Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 121 - Chapitre 130

EvelynTwo days.I hadn’t touched anything the chef left outside my door. The trays came in the morning and evening and went back untouched and after the second time she stopped knocking and just left them on the floor and collected them an hour later without a word.It wasn’t a decision exactly. Eating just required a kind of engagement with the day that I couldn’t locate. Every time I sat near food my mind went straight to Clara and whether she’d eaten, whether Nathan was sleeping properly, whether either of them had asked about me or whether Alfred had made that unnecessary by giving them a version of events that made asking feel pointless.That was the thing sitting heaviest. Not the house, not the phones, not even Alfred. The silence from my own children. Two days and nothing. No attempt, no message passed through anyone, nothing that told me they were thinking about me at all.I heard Alfred’s voice downstairs on the morning of the third day, the particular brisk tone he used wh

Evelyn I was still on the couch when she walked in. She took one look at my face and set the tray down on the table without saying anything about the food I hadn’t touched since morning. Stood there with her hands clasped in front of her and looked at me the way people look at something broken that they don’t know how to pick up without cutting themselves. “I need a favour,” I said. She looked at the door. Then back at me. “I need a phone. Any phone. Even for twenty minutes.” I sat up and wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I need to hear my children’s voices. That’s all. I just need to know they’re okay and they need to know I’m okay and that’s it, twenty minutes and you can take it back.” She was quiet long enough that I started preparing myself for no. Her eyes went to the door again and she took one small step closer to me and dropped her voice. “They check us every time. Going out, coming in, bags, pockets, both ways without fail. Mr. Cole gave those instruction

Evelyn The TV woke me up. Not mine. The one in the guest room down the hall that nobody used, blaring through the wall loud enough that I sat up in bed disoriented and grabbed the duvet and just listened. A news anchor’s voice, fast and urgent the way they only got when something had actually broken and they were scrambling to keep up with it. I got up and went to the door and opened it. The housekeeper was standing in the hall outside the guest room with both hands pressed over her mouth. I pushed the door open. The screen was filled with documents. Actual scanned documents, financial records, account numbers, transfer histories, all of it laid out in a split screen beside a live aerial shot of Alfred’s campaign headquarters building downtown where news vans were already stacked three deep on the street outside. The anchor’s voice cut clear through everything. “files obtained by this station appear to show a direct financial link between gubernatorial candidate Alfred Cole’s

Evelyn Something was coming from the kitchen. I sat up on the couch and just listened. I’d told everyone not to come in today. The chef, the housekeeper, all of them. I needed the house empty. One morning without someone else’s presence to manage. But there were sounds from the kitchen. A pan on heat. Something sizzling. The knock of a spoon against a pot. Someone who knew what they were doing, not hunting through cabinets, not fumbling, just moving through the space with the ease of someone already in the middle of something. I got up and went to the kitchen doorway. Theo was at the stove with his back to me, sleeves pushed up past his elbows. He’d already set the table. Plates, cutlery, a glass of juice at one setting. A covered dish resting on the counter. Two things still going on the stove. He turned and saw me and his face opened up completely. “Sit down,” he said. “Theo…” “Sit.” He crossed to the table and pulled the chair out and stood there waiting. I came to it an

Evelyn Theo was already at the front door before I said anything. “Stay here.” He was outside before I could respond. I watched from the window as he walked down to the gate and crossed the road toward the parked car. He got within ten meters of it and the engine turned over and it pulled out and drove away before he got anywhere near it. He stood in the road and watched it go then turned and came back inside. “Plates?” “Couldn’t get close enough.” He closed the door and looked at me. “Could be a reporter. Could be a neighbor. Someone who pulled over.” “Or someone Alfred sent.” “He has an ankle monitor. They track his location.” “He has people.” I turned from the window. “He’s always had people and he’s been using them against me for years. He found out my old address somehow and sat outside for two hours and we never figured out how he knew.” Theo came across the room and put both arms around me and I let my forehead drop to his chest and he held on, one hand at my back an