Page 112 of Play With Me

The space is small and dark, but not so dark as the crawl space downstairs. Light streams in from cracks around the plywood on the windows and under the door. Otherwise, it’s dim, freezing, and dank smelling. But there’s furniture draped in sheets, just like in an old haunted house.

I can’t help shivering a little.

“Yeah,” Jude says. His voice has a little reverence in it.

“Should we look around?” I ask.

“I guess? It feels a little weird being here, knowing this is someone else’s place.”

“Technically a holding company’s,” I say. “But yeah, I agree. Let’s be quick.”

Even if we do find anything, I don’t think we’d feel right keeping it. Still, I pick up my camera and begin filming, following Jude around with his light like we did downstairs.

The main room is the biggest. The tour is quick: there’s what looks like a couch and table and chairs, something low that might be a chest, and a kitchen area with a giant wood oven and a tall structure Jude peels the sheet back from.

“A buffet,” I say of the shelves. They’re lined with plates and dishes. Somehow this evidence of someone living here—eating off those plates—makes this place more real.

Jude looks at each of them like he’s going to find something there. Then he goes to the low piece of furniture. He pulls off the sheet—it’s a chest like I thought. But inside, there’s only ancient quilts and blankets.

Jude wrinkles his nose. “Mothballs.”

“No notebooks?”

Jude gets to the bottom, then shakes his head.

Disappointment squeezes at my chest. I know it would have been too much to hope for after finding two diaries already.

I aim my camera at the other side of the cabin, where there’s a closed door.

“The bedroom,” I whisper. If this really was a love shack, would that be where JEQ and Eleanor would have holed up? I cross the floor—it’s only a few feet—and push tentatively on the wood door. It gives with a loud creak.

This room is darker than the main room—only one window, and barely a crack at the top letting light in. Most of it comes from the main room. But my eyes and camera adjust.

There’s a bed frame and chest of drawers, neither of which are covered, and a tiny iron-grill fireplace.

But on the other side of the bed there’s something that makes my breath hitch.

“Jude!” I cry out.

“Nor?” Jude comes thundering over in a few quick strides. “You okay?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “But look!” I point to the corner.

There, nestled in the corner under a wilted mobile of birds hanging from the ceiling, is a baby’s cot.

CHAPTER27

Jude

“We’re sure this is the right place?” Nora asks.

“Griffin wouldn’t have sent us on a wild goose chase,” I say.

For a moment, I take the distraction of Nora chewing her lip. I love it when she looks like this, her gaze unfocused, her mind ticking. But soon she’s talking again. “The photo where they’re standing in front of this cottage is a year before she was murdered back in Vermont. She could be pregnant here. Her dress is kind of…billowy.” Nora looks up at me, her face flooded with something that looks like hope. I feel it too. “A love child would be the ultimate proof they were together.”

“And good reason for her husband to want her dead,” I add.

“Exactly. But what happened to the baby? In all the records I read, there was nothing to indicate Eleanor had been pregnant, or had a child. There’s no mention of one when she died.”

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