Chương 9
Lily picked up a box of checkers.
“Can we play?”
Elena sat beside her on the carpet. Her fingers would not cooperate with the pieces.
Mrs. Donnelly poured water from a silver pitcher.
“You should drink.”
“My neighbor answered the phone, but it wasn’t her.”
“I heard.”
“She’s seventy-four.”
Mrs. Donnelly handed her the glass. “Marco’s men will find her.”
“How can you say that so calmly?”
“I have worked for this family thirty-one years.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“It does, unfortunately.”
Lily arranged the checkers by color instead of placing them on the board.
“Who is winning?” she asked.
“No one yet,” Elena said.
“Then you’re doing it wrong.”
Twenty-seven minutes later, Marco entered.
“Mrs. Kopec is safe. She went to her sister’s this afternoon.”
Elena nearly dropped the glass.
“The man?”
“Greco’s nephew. He had a key made from a photograph of yours.”
“How did he get a photograph?”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“Your employee identification file.”
“Who accessed it?”
“We’re checking.”
“The laptop?”
“Gone.”
Elena stood.
“Nothing else?”
“The apartment was searched. They tried to put things back.”
Lily looked up from the checkers.
“Did somebody touch my room?”
Marco crouched, making himself smaller.
“They moved some things. We’ll fix it.”
“My rabbit?”
Elena closed her eyes. Lily’s stuffed rabbit had belonged to Mateo as a child. One ear had been repaired twice with mismatched thread.
Marco looked at Elena.
“It was on the bed.”
Lily accepted this and returned to the game.
Adrian entered a moment later. He had changed from his black dress shirt into a dark sweater, but the gold watch remained. His knuckles had been cleaned and bandaged.
“Greco’s nephew says Victor sent him,” he told Marco.
“Victor denies it.”
“Of course.”
Elena stepped away from Lily.
“They have Mateo’s laptop.”
“We’ll get it back.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
The honest answer again. She had begun to resent it.
“What happens to us?”
Adrian looked at Lily, who had created three separate kings on the checkerboard.
“You stay here tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
“We decide tomorrow.”
“You decide.”
His gaze returned to Elena. “You’re free to leave.”
“With people watching my apartment and my daughter’s school?”
“I didn’t say the choices were good.”
She lowered her voice. “This is your world.”
“Yes.”
“I entered it for an answer.”
“Yes.”
“And now my daughter is inside it.”
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the small room.
Mrs. Donnelly inhaled. Marco looked at the floor. Lily turned around.
Adrian did not move.
A red mark appeared along his cheek, almost exactly where Lily had painted the yellow sun.
Elena’s hand stung.
She expected him to call the guards. Expected his anger to arrive late and cold. Instead, he touched the inside of his cheek with his tongue as though checking for blood.
“You’re right,” he said.
The words did not relieve her. They broke something.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“What should I say?”
“That you’ll fix it.”
“That would be a lie.”
“Say something useful.”
He looked at Lily again.
“I will keep her alive.”
Elena laughed once, a sound too close to crying. “That is not the promise normal employers make.”
“No.”
Lily stood and walked between them. She touched Adrian’s bandaged hand.
“Did Mama hurt you?”
“No.”
Elena covered her face.
Adrian crouched.
“Your mother is scared.”
“I know.”
“She had a reason.”
“I know.”
Lily studied his cheek. “You need more yellow.”
A strange silence passed through the room. Marco turned away, his shoulders moving once. Mrs. Donnelly pressed her lips together.
Adrian looked at Elena over Lily’s head.
“I’m going to speak with Victor,” he said.
“Don’t kill him.”
His expression gave nothing away.
“Why?”
“Because dead men don’t answer questions.”
He rose. “Neither do loyal ones.”
After he left, Mrs. Donnelly collected the scattered checkers.
Elena sat beside Lily and helped color the horse, though neither of them mentioned that green was wrong.
Near midnight, the mansion settled into a tense imitation of sleep. Guards moved outside the safe room every fifteen minutes. The heating system clicked on and off. Lily slept curled against Elena on the narrow sofa with the stuffed rabbit Marco’s men had recovered from the apartment.
Elena remained awake.
At one fifteen, Mrs. Donnelly entered carrying two mugs.
“Chamomile,” she said.
“I don’t like tea.”
“Neither do I. At this hour, preference is vanity.”
She sat in the armchair opposite Elena and drank with a small grimace.
“Did Adrian have children?” Elena asked.
“No.”
“A wife?”
“Briefly.”
“What happened?”
“They divorced.”
“That was surprisingly normal.”
Mrs. Donnelly almost smiled.
“His sister, Sofia, had a son. Thomas. He was six when he died.”
Elena looked down at Lily.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“Was Adrian driving?”
“No. His sister was.”
Mrs. Donnelly turned the mug in her hands.
“Thomas used to hide under the sitting-room piano. Mr. Romano pretended not to know where he was. It was the only game I ever saw him play.”
“That’s why the crayons were here.”
“Yes.”
“Where is his sister now?”
“Arizona. She does not speak to him.”
“Because of the accident?”
“Because he sent men to frighten the driver of the other car after the prosecutor declined charges. The driver had been texting. Mr. Romano believed fear would accomplish what court had not.”
“What happened?”
“The man killed himself.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Sofia said Adrian turned her grief into another weapon. She left the week after Thomas’s funeral.”
Mrs. Donnelly drank the tea despite disliking it.
“He has spent years pretending the lesson was that he failed to punish the right person. I believe the lesson was that punishment did not return the child.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you may be tempted to confuse his regret with goodness.”
Elena studied the older woman.
“Why do you stay?”
May you like
Mrs. Donnelly looked toward the door.
“At first, because his mother hired me. Then because leaving felt disloyal. Later, because staying felt useful. Eventually, because thirty-one years becomes a kind of furniture. You stop asking whether the room would be healthier without you.”
