The Beast on Her Leash novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Neville Island

We went to Neville Island on Thursday night, in the rain.

The old yard office was a flat grey building at the back of the first Crowe lot.

The front door was chained, and the sign said OFFICE in letters worn almost white.

Beyond the fence, a crane stood over the new warehouse.

Fern's brass key fit a side door that I would never have found alone.

"Watch the step," Bram said, and put his hand under my elbow.

It was the first time he had touched me since the kiss.

I let it stay there one second longer than I needed to.

Inside, the air smelled of paper and cold coffee.

Bram found the light switch and nothing happened.

I turned on my phone flashlight.

The front room was a dispatcher's office, with a long counter, a radio base, a metal desk, and a green-shaded lamp.

A calendar still hung on the wall.

I walked toward it, and my knees went strange.

The calendar was from October of 2015.

Someone had circled the fourteenth in red pen.

On the desk was a coffee mug with a chip in the handle.

Next to it was a taped list of phone numbers in a handwriting I would know anywhere.

It was my father's.

I stood very still.

He had sat at that desk on the last night of his life.

He had drunk from that cup and tapped that pen on the blotter, and then he'd walked out to my mother's car in the rain.

"Willa?"

Bram was in the doorway.

I put my hand flat on the desk, and it was the closest I had come to the table signal in my life.

"I'm fine," I said. "It's dusty."

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