Part 4
Celeste laughed once. “Escort me?”
“Please.”
“This is my home.”
Adrian’s gaze flickered.
The estate had belonged to his grandfather, then his father, then the trust. Celeste had lived there for eleven years. It was her home in every way except the one now being used against her.
Mara felt a brief, confusing stab of pity.
Celeste saw it.
For half a second, their eyes met. The old Celeste appeared—the woman who had sat beside Mara’s mother in the hospital waiting room and found a charger for her phone, the woman who remembered that Mara hated orchids and assigned her to the rose rooms instead.
Then the look closed.
“You have no idea what you have started,” Celeste said.
Daniel waited beside her.
She turned and walked toward the library without looking back.
Dr. Mercer finished his examination. He recommended that Mara be seen at a hospital or urgent care facility for formal documentation and possible nerve compression, though he found no immediate loss of circulation or movement. He asked if she felt safe leaving the estate.
“I don’t know,” she said.
That was the first fully honest answer of the evening.
Adrian offered to arrange a hotel.
Mara shook her head. “My things are upstairs.”
“You live here?”
“In the east staff wing.”
He looked toward Daniel. “Can someone get them?”
Mara thought of her room: the narrow bed, the paperback novels stacked under the radiator, her mother’s blue sweater on a hook, three envelopes of cash hidden in an empty tea tin. She did not want strangers touching any of it.
“I’ll go,” she said.
“Not alone,” Daniel replied.
“I know the staff corridors better than your officers.”
“Mara.”
“I’m not going into the private wing.”
Daniel studied her face, then nodded. “You choose who goes with you.”
She almost chose Mr. Bell out of habit.
The realization made her feel sick.
“Officer Price,” she said.
A woman in a dark security uniform appeared at the door. She was younger than Daniel, with tightly braided hair and a small scar across one eyebrow. Mara had seen her during summer events but did not know her first name.
“Naomi,” the officer said. “And we can stop whenever you need.”
Mara stood.
Adrian moved toward her. “Before you go—”
She waited.
He looked less certain than he had while giving orders.
“Did Celeste do this?”
Mara’s fear rose so fast that her vision blurred.
Not because she did not know the answer.
Because she did.
“She tied the cord,” Mara said. “Mr. Bell watched.”
The room became utterly still.
Adrian’s face did not change, but his right hand closed around the edge of a side table. The silver watch on his wrist pressed into the wood.
Daniel asked, “Where?”
“The service pantry. Near the old wine stairs.”
“What happened before that?”
Mara looked toward the open door.
“I found something.”
“What?”
She could not say it yet.
The words felt dangerous even inside her mouth.
“I need to get my things.”
Daniel did not push.
Adrian did.
“What did you find?”
Mara looked at him. “You came here after two years and decided in five minutes that you were the safest person in the house.”
The sentence surprised both of them.
Adrian released the table.
Mara continued, her voice shaking. “Maybe you are. That doesn’t mean I know it.”
His eyes lowered.
“You’re right,” he said.
There was no defense in his tone.
That made it worse, somehow. Easier men could be dismissed.
Mara left with Naomi Price.
The east staff wing occupied the least photographed part of the estate. Its ceilings were lower, its carpets replaced less often, its windows smaller. The walls displayed faded seascapes and a framed fire evacuation map that had not been updated after the laundry room renovation.
As they climbed the back stairs, Mara noticed every familiar thing as if she were leaving it permanently.
The squeak in the fourth step.
The dent in the plaster where a catering cart had struck the wall.
The smell of onions from the lower kitchen.
A radio playing softly behind the pastry room door.
Two servers in white jackets stood aside when they saw Mara’s wrists. One looked away. The other stared too long.
News moved through houses faster than people.
At her room, Mara used a key from her apron pocket. Her hands shook so badly that Naomi took the key only after asking permission.
The room was exactly as she had left it that morning, except the top drawer of the dresser stood open.
Mara stopped in the doorway.
Naomi noticed. “Was that open before?”
“No.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
Mara looked toward the bed.
The mattress had shifted slightly away from the wall. Her books were still underneath, but the bottom one—an old copy of The House of Mirth—was upside down. She always kept the titles facing outward. It was a habit that annoyed her mother.
“The room was searched,” Mara said.
Naomi called Daniel.
Mara stayed in the hallway while the officer photographed the room. She felt more violated by the open drawer than by the cord. The cord had been fear and pain. The drawer was someone deciding that every private thing she owned could be handled.
“What are they looking for?” Naomi asked.
“My phone.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last have it?”
“In the service pantry.”
Naomi waited.
Mara rubbed her thumb along the red mark on her opposite wrist, then stopped when the pressure hurt.
“Mrs. Vale took it,” she said.
Naomi relayed the information to Daniel.
“Did it have a passcode?”
“Yes.”
“Could she unlock it?”
“No.”
Mara thought of Celeste holding the phone inches from her face while demanding that she open it. She thought of Mr. Bell closing the pantry door.
“Unless she made me.”
“Did she?”
“No.”
The cord had tightened after that.
May you like
Naomi asked what she needed from the room.
Mara gave her instructions: the navy duffel in the closet, two changes of clothes, the blue sweater, the small toiletry bag, her passport from the locked box under the dresser.
