Chương 2
“I didn’t fall,” she said.
The carving knife stopped against the board.
Miriam’s wineglass remained halfway to her mouth.
Theo lowered his own glass.
Audrey shut her eyes.
Garrick did not move for several seconds. Then he smiled with the careful sorrow of a man forgiving someone in public.
“Sienna,” he said softly.
The doorbell rang.
Its deep chime rolled through the house, louder than Sienna had ever heard it. Footsteps sounded beyond the dining room. A staff member crossed the entrance hall, then stopped. The bell rang again, not impatiently, but with authority.
Garrick rose.
The change in him was nearly invisible. His shoulders remained loose. His face remained composed. But one hand touched the edge of the table, as if measuring the distance to something solid.
“Expecting someone?” he asked Catherine.
“Yes.”
He looked at the phone beneath her hand, then at Sienna.
“What did you do?”
The question was quiet enough that only the nearest people heard it.
Sienna’s stomach tightened.
Catherine stood with her.
“She told the truth,” Catherine said. “That will have to be enough for the next thirty seconds.”
Garrick walked toward the tall dining-room doors. His pace was controlled, almost lazy. Catherine followed several steps behind, keeping herself between him and Sienna until he crossed into the entrance hall.
Sienna remained by the table.
Her body did not seem to understand that anything had changed. Her legs felt weak. Her injured arm throbbed in its sling. Sweat cooled beneath her blouse while her fingers stayed numb.
Audrey put down her fork.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Sienna looked at her, but Audrey had already lowered her head.
In the entrance hall, the front door opened.
Commissioner Raymond Fletcher stood on the other side in a dark overcoat. Two uniformed officers waited behind him, along with four men and two women Sienna recognized from Ashford Holdings board meetings. Their formal coats were beaded with rain. One of them, board chair Malcolm Reed, held a sealed envelope against his chest.
No one spoke at first.
Garrick’s face emptied.
Not dramatically. The color simply withdrew from his cheeks, leaving behind the hard planes Sienna had seen on the night he first struck her.
Fletcher looked past him toward the dining room.
“Mrs. Ashford,” he called. “Are you in immediate danger?”
Garrick turned before Sienna could answer.
“This is my home.”
Fletcher’s expression did not change. “That wasn’t the question.”
Sienna heard the distant hum of the kitchen refrigerator, the drip of rain from someone’s coat onto the stone threshold, the faint click of Miriam setting down her glass.
Catherine returned to her side.
Garrick looked at Sienna with naked instruction now. The polished concern had disappeared. In its place was the private man, the one who counted her breaths after an argument and stood too close when she tried to leave a room.
She could still fix it.
The thought arrived with astonishing clarity.
She could laugh. She could say her mother had misunderstood. She could complain about pain medication and exhaustion. Garrick would be furious later, but there were ways to survive fury. She knew most of them.
Fletcher waited.
One of the officers, a woman with rain-darkened hair, kept her hands visible and her eyes on Sienna rather than Garrick.
Catherine did not squeeze her hand.
Sienna understood why. Her mother had spent a lifetime asking questions that cornered people. Tonight she was refusing to corner her daughter.
The choice was Sienna’s.
“My husband hurt me,” she said.
Garrick moved so quickly that the officer behind Fletcher stepped forward.
He did not reach for Sienna. He only turned, but the movement snapped through the hall like a threat.
“This is absurd.”
Fletcher raised a hand. “Mr. Ashford, stay where you are.”
“You came into my house with my board of directors because my wife is upset?”
Malcolm Reed cleared his throat. “We’re here because this evening’s matter may involve company resources and conduct by an executive officer.”
Miriam appeared at the dining-room doorway. “Malcolm, have you lost your mind?”
“No, Miriam. I’m afraid I’ve been avoiding its use.”
Her gaze sharpened.
The uniformed woman approached Sienna slowly. “I’m Officer Bell. May I speak with you away from everyone else?”
Sienna glanced at Garrick.
He gave her the old look. Not anger. Calculation.
It said he knew where her clothes were, where her passport was kept, how much money was in her account, which doctors had prescribed her medication, and which friends she had stopped calling. It said he knew that the house staff depended on Ashford wages and that the family attorney had made careers disappear with a letter.
It said a door could open and still not be an exit.
“Yes,” Sienna said. “Please.”
Officer Bell led her toward the small morning room off the entrance hall. Catherine started after them, then stopped when Sienna looked back.
“Not yet,” Sienna said.
The words hurt her mother more than Sienna expected.
Catherine nodded once. “I’ll be outside.”
The morning room had pale walls, two narrow windows, and furniture chosen for people who never sat there. Officer Bell closed the door but did not lock it. Rain ticked against the glass.
Sienna took the armchair nearest the wall.
The officer sat across from her and lowered her voice. “Do you need medical care?”
“I’ve had medical care.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Sienna looked down at her sling. “Yes.”
“Are there weapons in the house?”
“Kitchen knives. A gun in his study safe. Maybe another one in the bedroom closet. I don’t know if it’s still there.”
“Does he have access to you tonight?”
“I live here.”
“Do you want to stay here?”
The question was so plain that Sienna almost laughed.
Instead, a small sound came out of her throat. She covered it with a cough.
“No.”
Officer Bell waited while Sienna’s breathing settled.
May you like
“Can you tell me what happened to your arm?”
Sienna pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth. Garrick had once told her that police loved contradictions more than truth. A frightened person changed details. A liar changed details. To men like Garrick, the two were the same.
