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She left and walked to a door at the foot of the stairs.
So, it had come to this, Ginny thought, slowly descending the stairs. Somehow, deep in her heart, she had always known there would be a reckoning, a time when she’d have to admit her complicity in little London’s disappearance. And the money she’d imagined would set her up for life had slowly disappeared.
She walked into her tiny room and felt weary. She’d hoped to be free of rich people and catering to their whims, looking after children they should have cared for themselves, but as her finances had dwindled, she’d had to return to the only way she knew how to make a living. Even the money she’d received from the Nashes hadn’t saved her. Now, she’d spent most of her adult life being little more than an indentured servant. She surveyed her tiny room with its cheery curtains hung over impossibly small windows and nearly laughed at her own naivety. Fifty thousand. She should have asked for double that or triple. Even then, it might not have been enough. Money had always run through her fingers like water.
On the floor was a braided rug, a cast-off from her employers. The quilt she’d made herself but it had faded. Like she had.
She closed her eyes and sank onto the mattress wondering if she should just end it all. To face the police. The press. The Danvers family.
Unthinkable.
And yet she knew she didn’t have the heart to take her own life. Not like Katherine Danvers…which seemed impossible. Witt’s second wife was the last woman Ginny would have thought would have committed suicide. She was so full of life, so vibrant.
But she’d lost her child. Because of you, and you know how that feels, how morose one can get, how depressed.
Tears burned the back of her eyelids.
She heard the creak of a footstep and thought it was coming from upstairs. They were waiting. Probably impatient. She should really get her things together, even though she knew she’d end up in jail and her meager belongings would be confiscated.
She sniffed, a tear sliding from the corner of her eye.
Again she heard a footstep and it sounded closer…i
n the hallway?
She decided to pull herself together before Zachary found her down here blubbering like a baby.
Angry at herself, she ran a hand over her eyes as she opened them. She pulled her suitcase from the top shelf of the closet and opened the bureau drawers. Her stomach felt as tight as a clenched fist as she haphazardly tossed in some of her clothes.
Prison.
She shuddered, couldn’t imagine herself there. She blinked again, crying softly, holding back her sobs as she walked into her small bathroom for a tissue. As she dabbed at her eyes, she thought she saw a movement in the reflection of the mirror over the medicine cabinet, as if the shower curtain were fluttering.
All of the sudden she felt cold and realized the window was open.
Had she left it that way?
No…
Oh, God.
Through the haze of tears she glimpsed a dark figure just before the curtain was thrown back and her attacker leapt over the edge of the tub.
She gasped.
Before she could scream a gloved hand covered her mouth.
Oh God!
Her vision cleared.
She was staring into eyes she recognized.
Her heart froze.
Surely this was the person who had paid her off, had warned her never to tell the truth.
She struggled wildly, adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream. She kicked and scratched and fought but it was too late. She was too weak. She was forced back against the wall, a towel bar gouging her shoulders.
