Chapter 27 — A Drawer Not Quite Closed

POV: BEATRIX

The comfort of being home did not last long.

I noticed the pillow first. It sat on the couch at an angle that didn’t match how I’d left it that morning, propped against the armrest instead of centered where I always kept it.

It was such a small thing that I almost did not notice it at all, the kind of detail a person sees without really deciding to. I picked it up and set it back the way I preferred, telling myself all the while that I was being foolish, that a pillow's position meant absolutely nothing in a household with staff coming and going throughout the week.

After that, I walked slowly through the rest of the apartment, checking each room as I would after a storm, looking for anything else that seemed even slightly wrong.

Nothing else caught my attention right away. Everything else looked exactly as I had left it that morning.

Then I passed the office on my way to change out of my shoes, and something else caught my eye through the half-open door.

The bottom drawer of Nikolai's desk was not fully closed, sticking out slightly from the desk frame in a way that felt deliberate rather than accidental, as if someone had shut it quickly instead of carefully.

That drawer held nothing especially interesting, as far as I knew, spare stationery, a stapler, the sort of ordinary clutter every desk accumulates.

Still, finding it even slightly ajar bothered me more than it probably should have.

I stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the drawer, feeling an uneasy weight settle low in my stomach that I could not fully explain.

I nearly closed it myself and forgot all about it.

Instead, I stood there a little longer, replaying the day’s events in my head and trying to remember whether I had opened that particular drawer myself before leaving that morning.

I had not.

When Nikolai got home that evening, I mentioned it while we were setting the dinner table.

"Something felt off in the apartment today," I said. "A pillow had been moved. Your desk drawer wasn’t closed all the way."

He glanced up from the plates he was arranging, unbothered.

"The cleaning staff was here this morning. They constantly rearrange things. I’ve given up trying to keep anything exactly where I put it."

"You don't think it's strange."

"People constantly move things without thinking about it. It happens in every household with more than one person."

I wanted to believe him. Mostly, I did.

"It just felt strange," I said again, quieter this time.

"I’m sure it was them." He said it lightly, already moving on to the next plate, with no weight in his voice at all. "If it makes you feel better, I’ll mention it to the housekeeping supervisor tomorrow."

I let it go. It seemed reasonable, and I had nothing more concrete to offer than a pillow at the wrong angle and a drawer not quite shut.

The food was good, something simple Nikolai had apparently learned to make well since the cooking competition, and under any other circumstance, I would have enjoyed the evening without a second thought.

Still, some quiet part of me never fully settled for the rest of the evening, a low hum of unease I could neither name nor quite dismiss.

I kept glancing toward the office door during dinner, half expecting something else to seem out of place if I stared at it long enough.

We had dinner.

Ivy told a long story about a volcano science project that neither of us fully followed, but we both nodded along anyway. 

She used the words "baking soda" and "vinegar" at least a dozen times, growing more animated with each retelling, until even my quiet worry could no longer fully resist the pull of her enthusiasm.

By the time she went to bed, I had almost convinced myself I had imagined the whole thing.

****

POV: NIKOLAI

I did not think much of what Beatrix mentioned over dinner.

The cleaning staff constantly rearranged things, and years ago I learned not to expect my office to stay exactly as I had left it.

Ivy alone had rearranged three different rooms in that apartment over the past few months, moving furniture to suit whatever game she was playing that week.

A pillow shifting a few inches seemed, at the time, far less concerning than anything else demanding my attention that evening.

Over the years, I had learned to reserve my attention for problems that actually mattered: board decisions, contract terms, the kinds of details that could genuinely cost something if ignored.

A pillow at the wrong angle did not count, no matter the quiet unease Beatrix seemed to carry about it.

I did not think about it again until my phone rang late that night, long after Ivy had gone to sleep and Beatrix had settled beside me on the couch with a book.

The apartment was quiet in the way it only becomes once a household has finally settled in for the night, the lamps dimmed, and the city outside reduced to a soft glow through the windows.

It was my building manager, relaying a message from my head of security, apologetic and slightly confused in the way people are when they’re about to tell you something that doesn’t quite make sense.

"Sir, I don't want to alarm you," he said, "but our access log flagged something unusual this afternoon. A keycard was used to enter the residential floor at 2:30 this afternoon. It was traced to a card we deactivated weeks ago."

I sat up straighter, and the book Beatrix had been half-reading over my shoulder was suddenly forgotten entirely.

"Which card?" I asked.

My voice came out sharper than I meant, some old instinct for danger already sharpening every word.

"One of the temporary guest cards. Issued for a family dinner event several weeks back, then deactivated the following day per your standing instructions."

A pause.

"It should not have worked at all. The system shows it was deactivated correctly. There is no explanation yet for why it still granted access."

"Whose card was it originally registered to?" I asked, though I suspected, even before he answered, that I already knew.

He gave me a name that I recognized right away.

Martha Holloway.

I felt something cold settle in my chest, the same unsettling stillness I recognized from negotiations, right before someone admitted they had been lying the whole time.

Martha herself had been physically escorted out of this building weeks ago and expressly forbidden from returning. She had not been anywhere near the entrance today, according to the front desk logs.

Someone else had used her card.

Beatrix looked up from her book, noticing my change in posture immediately.

"What is it?"

I did not answer her right away. I was thinking about a pillow at the wrong angle, a drawer not quite closed, a guest card deactivated on paper yet somehow still working weeks later, on the exact afternoon Beatrix had gone to meet her mother alone.

"I need to check the security footage," I said. "Tonight."

"Nikolai, what’s going on?"

I looked at her, weighing how much to say before I knew anything for certain, and decided that, for once, certainty could wait until morning, but honesty could not.

I thought about everyone who had access to that card before it was supposedly deactivated. Martha. Serena. Either of them might have passed it on, deliberately or carelessly, in the weeks since that dinner.

"Someone was in this apartment today," I said. "While you were at the café. I do not know who yet. But I intend to find out."

Beatrix went very still beside me, the book finally forgotten on the cushion between us.

Whatever peace either of us had found in the past few hours had just quietly ended.

I picked up my keys and jacket without saying another word, already dialing the security office to arrange access to the footage archive tonight instead of waiting until morning.

Whoever had walked through my home while my wife sat alone in a café, believing her mother had finally told her the truth for once, I meant to know their face before I slept.

Beatrix stood up too, pulling a sweater over her shoulders, clearly intending to come with me whether I wanted her to or not.