see this mysterious “place” she had in mind, but so far, neither of them had expressed sharing her determination to find this woman who’d written asking for their help. And although she’d meant her outburst back at Maggie’s, that she’d find Rose alone if need be . . . the truth was she wanted Philip and Wade to be part of all this.
Finding a proper safe house was the first step. But she needed to pull them in one step at a time.
Wade and Philip walked the floor, looking inside all six of the bare rooms. Neither one responded to her mention of Rose.
Finally Philip said, “Too many exterior windows. We’ll have to seal most of them up.”
Wade stared at him. “You’re standing outside a Sunday school room, and that’s all you can say? ‘Too many windows’? Have you missed the irony here?”
Philip shrugged and put his hand against the wall. “Old buildings are best. This is an église solide.”
Eleisha had picked up enough French from him to know he’d called the place a sturdy church. Excitement began building inside her. He was clearly considering the idea. Regarding this part of her plan, though, she hadn’t worried too much about convincing Philip. Spending four weeks at Maggie’s was probably the longest stretch he’d stayed in one place in decades. Before becoming entangled with Eleisha, Philip had not been a cautious hunter—leaving bodies wherever he dropped them. And he’d hunted more often then he needed to, so he was constantly on the move. No, he would feel no hesitation to leave Maggie’s. He didn’t care where he lived as long as Eleisha and Wade lived with him.
Wade was a different story. He didn’t like making decisions, and he was a big fan of “thinking things through”—which she viewed as a euphemism for sitting on the fence.
She nearly ran back to the stairs. “Come on. Let’s see the basement.”
Not waiting for them, she jumped off the bottom step into the hallway and jogged to the stairs leading down, emerging into a sitting room. Overhead lighting down here was more sparse, as the place must have contained lamps before. She moved to the apartment’s small kitchen and switched on a light. Then she walked back into the sitting room.
Even dimly lit, the sitting room was lovely, with soft yellow walls and white molding around the floors and ceiling.
When she turned around, Wade and Philip were standing quietly behind her. “It only has one bathroom, but the bedrooms are over there,” she said, pointing through an old-fashioned archway. “And there is a small family kitchen that way. The big congregation kitchen is on the far side of the building.”
Wade cooked sometimes—when he didn’t order pizza—and Eleisha and Philip sometimes made tea. They could not eat or digest food, but their kind could absorb tea and even small amounts of wine.
She stood tense, unable to read either of her companions. From the moment she had seen the photos, something about this place had called to her . . . as if calling her home. She felt safe here. Welcome. Wanted. Like the building had been abandoned for too long, and it needed them.
“What do you think?” she asked Philip.
“It’s good,” he said simply.
“Wade?”
He shook his head in frustration. “This is too big a decision to make right now. Shouldn’t we look at other places? Shouldn’t we take more time to consider?”
Was he trying to convince himself or her? If she chose to, she could allow a little of her gift to seep out, to seduce him, to make him see she felt safe here so that he would do anything for her. But she wouldn’t do that. She wanted his true agreement.
“I don’t want to go back to Seattle,” she confessed, deciding to try honesty. “I don’t want to go back to Maggie’s. I don’t want to look at any other places. This is the one, Wade.”
He stepped closer, his white-blond hair falling forward into his eyes.
“Eleisha . . . ?”
“Don’t you miss Portland?” she asked. “Don’t you miss it here?”
Why she should love Portland and not Seattle was nonsensical, and she knew it, but for weeks now, the pull to come back to Oregon had grown stronger. The wish to leave Maggie’s house had grown unbearable. That house held too many reminders. Maggie had existed there, decorated the place, made it her own. And William . . . he had died in that house. Eleisha tried, but she couldn’t live there.