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2025-05-16 05:45:58
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The Vision She Hid 20
The hallway didn’t creak—it confessed. Each step down the east wing was a whispered scandal under my bare feet, and the storm outside hadn’t even started telling me badly off. The air was thick with that heavy, electric silence you get right before God flips the switch and the lightning starts sketching death scenes across the sky.I moved slow, careful, trailing my fingers along the wall like a blind girl in a haunted house—because that’s what I was supposed to be. The marble was cold under my feet, slick, and slippery. My silk nightgown whispered more than I intended, and that’s didn’t help my mission.Behind me, the west wing slept like it supposed to. But in the east, the lights didn’t obey the rules. That’s where the shadows had ambition and the ghosts wore suits, I imagined. The corridor narrowed near the old accounting office—Elky’s murder-friendly accounting wing, where ledgers bled and men retired with bullet in the head. I froze.A line of gold leaked out from under the door
The Vision She Hid 19
The rain hit the windows like it was personal. Heavy, wet, full of old grudges. Outside, the sky had the kind of hangover that made you want to light a cigarette just to feel something. Inside, the foyer was all shivering chill and menace. It smelled a lot like waxed pride and dirty money, and the chandelier overhead looked like something a dismantled tsar would’ve pawned in a hurry.I was perched on the edge of the hallway settee, waiting for rain to stop to go for a walk in a garden. Accompanied by Marta, naturally. My cold bluish hands folded neatly in my lap. I kept my face still, eyes unfocused. It was the same trick I used on stage back when I danced for real applause—stillness, silence, steel in satin wrapping.I heard footsteps on polished stone, too confident for staff, too smooth for Jennings. Voices followed—male, familiar. Voices of men that didn’t tip waiters and smiled too wide at funerals.It was his voice. Rick’s. My ex’s. Rick was kind of guy who’d kiss your neck whi
The Vision She Hid 18
Morning came late and unwanted, like an apology from a man who wasn’t sorry. I was still alive and still not traded for someone’s finger in a velvet box. The naive sun crawled in through my tall windows with the confidence of someone who’d never been shot at. I was still nursing my yesterday’s fear and that stale jasmine air, still dressed in yesterday’s silk robe and today’s good mood.Marta knocked at my door. That’s how you know it’s her—just once, no hesitation, like the house belonged to her and the rest of us were just squatting. She didn’t wait for an answer. Just opened the door and busted in.“You have surprise waiting for you,” she said, her voice flat as day-old soda.“Surprise?” I blinked, pretending to orient toward her voice. “What kind of surprise? Electroshock or just the emotional version of electric chair?”“Don’t be so acidy, madame. You will like it,” she said. “It is something gentle. The ballroom has been fitted for you.”Ballroom. Nothing gentle ever happened
The Vision She Hid 17
It was one of those mornings where the sun looked guilty—bright, but hiding something. The kind of day where even the birds kept their chirping discreet, like they’d seen the morning headlines and decided to keep their beaks shut.I was sitting in the drawing room, listening to all that silence. The fire cracked like a nervous liar and the scent of pine logs fought an uphill battle against the stench of my fear. My head was preoccupied with implications of me discovering that letter in big guy’s study. I found myself on the wrong side of the wrong guy. That likely meant feeding poor old me to the wolves. Of course, he might have done so anyway. Elky Jennings was in the library next door. I heard the dull thump of expensive shoes pacing across the polished floor.Then the butler walked into the drawing room. He was the color of old parchment and had the emotional range of a parking meter. He carried a small, square box, black velvet and red ribbon, the kind of thing that said “I hate y
The Vision She Hid 16
