Fuck.
I keep my face neutral and impassive as if it means nothing at all. Because it means everything. Because if my mother knows what Mercedes did, she can cause real trouble for her. And she will if it will serve her.
I need to think. To get ahead of this. I have fucked this up so royally.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Miriam.” She looks up at me and wipes her eyes and her nose. Snivels like a pig. “You are going to pretend this conversation never happened.”
She’s surprised at this. Nods enthusiastically. “Of course, sir. Of course! Thank you!”
“Don’t be so eager. If my mother or Theron get wind of this, if they find out that I know, I will haul you to a jail cell so fast you won’t know what hit you. Am I clear?”
“But… sir…”
I pick up the paperweight and toss it from one hand to the other as her face turns a shade of gray I didn’t know was possible for a living, breathing human being.
“And according to your file,” I say, opening the single folder on my desk. “It won’t be your first time. You were in prison before. Petty crimes but enough of them. I don’t imagine you liked it much. Inmates are brutal, aren’t they?” I give that a long minute to sink in. “None of the comings and goings of this house will be discussed with my mother or brother. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
I get to my feet, walk around the desk, and loom over her. “And if Mercedes so much as feels you’ve looked at her the wrong way, there will be hell to pay. Am I very fucking clear on that point, Miriam?”
A knock on the door interrupts our conversation. I barely have a moment to be pissed because whoever it is doesn’t wait for me to give the order to enter but keeps knocking and pushes the door open at the same time.
It’s Lois, which surprises me, but it’s the look on her face that has my heart drop to my stomach.
“Get out, Miriam.” I don’t wait for her to move but pick her up by her arm and give her a good shove toward the door. Lois gives her just enough space to clear the room, and I hear her running down the hall.
But I don’t care about Miriam. Because Lois is crying, shaking, too upset to speak.
I take her arms, squeeze.
“What is it? What the hell has happened?”
“She’s gone. She’s just…”
“What?”
“Mercedes. She was feeling sick so I opened the window to give her some fresh air and—”
“The window?” She’s up on the second floor.
Lois nods. “She used sheets.”
I run past her up to Mercedes’s room and crash through the door to find it and the bathroom empty. The window is open, and it wouldn’t be wide enough for me to squeeze out, but Mercedes is smaller than me and much more flexible. But that’s not the worst of it. There, outside, Paolo is gathering up the sheets that she’d tied together, that had ripped from whatever she’d secured them to. The dogs are sniffing and barking, and I hurry back out of her room and down the stairs through the kitchen and out the door.
A memory of something I’d seen at her house crops up in my head. A magazine. Yoga. Aerial yoga.
But fuck. To tie sheets together and use them in an attempt to escape? And go where? The gate is locked. She can’t get off the property, and if she could, then what? She has no money. No transportation.
Although she has friends. Friends outside of IVI.
And she has one on property. An accomplice more likely.
Theron.
“Did she fall?” I ask, my heart pounding against my chest when I reach Paolo.
He holds out the ripped sheet.
“Fuck!” Did my brother come get her? Did he somehow plan her escape? Did Miriam facilitate it? For all I know, he could be running off to elope with her. But she wouldn’t do that to me. She wouldn’t.
At least she survived the fall. There’s no blood. Nothing like that.
I dig my phone out of my pocket and dial my brother. After a few rings, it goes to voicemail, and I hear his arrogant voice commanding me to leave a message.
“Where the fuck is she? Pick up the goddamn phone, you little prick!” I disconnect, then hurry to the stable to get my horse. The grounds are acres large, and the South Cottage is at the farthest end of the property with its own entrance and exit. I need to take the detour to the stables because it will be faster to get there by horse than on foot.
As I mount, I call Theron again, and it again goes to voicemail after a few rings.
“If you touch her, I will fucking kill you.” I disconnect and ride at the speed of light to his cottage, keeping low to Kentucky Lightning’s back as we take the shortest route through the woods.
I hear the dogs somewhere nearby. They must have picked up her scent. But I’m surprised when the sound of their barking grows farther away. When Theron’s cottage comes into view, it’s dark. No lights are on. No smoke from the fireplace. His car is in the driveway, but the house is empty. I know it. He’s not here.