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“You shut the fuck up,” she snapped, her voice high and hysterical. She was angrier than I’d ever seen her. I crept closer to the window, staying low, straining to make out the words. “I’m doing my part to clean up your mess, but I need time.”
“Can’t you just, I don’t know, get her alone somehow?” William whined.
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do? Between Dora and Delphine and that goddamn male nurse of hers—and after this it’ll be even harder, you know they won’t let her out of their sight. I can’t just—”
She stopped speaking so abruptly that I was sure she must have seen me, but when I looked, she had moved away from the window and was staring into the dark.
“What?” William said.
“I thought I saw...” Diana trailed off. “Come on.” She strode purposefully away, with William following after, dragging his feet like a teenager who didn’t want to be seen walking with his mom. I stood frozen, trying to make sense of what I’d heard. Diana needed something from my grandmother, that part was clear enough, but—
My thoughts were interrupted by a soft click behind me, and I turned to see the door open, a shadow moving into the room. I bit back a shriek.
“It’s just me,” Adam said softly. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. The lights—”
“That was me,” I said. “I think I blew a fuse.”
“Yeah. Your mom and Richard went down to the basement to fix it.”
“I just saw Diana and William outside.” I paused, debating whether to say more.
Adam crossed the room and pulled me against him. “So we’re alone,” he said, his lips brushing close to my ear. One of his hands slid around the curve of my hip, and I shivered, letting my head drop back so that he could kiss my neck.
“We should keep looking for Mimi,” I said, but with no force behind it. It was just a line, the thing I was supposed to say; Adam squeezed me tighter and slid a hand up the front of my sweater.
“In a minute,” he whispered, and then laughed against my neck. “Okay, five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” I murmured. I felt myself steered backward across the room, until my legs bumped against the edge of something. I looked over my shoulder to see a velvet sofa, uncovered, its dust sheet puddled on the floor beneath my feet. This was what I’d heard rustling in the room, but I wasn’t thinking about that, wasn’t thinking about what it could mean. I was thinking about Adam’s hands on my skin, the cold kiss of the air on my bare belly as my sweater came over my head. He pushed me down onto the sofa and then sank to his knees, his hands briefly going to unbuckle his belt and then returning, heavy, to my hips. He buried his face against my abdomen. One hand slid up between my legs, and I gasped.
“God, I want you,” he whispered. “I want you all the time, I can’t stand it.”
“You have me,” I said, reaching for him. Letting my eyes close. Going by feel. My jeans were down around my knees and I kicked them loose, arching my back, lifting my hips to meet him. He moaned, and so did I. Taking his weight as he took me. He put his lips against my neck and I turned my head, feeling soft velvet on one cheek, the roughness of stubble on the other. I opened my eyes. The room was all shadow, gray on black, nothing moving.
But we weren’t alone.
I froze.
Mimi was standing in the center of the room, watching us. I could just make out the bony slope of her shoulders, the pale planes of her face. Her eyes were pits, a single point of reflected light visible in each one.
“Adam.” My voice was a weak whisper. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and pushed him away, took a deep breath. “Adam!”
“What,” he started to say, and then turned his head. Mimi hadn’t moved, didn’t move, and I saw him see her—squinting into the dark, then scrambling backward as horror dawned over his face. I sat up, fumbling for my pants, but they were hopelessly twisted around my leg.
For one awful moment, nobody spoke, and nothing moved.
Then Adam stood, took a step toward her.
“Miriam,” he said, his voice strangled, and Mimi stiffened. She raised her hand and pointed with a trembling finger—not at him, but at me.
“I always knew you were trouble,” she hissed, and before I could say anything, before Adam could take another step, she turned and ran. Her bare feet made no sound as she skipped across the floor and into the shadows in a cluttered corner of the room. I fumbled for my phone and raised it up just in time to see her in the beam of the flashlight, disappearing through a narrow doorway that hadn’t been there when I entered the room, and that disappeared as I watched, a hidden panel in the wall swinging closed behind her with a light click.
“Adam,” I started to say, but he was gone, too—out the main door and down the hall, his feet thudding against the carpet. I jumped to my feet, tripping over my pants before yanking them back up to my waist and looking frantically for the shoe I wasn’t wearing. A moment later I found it under the sofa, and a moment after that, I was out the same door Adam had left by, calling his name. The lights flared on above me as I reached the end of the hall, rounded the corner to the foyer, and felt my knees go weak—this time with relief. They were both there, Adam and Mimi. He was holding both her hands and peering into her face, saying something low and urgent; I came nearer and heard the wordsreally scared me. She was staring down at her hands in his, frowning.
“Mimi,” I said softly, and she turned to look at me. The angry expression was gone.
“Hello,” she said. “Pardon me, I seem to have gotten lost.”
I swallowed hard, my ears burning. For one ridiculous moment, I wondered if it was possible that she’d forgotten what she saw, but while the anger was gone from her face, the knowing look was not.