I recognized the heavy soft steps of Elky Jennings. For a burning moment I thought the secret room was his shrine devoted to Celeste Christofides. I couldn’t even think of whatever feelings he had to her. But he passed the hidden entrance, his steps didn’t slow down as if he didn’t know of its existence. It occurred to me that big Elky just headed to the wine cellar to fetch a bottle of decent Bordeaux. The cellar was at the opposite side of the wing, but I did enough foolish things for one evening. It was time to sneak out. The hallway stretched out ahead of me like a loaded gun—quiet, polished, and about to spell disaster. That gloomy corridor had secrets hung on the wallpaper like mold, and even the chandeliers looked like they’d seen things Marta couldn’t scrub off with brass polish.I walked slowly, the blind girl act in full swing—hands out, searching the air like it played hide and seek with me. The velvet slippers someone had dropped at my door whispered over the marble, soft
The Vision She Hid 15
The night had one of those perfumes you couldn’t bottle without setting the lab on fire—honeysuckle and gun oil, smoke of fireplace from a distant memory, and that heavy, private scent of men who make decisions no enemy survives.I wandered out onto the terrace like a ghost who forgot what she was haunting, hand trailing along the edge of the doorway, eyes soft and vacant. The kind of blind that made people lean in just a little too close, convinced they were safe from being seen.He was standing by the balustrade, back turned to the world, which was probably lucky for the world. One hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette. The smoke curled around him like an old dog on a sofa. His silhouette carved into the moonlight—smooth clean lines but with perfectly brutal edges. Elky Jennings had a kind of posture that made one think of executioners and saints, and wonder which side of the aisle he preferred to stand on.“You sleep like a soldier,” I said softly, letting my voice rust
The Vision She Hid 14
We hosted a cocktail party that evening. The grand salon was dipped in candlelight and expensive booze. It was a huge space with a lot of stucco, Regency style, with lots of crystal chandeliers in heavily molded ceiling and lavish date palms in every corner. The entrance was down the marble steps from my bedroom, through an arched doorway in-between plaster columns.A doorman offered me a glass of Champaign at the door and I went in supported by Marta. The salon was not quite as big as a football pitch, but not far off. It was floored with a turquoise blue and pink Aubusson carpet. I walked across it to the grand piano and put an elbow on it and was stared at by an Italian pianist with one of those wild hairdos that proper musicians ought to have. He wasn’t yet playing anything worth listening to, just toyed with notes and looked past my shoulder at a crystal punch bowl big enough to bath a polar bear.A haze of cigar smoke curled above the dark cherry velvet drapes for Marta to deal
The Vision She Hid 13
The bizarre words of the nurse in my mother’s hideaway hit me like a splash of cold water. But I didn’t cry. I didn’t even blink. I slipped into the corridor like a ghost who’d accidentally walked into the room of its own death. My legs carried me away without asking where to go. The corridor stretched ahead like the throat of an ancient beast, greeting me with fragments of faded damask wallpaper and timeworn carpet. It smelt faintly of cold stone, damp, buried secrets, and an expensive scent candle someone had used to mask the foul notes. I sobbed and slipped back into it like a shadow on silk. Frankly, I was scared. I didn’t dare breathe too loud. My shoes had been left behind the wardrobe in that strange room, and my bare feet were cold and silent, the kind of silent that feels dangerously illegal. The noise of the laundry downstairs buzzed like a lullaby for the unsuspecting. But in the East wing sounds had gloomy meaning. The time here moved slower, denser, in disturbing kind of
The Vision She Hid 12
The next morning my mind was preoccupied with the way big guy smiled when he spotted me in the accounting office the other day. It was genuine, human smile of a man who was happy to see someone. I’ve never seen him wearing that smile before. He kind of made my day, if the concept can be applied to a guy like Elky Jennings. It was around six in the morning, and the house was still and quiet. It was the kind of silence that made you ears ring. Not church quiet, not dead-of-night, but the kind of quiet worth listening to. There were no footsteps, no chatter. Not even the clink of glassware being washed carelessly by someone paid too much to care. It felt like the house had swallowed its voice. Big Jennings and his pack were off gnawing at something that needed their sharp teeth, and the air had gone still the moment his car rolled down the gravel. I sat in the glassy drawing room, or maybe it was the solarium—this house had rooms for every mood, and I’d lost track somewhere between
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