My Duplicated Husband novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Cove Road

Cove Road ended at the water.

The last house on it was a little gray cabin with a sagging porch and no mailbox, hidden behind a wall of dead rhododendrons.

I cut the truck's engine and the lights.

Dusk was coming down purple over the lake.

"I've never seen this place," Lorne said.

His voice was flat.

His hand, on the gearshift, was white.

"Stay here," I said.

"No."

"Lorne."

"Lyddie, I walked out of there on Friday with this key around my neck, and I don't know why. I need to go in."

I looked at him for a long second.

Then I took the flashlight from the glove compartment, and we got out together.

The porch boards creaked under our feet.

The brass key fit the lock on the first try.

The door swung in on a smell I'll never forget, sour and close, of old sweat and damp wool and medicine.

I put the flashlight beam on the floor.

It was one room, with a woodstove and a table and a single narrow cot pushed against the back wall.

A bucket stood in the corner.

A stack of paper plates sat on the table, beside a plastic jug of water and a bottle of pills with the label scratched off.

Lorne made a noise in his throat.

I followed the beam to the cot.

A steel ring was bolted into the floor beside it.

A chain was bolted to the ring, three feet of it, ending in a padded cuff.

The cuff lay open on the blanket.

The bolt in the floor had been wrenched half out of the wood.

The boards around it were splintered.

I put my hand over my mouth.

"Don't," Lorne whispered.

I turned.

He was staring at his own wrists.

He pushed back his sleeve.

The raw pink ring was the same size as the cuff.

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