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What does it matter if she knew those security guards? What if I was wrong, and they weren’t hired by her family at all? People have been known to play fucked-up games for months on end. Years. Long enough to convince an innocent like Daphne Morelli to trust them. Or—another awful possibility. She was safe with them, but isn’t anymore. I’ve read her file. One time. Fifty times. The family has wealth, which means they have enemies. Robert doesn’t know where she is, or else he’s too afraid to talk about it. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what the fuck it means.
I search her apartment again. Every shelf on every cupboard. The cheap plywood shelf in her closet, which I’m almost certain Daphne can’t reach without a stepstool. Beneath the sink in her bathroom. I want an explanation. Where did you go, little painter?
Where?
There’s nothing. Of course there’s nothing. She wouldn’t leave a note. Not here. I turn all the lights back off and pace. There is no light in the hall to show the shape of her door. It’s black around the edges, which should mean safety. It should mean everything is all right. All it means now is that she’s not out there.
She didn’t plan to leave. My legs are heavy, dragging me down, but I don’t dare sit on the couch. It feels like disturbing a crime scene, which is ridiculous. If this is a crime scene, it’s ruined. I’ve touched everything. I choke down a laugh.
Force myself to stand still.
Okay. Daphne didn’t plan on leaving. If she had a plan, she would have told Robert. She would not have left him to discover that she hadn’t arrived for her shift. She’d have called, or texted. Maybe he knows more than he’s letting on. It’s not much more, though. A man who suspected murder, or who had carried it out himself, would have a haunted look to his eyes. Robert was worried about money. Mine, specifically.
That’s not a guarantee she’s all right.
I can’t think.
Not until I go back into her bedroom. Put my back to the wall next to that absurd open archway and sit down on the floor. There’s not much room between the wall and her bed. Enough for the bathroom door. I have to let this anger burn itself out. I can’t think like this when it’s out of control. It’s an animal thing, that feeling. It makes the world press in. Every object transformed into razor-sharp edges. Not enough room to escape. So what if it feels like breathing in hot coals? So what if I can’t focus on a single detail? My eyes have adjusted to the dark, but there’s nothing here to see. A bedframe. An empty mattress.
Daphne might not have come back. If she left with people she trusts, then she might have her phone with her.
The number was not included in the dossier. Cell numbers can be difficult. They’re easily changed, and I would bet that Daphne doesn’t have her own phone plan.
I lock the door behind me when I leave. Go down the stairs to the landing between two doors. It’s a cheap gallery. A cheap place. They have a set of keys for the alley door, a set of keys for the front. Any shoddy security system is likely to be focused on the front doors, not back here. Every sound is magnified now. The floor creaking under my feet. Wind against the alley door. Soft clicks from the lock pick on the knob. Focusing on this makes the emotions more bearable. More like a still life. Less like a fucking storm.
Once I’ve opened the door, once I’ve stepped inside into the quiet, I take out my phone and turn the brightness on the screen all the way down. The flashlight will be too conspicuous. It’s a few steps from the back room to the counter. The beaded strands at the door are a minor irritation, and I’m there. Robert’s ledger is in its place, the cover closed. Motif uses a simple register and an app for credit card purchases. What I’m looking for is in the first drawer on the right. A sticky note with the edges curled.
Daphne, it reads. Along with her number.
Below that—
Security. I take that number too. I won’t call them and ask where she is. That would force my hand. I file it away for later. Go back through those damned beads. Out through the alley. Three long blocks back to where Logan is parked. My nerves feel frayed. Coming apart. I hate that she wasn’t there. I hate that I don’t know. I hate that I have to wait to text her. I can’t start now, when I’m leaping out of my skin.
Logan waits on the sidewalk in the cold, hands shoved in his pockets, a frown on his face.
“Mr. Leblanc,” he says when he sees me coming. “Are you all right?”
“Get back in the car,” I snap.Stop looking at me.
“Where—”
“Home.” I get in and pull the door shut behind me. She won’t be there, either. Not yet. “Now.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daphne
Iam unreasonablypissed off at my brother.
The anger keeps coming back again and again and again. Just when I think it’s gone—there it is. Maybe this is what I get for only painting the ocean. I’m constantly painting waves and it feels like I’m caught on the shore with endless breakers coming in.
I spend most of my time in the studio above my room, trying to work it out on the canvas. Leo has brought all the paints and brushes and canvases from my apartment, and on top of that, he’s stocked the studio with everything I could ever want. It’s honestly infuriating. Painting my feelings doesn’t work. Surprise, surprise.
I don’t want to be an ungrateful asshole. That’s the worst thing about this. Leo is trying to be nice. He is trying to be nice in the way that he has always been nice, which is actual kindness layered in with him being ridiculous. He knows I like good paint. How could I not? He knows I try to pinch pennies at my apartment, so if I have to be here, I won’t want for anything.
It’s just that a lovely prison is still a prison. I can’t live my life here, shut away from the world. Leo doesn’t understand that. All he cares about is keeping the world away from me.
“You sound like a dick,” I tell the piece in front of me, then fling some Prussian-blue paint at it.
