There’s nothing. Of course there’s nothing. She wouldn’t leave a note. Not here. I turn all the lights back off and pace. There is no light in the hall to show the shape of her door. It’s black around the edges, which should mean safety. It should mean everything is all right. All it means now is that she’s not out there.
She didn’t plan to leave. My legs are heavy, dragging me down, but I don’t dare sit on the couch. It feels like disturbing a crime scene, which is ridiculous. If this is a crime scene, it’s ruined. I’ve touched everything. I choke down a laugh.
Force myself to stand still.
Okay. Daphne didn’t plan on leaving. If she had a plan, she would have told Robert. She would not have left him to discover that she hadn’t arrived for her shift. She’d have called, or texted. Maybe he knows more than he’s letting on. It’s not much more, though. A man who suspected murder, or who had carried it out himself, would have a haunted look to his eyes. Robert was worried about money. Mine, specifically.
That’s not a guarantee she’s all right.
I can’t think.
Not until I go back into her bedroom. Put my back to the wall next to that absurd open archway and sit down on the floor. There’s not much room between the wall and her bed. Enough for the bathroom door. I have to let this anger burn itself out. I can’t think like this when it’s out of control. It’s an animal thing, that feeling. It makes the world press in. Every object transformed into razor-sharp edges. Not enough room to escape. So what if it feels like breathing in hot coals? So what if I can’t focus on a single detail? My eyes have adjusted to the dark, but there’s nothing here to see. A bedframe. An empty mattress.
Daphne might not have come back. If she left with people she trusts, then she might have her phone with her.
The number was not included in the dossier. Cell numbers can be difficult. They’re easily changed, and I would bet that Daphne doesn’t have her own phone plan.
I lock the door behind me when I leave. Go down the stairs to the landing between two doors. It’s a cheap gallery. A cheap place. They have a set of keys for the alley door, a set of keys for the front. Any shoddy security system is likely to be focused on the front doors, not back here. Every sound is magnified now. The floor creaking under my feet. Wind against the alley door. Soft clicks from the lock pick on the knob. Focusing on this makes the emotions more bearable. More like a still life. Less like a fucking storm.
Once I’ve opened the door, once I’ve stepped inside into the quiet, I take out my phone and turn the brightness on the screen all the way down. The flashlight will be too conspicuous. It’s a few steps from the back room to the counter. The beaded strands at the door are a minor irritation, and I’m there. Robert’s ledger is in its place, the cover closed. Motif uses a simple register and an app for credit card purchases. What I’m looking for is in the first drawer on the right. A sticky note with the edges curled.
Daphne, it reads. Along with her number.
Below that—
Security. I take that number too. I won’t call them and ask where she is. That would force my hand. I file it away for later. Go back through those damned beads. Out through the alley. Three long blocks back to where Logan is parked. My nerves feel frayed. Coming apart. I hate that she wasn’t there. I hate that I don’t know. I hate that I have to wait to text her. I can’t start now, when I’m leaping out of my skin.
Logan waits on the sidewalk in the cold, hands shoved in his pockets, a frown on his face.
“Mr. Leblanc,” he says when he sees me coming. “Are you all right?”
“Get back in the car,” I snap. Stop looking at me.
“Where—”
“Home.” I get in and pull the door shut behind me. She won’t be there, either. Not yet. “Now.”
Chapter Fourteen
Daphne
I am unreasonably pissed off at my brother.
The anger keeps coming back again and again and again. Just when I think it’s gone—there it is. Maybe this is what I get for only painting the ocean. I’m constantly painting waves and it feels like I’m caught on the shore with endless breakers coming in.
I spend most of my time in the studio above my room, trying to work it out on the canvas. Leo has brought all the paints and brushes and canvases from my apartment, and on top of that, he’s stocked the studio with everything I could ever want. It’s honestly infuriating. Painting my feelings doesn’t work. Surprise, surprise.
I don’t want to be an ungrateful asshole. That’s the worst thing about this. Leo is trying to be nice. He is trying to be nice in the way that he has always been nice, which is actual kindness layered in with him being ridiculous. He knows I like good paint. How could I not? He knows I try to pinch pennies at my apartment, so if I have to be here, I won’t want for anything.
It’s just that a lovely prison is still a prison. I can’t live my life here, shut away from the world. Leo doesn’t understand that. All he cares about is keeping the world away from me.
“You sound like a dick,” I tell the piece in front of me, then fling some Prussian-blue paint at it.
No one answers. There’s no one here to answer. I’m going after an innocent canvas, and not even wholeheartedly. It’s me who sounds like a dick. Leo, my perfect, overbearing, irritating brother has been gracious about the fact that I don’t want to eat meals with him. His housekeeper, Mrs. Page, brings me everything on a silver tray. Coffee in the morning. Tea in the afternoon. Occasional snacks.
There’s absolutely nothing to be angry about, except that I am angry. My chest aches with the thought of disappointing Leo. Being pissed off constantly has to be a disappointment. The fact that I’m suffocating here has to be a disappointment. If he even knows I’m suffocating. If that even matters.
Which, of course, it does. Guilt crawls up my spine and latches on. Even in the privacy of my pissed-off feelings, I can admit that Leo’s reaction is reasonable. Part of me knows that. Emerson was way out of line. He broke into my apartment. It is not okay to break into someone’s apartment, even if they are leaving you something you didn’t know you wanted.
Part of me knows that. And part of me is still fascinated by him. I am. I’m fascinated by the way he tasted, which was so clean and good and not like a stalker should taste. I’m fascinated by the way he touched me. By the way he scared me. Everything about him fascinates me. I wanted to go with him, damn it.
I put my brush to the canvas and fix the splotch of Prussian blue, blending it in with the rest of the wave.
I don’t like to be angry. It feels bad, and more than that, it feels risky. My parents’ house wasn’t a place I could go around being angry. That would get the wrong kind of attention, and anyway, I don’t want it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Leo, probably. Inviting me to eat with him, probably. He doesn’t come up here to badger me about it. He texts, and I either give him a one-word answer or tell him I’m busy or say nothing at all.
It’s the middle of the night. He’ll be up. I could pretend I’m sleeping, though I’m in the studio in my nightgown. I couldn’t make my eyes stay shut. It wouldn’t surprise me if the message was a casual invitation for tea or something in his den. He doesn’t seem to sleep that much. Plus, he’s trying to patch things up with me. I haven’t been letting it happen.