How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Locket

I was still holding the locket when Arlen came to the bedroom door with two mugs.

He saw it, and his face did a thing I had never seen.

It went completely blank.

"Willa," he said.

"Tell me where you got this."

"I can explain."

"Then do."

He set the mugs down on the dresser, carefully, one at a time.

"Your father asked me to hold it," he said. "Years ago. He couldn't stand to look at it."

"My father told me it went into the river."

"He told himself that."

"There's a dent on the lid."

"I see it."

"How long have you known it was mine?"

"Since the night it was lost."

"You said you bought this cottage six years ago."

"I did."

"I lost this twelve years ago."

His jaw moved once.

"So it wasn't in this drawer when you moved in," I said. "It followed you here."

"Willa."

"Where was it for the six years in between?"

He opened his mouth, and for the first time since I'd known him, Arlen Rhodes did not have a clever answer.

The silence went on long enough to hurt.

"I gave my word," he said at last. "To someone who can't release me from it."

"To whom?"

"I can't."

"My father?"

"No."

"Then who?"

He didn't answer, and I understood that he was not going to.

The thing in my chest, the soft warm thing from the lake, went hard.

I closed my fist around the locket until the dent bit my palm.

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