Chapter 6
I returned to the mansion alone.
Sabella stayed with Elowen.
Correct.
Althea waited in the same blue sitting room.
The wallpaper looked different now.
Not decorative.
Witness.
I placed the photograph on the table.
“She told me about Calder.”
Althea closed her eyes.
No denial.
Good.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Still?”
She looked at me sharply.
I hated the question as soon as I asked it.
Not because I wished him dead.
Because she had trained everyone around her to treat his existence as inconvenient.
I sat.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She stared at her engagement ring.
“Because every year I waited made telling you worse.”
That I understood.
Did not excuse.
“When we met, I thought we’d only last a month.”
“Then?”
“Three.”
“Then?”
“A year.”
“Then you proposed.”
There.
Delay became structure.
She planned to tell me before accepting.
Then after.
Then before announcing publicly.
Then before setting a date.
Every milestone became another reason not to destroy the previous lie.
“What did you tell yourself about Elowen?”
“That she would stay a week.”
“And six months later?”
“I was going to let her go after the wedding.”
Classic.
After.
Cruel systems love future mercy.
“And Sabella?”
Her face tightened.
“She was never supposed to be involved.”
I almost laughed.
“She is Elowen’s daughter.”
“I know.”
“You hired her into the house.”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“She was already employed here before I knew who she was.”
Interesting.
Sabella joined my household eight months earlier through standard staffing.
Althea recognized the surname immediately.
Then the face.
She said nothing.
Why?
At first, fear.
Then opportunity.
If Sabella worked close by, Althea could monitor whether Elowen had contacted her.
Later, after Elowen disappeared, Sabella’s employment became leverage.
Not planned from the beginning.
Adapted.
That made the situation more believable.
More disturbing.
Althea whispered:
“I never meant to hurt her.”
I looked at the birthday cake still visible through the doorway.
“Tonight you mocked her missing mother in front of thirty people.”
Silence.
May you like
There are moments when intention becomes irrelevant.
Tonight was one.
