Part 7
“My mother asked me to.”
“Dead mothers have terrible timing.”
Mara looked away.
“My own mother made me promise to keep her cat,” the woman said. “It hated me. Lived nine more years.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No. Your situation seems worse.”
Mara’s mouth tightened.
The woman returned to her crossword. “Still, promises are between the person who asks and the person who agrees. You are allowed to decide what the agreement means after they’re gone.”
“I already agreed.”
“Then perhaps you’re allowed to be angry while you do it.”
Philadelphia was wet, crowded, and louder than Mara expected after the long train ride. The main station’s stone interior swallowed announcements and gave them back distorted. People moved around her with practiced urgency.
She bought a regional ticket from a machine that rejected her card twice. Her train was delayed by twelve minutes, then twenty-seven. By the time she reached Bryn Mawr, the afternoon had darkened toward evening.
Her rideshare driver called before she found the pickup lane.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“By the station sign.”
“Which sign?”
“The one that says Bryn Mawr.”
“There are two.”
Mara looked around. “Near a green trash can.”
“All the trash cans are green.”
Rain blew beneath the station awning and dotted her dress.
They eventually found each other. The driver was a college student named Connor who apologized for the smell in his car, which Mara had not noticed until he mentioned it. A damp soccer uniform lay across the back seat.
“You going to Bellweather?” he asked after checking the destination.
“Yes.”
“There’s some huge party.”
“I heard.”
“My roommate’s catering it. They made him shave.”
Mara fastened her seat belt. “A tragedy.”
“He had a bad beard.”
They left the station and joined a line of black sedans creeping along narrow roads bordered by stone walls. Police officers in reflective jackets directed traffic at intersections. Rainwater streamed across the pavement.
Connor glanced at Mara in the mirror. “Are you staff?”
“No.”
“Guest?”
“No.”
He waited, but she offered nothing else.
A mile from the estate, traffic stopped completely.
Connor tapped his steering wheel. “App says seventeen minutes.”
Mara looked at the time. Six thirty-two.
She called Sloane. The call rang twice, then went to voicemail.
“Try the west road?” she asked Connor.
“That’s where everyone’s going.”
“Is there another entrance?”
He zoomed out on the map. “There’s a service lane behind the property, but it says restricted.”
“Take it.”
“It might be gated.”
“Please.”
Connor turned into a residential street, circled past a church, and followed the map toward the rear of the estate. The road narrowed until branches brushed both sides of the car. Water filled shallow depressions in the asphalt.
At six forty, they reached a steel gate blocking the service lane.
A security guard stood beneath a small shelter. He approached the car holding a tablet under his rain jacket.
“Delivery?” he asked.
Connor lowered the window. “Passenger.”
The guard looked into the back seat. “Name?”
“Mara Ellison.”
He checked the tablet.
“Not listed.”
“Call Edwin Sloane,” Mara said.
The guard looked at her dress, her canvas bag, and the old black shoes Tessa had insisted she wear.
“Mr. Sloane is occupied.”
“He told me to come.”
“Do you have an invitation?”
“No.”
“Then I can’t admit you.”
Mara took out Sloane’s card. The guard barely glanced at it.
“Anyone can get a business card.”
“Call him.”
“Ma’am, I have a line behind you.”
There were no cars behind them.
Connor looked between them. “I can wait.”
The guard’s expression hardened. “You need to turn around.”
Mara called Sloane again. Voicemail.
She sent a message.
At east service gate. Security refuses entry. Six forty-three.
No reply.
Connor turned the car around in the narrow lane. At the junction, Mara asked him to stop.
“You can leave me here.”
He looked at the rain. “Here?”
“There’s a footpath on the map.”
“There’s also a creek.”
“The estate is half a mile away.”
“You’re wearing funeral shoes.”
“They aren’t funeral shoes.”
“They are extremely funeral shoes.”
Mara opened the door.
Connor twisted in his seat. “I’ll wait five minutes.”
“You’ll get another fare.”
“I already have one.”
She almost told him the truth. That her mother was dead, that she carried an antique brooch worth more than his car and hers combined, that a stranger at a mansion might know why her entire life had been built on silence.
Instead she said, “Thank you.”
The rain struck her face as soon as she stepped outside.
The footpath began beside the stone wall and descended through a stand of trees. It might once have been gravel, but runoff had turned it into a channel of mud. Mara held her bag beneath her coat and moved carefully.
Her phone vibrated.
Sloane: Stay at the gate. I am coming.
She typed back while walking.
They made me leave.
Three dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.
Where are you?
She opened the map. The blue dot jumped uncertainly between roads.
On a footpath south of service lane.
His reply came immediately.
Stop moving.
Mara stopped.
Rainwater ran from her damp hair along her neck. The path behind her was already disappearing in the dim light. Through the trees ahead, she saw warm light and the pale upper floors of Bellweather.
Her phone battery read eight percent.
She sent him her location.
The signal failed.
For two minutes, she stood beneath a tree that provided no shelter. Then headlights moved through the woods behind her. She stepped aside, expecting a utility vehicle.
A small estate cart emerged around the bend, driven by a young employee in a white catering jacket. He braked sharply.
“You can’t be here.”
“I’m trying to reach the house.”
“This path is closed.”
“I came through the gate, but—”
“You came through the gate?”
“Near it.”
The employee stared at her. “Security is looking for someone.”
“Probably me.”
May you like
“That’s not reassuring.”
Mara showed him Sloane’s card. “Can you call him?”
