Ashley Cooper's Arc

Chapter 36 of 37

A week after they buried Mandy, a stranger checked into the hotel. Ashley watched from the stairs as the woman signed the guest book. She wore a long navy coat and had pale hair pushed to one side. Her eyes moved over the room slowly, like she was counting things no one else saw. Miko took her cash and slid a key across the desk. "I'm Saskia," the woman said. She didn't smile. "I go where I'm needed. Something called me here." She tapped the floor with the toe of her boot. "There's a secret under these boards. I can feel it." Ashley's stomach dropped. She gripped the railing with her bone hand. Miko's face stayed calm, but Ashley saw her fingers curl near the drawer where she kept her blade. "People say I have a fifth sense," Saskia went on. She crossed to the middle of the lobby and knelt. She pressed her palm flat to the floor, right above where the body lay. "Here. Something wrong is buried here." Ashley came down the stairs fast. She made herself laugh. "You feel the water pipes. They run right under there. Loud at night too." Saskia looked up at her. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and pale. "You came down quick for a girl who wasn't asked." Miko stepped between them. "My guest is right. The pipes are bad. We fix them soon." She held out the key again. "Your room is upstairs." Saskia stood. She studied them both, one then the other. Ashley kept her face still, though her heart slammed. Saskia's shifty eyes settled on the floor one more time. Then she took the key. "I'll rest tonight," she said. "But I dig at what calls me. I always have." She climbed the stairs. Her boots knocked on each board. That night Ashley sat with Miko in the kitchen. "She knows," Ashley whispered. "She'll pull up the floor. She'll find my mother." Miko sharpened her blade against a stone. The sound scraped through the quiet. "Then she doesn't leave in the morning." Ashley stared at the blade. She thought of the fire, the mansion, her mother's face going still under the floor. Another body. Another secret to bury. She had told herself she was done. "No," Ashley said. She put her bone hand over Miko's, stopping the stone. "Not that. I'm tired of digging graves." Before dawn, Ashley went to Saskia's room. She knocked. The woman opened the door already dressed. "Whatever you feel down there," Ashley said, "it's mine. I'll give you money to leave and never say it aloud. Or you can stay, and my friend downstairs will make sure you don't." Saskia's shifty eyes moved over her. She saw the bone hand. She saw the calm. She took the cash Ashley held out. "I know a warning when I hear one," Saskia said. She was gone before the sun rose. Ashley leaned against the wall. She had saved the secret without a blade. But Saskia knew her face now, and drifters talk.