Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Experimentally, I close the bathroom door and the stink is significantly dulled.
Bath time it is.
I do a little shimmy on my way to the tub, flipping on the hot water faucet with a flourish and sighing, looking out over the sparsely populated beach. Most likely, everyone is home recovering from the fourth of July, which was only yesterday. The rental fees were significantly cheaper this side of the fourth, and my wildly popular brother had several barbeques to attend over the long weekend, anyway, so arriving on the fifth—a Tuesday—worked out for both of us.
With the tub halfway to full, I return to the bedroom briefly to take off my clothes and fold them neatly on the bed, to be placed in the travel hamper as soon as I officially unpack. Holding my breath against the smell, I start to return to the bathroom when something important occurs to me. I found this rental on StayInn.com and at the very top of their renter checklist was this: always make sure the fire and CO2 alarms are working upon arrival.
“Better do it before I forget…” I murmur, glancing up at the ceiling, though the detectors are probably out in the hallway—
Two little holes.
There are two little holes drilled into the crown molding.
No. No, no way. I have to be imagining that.
Goosebumps prickle down my naked limbs and I fold my arms across my breasts. The pulse in my temples start to pound and I shiver. A conditioned response to being surprised, that’s all. I’m sure it’s just where the nails were hammered into the molding. Surely those aren’t peepholes. Dammit, I knew I was getting in too deep with my true crime podcasts. Now everything is a life or death situation. The beginning of a grisly hack job that law enforcement will inevitably claim is the worst they’ve seen in their twenty-year career.
That’s not what is happening here. This is not a new episode of Etched in Bone.
Dateline’s Keith Morrison is not narrating this little panic attack.
This is just my simple, boring life. I’m just a girl on a quest for a bath.
Turning in a circle, I search the perimeter of the ceiling for any other holes of that size and come up empty. Dammit. Of course those two holes are on the side of the room that faces the center of the house. There could be an attic or a closet on the other side. Gross. Please let your imagination be working overtime.
Still, I’ll never be able to relax now, so I quickly shut off the bath with no small sense of regret and wrap a towel around my naked body, returning to the space beneath the holes, regarding them warily, as if they‘re going to jump down and bite me. I’ve heard of this kind of thing, obviously. Voyeurism. Everyone has. But it’s not the kind of problem one would expect to have at a beachfront property that cost a month’s worth of paychecks. Those cannot be peepholes. No way. Just a defect in the wood. As soon as I confirm that, I’m neck deep in hot water and this perfect vacation is off to a flawless start.
Before I can allow myself to get scared, I venture into the hallway outside the bedroom and open the adjacent closet, releasing a pent-up breath when there is no peeper inside. Although…there are no holes either. Not in the immediate closet. But there is a removeable panel on the shared wall. A crawl space?
Speaking of crawling, that is what my skin is doing.
Was the house so quiet and dark when we arrived? I can’t even hear Jude snoring anymore. Just the distant drip of the bathtub faucet. Drip. Drip. And the sound of my breathing now as it accelerates. “Jude?” I call, my voice sounding like a curtain ripping in the total silence. “Jude?” I call louder.
Several seconds pass. No sound.
And then footsteps are coming up the stairs. Why is my mouth dry? It’s only my brother. But when my back hits the wall, I realize I’m cowering there, my fight-or-flight instinct preparing me to dash for the bedroom and lock the door. If what? If someone other than my brother is coming up the stairs? What kind of a horror movie do I think I’m living in? Calm down.
My parents infiltrate riots to save artwork in the name of preserving history. Obviously their bravery is not a hereditary trait. Two little holes in the crown molding have my heart jackhammering. Even more so than the first day of in-person classes with a mob of second graders who’d been cooped up for a year with limited physical activity.
Could you be any more pitiful, Taylor?
If I needed proof that—at twenty-six—my life is too safe and predictable, here it is. One wrench in the engine and my routine-oriented self is ready to self-destruct.