ログイン"Listen to me." Isabella came back across the room and knelt in front of the window seat, so their eyes were level. She took Karla's hands. They were cold, and trembling, and thin. "I'm going to tell you what happens now, and I need you to hear all of it."Karla nodded."You will not go to the studio. You'll give your keys to Mr. Aldrich. Your access to every account is gone. You'll stay in this house. You'll see a counselor, someone good, someone I choose, twice a week. And you will sit down with Mr. Aldrich and tell him everything. Every login, every payment, every person you spoke to. Everything.""And if I do?""Then we'll decide the rest together. As a family.""That's all?""That is the only thing I can promise."Karla was silent for a long time. A tear fell onto Isabella's wrist. She did not wipe it away."You're not angry," Karla said at last, wondering."I'm furious," Isabella said. "I'm so angry I can hardly stand. And I am also your mother. I find I can be both."Karla's fa
"I wanted her not to have it."It was said so simply that it took Isabella a moment to hear it."Karla.""You asked me to be honest." Karla lifted her head. Her eyes were very bright. "I'm being honest. I didn't want her to have it. I didn't want her to have anything.""Why?""Why?" A short, dry laugh. "Mama. Do you really need me to say it?""I'd like to hear it."Karla set the book aside. She uncurled her legs and sat forward, with her hands gripping the edge of the cushion, and when she spoke her voice was low and rough, nothing like the soft, sweet voice she used at the dinner table."I was born in this family. I'm the one who should have grown up in this house. I'm the one who should have had the room at the end of the east hall and the window seat and the blanket that you couldn't move. You didn't know. That's what everyone says. Nobody knew. It was an accident. And I believe that. I do. But it doesn't change what happened.""I know.""Do you?" Karla's voice shook. "I grew up in
"You assumed.""Yes.""I see.""I'm sorry. If it was wrong....""It wasn't wrong," Isabella said slowly. "It was only interesting."She looked down at her hands. She looked up. For a moment, Lyra saw something pass across her mother's face, a quick, terrible shadow, and then it was gone."I think," Isabella said, "that we should stop for today."***They filed out of the dining room in silence.Aldrich and Ms. Reyes went first, with their folders. Victor followed, a hand on Isabella's elbow.Karla rose last.She smoothed her skirt. She pushed her chair in. She stood for a moment with her hand on the back of it and looked across the table at Lyra, and for the first time all morning, she didn't smile."That was well done," she said quietly."Thank you.""I didn't think you had it in you.""Neither did I.""No." Karla's eyes were cool and clear and completely unreadable. "I'd be careful, if I were you. Not everyone at this table wants what you want."It was said so softly that Lyra almos
"There was no mistake. Priya checked.""Then perhaps Priya made one.""Karla," Victor said."I'm only saying what I recall, Papa." She pressed her hand to her chest. "I'm not a criminal. I'm a girl who has been trying very hard to fit into this family. And now I'm being accused of stealing from my own sister, with photographs, in front of a lawyer."My own sister.Lyra felt it land. It was said so softly, and it hit exactly where it was meant to. She felt Damien go rigid beside her. Across the table, Isabella flinched as if she'd been touched with a hot iron.She knows, Lyra thought. She knows exactly which words will do the most damage. And she uses them like a surgeon."I'm not accusing you of stealing from me," she said. Her voice came out quiet, and clear, and, to her surprise, not unkind. "I'm telling you what the records show. If there's an explanation, I want to hear it."Karla looked at her."The fifty-two thousand," Lyra said. "In September. To a company called Harbor Lane Co
Nobody moved.Lyra had thought about this moment for three days. She had pictured shouting, or tears, or an elegant, sudden collapse. She had pictured Karla leaping to her feet. She hadn't pictured silence.Karla sat with her hands folded on the table and her head tilted a little to one side. She looked at Lyra with an expression of mild, bewildered concern, as if she'd just been told a friend was ill."I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't understand.""It's in the report," Lyra said."I'm sure it is. But I don't understand why you'd think I...." She stopped and pressed her fingers to her lips. "Lyra. I told you I was bad at this. I told you I'd made a mess. I never said I knew what I was doing.""This isn't a mess.""It must be. It must be a mistake." She turned her wide eyes to Isabella. "Mama, you know I'd never. I only wanted to help. I was trying to keep things steady while Lyra was away.""Karla," Victor said."Papa, I swear....""Let Mr. Aldrich finish."Karla fell silent. She
Victor had moved the meeting out of his study.Lyra saw it the moment she came downstairs on Friday morning. The double doors of the dining room stood open, and the long mahogany table had been cleared of its candelabra. Six chairs were pulled out. At each place lay a leather folder, a pad of paper, and a pen. A pitcher of water stood in the center with seven glasses. Someone had opened the curtains, and thin gray daylight fell across the polished wood."Dad wanted it here," Damien said quietly, beside her. "He said a study is where a man gives orders. A dining room is where a family has a conversation.""He's right.""He usually is. It's irritating." His hand found hers and squeezed. "Ready?""No.""Good. Neither am I."It had become their private joke. She almost smiled.She had slept badly, but she was steady. Nora's report had arrived the evening before, forty-one pages in a heavy cream envelope, notarized on every page, with a one-page summary on top that Nora had underlined in t
Lyra set her phone down with shaking hands and stood up.Her legs felt weak, her body hypersensitive. Every movement of fabric against her skin made her gasp.She walked to the full-length mirror in her room and looked at herself.Her hair was disheveled from the flight and the stress. Her face was
Lyra stared at her phone screen, her heart still racing from the encounter in the hallway.DarkVeil: Welcome home, little one. Did you miss me?Her fingers trembled as she typed back.LyraNight: How did you know I got to New York? I didn't tell you I was flying home.The three dots appeared immedia
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







