Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
My heart thudded, my tongue too fat in my dry mouth, but I was here. I’d walked into the dark and I wasn’t screaming. As far as I was concerned, that was a win. Turning carefully to the left, phone light pointed in front of me, I sucked in a breath. Rows of wine bottles stretched out in front of me, the bottles stacked on shelves created for that purpose.
I discovered the same when I checked on the right.
Excitement took a big bite out of my fear. I was no wine snob or expert, but I could distinguish the different layers of flavor and appreciated complexity—but I’d never had the budget to try truly old wine. This week might turn out far better than I’d expected if I could go to town on this cellar.
I grabbed a couple of bottles at random, purely on the basis of which ones had the most interesting labels. I could always put them back if Darcie and Ash didn’t want me to open a specific one.
Tucking both under one arm, I began to walk quickly back up the stairs.
The door slammed shut.
I froze. “Darcie!” Barely able to hear myself over the thudding drum of my pulse, I tried again. “Darcie, I’m down here!”
Silence from the other side.
“Ha ha, very funny.” My face was hot, sweat blooming in my armpits. “It better not be locked.”
I raced up the remaining steps, my phone held in a death grip. Putting the bottles down on the landing at the top, I wrenched at the door handle. And almost sent myself careening down the stairs when it came open without a problem.
“Fuck!” Though I managed to catch myself in time, I dropped my phone.
The light blinked out.
Terrified of losing my lifeline, I dropped onto my hands and knees and patted the area. Dust was grit on my palms . . . No, there, the slick black of my phone case. “The dust will go nicely with the cobwebs in my hair,” I muttered in throat-drying relief, not even concerned that I might’ve picked up an eight-legged hitchhiker.
Wanting out of there, I took everything with me into the hallway. Only once I’d pulled the door shut did I examine my phone.
The screen came on at my first touch.
Shuddering, I bent over, my hands braced on my knees. I knew this wasn’t good, that I couldn’t become reliant on a device to the point of having a panic attack if I ever couldn’t find it, but there was only so much I could handle at once.
It took time to be able to breathe again.
When I could, I looked at the cellar door. It must’ve swung shut on its own. But . . . Chewing on my lip, I looked up the hallway. The air was deathly still, no airflow at all, nothing to nudge the door shut.
“It’s an old building,” I said, more than ready for my wine. “I bet it has quirks aplenty.” With that, I grabbed the bottles, both of them dusty and marked with my fingerprints. I didn’t know if it was seeing the dust that set me off, but I sneezed five times in quick succession.
I sounded like a chipmunk.
Laughing at myself, I began to retrace my steps. I figured I’d either run into Darcie at some point or—if she took a different route back—she’d turn back as soon as she’d confirmed I wasn’t in the cellar. Anyway, girl was taking way too long to get a flashlight. Likely she’d gotten caught up in a conversation and I’d find her with the others.
I almost got lost a couple of times, was saved by my visual memory for the paintings that lined the hallways. I just followed the trail of glum landscapes and emotionless, staring portraits. At one point, I thought I heard rustling in the walls, shuddered. “I hope this place doesn’t have rats,” I muttered, knowing that was likely to be a false hope—it was an old, barely maintained pile.
As I hurried on, I made very certain not to look at the painting with the blurred faces.
“How long does it take to get a flashlight?” I called out as I entered the living room.
Kaea looked up from the couch. “Come again?”
I scanned the room. “Where is everybody?”
“A couple of people went to the tower to download their emails—though I’d be surprised if they have reception even up there, what with this weather. I think someone else went to get their laptop, or maybe it was for a quickie.” A waggle of the eyebrows. “I, meanwhile, am lounging around drinking this fine whiskey that Ash poured me.” He raised a cut-glass tumbler, the amber liquid within jewel-bright in the firelight.
“Very Lord of the Manor.” I walked toward the bar.
“You have cobwebs in your hair,” he pointed out helpfully. “And dust imprints of what I assume are your own hands on your butt.”