In the Darkest Hour by Anna Carlisle

Author:Anna Carlisle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

13

When Gin got home, Richard was peering over his glasses at one of Madeleine’s old cookbooks. He’d only begun cooking recently, after Jake put him to work in the kitchen one night and taught him how to prep the ingredients, and Richard discovered that he enjoyed it.

“Boef bourguignon tonight, honey,” Richard said. “You and your mom are in for a real treat.”

Laid out on the kitchen island were a marbled slab of beef, two yellow onions, and a package of mushrooms. Dinner, if past experience was any indication, was still potentially hours away as Richard made his slow, methodical way through the recipe.

If she hurried, Gin could drive over and be back before her dad put the meal on the table. In the kitchen, she found Richard holding up a mushroom, frowning. “How on earth do I stem a mushroom? All of these already have stems.”

Gin laughed. “I’m going to go check my email, Dad. Let me know if you need help.”

“I’m offended!” Richard called after her as she went up the stairs.

As she opened the door to her room, something caught her attention—a faint, unfamiliar chemical smell on the breeze that fluttered the lace curtains in the bedroom window. As Gin put her hand on the light switch, she hesitated—hadn’t she left the windows closed earlier, because the forecast included a chance of rain? Her heart thudding, she turned on the light.

And gasped. All around the perimeter of the room, random slashes of red paint dripped down the walls. It was still wet, dripping onto the carpet, slopping onto her dresser and the framed watercolors her mother had hung so many years ago. Gin searched for a pattern, but the marks formed no words, no images … it was almost as if someone had flung the paint straight from the can.

And then left through the open window. Gin raced across the room and leaned out, her hands sliding in the paint puddled on the sill. Sure enough, there were smudges of paint on the shingles of the dormer—and an empty paint can near the gutter. As she watched, a gust of wind tipped it over and it rolled, almost leisurely, to the edge and then fell with a soft plop onto the lawn below.

Gin hastily wiped the paint on her shirt before realizing that she would ruin it. She ran to the bathroom, her mind racing, anxious to get out of the soiled clothes, to rinse the paint from her hands. The sense of violation was overwhelming. She needed to leave the room, preserve any evidence, call the police, take care not to alarm her father—but first she needed to remove all traces of the vile act from her skin and clothes.

After scrubbing until her hands and forearms were pink and stuffing the ruined shirt into the trash and knotting the bag closed, she took a deep breath and went back down the stairs. Her mother had come home in her absence and was sitting at the counter with a glass of wine, laughing at something Richard had said.

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