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She studied the couch fabric, and the purple and pink roses growing over it in wild abandon. “Does that make your eyes sting, or is it just me?”
She needed to keep it light, then he’d keep it light. “I was about to dig out my sunshades.”
“She could watch some screen down here if she was bored enough, privacy shades down. Don’t want nosy neighbors peeking in. Had to be lonely, waiting for him to get out, but she doesn’t have any men over. She went to them, took care of that somewhere else. As someone else, I imagine.”
She moved through into a powder room. A single towel, she noted. “No guests. Just a place to pee if she was down here. If there’d been any trash, any paraphernalia, the sweepers would’ve bagged it. Nothing here.”
She moved on, dining alcove—empty—and the kitchen.
“Sits at the counter to eat.” She opened the fridge. “Or drink,” she said, when she saw only four bottles of brew, one bottle of wine, open.
She opened cupboards. “Glasses, a couple of plates, a stack of disposable ones.” She jerked her chin toward the pile of dirty dishes and unrecycled cartons in the sink, on the counter. “Not much on housekeeping.”
“And no house droid,” Roarke observed, “to tidy up after her.”
“Good appliances, nice counterwork, cabinetry, but she doesn’t care. It’s not hers. Not what she wants. She wants a lot more than this little playhouse with its fenced yard and the two bitches next door who ask too many questions. She wants the high life Isaac’s going to get her. Nothing here,” she said again, and walked back to take the stairs up.
She turned to the bedroom first. Too much perfume, she thought immediately. Too thick, too strong, too much. And the memory struck like a fist.
“Eve.” Roarke grabbed her arms when she swayed.
“Too much. Do you smell it? It’s too sweet—dying sweet, like flowers left out too long. God, it makes me sick.”
But she pushed back when he tried to draw her out of the room.
“No. I remember. I remember. The bedroom—their room. Always smelled like this. Too much. Perfume, too strong. And sex. Old sex and perfume. All those bottles and tubes. Lip dyes and sprays and powders. Can’t touch or she’ll hurt me. She’ll hurt me anyway because I’m ugly and stupid and always in the fucking way.”
“No. Baby, no.”
“I’m all right, I’m all right. Just need to breathe. God, open the window. Please, God, get some air in here.”
He yanked up the privacy screen, the window. She leaned out the opening, gasping air like the drowning. “I’m okay. It just hit so hard. She wanted to get rid of me. I can hear them talking, arguing. I’m so scared. I want to hide so maybe they’ll forget about me. Maybe she won’t remember me. She wants to get rid of me, for Christ’s sake. I’m useless, always hungry, always in her things. They should sell me now, get something out of the fucking little bitch.
“But he says no. They’ll get more later, renting me out. Can’t get top dollar for a six-year-old. But rent out, starting at ten, maybe sooner—rake it in for five, six years easy, then sell what’s left.”
Undone, simply shattered, he laid his cheek on her back so they drew in the hot, fresh air together. “Let me take you away from this.”
She reached back for his hand. “I can’t get away if I can’t get through.”
“I know it.” He pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “I know.”
“I didn’t understand what they were talking about, not exactly. Not then. But I was so scared. And they fought. I could hear them beating on each other, then the sex. I think she left after that—or soon after. He’d already started to touch me, to do things to me, but soon after that night, he got so mad because she was gone, and she’d taken money and things—I don’t know. He got mad and drunk, and he raped me for the first time. I remember.”
She took one last deep breath, eased herself back into the room.
“Is this what you were looking for?”
“No.” She swept the heels of her hands up her cheeks, annoyed tears had gotten through. “No, I didn’t expect to remember anything, not from this place. It’s the smell. It’s eased off with the window open.”
“Eve, there was barely a trace of perfume in the air here before.”
“I don’t know, but it was the same.” She scrubbed her face dry. She’d come to work, she reminded herself, not to wallow.
“I want to toss this room, top to bottom. See if she had any hideyholes. I think she used to have one, wherever we were. Extra stashes, hiding them from him. If she thought there was a chance McQueen would come here, she’d expect him to use the bedroom. If she was keeping something, she’d want it where he wouldn’t see it. Illegals, running money, but more maybe. Maybe.”
“Such as?”
“She thought she loved him. What do you have in your pocket?”
