The Hotel by Emily Shiner

Author:Emily Shiner [Shiner, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, American Suspense, Psychological Suspense, Domestic Thriller
ISBN: 9781837906246
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

MARK

You know what I hate? Clichés. I hate the way they’re used whenever people can’t think of a better way to describe what’s going on around them. They’re lazy, they’re messy, and they’re overused, but I can’t seem to come up with a better way to think about how terrible things are here:

The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

Abby’s so cold she seems frozen.

Company that stays longer than three days smells like bad fish.

That last one might not be right, but I can’t seem to get my mind working any better to come up with a nicer way to explain it all. I’m exhausted, Abby looks haunted, and the only people who seem to be enjoying themselves are our son and our guests.

Nothing is good.

Dinner was terrible, all of us around the table, each of us talking around our secrets as the wind roared outside. From time to time, it rattled the shutters so hard Abby would wince. I knew she was thinking about how much she loved painting them and having them hung to give the house a more welcoming look.

Now I can only imagine the amount of damage we might find when the snow melts. I want to get out of here, but to do that I need new truck cables and possibly also a new battery. I can’t walk to town, not even with the snowshoes Tim tried to use, and there’s no way I’m asking to borrow his Jeep.

He’d come with me. The two of us locked together in a vehicle, no way to get out and free myself without sinking up to my knees in snow… That’s the stuff of nightmares right there, I swear it is.

It’s even worse than being trapped with him in the house without power.

I’m in the living room putting more wood on the fire so it’ll burn through the night. Every time I hear a noise behind me, I jerk around, looking for which of the Rowes might be coming in here to talk to me before we all go to bed.

Tim wants more money than we have on hand, and while I could have gone to the bank to talk to them about a loan, the damn storm blew in worse than anyone thought and here we are, all of us locked together in our own personal hell.

There’s a soft knock on the doorframe, which is laughable considering how I feel like any privacy we had in the house is gone. I turn to see who it is, fully expecting it to be Tim telling me he wants the money, but it’s Lottie.

She wrings her hands as she walks into the room. Her eyes are downcast and shadowed, but there’s an expression on her face I don’t like.

“Hey, are you busy?” Her voice is low. Down the hall I can hear Abby thunking around in the kitchen.

“I put Henry to bed and now I’m keeping the fire going.” I’m wary of all of the Rowes, but part of me is worried for Lottie.

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