Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO KEPT QUIET
Mrs. Ricci was polishing silver when I found her.
Twenty-seven years in my family’s houses had taught her to hear footsteps without turning around.
“You need lunch,” she said.
“I need the truth.”
Her cloth stopped moving.
“Did you know Vivian entered my room at night?”
“She said you needed monitoring.”
“Did you believe her?”
For a long moment, she studied the spoon in her hand.
“Sometimes believing is easier than asking.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t always believe her.”
Anger rose so fast I had to step back.
She saw it and stayed where she was.
“My husband was dying,” she said. “Your sister arranged his care. She reminded me of that whenever I questioned the new rules.”
“So you said nothing.”
“I told myself there were doctors.”
“Why tell Lily about my insomnia?”
“She asked why your light was always on. I answered carelessly.”
“What haven’t you told me?”
Mrs. Ricci set down the spoon.
“The night of your accident, you argued with Nicholas before you left.”
“About what?”
“I heard you say, ‘You have until morning to put it back.’ Then you asked me for an envelope.”
I remembered rain on the windshield.
Nothing before it.
“What envelope?”
“A thick one. From your desk. You gave it to me before you got in the car.”
My pulse quickened.
“Where is it?”
“I put it in your mother’s old recipe tin. When you came home from the hospital, Vivian asked for everything you’d left with me.”
“You gave it to her?”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than her explanation.
“There was something else,” she said. “A parking receipt stuck to the back. I kept it because I thought you might need the expense.”
She went upstairs and returned with a faded receipt from a storage facility on the west side.
A unit number had been written on the reverse.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said.
“Good.”
She nodded once, accepting it.
Then she looked toward the doorway.
“Your sister asked me to pack Lily’s things this morning. She said the child would be leaving whether her mother agreed or not.”
I called Emma immediately.
She answered from the protected apartment.
“We’re okay,” she said.
“Don’t open the door for anyone from my family.”
A lock rattled on her end of the call.
May you like
Emma’s voice dropped.
“Someone’s already trying it.”
