Chapter 3
They would not let me go downstairs.
I was bleeding.
Dizzy.
Barely standing.
But I heard everything.
Metal snapping.
Footsteps.
A woman crying.
Then a child.
A child.
The sound sliced through every lie in that room.
Eleanor collapsed into a chair.
Harold turned gray.
Adrian looked at the table, refusing to meet my eyes.
I grabbed Maya’s hand.
“Who is down there?”
She sobbed once.
“My sister.”
“What?”
“My sister, Lila. She worked for Eleanor. She disappeared two years ago.”
The room tilted.
Eleanor snapped, “She stole from us and ran.”
Maya turned on her.
“No. You told everyone she ran.”
An officer came upstairs carrying a little girl wrapped in a blanket.
She was maybe three.
Her hair was tangled.
Her eyes were huge.
Behind her, paramedics guided a thin woman up the stairs.
Maya screamed.
“Lila!”
The woman lifted her head.
“Maya?”
Maya broke completely.
I watched her run to her sister and fall to her knees.
The little girl clung to the paramedic’s neck.
The officer looked at the room with disgust.
“Who owns this house?”
I said, “I do.”
His eyes moved to me.
“Then you need to know we found a locked room, restraints, medication, and documents with your husband’s name on them.”
My blood went cold.
Adrian stood.
“Lawyer.”
The officer turned.
“Good idea.”
Then he nodded to another officer.
“Cuff him.”
Eleanor screamed.
Harold shouted.
Adrian looked at me as metal closed around his wrists.
“This is your fault.”
May you like
I touched the bandage at my temple.
“No,” I said. “This is the first thing that is finally yours.”
