Page 10 of The Hangman's Rope
“That scared you, but didn’t hurt you,” he pointed out.
“Splitting hairs, don’t you think?” I asked. He set me carefully on my feet and I sucked in a breath as a sharp bit of stone dug into my arch.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I’m going to let go. Don’t you try anything.”
I hugged myself as he let me go and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. I looked up at the statue atop the brick pillar we stood beside and sucked in a breath. It was a hooded weeping woman. I turned my chin back earthward and my head to face what lay beyond the brick pillar through the iron gate set in it.
“I thought you said you weren’t putting me in the crypt,” I said alarmed.
“Relax,” he said. “The brick house, just there, that’s where we’re going.”
I swallowed hard and he unlocked a man-sized gate within the larger vehicle gate that’d been locked and secured with a heavy chain.
“Is that your house?” I asked.
“It’s the old caretaker’s house,” he said. “I live on the second floor.”
“What’s on the first floor?” I asked.
“It’s closed. The historical society uses it as a meeting space, and sometimes visitors’ center. They have designs on making it an official gift shop but there hasn’t been any movement on that yet.”
“Good to know,” I murmured, and he stopped, swinging the gate inward.
Turning to me, he said, “I need you to trust me, Lorelai. In order to gain your trust, I’m trustingyou. Do you get that?”
I swallowed hard at the intensity of the look on his face and nodded dumbly.
“Okay,” he said, reaching out and holding on to my arm. “Step over. That’s it.”
Ungainly like an awkward newborn baby giraffe, I made it over the lip on the bottom of the gate and he swiftly shut it behind us, the locking mechanism latching. I lingered for a moment, staring through the iron bars, up the lonesome empty street, the only movement the Spanish Moss wavering from the branches of the trees with the slight stirring of the breeze.
“Come on, let’s get you into something more substantial to wear before the doc gets here.”
I let him guide me to the front porch of the house, and waited as he unlocked the door. Downstairs was sparsely furnished and looked like a cross between a meeting space and museum. He led me over to another door, unlocking it, too, and I looked up the dark expanse of old wooden stairs a bit dubiously.
“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you just in case.”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
He asked me, “For what?”
“For not being mean, I guess.”
He lifted a shoulder in a shrug and his face was impassive. I headed up the long and narrow flight of steps and leaned heavily on the rail that was so old it bowed beneath my hand. I was keenly aware of the door shutting behind us and the snick of the lock tumbling into place, locking us in together.
I took one step at a time, the blood rushing through me, my heart beating a stuttering tattoo against the cage of my ribs as I fought not to panic. I didn’t know if I believed him, or if he was lying just to keep me complacent. I didn’t know what to believe. Lord knows, I had absolutely no memory of how I had gotten here, or even of who I was – and that scared me.
When we reached the top of the steps, the second floor opened up into a living space, wide and open.Open conceptcame unbidden to my brain.
The living area was open to the kitchen, the hardwood floors warm and the wood silky beneath my bare feet. Windows wrapped the entire half of the space on three sides, and I could a glimpse of a wraparound porch up here, much like there had been down below.
It was clean, orderly, and comfortable – a fireplace in the one wall, a television somehow bolted into the brick above its mantle which held some framed pictures and a pair of lanterns at either end.
A light rapping on the door to the porch made me jump, and Hangman slid past me, making strides for it, unlocking the deadbolt, and twisting the lock at the knob to open it up.
“Hey, Doc,” he said, and he let a black woman into the room. She was slight, her hair cut short, the tight curls frosted with iron as she looked at me and sighed.
“Could you get her something to wear or at least cover up with? Goddamn.” The woman sounded irritated, but I could tell, it wasn’t with me.
