Chapter 3
Elias met Rosamonde in the lower garage on June eighteenth.
She remembered the date perfectly.
People forget harmless conversations.
Not dangerous ones.
He told her he had seen enough.
Guests giving jewelry.
Cash envelopes.
Promises exchanged for supposed meetings with me.
Rosamonde insisted she never sold decisions.
Only access.
As though access to a Mafia boss is not its own currency.
Elias disagreed.
He told her:
“If Mr. Wynthorne knew people were paying to get near him, he’d shut this down.”
Correct.
Rosamonde threatened to fire him.
Elias laughed.
He was not technically mine.
Seasonal contract through the lodge.
Then he said he would tell his sister.
Why Nerelle?
Because she had recently started working at one of my city houses.
If Elias could not reach me, maybe she eventually could.
Rosamonde panicked.
That word came from her, not me.
“What did you do?”
She hesitated.
“I called Merrick.”
Nerelle’s fingers tightened around the coat.
“Why?”
“To scare him.”
Of course.
The oldest coward’s sentence.
Not hurt.
Not kill.
Scare.
Merrick had spent years solving embarrassing Fairfax family problems.
Discreetly.
He arrived at the lodge.
Told Elias to leave Rosamonde alone.
Elias refused.
Then?
Rosamonde claimed she left.
“Convenient.”
“It’s true.”
“Did you see Elias again?”
“No.”
“Alive?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“That was the last time.”
Two weeks later Merrick told her Elias had fled with some lodge money.
She did not believe him.
Then, in July, Merrick changed the story.
Accident on North Ridge.
Body never recovered.
Coat recovered near a maintenance road.
Nerelle whispered:
“He told you all that and you said nothing?”
Rosamonde looked at her.
“I thought he was dead.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Good.
Nerelle had found her spine.
Rosamonde’s face hardened.
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you I sent my cousin after him?”
“Yes.
That would have been a beginning.
Instead she stayed silent.
And tonight, the coat reappeared.
I turned toward Arthur.
“When did Merrick give you this?”
“Three hours ago.”
“Where?”
“The lower lodge.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“He said he had to meet someone before coming up here.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Who?”
Arthur swallowed.
“He called him ‘the ghost.’”
Nerelle stopped breathing.
May you like
Rosamonde did too.
Merrick believed someone dead had come back.
