Chapter 4
Piers asked me a question before leaving.
“Is Mommy fired?”
The room went quiet again.
I crouched.
“No.”
“Because I hit her?”
My chest tightened.
“You didn’t choose that.”
He looked at his hand.
I understood.
“You are not responsible for what an adult forced your hand to do.”
He nodded slowly.
Then looked at Nerissa.
“Mommy okay?”
She kissed his forehead.
“Yes.”
Only then did he leave with her.
Jessamine watched.
Something in her expression changed.
Maybe shame.
Maybe anger that I had made the child more important than her explanation.
I did not care which yet.
Once Nerissa was gone, I asked:
“Why did you need her fired?”
Jessamine crossed her arms.
“She overheard a private conversation.”
“So you make her son slap her?”
“I was trying to make her understand.”
I stared.
“That sentence should embarrass you.”
She looked away.
Finally.
She had already tried other methods.
Changed Nerissa’s shifts.
Cut her from premium dinner service.
Threatened to move her to an outer property.
Nerissa stayed.
Why?
Good pay.
Stable schedule.
School nearby for Piers.
Her life could not be rearranged easily.
Jessamine knew that.
So she attacked the pressure point.
Employment.
Then the child.
“Why not simply tell your father she heard him?”
Jessamine hesitated.
Because Edmund told her not to involve him unless necessary.
Interesting.
He wanted separation.
If Nerissa disappeared quietly from household service, no direct connection to him.
Jessamine was protecting her father from even appearing to pressure a witness.
She had learned the method well.
Use someone more vulnerable.
Keep powerful hands clean.
Then she said:
“You don’t understand what happens if Father loses your protection.”
“Tell me.”
“People come for him.”
“Which people?”
Silence.
Then:
“The ones he betrayed for you.”
That old story again.
Maybe true.
Maybe incomplete.
I suddenly wanted to know exactly how Edmund learned about that winter ambush seven years ago.
I had never asked hard enough.
May you like
A life saved creates gratitude.
Gratitude makes terrible investigators.
