Chapter 5: House Rules

Adrian Blackwood had laminated the rules.

Vanessa stared at the sheet he'd handed her outside the east wing suite. Six numbered lines. Clean font. Glossy finish.

"You laminated it?"

"Read it."

"Who laminates a list?"

"Someone who figures it's going to get thrown at a wall."

HOUSE RULES

.No leaving the east wing.

.No phone calls without supervision.

.No weapons.

.No unapproved visitors.

.No sneaking.

.No stealing from Adrian Blackwood.

"Rule three," Vanessa said, keeping her face blank. "Where'd that come from?"

His eyes dropped to her left sleeve. Then came back up. "Just a rule."

"And six? Seriously?"

"I added it in the car."

"You wrote me my own rule. Aw."

"Don't push it." He nodded at the door across the hall. "I'm right there. I keep it open. I don't sleep much."

"Is that supposed to scare me?"

"It's just a fact." He turned to go. "Night, Trouble."

His door swung shut. Not all the way. Just enough to make a point.

Vanessa waited until his footsteps faded. Then she slid two fingers into her right sleeve and pulled out a slim white keycard.

She'd lifted it when he leaned in to tap the page. The man could defuse a bomb, but he never checked his pockets after handing someone paperwork.

"Rule six," she whispered. "Right."

By 11:52 p.m., she had broken four of the six rules and was working on the fifth.

The east wing corridor had one guard, a thick-necked man at the far end reading a paperback like he'd rather be anywhere else. Sneaking past him was impossible.

Getting carried past him was another story.

A laundry cart squeaked around the corner, pushed by a small, gray-haired woman in an apron. Vanessa knew that apron. She had hidden stolen cookies in its pockets when she was seven.

"Rosa," she hissed. "Rosa, it's me."

Rosa jumped, squinted, then pressed a hand to her chest. "Vanessa? Ay, you scared me half to death. You've been home five hours and you're already sneaking around?"

"I need to get past him. Please."

"Your father will have my head."

"I know. I know. Please."

Rosa muttered something under her breath, glanced down the hall, and lifted the linens off the bottom shelf. "Get in. And don't sneeze."

Vanessa climbed in. It smelled like lavender and starch. Rosa piled sheets on top, and the cart started to roll.

The wheels squeaked right past the paperback man. He glanced up, nodded at Rosa, and went back to his book.

Two corners later, Vanessa whispered from under the sheets. "Rosa? Have you seen Miriam?"

Rosa didn't answer right away.

"Not in nine days," she said finally, so quietly Vanessa almost missed it. "I make her breakfast every morning. It goes back untouched. I keep making it anyway." Her hands tightened on the cart. "Third floor. Second door on the left. But I didn't tell you that."

"Tell me what?"

"Exactly."

Miriam's room was too clean.

That was the first thing Vanessa noticed as she slipped inside and shut the door. Her little sister had always lived in organized chaos: books on the floor, mugs on every surface, a whiteboard covered in equations.

Now the bed was made with hospital corners. The floor was bare. The only thing left on the desk was one mug of tea, cold, with the teabag still floating in it.

The whiteboard had been wiped. Not erased. Scrubbed, in hard, angry streaks.

But in the top corner, where a rushed hand had missed, a faint line of green marker remained.

Sublevel 3, 2:14 a.m. Who badged in?

Vanessa's pulse kicked.

She tried the desk. The second drawer had fresh scratches around the lock, like someone had forced it with something thin. It was empty.

Then she opened the closet, and her stomach dropped.

Miriam's lab badge hung on a hook.

Miriam never left her badge. She slept with it. She had once gone to the airport with it around her neck, "just in case."

"You didn't go on any assignment," Vanessa whispered. "You never left."

The doorknob turned.

She had two seconds. She threw herself into the closet, pulled the door shut and held her breath among Miriam's cardigans.

Footsteps. Slow. Careful.

Through the slats, she saw a tall shadow in a dark suit.

Adrian.

He didn't turn on the light. He just stood in the middle of the room, looking at the bed, at the scrubbed whiteboard, at the empty desk. He was quiet for a long time.

"Nine days," he said, almost to himself. "Where the hell are you, Miriam?"

It wasn't the voice from the car. It was tired. Worried.

Vanessa's chest did something strange.

Then, without turning around, he said, "You can come out."

She didn't move.

"I can hear you breathing."

"Ugh." She shoved the closet door open. "How long have you known?"

"Since you left your room. I followed you."

"And you didn't stop me?"

"You'd just do it again."

"So you're not telling my dad?"

"Not yet." He held out his hand for the keycard. She gave it to him. He looked at it for a second, then held it back out. "Keep it."

"That's rule six."

"I know what it is."

He turned to the whiteboard, his jaw tight. "Your father says she's on assignment. The lab says she never signed anything out. The staff says she's been gone nine days."

"So somebody's lying."

"Yeah." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And I don't know who."

The silence stretched between them, thick and strange. It hit her that this was the first real conversation they'd ever had.

"Five minutes," he said. "Then I was never here."

"Why are you helping me?"

He stopped at the door, one hand on the frame. He didn't turn around.

"She's my friend too."

Then he was gone, and the door stayed open behind him.

Vanessa went through the room again. Under the mattress. Behind the mirror. Inside the lampshade. Nothing.

She was on her knees checking the underside of the desk when something rang.

She nearly hit her head.

An old cream-colored landline sat in the corner of the desk. Nobody used those anymore. It rang again, loud in the empty room.

And again.

Adrian's footsteps were long gone.

She picked it up. "Hello?"

Static. Then a shaky breath.

"Van?"

Her heart stopped. "Miriam?"

"Don't say my name. Don't say anything, just listen." The whisper was fast, shaking, so small she almost didn't recognize it. "Please."

Vanessa gripped the receiver until her knuckles went white.

"Don't trust anyone in that house. Anyone. Okay? Anyone."

Click.

The line went dead.

Vanessa stood there with the receiver against her ear and the dial tone humming in her skull. Slowly, she turned toward the open door where Adrian had just been standing.

Anyone.

That included him.