All Chapters of The Vision She Hid: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The next morning the breakfast room had become the kind of place that made silence feel frightening. Sunlight slanted in through the east windows, fat and brazen like it thought it was doing me a favor. It didn’t do any favors to old Marta though. The chandelier looked like it hadn’t seen a proper polish since the Cold War. Dust hung on it like faded glory, and the room smelled faintly of stale air freshener, burnt toast, and dark secrets no one wanted to own.I sat at the round table with my hands in my lap and my eyes on nothing, which suited the mood just fine. The oatmeal in front of me had been dressed up like it was headed to a gala—sliced strawberries, a tasteful sprinkle of cinnamon, and a drizzle of something that probably had a French name and a criminal record for making people fat. I lifted the spoon delicately, aiming somewhere to the left of the bowl before correcting myself. It took years of living in boring darkness to perfect the act. Now days I could blind my way th

The house was quiet. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that walks in after men leave with guns and come back with holes in their bodies. I could feel their absence like a weight in the air, heavier than those brass chandeliers in the hall and just as likely to fall on your head if you weren’t careful.They’d gone. All of them. A full-pack raid on the competition, Rick’s lot, I guessed—one of those revenge things that end with bullet casings and at least one tooth on the floor. That’s in the best case scenario. Even Marta had disappeared somewhere with her brand new mop and a foul mood. That left me alone. Or as alone as a woman pretending to be blind in a house full of cameras focused on her could be.I wasn’t supposed to be walking, not mentioning thinking and snooping around. I was supposed to be sitting quietly in a pretty French toile armchair like a sad little statue. But I was restless. The letter I’d seen in Jennings’ study itched under my skin like a bite I couldn’t scratch

I came back from the garden wet and shivering. Went straight to have a bath, leaving my soaked linen dress on the floor for Marta to pick up. My tongue was itching to ask who was that hooded guy in the garden, and how come she’d referred to me as Anastasia’s girl. And, above all, what were those important choices I suppose to make. Then Marta came in and the words stuck in my throat like a fish bone. She picked my soaked dress and put it in the laundry basket. She moved her sad green eyes at me and said nothing. Her cheeks flushed a little. ‘You were caught in the rain,’ she said almost angrily, under her breath. Then she raised her voice. ‘Where have you been, Ms Leo?’ she asked.I didn’t say a word. Instead, I studied Marta’s tidy clothes, her brown wool sweater and linen apron, her polished leather boots and the white starched collar of her shirt. She didn’t look like she was caught in the rain. She had that kind of class. She moved her graceful head around delicately and studie

My room smelled like lavender soap and rotten luck. It was too clean to trust and far too quiet to sleep. I shut the door behind me with the heel of my court shoe, twisted the lock, and stood still for a moment, listening.The house had its nighttime heartbeat: the whisper of velvet drapes, the low growl of pipes with old grudges, and somewhere deep in the west wing, the faint shuffle of guards who’d been hitmen in the height of their careers.I sat at my desk. I’ve never used it before, but it was nice to have it. It had tooled leather top, a Mac computer and a lonely wireless mouse, still boxed. It had three drawers, none of them trustworthy to keep a flash drive, and a reading lamp that buzzed like an angry bee. I unboxed the mouse. It worked. It even had batteries. I pulled the flash drive from my boot. It was still warm from touching my skin.I plugged it in. The Mac screen lit up like the last page of a murder mystery. And there she was. My mother. Not the murmuring ghost I vi

The casino rose out of the ground like a golden sin someone had lacquered over and called progress. I stepped out of the car attached to Elky’s arm, dressed in black glittery chic like a high market problem no one had guts to deal with. The air smelled of cigarette butts, sweaty desperation, and money being converted into life’s regrets. Somewhere behind the pink marble columns, a broke drunk’s laughter fluttered like a dying bird.To my left, a valet took the car keys with all the reverence of a priest handling important relics. To my right, the big guy’s hand hovered at the small of my back, not yet hurting but warm enough to burn a hole in it.Inside, the lobby was all mahogany wood tables and blindingly white teeth that didn’t grow in their owners’ mouth. Chandeliers the size of small economies dangled from an ornate ceiling. A strings quartet played something classy enough to seduce a diplomat, and sharp enough to convince him he had secrets worth trading.I kept my eyes soft a