Chương 4
Claire had liked a child.
That was all.
June said, “Lily spent a lot of afternoons near the stable when I worked at the house.”
“You brought her to work?”
“When school was closed. When childcare fell through. When I had no other option.”
“That wasn’t allowed.”
June stared at him.
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
“Sorry.”
“You should try that word more often.”
“Mom,” Lily murmured.
June looked ashamed.
Victoria almost smiled.
Adrian did not.
“What did Claire say?”
Lily thought about it.
“She asked if I could keep a secret.”
June closed her eyes.
“I told her not to answer questions like that.”
“You told me later.”
“I know.”
“What secret?”
Lily ran the braid between her fingers.
“She said she had to go somewhere her dad couldn’t make decisions for her anymore.”
The arena seemed to contract around Adrian.
Victoria looked down.
June said, “Lily.”
“That’s what she said.”
“I know.”
Adrian kept his voice even.
“What decisions?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.”
“Who she was meeting?”
“No.”
“Was she frightened?”
Lily considered this more carefully.
“She was crying.”
Adrian’s breath caught.
“But not like scared crying.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was mad too.”
June watched her daughter.
“That’s enough for tonight.”
“No.”
Adrian said it before he could stop himself.
June stood.
“Yes.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“And Lily needs to go home.”
“I can have someone drive you.”
“We have a car.”
“I wasn’t—”
“I know what you meant.”
Adrian stood too.
He was nearly a foot taller than June. Usually physical scale helped him in arguments without his consciously using it.
June did not retreat.
“She is eight years old,” she said. “She has spent eleven months believing she did something wrong because a rich man’s daughter went missing after talking to her. I’m not letting you interrogate her at one in the morning because you finally discovered she exists.”
The sentence hit harder than Adrian expected.
He looked toward Lily.
She had stopped braiding Blackthorn.
“Do you think you did something wrong?”
Lily stared at the horse.
June said, “Adrian.”
He waited.
Lily nodded.
“Why?”
“Because I promised.”
“What?”
“That I wouldn’t tell you.”
Adrian crouched beside the rail.
“Lily.”
Her eyes stayed on Blackthorn.
“What did she ask you not to tell me?”
“That she was leaving.”
June put a hand over her mouth.
Apparently this part was new to her too.
Victoria rose slowly.
Adrian looked at his wife.
She had gone pale.
Lily continued in the careful, literal way children sometimes described disasters adults had spent months turning into abstractions.
“Claire said grown-ups always tell kids not to keep bad secrets. So I asked if it was a bad secret.”
Adrian could hear the hum of the cleaning machine again.
“What did she say?”
“She said yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“And then?”
“She said I shouldn’t have to keep it.”
Adrian opened them.
Lily finally looked at him.
“She told me to tell Victoria if I got scared.”
Nobody moved.
Adrian turned his head.
Victoria was staring at Lily.
June whispered, “Jesus.”
Adrian stood.
“You knew.”
Victoria did not deny it.
“How long?”
Her lips parted.
Nothing came out.
“How long, Victoria?”
“Adrian, lower your voice.”
“How long?”
Lily flinched.
Adrian saw it.
He stopped.
The restraint cost him more than shouting would have.
Victoria looked toward June.
“I spoke to Lily two days after Claire left.”
Adrian’s vision blurred slightly around the edges.
“You knew she left voluntarily.”
“I knew she intended to leave voluntarily.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Where?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Who with?”
“I didn’t know that either.”
“What did you know?”
Victoria’s chin lifted.
“I knew why.”
Adrian stared at her.
June took Lily’s hand.
“We’re going.”
“Please don’t.”
The words came from Adrian before pride could get in front of them.
June stopped.
He looked at Lily.
“You don’t have to tell me anything else tonight.”
She studied him with the same crease between her eyebrows.
“Okay.”
“Can I ask one thing?”
June almost objected.
Adrian waited.
Finally she nodded.
He pointed at Blackthorn.
“How did you make him kneel?”
Lily blinked.
“I didn’t make him.”
“What did you do?”
She raised two fingers, palm inward, then lowered them slowly.
Blackthorn folded one leg.
Mateo swore under his breath.
The horse dipped forward and stopped halfway before Lily lifted her hand again.
“He knows that cue,” she said.
“Who taught him?”
“Claire.”
Adrian looked at Mateo.
The groom shook his head.
“I never saw it.”
“I did,” Lily said.
“When?”
“Lots of times.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Claire taught Blackthorn that for you?”
Lily smiled faintly.
“She said fancy horses should know one stupid trick.”
For one impossible second Adrian heard Claire’s voice.
Not a ghost.
Just her rhythm.
Her exact contempt for anything overly polished.
He sat down.
June watched him, and some of the hardness in her expression shifted.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition, perhaps.
The difference mattered.
Adrian drove home alone.
Victoria refused to ride with him.
She said she would come later.
He did not ask with whom.
At the gates to the estate, the security guard leaned out of the booth.
“Good evening, Mr. Cole.”
Adrian almost corrected him.
It was two eighteen in the morning.
Instead he said, “Morning, Dennis.”
The guard looked surprised that Adrian knew his name.
Adrian had not known it until the employee directory appeared on a tablet during a security review three weeks earlier.
That technicality felt suddenly pathetic.
Inside the house, everything was as he had left it.
Flowers from the gala lined the entry table because Victoria’s assistant had arranged for them to be brought back rather than discarded.
A silver tray held unopened mail.
Someone had left one lamp on in the library.
Adrian walked upstairs and stopped outside Claire’s bedroom.
May you like
He had not entered in twenty-six days.
He knew because the housekeeper no longer cleaned it unless he asked, and the last time he had asked had been July seventh.
