else. And she didn’t get to reclaim a position she’d willingly relinquished. Not now.
Still, Claire was beginning to see Eileen’s point: The Caravan wasn’t reliable, the weather was bad, the journey home was long. Going out could be dangerous, even deadly. What Claire wasn’t sure about was the conclusion Eileen had reached, that staying here was their best option. If they were at a Days Inn, Claire could understand. This wasn’t a motel, though. This was, essentially, a haunted house.
“We could walk into town,” Claire offered. “Ask at the diner about lodging.”
“I thought you wanted to keep a low profile,” Eileen challenged at the same time Murphy shouted, “I’m not going out in that!”
Murphy pointed upward, toward the sound of thunk, thunk, thunks on the roof. Claire had been out in that sleet. She’d run while ice chunks the size of peas pelted her body. She didn’t want to walk through this weather any more than Murphy did. But she didn’t want to stay the night inside a murder house, either.
Why had she come on this trip in the first place? Trusting impulse had utterly failed her, put her in the worst position. Where was her golden moment? Where?
Exhaustion waxed so large inside Claire, she started to cry.
No, not now, she scolded herself. Excellers don’t cry about things like this. They take action. She brushed her knuckles along her eyes, wiping up traces of weakness. She couldn’t fall apart.
“Fine,” she said to Eileen. “It might not be safe out there, but it might not be safe in here, either. If we’re going to stay, we need to secure the house.”
“Secure the house,” Murphy parroted. “Black-ops style, okay.”
“This isn’t a joke,” Claire told her.
“Everything’s a joke.” Murphy spoke slowly, like she was reminding Claire that two plus two equaled four.
Claire focused on the sister who could at least see reason. “If we broke in here,” she told Eileen, “anyone could. I say we go over the house again, and this time we make sure to check every closet and crawl space. Every corner. One of us stays here and watches the entrance.” She motioned to the French doors. “Then, when we’re sure we’re alone, we barricade. We hang tight for however long it takes this storm to let up, and when it clears, we leave. Can we agree to that?”
“I volunteer for patrol!” Murphy shouted.
Eileen shrugged, because clearly it would kill her to acknowledge that Claire had good ideas. She said, “Fine, Murph and I will check the house.”
“Thoroughly,” Claire emphasized.
Claire was pretty positive Eileen said “bitch” under her breath. She rose up above it, focusing instead on finding a power outlet for her phone charger. By the time she had, the others were gone, up the stairs.
It wasn’t that Claire was paranoid, as Eileen had accused. There wasn’t a huge part of her that thought Mark Enright could be in town. It was more that she needed a plan—even a plan of house inspection—to feel in control. If the house was secure, then she could be secure too.
And yes, there was a small fear that Cathy’s horrible theory might be true.
As Claire plugged her phone into the outlet by the sideboard, she noticed the copy of The Three Musketeers that Murphy had brought down from the library. Claire flipped open the cover, checking the print year: an 1894 edition. Claire was no expert, but she guessed 1894 could catch a good price on eBay—maybe a hundred dollars? And this was only one book of hundreds. Who knew how much that library was worth? With the proceeds, Claire could get out of Emmet for good. She could comfortably support a move to New England, pay for months of rent, buy furniture.…
Stop it, Claire instructed herself. The book isn’t yours yet. You’re trespassing.
She sat herself on the hardwood floor, cradling the phone in her lap, watching as the red battery icon inched from 8 to 9 percent. There was an itch in her fingers to open the Internet, log in to the Yale admissions portal, and verify for the fifty-first time that the news was not, in fact, a mistake.
Don’t be obsessive, she ordered herself. Don’t dwell. It’s over. Focus forward.
Focus forward—a Harper Everly original. It was such an iconic phrase of hers, she sold totes and jersey-knit tees featuring the advice. Claire didn’t own one of those, but she’d bought other merch, including a tumbler with NO EXCUSES scrawled in loopy, rose-colored script.