Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Ah,” she murmured.
“Roosevelt owned the lake and all the land around it,” Riggs explained. “Now I own the lake and all the land around it, except the three acres that go with this house.”
“Ah,” she repeated, but she did it with those wrinkles forming at the corners of her lips.
He ignored how cute that was and got back to the story.
“Sarah would come out with the kids. She’d also leave the kids with her parents and come out alone. She loved it here. Apparently, Lincoln swung both ways. He dug the outdoors, but he also was a city guy. So they kept houses both places. Word was, though, Sarah wanted to move out to Misted Pines full time.”
“Right,” she said when he paused.
Now, the hard part.
“So, one day, when Sarah was in Misted Pines, Lincoln was out fishing. He got a headache, came home, and found his wife gone. There was no note, and he got worried, because apparently, she didn’t take off without telling him she was going or leaving a note. Since Sarah and Roosevelt were close, and Roosevelt lived here, before he started to panic, Lincoln came to see if she was here.”
“Oh boy,” she whispered, eyes glued to him like he was telling a ghost story, and she liked fake stories about things that went bump in the night, and she kept them glued to him as she took a sip of her wine.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “When Lincoln hits this place, the door is open, which isn’t unusual, and he checks it out. But she’s not here either. Neither is Roosevelt. But he hears music coming from the stables.”
That threw her. “The stables?”
He indicated the dark forest at the south side of her property. “There were stables there then. Roosevelt had horses. Three, precisely. His, Lincoln’s and Sarah’s.”
“Mm,” she hummed, her eyes dancing, because she’d figured out where this was going.
Though, she couldn’t know how it would end.
“I think you’ve guessed that Lincoln went to the stables, and what he found, and that, honey, was Sarah and Roosevelt in flagrante delicto in the hayloft.”
At that, she actually giggled.
It was girlie and hot as all fuck.
Riggs pushed the sight and sound of it into the back of his mind and moved forward with the story.
“What no one could guess was that Lincoln would walk back to his house, get his shotgun, return, shoot them both dead, let the horses loose, run the hose out to the stables and drench the earth and trees all around so a fire wouldn’t spread, before he set that fire, burning the stables to the ground.”
“Holy cow,” she breathed.
“Yeah. It was also him who called the fire department and the cops. He was sitting on this porch when they showed, and he immediately turned himself in for double homicide to the first uniform he clapped eyes on.”
“Whoa.”
“Mm-hmm,” Riggs agreed. “He served seven years in prison, got out, spent a couple days with his kids, then drank a whole bottle of arsenic, I guess as any good thriller writer would, leaving his and his brother’s estate in disarray. This caused a bitter family feud that rages to this day between his kids, his extended family, his in-laws, and anyone else who wants to cast their hat into that ring. One of the reasons why no more films were made. No one can agree who owns the rights to the books. The brothers had only sold the first three books to be made into films, Lincoln had other things occupying his mind while he was in prison, so that franchise died when Sarah and Roosevelt did.”
When Riggs stopped talking, Nadia pointed out the obvious, “That’s a lot.”
“Yup,” Riggs agreed.
“And it explains the path to nowhere in my yard.”
Christ, he loved that she called it her “yard.”
It was, but it also wasn’t.
“Yup,” he repeated.
“It’s a terrible story, but it was a long time ago, and the bad stuff didn’t happen in the cabin, so I’m not sure I get why no one has rented this place because of it.”
That part, he wasn’t going to tell her, and he hoped the people of Misted Pines were kind enough to let that nonsense lie when it came to Nadia.
“Shit like that can cast a pall over a place.”
“I guess so,” she mumbled, but he could tell she wasn’t buying it.
That, and considering he’d sucked back the dregs of his wine, gave him indication it was time to go.
He gave her that same indication by standing and teasing, “I think it’s about that hour the princess needs to be alone, or her car will turn into a mouse or some shit like that.”
It was a blow to watch her get up slowly, not hiding she was disappointed he was leaving.
He put his glass down on the coffee table.
She put hers down too and moved so he could get out.