Page 89 of Call Off the Dark

“Murdered just because.” Helen gestured around her at the night air. “Because crickets cannibalize their own as it gets cold. And men lose their minds and stab other men they don’t even know.”

Isaac said his next words so quietly, she could barely hear them. “That’s terrible.”

“I thought if I married Wade and came out here, I’d be able to get away from it. But you can’t ever get away from something like that.”

Isaac bowed his head in sad recognition. She was glad he didn’t try to say anything comforting. Expressions of condolences are unworthy of some types of loss.

“Until you showed up, I was just waiting,” she said.

He lifted his head. “For what?”

“To die.”

Isaac drew in a slow breath, the empathy on his face. “And what are you doing now?”

“Still waiting,” she said. “To see what you’ll do next.”

“What I’ll do?”

“Every minute of the day, I’m either inside my head reliving the past or I’m just hovering outside the present moment, watching things unfold. I’ve found that from a distance, I can handle it better. So now I’m just watching this all and waiting to see what happens.”

Helen turned to leave.

She got halfway across the yard before Isaac caught up to her and clasped her arm. She spun around slowly to face him, and they gazed at each other for several beats.

She said, “And you seem to be waiting to see what I’ll do next.”

The moment was hanging by a thread. It felt like the slightest wind could shred that delicate thread, but they stayed there, locked in the moment, until at last she stepped closer to him. Now there was only a foot between them. They stared at one another, breathing in, breathing out. She moved one step closer, putting their faces only inches from each other. A long breath held, like a dare. She felt a shiver travel down her spine, that heady mixture of desire and fear, the stillness before leaping off a cliff into the water below. Isaac’s eyes were asking her for it, but Helen knew he wasn’t going to initiate it. He was going to make her come and get it.

So she planted her mouth onto his so hard she couldn’t even feel his lips at first, just the exhilaration of the collision. His arms went around her, and as the kiss deepened, her body relaxed and her mouth softened, and the kiss turned into something sweeter, and she began to lose herself in it. The easy harmony of it moved into her chest, yet there was something else in there too. Adventure. Yes, that was it: adventure.

When was the last time she’d felt that?

Helen pulled away and pushed Isaac hard. He took an abrupt step back to keep his balance and looked at her, surprised by her sudden forceful burst.

It had felt good, pushing him. Even better than kissing him did.

Isaac didn’t make any move to question Helen or stop her, so she pushed him again and he let her, braced himself just enough to take it, but not so much that she couldn’t feel the weight of him move under her anger.

As the passion and anger drained out of her, the sadness began to take hold again, the hoax of it all.

In the weeks and months and years since Tyler’s death, Helen had felt her strength and resolve and goodness leave her. There had been the initial impact of his murder, like a bomb detonating inside her, but over time, there had been continued effects. It was like she lived in the aftermath of a war zone, remnants of wreckage everywhere.

A man named Wade and miles of forest hadn’t been able to give her the refuge she was searching for. Maybe she just needed to light the entire place on fire. Burn it all down.

She gave Isaac one last look and left him there, alone in the yard with the dying crickets.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The teakettle on the kitchen stove shrieked. Helen heard it all the way back in the bedroom, where she was dressing alone. Isaac must have made the morning tea. She couldn’t imagine Wade doing it.

Minutes later, she entered the kitchen, her expression guarded. Both Wade and Isaac were in work clothes, their coats on. Isaac’s head was tilted back as he finished the last drops of liquid in his mug.

“Good,” Helen said, her voice cold. “It seems you’ll both be gone today.”

Isaac tried to catch her eye, but Helen refused to look at him.

“Did you get your lunch bags out of the fridge?” She directed the question at her husband, but Isaac was the one who answered.