The Uninvited by Cat Winters Page A

across the planks like black ink spilling across the surface. All around me, the yellow paint branched down the bricks in a frozen reminder of the violence hurled upon the store.
    Nothing .
    “Mr. Schendel? I know you’re likely assuming I’m only here to rid myself of guilt. And you’d be partially right.” I positioned my lips an inch away from the boards. “But I am concerned about you. And your family. And your business. In fact, I moved out of my parents’ house because of what happened here. I thought you should know that. As much as I love my mother and worry about her staying with my father . . .” I covered my eyes and breathed through a sharp spike of pain in my head. “Oh, God, you don’t know how much I worry about her right now. This flu, and . . . this . . . this murder hanging over that house. I worry about her, but I refuse to go back there. I refuse to acknowledge those two men as my father and brother. I’m done with them.”
    The air, cold as a root cellar, hung around me without the slightest whisper of a breeze rustling through the silence. I didn’t hear anyone breathing on the other side of the door.
    All those words I just confessed to him . . . wasted.
    I turned to leave, and the door opened a crack. A pair of blue eyes peeked out from a shadowed face.
    “Daniel?” I edged back to the door. “Did you . . . did you hear what I just said?”
    “Is that true?” he asked.
    “Which part?”
    “You left your family? Because of this?”
    I nodded. “Yes.”
    He didn’t open the door another inch, and his face remained the only part of him I could see.
    “I don’t think”—he scratched at a chip on the door—“there’s anything you can do for me.”
    “Are you sure about that?”
    “I’m positive.” He nodded. “There is nothing.”
    “I’d be willing to talk to the police . . .”
    “The police already nosed about our store and did nothing. Did you see the bullshit in today’s newspaper article?”
    I drew back. “No. What did the article say?”
    “I’ve stored a copy in the drawer near my cash register. If you want to witness the cold and brutal truth”—he peeked over his shoulder—“I’ll go fetch it for you.”
    “It claims vagrants committed the murder, doesn’t it?”
    “The murder is only a small sliver of concern in that article. The writer complained about our lack of support in the latest Liberty Loan drive, which is a lie. He claimed we didn’t register for the draft—another lie. Albrecht registered as soon as the U.S. declared war on Germany, but the army turned him down. They thought he wanted a free trip back home to the Fatherland.”
    “I . . .” I grabbed hold of the door. “I could talk to the newspaper. And the APL.”
    “No one will listen to you. It will help nothing. There is nothing you can do.”
    “There must be something. Please, let me inside so we can talk”—I pushed the door open with more force than I’d intended, knocking him off balance—“and so we can figure out—”
    I stopped, for lamplight fell across Daniel’s bare throat above the collar of the undershirt he wore instead of his shirtsleeves and vest. A vicious red line encircled his neck—a raw and ugly rope burn.
    “Oh, God!” I clutched my own throat, which stung and closed up, as if someone had just clamped a rope around it.
    “You need to go.” He snatched my arm and steered me back toward the street.
    “No! Tell me what happened.” I pushed him off me and shoved my way into the heart of the store. “Did you try to hang yourself?”
    “It doesn’t matter—”
    “Yes, it most certainly does matter. My family did this to you. They drove you to it.”
    “Please go, Ivy.” He pointed toward the door.
    “Tell me what I can do to help.”
    “Go.”
    “I don’t want you killing yourself. Please, tell me what I can do to take away your pain.”
    “There is nothing.”
    “Tell me—”
    “The only thing you can possibly do is