Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
We learned our entire existence might be constructed on a lie, so yeah, something happened. “It’s a situation from back home. Phoebe is taking care of her.”
“Right,” he says, more sharply this time. He can tell I’m being evasive. I’m not letting him in. It’s frustrating him.
Welcome to the fucking club.
He has no idea that I could so easily spout off a wild, fabricated story. He’d buy the tall tale, and I wouldn’t have this massive, brain-splitting headache. Instead, I am actively trying not to outright deceive him.
And unfortunately, I have to share his company for another five minutes. I escort him out of the loft, and since I need to pick up breakfast for Trevor, I’m descending steps in the echoey stairwell with Jake.
He’s ahead of me.
Which is annoying because he stops midway and turns. Blocking me. “So you aren’t straight?” he suddenly asks.
“You hitting on me, Jake?”
“No,” he says pretty causally. “You’re not my type.”
“Too mean?” I mime crying fists to my cheeks.
“Too short, actually.”
I almost, almost smile at that one—since, when we first met, I said he was too tall to be my type. “Funny.”
The air unwinds. Strangely. Considering seconds ago, we both looked ready to fling each other out the window. Common ground is the best brick to build bridges, but never did I think we’d have this in common.
I don’t hate it.
He has a foot above the stair, a foot below. He’s practically dry by now, and I hear the rain letting up. Yet, he’s not moving.
“Jake—”
“You’re right,” he interjects. “I do have more to lose than you. I really need Phoebe, and I want to tell you why. I do, and…” His voice tapers off as a song blares out of his pocket and echoes throughout the stairwell.
He sets ringtones for family members. “Chiquitita” for his beloved little sister, Kate. “Highway to Hell” for his oldest brother, Trent. “Bad to the Bone” for his lovely mother, Claudia.
But this particular song is new. “Is that ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’?” I ask.
“By Thin Lizzy,” he confirms, as if this entire situation isn’t suspicious. He’s hurriedly digging out his phone.
Who could possibly warrant this type of urgency? An uncle? None are present in Victoria that I’m aware of. A grandparent? All deceased, unless he faked those, too. Doubtful.
I’m scrutinizing the fuck out of him.
“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I should take this. He rarely calls.”
“Who?” I ask.
“My old boarding-school roommate.” He jogs down the stairs.
“Where’d you go to boarding school?!” I call out.
He has the phone to his ear. “Faust. It’s in upstate New York.” Of course I recognize the name of the all-boys boarding school. Once upon a time, we all attended a coed one only an hour from Faust. It was where we’d meet at the cemetery every Thursday night.
Jake slows to a sudden, eerie stop at the exit, then he asks his friend, “Who died?”
EIGHT
Rocky
“Are you going to the funeral?” Oliver asks me in the bathroom of the boathouse.
Yeah, I learned who kicked the bucket. Jake offered the information freely in the stairwell. It quickly became public news, and it’s all this town could talk about for five days straight.
Emilia Wolfe.
She was cresting eighty-eight, and it’s not that she was revered or benevolent or charitable. As far as I’m aware, most people found her to be crotchety and shrewd. It didn’t take Sherlock fucking Holmes to figure out why everyone was acting as if British nobility died.
She was a Wolfe.
The Wolfes are the first of three founding families in Victoria. The Konings being the second. The Bennets being the third.
What I’ve heard about the Wolfes sounds more like urban legend. The family are shut-ins who live in a hundred-year-old mansion affectionately named Stonehaven. The three-story shingled dwelling is constructed on one tiny, jagged, stony island. It’s like they dropped a house on a rock and called it a day.
Stonehaven. The infamous residence is mentioned on walking tours and historical brochures in the welcome center. “Skunks” (out-of-towners) will even take boat excursions to the mansion. Harbor waves ripple against the girthy stone foundation, and tourists will snap pictures of the foreboding home, hoping to catch a glimpse of Emilia. Or her recluse of a son-in-law: Varrick.
I’ve seen the weathered oak shingles and the shuttered windows from the dock. The house itself is only accessible in and out by boat.
It doesn’t matter who you are—a college student (not calling them caufers), a local, or a skunk—everyone is crossing their fingers they’ll spot the elusive Varrick Wolfe at the public memorial tomorrow.
“All of Victoria is attending,” I tell Oliver while I stand on the top of a ladder. Still in our shared bathroom. “It’d be social suicide not to go to the funeral.”
Oliver moisturizes his face at the sink. “Social suicide, a fate worse than actual death according to our mothers.” He gasps at the mirror. “But are they our mothers? Perhaps we’re just test-tube babies. Brought into this corrupt world via science.” He twists toward me. “We are a failed science experiment. Six botched test subjects.”