Chapter 328 Fake
ADRIANA
I slept in my room alone again.
I was not fighting with Elijah. I was simply not in the same room as him, which was a distinction I had made for myself and which he apparently did not accept as a distinction.
He came to my room at an hour when I had been nearly asleep. I heard the door and thought it was Leo bringing me news about Lana and I called out to come in without turning around.
When no one spoke, I turned.
Elijah was standing at the door.
I looked at him and then back at the ceiling.
“It’s late,” I said. “You should sleep.”
“We need to talk.”
“Tomorrow.”
“You’ve been saying tomorrow for four days.”
That was fair. But it didn’t make right now the right time, when I was tired down to the specific kind of tired that came from too many days of movement and thinking and not enough of either rest or resolution.
“What do you want to say?” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “Say it.”
He came into the room and stood at the foot of the bed. “Why do you hate Lucien?”
I turned over and looked at him. “I don’t hate Lucien. I’ve said this. What reason would I have to hate him?”
“Then why has the fact that I’m trying to spend time with him been enough to make you sleep in a separate room and barely speak to me for days?”
“Those things are not related.”
“Adriana—”
“Elijah, look at me.” I sat up. “Have I complained about you spending time with Lucien? Have I said anything against it? I told you to let him stay in this house. I told you to build a relationship with him. I meant it.” I held his gaze. “What I have not done is pretend that everything else is fine just because I’m not complaining about that specific thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Lana said her first word days ago and you asked me about it like it was news. It means I’ve been out of this house for three days and you noticed on the second one. It means the twins had a fight that escalated to the point where Leo had to intervene and you were in the other wing with Lucien and didn’t know it happened.” I kept my voice even and quiet. “I am not asking you to choose between your son and the rest of your family. I’m reminding you that the rest of your family still exists.”
He was quiet.
“I’m not angry,” I said. “I’m just tired. And when I’m tired I need space instead of conversations that are going to escalate because we’re both exhausted. That’s why I’m here and not there.” I looked at him. “Does that make sense?”
He looked at the bed. At me. At the space between us.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and I let him sit there and didn’t say anything else, because sometimes the right response to something was just to let it exist without adding to it.
After a while he left, and I turned over and lay in the dark and thought about the case and about Lucy and about Alisha and Sandy, and thought about the way this investigation had become the thing that got me out of the house and gave me something to push against that wasn’t inside these walls, and then I fell asleep.
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night when the thinking resumed before the sleeping was finished, and I went out to the balcony and stood under the moon and let the cool air do the work that sleep wasn’t doing.
The kingdom was quiet. Somewhere beyond the grounds a light was on in one of the secondary buildings and I watched it for a while without thinking about what it was. My mind was running through the cabin — who had known Lucy would be there, who had made the call to the coast guard, who had placed the picture with Alisha and built the lover narrative around a real man whose tattoo was real but whose relationship with Lucy might be entirely constructed.
Sandy had said they’d had a visitor she couldn’t identify. A client Lucy had kept locked away. A meeting that had left Lucy with red eyes and a closed door.
And then two weeks later, Lucy was dead.
I went back to bed eventually and slept properly until morning.
Lana’s noise brought me awake. Hazel appeared in the doorway with her before I’d finished sitting up.
“She was already dressed when I found her,” Hazel said. “But look.”
I took Lana and examined what Hazel was pointing at, a safety pin from her diaper had given way and the broken edge had been pressing against her skin. Not deep, but red and irritated, the small injury of carelessness.
I cleaned it carefully, applying antiseptic while Lana turned and gave me the look of someone who had trusted me completely and was reconsidering.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Almost done.”
I put a small bandage over it and changed the diaper arrangement entirely.
“Who dressed her this morning?” I said to Hazel.
“A maid. I’ll find out which one.”
“Find out and tell her specifically what happened as a result.” I held Lana against my shoulder. “I’ll stay home today. Sandy and Alisha are both coming. I want them here at the same time if possible.”
“Alisha hasn’t been picking up,” Hazel said.
I looked at her. “Since when?”
“This morning. I tried three times. Nothing.”
“She picked up last night?”
“She confirmed she’d be here. This morning, nothing. Phone going straight to voicemail.”
I was quiet for a moment. “Who have you got watching her?”
“I put someone on her yesterday evening after what Sandy told us.” Hazel was already reaching for her phone. “Let me check in.”
She stepped out and I sat with Lana and thought about Alisha’s house — the purple everywhere, the ginger tea, the photograph she’d kept in a safe that she’d produced without much hesitation, the way she’d spoken about Lucy with the specific grief of someone who had lost a friend but had also, underneath it, seemed to be managing something else. A guilt, maybe. Or a fear.
Sandy had called her a witch. Had said she was fake and rude and had fought with Lucy the day before she died. Had quoted the specific parting line: have fun in your home of sin.
Alisha had known about the cabin. She had known Lucy would be there.
I looked at Lana. She was looking at me, studying me.
“What do you think?” I said.
She grabbed my finger.