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If we could just get that tube to see if it could be tested for whatever was inside, we’d have proof.
“Grace?”
I glanced up from my phone. Martine stood in Seren’s doorway. Alarm bells wailed in my head. “I have great news for you,” he said. “Would you mind following me up to my office?”
Shit. Shit. Shit.“I’m waiting for Seren,” I said, hoping he let me be.
“Oh, silly me. Did I say he might be up here? Maureen got him and his brothers tickets for New England’s preseason training session. She surprised him at lunch.”
My stomach dropped.
He wasn’t coming home.
“Oh, you know what?” I stood up. “I just remembered I need to help my mom with something.” I moved to the door, but Martine blocked my way.
“Please,” he said. “Come with me.”
I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. But if I had totally blown all of this out of proportion, I’d look like a raving lunatic. Maybe this was a simple misunderstanding. Maybe this was nothing. “Okay,” I said, knowing I was going to regret this decision because everything inside me told me thiswasn’ta misunderstanding.
Martine held out his arm, allowing me to pass to the stairway first. We climbed the stairs in silence to the third floor. Each step brought me closer to God-only-knew-what. The third-floor hallway still carried that dark coldness that the second floor did not. As we reached his office, Martine opened the door and again allowed me to enter first. I stepped inside with my heart in my throat. I glanced around at the dark-paneled wood walls that looked similar to those in the hallways. A huge bookshelf covered one wall and his desk sat prominently in front of the other. He rounded his desk and sat in the high-back leather swivel chair behind it. “Have a seat.”
On the wall behind his desk hung a big flat screen. He switched it on. His computer screen was mirrored on it. He clicked a few buttons and rows of boxes filled the screen, all of them live camera feeds from different rooms in the house. Some of them switched between hallways. But every room was there. He pointed to the right bottom corner. “I can even see in your room,” he said with delight.
A cold chill raced up the back of my neck. He’d been watching me?
“I know everything that goes on in the manor. And outside of it.” He clicked a few buttons and the inside of the treehouse appeared on the screen. He clicked a few more buttons and then there was the image of Seren and me having sex.
I jumped to my feet on wobbly legs. “Shut it off!” I needed to get out of there. And I needed to get out of there fast.
“Sit down, Grace,” he clipped, leaving the video on with the volume up so Seren’s grunts and my whimpers echoed throughout the room.
Tears stung my eyes. “I want to leave.”
“That’s why I brought you up here. Remember our conversation about that internship at the Tampa Marine Life Rescue Center?”
I lowered myself back into the chair and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to look at the screen.
“They appreciated the very generous donation I made and were all too happy to have you in their internship program. But, you must leave tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“You were a last-minute addition,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? You wanted in and I got you in. Now you must go.”
My mind was reeling. It was as if a tornado had swooped me up and was now placing me back down and I couldn’t make sense of where I was or what was going on. He was trying to get rid of me because he knew that I knew his plan. He was blackmailing me.
Martine switched off the video and played another: my mom and me in my room discussing Seren. ‘You think he’s an angry guy who has mommy issues,’ I said in the video. My mom scoffed. ‘That doesn’t even come close.’ I responded quickly. ‘I know he thinks his mother is responsible for his father’s death.’ My mother huffed. So, I continued. ‘I know no one believes him,’ I continued, ‘which would make any person act out.’
Martine paused the video there. “My stepson certainly acts out. Maybe he even killed his own father. Or, maybe his mother did. I guess you never really know a person. But I’d be willing to bet that if the police ever decide to show up here, your mother would come under major scrutiny. You know, distraught that her best friend treated her like garbage after all those years of servitude. She has access to every room in this place. She could easily have poisoned Maureen—or her husband.”
Rage festered inside of me. My head spun with confusion. Who could I tell? Who would believe me? What could I do to stop him?
“I would hate for any sweetener to end up in the wrong cup,” he mused.
I didn’t know what to do. How could I be sure he wouldn’t hurt anyone? If no one believed Seren, why would they believe me?
