LOGIN"Not yet." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "Give me a minute.""Of course."He waited. He was very good at it. He didn't turn on the radio, or check the mirror, or say anything at all, and she was grateful for it.Fifty-two thousand dollars, she thought. My name. Someone used my name.It wasn't the money. She'd have given Karla money. She would have given her more than that if she'd asked, if she had come to her at the beginning with a plain request and a hard story. It was the other thing. The sly, patient, careful thing. The studio's oldest customer told she wasn't staying. The wool taken in the night. A dead address in a free mail service that received a report every Thursday.She has been doing for months, Lyra thought.She lowered her hands."Marcus," she said. "A man called Hartwell three weeks ago. The woman there said he was young and polite and American. Do you know who he might be?"His eyes met hers in the mirror, calm and unreadable."Why do you ask, miss?"Marcus
Nora took her through it in four parts, with a pen, in a flat dry voice that made each item sound exactly as bad as it was.One. The unrecorded payments. Three Hartwell invoices had been paid in full and cleared the bank. In each case the record was left as pending, and a note was added: awaiting ownership clarification. No payment had been held. No payment was in dispute. The money had been sitting in the account the entire time. Hartwell had been told, in writing, that it wasn't.Two. The supplier fraud. Eleven days after Karla was given access, the banking details for Delmar Textile, the studio's wool supplier, had been changed in the system. The new account number was different by two digits and belonged to a different bank. A twelve-thousand-dollar invoice was paid to the new account in September. Delmar had never received it. A week later, when Delmar chased the invoice, the same login had approved a second payment to the correct account. The studio had paid twice."So she took
He went up at eleven.He stood at the head of the west corridor and looked across the landing. A thin line of light showed under a door in the east wing. She was in the blue room, as promised, and he could picture her pacing, back and forth, back and forth.She isn't asleep either.He went into his own room and shut the door and sat down at the desk. For a long moment he did nothing. Then he opened the drawer, and took out the second phone, and slid the battery back in.You're going to regret this, he told himself.You already do.The screen lit. Her last message was still there, unanswered. Not since noon. Why do you ask?And below it, his own reply. Because I worry.He should leave it. He knew that. He should put it back in the drawer and go to bed, and tomorrow, or the day after, tell her everything in a quiet room, with a cup of tea, as an adult who had made a terrible mistake.He typed:How was your day?He sent it.For a minute, nothing. He watched the screen. Across the landing
"Yes, sir.""And Marcus.""Sir?""If Lyra asks you where I am today, you tell her the truth."Marcus's expression didn't change, but something in his eyes warmed. "I always do, sir.""I know. I'm saying it for my own benefit."***Victor was at the breakfast table when Damien came down, in the dark overcoat he wore for walks, with a cup of tea and a folded letter beside his plate."Son.""Dad.""You're up early.""I didn't sleep.""Nor did I." Victor's eyes were tired but sharp. "I've been thinking about your sister."Damien went still. He sat down across from his father, without hurrying, and reached for the toast."Which one?""You know which one.""I do." Damien buttered the toast with great care. "What about her?"Victor looked at the letter and then at the door. The housekeeper was somewhere at the back of the house, singing. Isabella was upstairs. Lyra and Karla had left for the studio at seven, in separate cars."I asked Aldrich to look into a few things," Victor said, low. "Qu
She looked at it for a long time.It was the same question he always asked. It was the same question Damien had asked her in the front hall, not three hours before, in almost exactly the same words.She typed slowly, with her thumbs very steady.Lyra: Not since noon. Why do you ask?The three dots appeared.DarkVeil: Because I worry.She read it twice.Then she put the phone face down on the nightstand, and lay back, and stared at the ceiling.Because I worry.Down the hall, in the west wing, a door closed. She heard it, faint and far. She didn't know why she was listening for it.She didn't know why, when she finally turned out the light, she lay there for a long time with her eyes open, counting the seconds between one sound and the next, like someone waiting to find out whether the world was about to change.***Damien had not slept.He lay on top of the covers in the west wing, in the room he'd had since he was twelve, and watched the ceiling go from black to gray. The house was q
It was a small test. Lyra said it lightly, with her eyes on the cup, and she watched Karla's face out of the edge of her vision.Karla didn't flinch. Her smile did not move. But there was a very short pause, a half breath, in which Lyra could see her deciding."I did," Karla said. She lowered her voice and looked, for all the world, like someone confiding a hard truth. "I'm sorry, Lyra. I didn't know how else to explain it. She asked why the paperwork was taking so long, and I said it was complicated. There's been so much, with Mama. The hospital. The photo." She hesitated. "I didn't say anything cruel. Only that there had been family trouble, and we were all trying to heal.""I see.""Did I do something wrong?""No." Lyra smiled. "You couldn't have known she'd read it that way.""I hope not." Karla's eyes were wide and earnest. "I only wanted to protect you. People can be so unkind about private things.""I know.""If I'd known you were reachable, I'd have called you right away."You
"The Mercers. They were good people. Are good people." Karla's eyes filled with fresh tears. "They passed away six months ago. Car accident. That's when I did the DNA test. I had no one left and I just... I needed to know if there was anyone out there who shared my blood."Isabelle made a soft soun
LYRA POV:The plane touched down at JFK with a jolt that matched the anxiety thrumming through Lyra's veins.She'd barely slept during the flight, her mind spinning with questions her mother refused to answer over the phone. Urgent. Family matter. Need you home. The words had echoed through her hea
Her phone screen glowed accusingly in the darkness, her shameful confession staring back at her. With shaking hands, she minimized the app and clutched the phone to her chest, heart hammering so hard she thought it might break through her ribs.Footsteps on the stairs.Light, measured and feminine.
Lyra's fingers trembled as she typed, the blue glow of her phone the only light in her darkened bedroom.LyraNight: I thought about him again today. God, I'm so fucked up.She held her breath, waiting. The three dots appeared almost immediately....her anonymous stranger always responded, no matter







