Page 36 of Kill Your Darlings

A weird crawly feeling came over my scalp.

I started to say—I’m not even sure what.I stopped, too.I couldn’t ask.Didn’t want to know what she suspected.Didn’t want to hear what she and Jim had speculated about over the breakfast table for the last thirty-six years.Could still not acknowledge the thing I had also come to suspect, as I grew older.

After all, he’d said she was dead.He was a lot of things.Liar wasn’t one of them.

I said instead, “Maybe you’ll get some nice new neighbors, and all you’ll have to worry about is their barking dog.”

She looked at me quickly, smiled.“That would be nice.I like dogs.”

“Me, too,” I said, though I liked cats better.

The drive to 1926 Old Stage Road took less than fifteen minutes.

The road narrowed as I left the gentrified homes and gardens of Old Town behind, the asphalt giving way to rough, crumbling pavement, then to packed dirt and loose gravel.Ancient, twisted oaks leaned over the road, their gnarled branches casting long, barbed wire shadows across the windshield as I navigated the tight, overgrown curves.

How the hell could this obstacle course have ever been part of the old stage coach route?The name had to be poetic license.

My fingers tightened on the steering wheel as I passed familiar landmarks—the rusted, bullet-riddled road sign for an abandoned campground, the still crooked, leaning telephone pole Milo had sideswiped twenty years ago, the rocky, weed-choked pull-off where Milo and I had once parked to share a joint and complain about whatever we’d imagined we had to complain about before the night Dom died.

The shadows thickened, and if Siri had not assured me I was on the right track, I might have second-guessed the wisdom of trying to corner U.N.Owen in his lair.Instead, I eased the rental onto the narrow, rutted track that snaked between towering redwoods and dense, tangled underbrush.Dust billowed behind the car as I bumped along the uneven drive, tires crunching over a thick bed of fallen needles and loose gravel.

The house finally loomed into view—a long, low structure with weathered wood siding and a steeply pitched roof, tucked deep into the shadows of the surrounding trees.A rusted mailbox leaned precariously at the entrance to the drive, the nameColbystenciled in chipped, faded black paint.Weeds had crept up around the splintered wood post.

Colby.That made sense.U.N.Owen was obviously a pseudonym.Now, I had a name.Assuming Colby was still the current renter.The property didn’t exactly look well-maintained.

I parked in the small dirt clearing in front of the house, the sedan tires sinking slightly into the soft, loamy earth.For a second or two, I studied the structure, my fingers drumming uneasily against the steering wheel.

While I hadn’t wanted an audience, I hadn’t expected the place to be quite so isolated, so cut off from the rest of the world by the thick, shadowed woods that crowded close around the property.There were probably other houses out there, but they were well behind the wall of trees.

An ideal location for a writer.

Belatedly, it occurred to me that U.N.Owen might not react well to an unexpected visit from a suspected murderer.Rural California meant he probably owned a gun or two.

I waited for a dog to start barking or the twitch of a window curtain.

Nothing.

No sign of life.

There was no car in the drive.Maybe he wasn’t home.

Was I doing this or not?

Oh, I was doing it.No question.

I climbed out, my shoes sinking a little into the soft soil, leaving clearly defined footprints.

The air was cooler here, damp with the scent of wet bark and moss.The dense tree canopy filtered the sunlight into fractured, wavering beams that danced across the cracked front steps as I approached the house.

The rickety front steps creaked; my footsteps thumped hollowly across the boards.A small, iron bell hung beside the door, its metal surface pitted and flecked with rust.I reached up, gave it a cautious ring, the sharp, metallic clang echoing faintly into the dense forest.Birds in the trees overhead took flight in a startling rush of wings.

I waited, listening, but the only response was the faint rustle of leaves overhead and the distant, rhythmic creak of tree limbs swaying in the breeze.

Okay.He might be wearing headphones.I did when I worked.

I rang the bell again, then knocked, the sound dull and muffled against the weathered wood.I waited again, the silence stretching thinner and thinner, my pulse a quick, steady thud in my ears.

I called, “Hello?Anybody home?”

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