“Kit, let’s go outside.”
My daughter makes a small sound of disappointment.
Wilkes gives her a warmer smile than any I’ve seen on her so far. “He’s right, you know. There are no lasers here,” she says. “We’ve seen the exciting part.”
“The egg was beautiful,” Kit says.
“Itisexciting,” she agrees. “However, it’s also legally the property of Miss Blackthorn, so we can’t touch it again.”
By ‘we,’ she definitely means Kit. I appreciate the way she’s handling the situation, even if I don’t have time for the niceties.
Goddamn unbelievable.
“Come on.” I take Kit’s hand in mine and lead her back up the stairs. Wilkes locks up the vault behind us, and the outer door clicks shut with a little hiss. I pause just long enough to make sure all the security measures are back in place.
Old habits.
Once we’re back on the landing by the basement stairs, I see Cleo curled up in a chair by a window alcove.
For a second, my brain flashes back to when she was a kid, curled up in the same way with her sketch pad, before she grew into that body.
Back then, it was the one time I never had to worry about chasing her down. When she was lost in her own world, she wasn’t a headache, safely sealed in her own imagination.
Then the world snaps back into place, and the white streak Cleo’s dyed in her hair whips me into the present.
She’s not the same girl she was then, and I’m not her keeper. Also, it’s not some obscure art book or a sketch pad in her hands, but a letter.
She’s reading it with a drawn face and wide eyes bristling with tears.
No need to intrude on her privacy.
Wilkes gestures back to the library. “Would you like a tour, Miss Verity?”
Kit barely notices as I slip out the side door. No one ever calls her Miss Verity, and I guess she loves it.
Again, Wilkes’ instincts are flawless. It’s easy to see why Mr. Blackthorn left her in charge of his estate.
The envelope has the weight of an encyclopedia in my hand as I step into the courtyard. I worked here for over a decade, but this feels like a whole new place today, dreary under the wind and slate-grey skies.
Like it or not, I’ll have my answers soon.
That’s what I wanted anyway.
The last year has been damnably uncertain for too long.
I rip it open, shearing off the top. It takes me less than a minute to read it.
Then I read it again and my gut sinks to my ankles.
Mother-fuck!
Snarling, I tear the letter in half, glaring up at the sky.
“What did I do? What fucking shit did I do to deserve this?”
No answer.
I just hear a familiar, low chuckle in my own mind. The same laugh I’d hear from the old man when he’d read by the fire, lost in some old book.
