Fourteen

Ariana

I moved before I thought.

He was already halfway down the hall, walking toward those dark doors like he had all the time in the world, and something in me snapped — the same thing that had made me follow him into that room, the same thing that had kept me alive this long. I wasn't going to let him disappear again.

I took two steps.

A hand closed around my arm and yanked me back.

"We're not done here."

Skylark.

I tried to pull free. Her grip tightened. Down the hall, the man reached the doors, pushed one open, and stepped through. The door swung shut behind him without a sound.

He was gone.

"Let go of me."

Skylark didn't let go. Her eyes were on mine, bright and steady. She'd seen him too. She'd seen me chase him. Whatever calculation had been running behind her face all night, it had just finished.

"Who was that?" she said.

"I don't know."

"You don't know." She pulled me closer. "You don't know, and yet you were running after him like he owed you money."

"Let go."

Her free hand moved.

I didn't see it coming. She reached past me — quick, practiced — and my phone was out of my hand before I understood what had happened. She stepped back and started swiping.

"Give that back."

She didn't look up. "Let's see who you've really been talking to."

I lunged for it.

She stepped back — right into the small table against the wall. A glass tipped. Red wine arced through the air and hit me across the chest, cold and sudden, soaking into the front of my dress.

I gasped. She didn't even flinch. She just kept swiping.

"Skylark—"

"What's your passcode?"

"It's my phone—"

"What's your passcode?"

The corridor door opened behind us.

"What are you doing?"

Jack.

He stood in the doorway, eyes moving from me — wine down the front of my dress, hair starting to stick to my face — to Skylark, my phone in her hand, thumb still hovering over the screen.

Skylark didn't move.

"Give it back," Jack said.

His voice was quiet. That was the worst part. He didn't raise it. He didn't step forward. He just stood there, and he said it like he was telling her what time it was.

Skylark looked at him.

Then at the phone.

Then at me.

She held it out. Jack took it. He looked at the screen for a second — long enough to see what she'd been doing — then he put it in his pocket.

"Go home," he said.

Skylark straightened her dress. She looked at me one last time, and that same small smile came back.

"I'll see you soon," she said.

She walked past him. Out of the corridor. Gone.

Jack stayed in the doorway.

I stood there, wine dripping off my dress onto the floor, and I couldn't tell if he was looking at me or through me.

"You're a mess," he said.

"I know."

"Go clean up."

I nodded. I turned. I started walking toward my room.

I could feel his eyes on me the whole way.

__

JACK 

I waited until she was out of sight.

Then I pulled out my phone.

John answered on the second ring.

"Boss."

"Skylark."

A pause.

"What about her?"

"She's leaving. Follow her. Don't let her see you. I want to know where she goes, who she calls, who she meets. Everything."

Another pause.

"And if she goes home?"

"Then watch her house."

"Understood."

I ended the call.

The corridor was quiet. Somewhere behind me, the party was still going — music bleeding through the walls, laughter, the sound of glasses. Normal sounds. Ordinary sounds.

I put the phone back in my pocket.

Footsteps.

I turned.

D.D. was walking toward me from the east wing. Slow. Unhurried. His jacket was still straight, his cuffs still even, like he'd spent the last twenty minutes doing nothing at all.

"No sign of him," he said.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. Not in the east wing, not in the staff quarters, not in the garden." He stopped in front of me. "Whoever he is, he knows this house."

I didn't answer.

D.D. glanced past me — toward the corridor Ariana had disappeared down.

"I saw her," he said.

"Saw her where?"

"Here. With Skylark." His eyes came back to me. "She looked shaken."

I looked at him.

I didn't say anything. I just looked — the way I look at people when I'm deciding something. The way I look at people when I'm filing them away.

D.D. didn't look away. He never did.

"You saw her in the hallway," I said. "Before."

"I did."

"With you."

"With me."

The words sat between us.

I kept my eyes on his. He kept his on mine. Neither of us moved.

Then I said it.

"What do you know about her?"

D.D. tilted his head. Just slightly. Just enough.

"About Ariana?"

"You heard me."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he adjusted his cuff — slow, deliberate, the way he did everything — and looked at me the way he'd looked at me when he first walked into the room tonight. Like he already knew the answer and was waiting for me to catch up.

"She's your wife," he said. "That's what I know."

"That's not what I asked."

"No." He nodded slowly. "It's not."

He turned and walked toward the main hall. He didn't look back. He didn't need to.

I stood there in the empty corridor for a long time after he was gone.

Then I pulled out my phone again.

"John."

"Boss."

"Forget Skylark. Put someone on D.D.”