Chương 7
She said, “Move away from the door.”
He did not.
Victoria stood.
“Adrian.”
He looked at his mother.
“Call Calvin,” Victoria said to Leah.
Adrian stepped toward her so fast the chair between them overturned.
Leah retreated. Her back struck the bookcase. Behind glass, a row of unread blue volumes shuddered.
Victoria placed herself between them.
She was shorter than her son by nearly a foot. Her shoulders remained straight.
“If you touch her while I am in this room,” she said, “you will not spend another night in this house.”
Adrian stared down at her.
“You’d choose her?”
Victoria’s mouth tightened. “I am choosing not to watch you become your father.”
The room changed again.
Leah had heard little about Charles Holloway beyond approved facts: Yale, Navy service, investment banking, the foundation, the aneurysm that killed him at sixty-eight. In family photographs he appeared silver-haired and amused, one hand often resting possessively on Victoria’s shoulder.
Adrian stepped back as though his mother had struck him.
“Don’t.”
“You asked.”
“You don’t get to use him against me.”
“I spent thirty-four years not using him against anyone.”
Leah felt the burner phone vibrating again but did not reach for it.
Adrian’s voice roughened. “He never hit you.”
Victoria looked at his wedding ring.
“No,” she said. “He was more careful than that.”
Silence filled the library.
The lawn mower shut off outside. Without it, Leah could hear the clock on the mantel and someone rolling a cart across the kitchen tile.
Adrian turned toward the window.
“This is insane.”
Victoria’s composure returned by degrees, like a door closing.
“Perhaps.”
“You’re believing her because she has makeup on badly?”
“I believe what I have watched you do in the last hour.”
“You watched her provoke me.”
Leah closed her eyes for a moment.
There were sentences so familiar they felt inherited.
Victoria’s face hardened. “Leave the room.”
“It’s my—”
“Leave.”
He looked at Leah once more.
“This isn’t over.”
Then he walked out.
The door remained open behind him.
Victoria crossed the room and closed it herself.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Leah’s knees began shaking. She sat in the nearest chair before they failed. The burner phone was vibrating continuously now.
Naomi answered on the first ring.
“Leah?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you alone?”
Leah looked at Victoria.
“No.”
“Are you safe enough to speak?”
“I don’t know.”
Naomi did not waste time asking what that meant.
“Your check-ins stopped. Ellen has the package. I’m two miles away. Do you need emergency services?”
Leah pressed the phone against her ear. “Not yet.”
Victoria flinched at the phrase.
“Can you leave the property?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Leah looked toward the library door.
Victoria walked to the desk, picked up the house phone, and dialed.
“Calvin,” she said. “Open the service gate. Mrs. Holloway will be leaving.”
She listened.
“No. Do not inform Adrian before she is outside.”
Another pause.
“Use my authority.”
Victoria hung up.
Leah told Naomi where to meet her.
“What do you need from the house?” Naomi asked.
“My folder.”
“Can you get it without contact?”
“No.”
“Then leave it.”
“It has originals.”
“Copies are safe.”
“Not everything is copied.”
Naomi exhaled. “What isn’t?”
“The hotel invoice. Two letters. A medical release.”
“Are those worth going near him?”
Leah pictured the blue folder inside the office desk, where she had moved it after realizing Adrian had opened the bedroom drawers. She had hidden it beneath a false bottom built into an antique stationery box. The office safe held her passport, but the folder was not in the safe.
She could reach it in less than a minute if Adrian was elsewhere.
“No,” she said.
Then, “Maybe.”
Victoria watched her.
Naomi’s voice softened without becoming gentle. “You’re deciding like someone who is still inside. Decide like someone who plans to be alive tonight.”
Leah closed her eyes.
“Leave it,” Naomi said. “Walk out now.”
Leah ended the call.
When she stood, Victoria moved toward the door with her.
“No.”
Victoria stopped.
“I’m going alone.”
“Adrian may be in the hall.”
“And if he sees you escorting me, he’ll know exactly which gate.”
“He already knows the property.”
“He doesn’t know who’s waiting.”
Victoria considered that.
Leah removed the delicate gold necklace from her throat. The repaired clasp caught in her hair. She worked it free and placed the necklace on the library desk.
“What are you doing?”
“It was a gift from him.”
“It belonged to my grandmother.”
Leah looked at the chain.
Of course it had. Nothing in the house belonged only to the person wearing it.
She left it on the desk.
At the library door, Victoria said, “Leah.”
She turned.
Victoria’s gaze moved over the concealed bruise, the split lip, the dress her son had chosen.
“I didn’t know.”
Leah thought of the hotel footage. The closed bank account. The remark about bedroom locks. Maine.
“You knew enough to avoid knowing more.”
Victoria’s chin lifted as if she had received an insult in public.
Leah opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
She walked toward the rear staircase, keeping one hand on the banister because the ache in her ribs had worsened. Every room seemed louder than usual. A vacuum ran somewhere above her. Water rushed through pipes. The front door opened and closed in the distance.
At the bottom of the service stairs, Daniel stood with a stack of plates.
He saw her and shifted aside.
“Mrs. Holloway.”
“Is Adrian in the kitchen?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did you see where he went?”
Daniel looked toward the pantry.
For a second Leah thought he would protect his employer by pretending not to know.
“The garage,” he said.
“Thank you.”
She passed him.
“Mrs. Holloway?”
Leah stopped.
His eyes remained on the plates.
“I didn’t think you hit him.”
The kindness was clumsy, incomplete, and nearly unbearable.
May you like
She nodded once and continued.
The service corridor led past the laundry room and flower pantry. Calvin waited beside the exterior door, holding it open. His keys were gone from his belt. In one hand he held a navy wool coat.
