Quiet in Her Bones by Singh, Nalini (mobi reader .txt) 📕

the bed. My foot was feeling better than it had the last couple of days. Maybe I could get this damn boot off sooner rather than later.

But my foot wasn’t the problem.

My brain and its malfunctioning neurons held that position. I glanced at the scattered pill bottles on the bedside table. Hadn’t I counted those? I thought I had, and there’d been no sign of an overdose. Still, I’d better check my notebook; given my current memory issues, I couldn’t trust anything that wasn’t written down.

Shit, the notebook was in the sedan.

A dog barked somewhere nearby. Princess. Alice must’ve let the poodle out for a ­late-­night comfort break and something had spooked it. Princess didn’t bark much. But today, she kept going. And going. Frowning, I got my crutches and headed downstairs, then out the front door.

Nothing looked odd or out of place in the Cul-­de-­Sac. Alice’s house was dark except for her mother’s window, but Elei did stay up late at times.

The barking continued unabated.

Still, I was the only one who’d come outside. Most of the neighborhood was probably sleeping through ­it—­the houses weren’t close together and had good insulation as a rule. My open balcony doors were probably the only reason I’d noticed.

I swallowed.

Was it really normal that no one else had responded? Or was I hearing things? Surely Shanti hadn’t fallen asleep so quickly? And what about Elei? Princess was barking closest to their house.

Sweat breaking out along my spine, I looked up the street but couldn’t see Isaac’s windows from this position. He stayed up all hours gaming. But he’d have his headphones on, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he was clueless about the noise.

Movement in my peripheral vision. When I turned, I saw Calvin striding across the street. He was dressed in checked pajama bottoms and a white T-­shirt, and in excellent shape for a man of his age.

“What the hell is up with that dog?” he said when he got to me. “Diana and I barely got into bed before it started up.”

I took a gulp of cold air, my heart rate calming between one beat and the next. “Maybe Princess got locked out?”

“Elei might be getting a touch hard of hearing, but I don’t know how Alice and Cora can sleep through that racket.”

The two of us went down the pathway at the side of the house, and to the back, from where the noise seemed to be emanating. The huge canopied pōhutukawa where I’d sat with Elei and Shanti was a hulking shadow in the darkness, the fairy lights off, but the ­motion-­activated security light above the back steps cast a wide arc of crisp white.

Princess was right up at the door, pawing at it when she wasn’t barking.

“Huh.” Calvin’s forehead wrinkled. “Alice treats that dog like a child, would never leave it outside alone at night.”

He was right. There was also something else odd. Princess’s ­fur—­hair? Whatever the hell poodles had, it was usually a pristine white, but today, it appeared marred and dirty in blotchy patches.

“Princess, girl,” I murmured in a low, calming voice dogs liked. “What’s wrong?”

Glancing at me, she whimpered, then looked back at the house. But she’d stopped barking and was now just raising her paw to scratch at the door. Those paws left streaks on the glossy white paint.

Calvin frowned. “Is the dog aggressive?”

“Totally harmless.” I went nearer. “Princess, what’s wrong?” Balancing myself on one crutch and allowing the other to fall to the grass, I reached through the ironwork railing to rub the dog’s head. “What’s happened?”

She scratched at the door again, her whimpers a constant painful thrum.

Shifting my gaze to the object of her attention, I sucked in a breath. “Calvin, look at the door.”

44

“I don’t need to. I’ve just seen what’s on the dog’s coat.” Calvin’s tone was preternaturally calm, probably what he sounded like in surgery. “Can you hold it so I can see if the door’s open?”

I wedged myself against the side of the steps. The iron scrollwork was swirly in design, with large open loops, so it was no trouble to slide through an arm and take hold of Princess’s collar. “I have her.”

She whimpered and jerked when Calvin stepped in front of her, but didn’t try to bite.

“The door’s locked.” Cupping his hands on either side of his head, Calvin pressed his face to the frosted glass diamond in the door. “Can’t see anything.”

“Wait, I have an idea.” Digging my phone out of my pocket, I called Pari. She wasn’t supposed to have her phone on at night as it was strictly for emergencies, but she was also a ­seven-­year-­old kid.

“Bhaiya?” A sleepy voice. “Why’re you calling me?”

“Do you know if your mum has a key to Alice’s house?”

A pause, before she whispered, “It’s a secret.”

That’s why I hadn’t called Shanti directly; my father might be fine with her friendship with Elei at the moment, but who knew when he’d change his mind. “I know, but it’s an emergency. Do you know where she keeps the key?” If it was in the master suite, then we’d have to get Shanti.

“In my drawer.” I heard rustling sounds through the line. “Do you want it?”

“Yes. I’m outside, at the back of Alice’s house, with Calvin and Princess.”

“Princess isn’t meant to be outside at night.” Little huffs, as if she was already moving. “I’m coming.”

I stayed on the line with her even though she was literally just going out into the back garden, then coming through the gate onto this side. It was late at night, she was a child, and the bush loomed, an impenetrable mass on the other side of a flimsy fence.

She appeared in the darkness soon afterward, dressed in pink pajamas, her hair in twin braids. She was wearing her fluffy ­house-­slippers rather than outside shoes, and she ran straight to my side. “Here.” Cold metal against my palm. “Why is Princess crying like that?”

“I don’t know, Pari. But can you stay