night imprisonment could’ve been to ensure the mechanisms designed to make the house moan, the doors slam, and the vents whisper her name in the night stayed a secret.

Her palms began to sweat. Temptation was a real bitch sometimes.

She also had to at least consider Xander’s rules might belong to Hennessee itself. Wandering might be unsafe. Maverick said he’d explain more in the morning, but in the next breath claimed nothing happened on the first night. The implication being she’d be protected only if she did as instructed.

If one wanted to rob a bank, the inside man couldn’t immediately begin casing the safe and interrogating the manager on their first day of work. They mastered their job while keeping their eyes and ears on everyone else’s. Their patience would pay off eventually, organically through trust.

Logic won that afternoon. She’d follow their damn rules for as long as her patience would allow.

Half against her will, she marched forward into the kitchen. A large brown picnic basket with a red gingham trim sat on the center island. The room was decently sized, filled with colorful retro-style appliances, a small round dining table for four, gorgeous windows, and a Dutch door to the backyard.

Her jaw dropped. A large white gazebo partially blocked the view of what had to be an orchard—an actual, honest-to-God orchard thriving with flowering bushes and gloriously colorful fruit trees. She grabbed the counter to stop herself from sprinting outside. That wasn’t in the pictures! Even from where she stood its allure curled around her sweet as smoke, nearly overwhelming, as if it were calling to her, inviting her to walk along its paths, pick its fruit, take naps in its shade—

“Go upstairs. Go upstairs. Go upstairs.” She continued chanting under her breath as she picked up the picnic basket. Eyes narrowed into slits, she flew like a bat out of hell straight to the foyer.

Her abysmal self-control wouldn’t last much longer! She didn’t want to see anything else! It took two painful trips to get all her stuff upstairs. Curiosity pawed at her like a mischievous cat, begging her to break the rules the entire time, but she made it.

Unlike the orchard, the bedroom was the very same she’d seen in the pictures, all dark wooden furniture with rich plum-colored bedding and curtains. She put her clothes away in the walk-in closet and decorated the room with a stack of books on the nightstand, comforting pictures and a jewelry case on the dresser, and a hot pink stuffed lion and her laptop on the bed.

Now this was the part where Lucky was supposed to call someone to let them know she’d arrived safely and gush over the beautiful house.

Except she had no one. No point in scrolling through her contacts pretending she did.

Someone somewhere would care if she died. Probably her brother. He’d do the right thing and claim her remains. Until then he, and the rest of them, cared very little about her day-to-day life. Thinking of her family hurt like a recurring muscle twinge, easy enough to massage away. She’d stopped being sad about it a long time ago.

Having friends required dedicating time to cultivating a social life. Her messages used to be filled with all kinds of check-ins and invites. She’d decline—choosing to spend her time researching instead, going on expeditions, conducting interviews, writing papers, and publishing anonymous blog posts with her findings. She made time for her dreams by sacrificing everything, and everyone, else.

And now she was in Hennessee House. Right where she wanted to be with no room for regret.

The attached bathroom was wonderfully equal in size with a clawfoot tub and a separate shower. Drawing perfect baths was as delicate a science as her supernatural research. She’d been forced to master it after years of nannying. She was a hands-on—playtime, cartwheel competitions, trampoline, hide-and-seek—active kind of nanny. Dollar store bubble bath, lavender baby oil, and a sprinkle of Epsom salt hadn’t failed her aching body yet. Carefully, she lowered herself into the hot water, groaning with pleasure as she went. Her feet barely brushed the drain at the head of the tub, and she reclined her head on the rim.

“I could get used to this,” she said to absolutely no one.

Lucky had never lived anywhere with a tub big enough to fit her entire body with room to spare. She always had to bend her knees, or it was so shallow the water barely passed her waist. She’d punch a ghost, unprovoked, dead in the face for this tub alone.

Perhaps that was the thought that caused the bedroom door to slowly drift open wider.

She pretended to not notice, humming as she casually reached into her toiletries bag to get her nail brush and spare switchblade. Under the water, she dropped one and flipped the other open. She might die, but she was sure as shit taking her attacker with her.

A merciless, relaxed calm flooded her taut muscles with purpose. She cleared her mind of everything except her self-defense training. Xander promised there’d be no people running around in sheets or special effects makeup to scare her. She’d warned him she knew how to fight if there were. Learning how had become a necessity after a group expedition in a condemned basement laboratory went sideways. Her self-defense instructor taught her “you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.” A lesson she took to heart.

