Chapter 4 — Blackwood House

The first thing Elena saw was the lake.

Not the house, though God knew the house was impossible to miss. It rose at the end of the drive like something from another life, all pale stone, tall windows and old money, with warm light spilling across the rain-dark steps. It should have been beautiful. It probably was beautiful.

But Elena could only look past it.

At the water.

Black, still, waiting.

Adrian’s phone lay face down on the leather seat between them, but the message was already inside her head.

Ask your new wife if she can swim. Clara couldn’t.

The car stopped.

No one moved.

The driver sat too straight in the front, hands fixed on the wheel like he had suddenly forgotten what hands were for. Adrian stared ahead, his jaw so tight Elena could see the muscle jumping near his cheek.

She looked at him. “Who sent that?”

“No one.”

“Don’t do that.”

His eyes shifted to hers.

Outside, rain hit the windows softly, turning the world into blurred gold and black. Inside the car, it was too warm. Too quiet. His coat was still around her shoulders, heavy with the smell of rain and him, and she hated how safe it felt when nothing about this was safe.

“Elena,” he said.

“No.” She pulled the coat tighter, mostly to stop her hands shaking. “You don’t get to use my name like that and then give me nothing. That message was about me. About her. About the lake right outside your house.”

His eyes flicked, almost against his will, towards the dark water.

There it was again.

Fear.

Not much. Adrian Blackwood didn’t look like a man who allowed fear to sit on his face for long. But Elena caught it before he buried it.

“Clara went missing two years ago,” he said at last.

“You said that.”

“She was last seen here.”

Elena’s stomach turned.

The rain seemed louder now.

“At the lake?” she whispered.

Adrian said nothing.

That was worse.

She reached for the door handle.

His hand came down over hers. Not hard. Not trapping her. Just enough to stop her leaving too quickly.

“Don’t run out into the rain.”

She stared at his hand on hers. Long fingers. Warm skin. A faint scar across one knuckle. It should have made her angry. It did, somewhere. But beneath the anger came something much more inconvenient, something that tightened low in her stomach when he leaned closer.

“Let go,” she said, but her voice was not as steady as she wanted.

His eyes dropped to her mouth.

Only for a second.

It was enough.

He let go slowly, like he had to remind himself to do it.

“I didn’t hurt her,” he said.

Elena looked up. “Then why does everyone speak like you did?”

A bitter smile touched his mouth. “Because people enjoy a monster when they’ve already picked one.”

The driver opened Adrian’s door then, and cold air rushed into the car. The moment split apart.

Adrian stepped out first. Rain caught in his hair and darkened his white shirt at the shoulders. He came around to Elena’s side and opened her door himself.

She almost laughed at the madness of it. A billionaire holding the door for a waitress he had bought for a year, outside a mansion where his last fiancée had vanished.

Elena climbed out.

Her shoes sank slightly into the wet gravel. She looked down at herself and felt suddenly ridiculous. Damp uniform. Apron still tied. Hair coming loose around her face. Adrian’s coat hanging off her like a child playing dress-up.

The front doors opened before they reached the steps.

An older woman stood there, silver hair pinned tight, black dress neat as a funeral. Her eyes went straight to Elena, not rudely, but completely. As if she was already measuring how much trouble had just walked in.

“Mr Blackwood,” she said. “Your grandfather is waiting.”

Adrian’s face closed. “Tell him to wait longer.”

“He said now.”

“Then he can learn patience.”

The woman’s mouth pressed flat. “He knows she signed.”

Elena stopped. “How?”

Neither of them answered.

That was becoming a habit in this house, and she already hated it.

Adrian placed his hand at the small of her back, guiding her forward. The touch was light, barely there, but heat moved through her anyway, sharp and unwanted. He felt it. She knew he did, because his hand stilled for half a breath before he pulled it away.

The older woman noticed too.

Of course she did.

Inside, Blackwood House smelled of polished wood, lilies and old secrets. The entrance hall was huge, with a staircase curving up into shadow and portraits watching from the walls. Men with hard eyes. Women with pearls at their throats. Generations of people who looked like they had been born knowing how to take.

Elena stepped over the threshold and felt the door close behind her.

The sound was soft.

Final.

Then somewhere above them, a floorboard creaked.

All three of them looked up.

At the top of the staircase, a dark hallway stretched left. One door stood open at the end of it. The room beyond was unlit, but in the black glass of its window, Elena saw a reflection.

A woman in white.

Standing behind her.

Elena spun round.

There was no one there.

Adrian moved fast, catching her by the waist before she stumbled. His body came against hers for one hot, breathless second, his hand firm at her side, his chest hard beneath her palm.

“Elena,” he said, low and urgent. “What did you see?”

She looked past him to the staircase.

The older woman had gone pale.

From the dark hallway above, a phone began to ring.