But instead of an intruder, a gust of wind blew toward her as if she were standing directly in front of an air conditioner. It cut straight through her, making her shiver, and instantly cooling her bathwater.

It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived but left something behind.

In the bedroom, a mason jar with a purple flower inside sat on top of the old chest directly at the foot of the bed—the same kind of purple flower as on the wallpaper downstairs.

She grabbed her towel, thinking quickly as she headed into the bedroom. That jar hadn’t been there before. She would’ve noticed.

A welcome gift?

A warning gift? No different than an abusive partner trying to soften her up for the blows to come later.

Her hand stalled with hesitation before ultimately reaching out to pick the jar up. She’d started with respect and would see that plan through. “Thank you.” She swallowed hard, forcing her uncertainty back down. “This is so nice. I’ll put it on the dresser for now.”

Bath ruined, she dressed and unpacked her picnic basket, ate dinner, and swapped the cotton pillowcases on the bed for her satin ones to protect her hair. She’d always been a light, restless sleeper. Bonnets, scarves, wraps, you name it, never lasted longer than an hour on her head because she tossed and turned so much.

Her eyes had begun to drift closed as she read a book in bed when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Lucky? It’s Maverick.”

She sat bolt upright instantly, stomach somersaulting into oblivion. “Oh. Hi.”

He laughed, a husky and amused staccato chuckle. “You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not. It’s a defense mechanism. Can’t be let down if your hopes are never up,” she answered without thinking and squeezed her eyes shut in regret. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, that’s fine and smart. Although, I don’t know if I could live like that. For me, having hope makes life worth living.”

She smiled, lowering her head as if she wanted to hide the sudden burst of expression. Unexpectedly, though, her brain betrayed her by deciding to answer his honesty with nihilism. “The only thing that makes life worth living is the fact that I’m not dead. It’s like I’m being forced to survive.”

He laughed again, softer that time. “I definitely have questions about that, but I think I’ll save them for tomorrow’s interview.”

“Will you really be here at sunrise?”

“That’s the deal. How are you settling in? Still nervous?”

“All settled and tucked into bed.” Nerves got to her all the time. She’d felt them in the car, but so far, not at all in the house. Creepy or unsettling feelings weren’t following her like a threatening shroud. Getting the flower was…strange, at most. Fighting against her desire to do as she pleased had been the most distressing part. “The house hasn’t gobbled me up yet.”

“I told you nothing happens on the first night.”

She glanced at the mason jar. “You sure about that?”

“Did something happen? Wait, no, you can’t tell me. I shouldn’t even be calling you right now.”

“Then why did you?”

“Honestly?” He exhaled into a sigh. “I was…worried.”

“You…you were worried about me?” After three hopeful beats of silence, common sense kicked in. He didn’t mean that personally. “Oh, because I’m number four, right? I know my predecessors didn’t last long.”

“No,” he said matter-of-factly. No room for anything else. “I didn’t call them. I didn’t even think to. Earlier, you sounded a little panicked and I honestly haven’t stopped thinking about it.”

“Shit, sorry. I promise that wasn’t because of the house. I’m fine here. I don’t feel unsafe. I don’t feel scared. It’s a little jarring being somewhere with so much space and no one to share it with because I’m used to my tiny room in my tiny apartment, but other than that I’m okay.”

“If it wasn’t the house, what made you so nervous?”

She sat stuck in the moment, struggling to find her next words. How could she explain to him that her dreams, plural, were literally coming true without giving herself away?

NQP hired a struggling and aimless not-quite-young-adult who was supposed to learn that she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Telling the truth to reassure Maverick had been a rookie mistake. So, why did she do it? Why did she keep doing it?

A small, purple dot moved in her peripheral vision. She turned toward it, watching as the flower in the mason jar spun quickly in a circle at the bottom, moving faster and faster as if caught in a twister.

The hairs on the back of Lucky’s neck stood up. “Maverick,” she said with perfect, practiced calm. “I’m not afraid, but for the sake of the show, I think I need to hang up now.”

A beat of silence on his end, then, “Is something happening?”

Stephen wanted a story. As much as it pained her, this would have to be a part of that. “Good night. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

“We all live about an hour away,” he said quickly. “Promise you’ll call me or even Stephen if you need to?”

“I promise.”

“I’m choosing to believe you again.” He paused. “Good night.”

Lucky smiled softly. “I’ll see you at sunrise.”

The purple flower began to levitate.