18. Clara

CHAPTER 18

Clara

The first thing I do with my newfound freedom is find Raleigh's room. When I knock on her door, there's a lot of shuffling and thumping from within, like she's rolled off the bed and can't get out of her sheets. The door opens on her croaking,

"I swear to god, Tommy, if you're here for another interrogation-"

Her bleary eyes blink when she realizes she's not berating her brother. "Oh- Clara?"

She crosses her arms over her stomach and leans against the doorframe, glancing up and down the hallway behind me. Just like the night of the fire, I'm astonished by her casual beauty. She's in rumpled pajamas and her dyed black curls are a mess, but if she told me she spent an hour perfecting this look, I'd believe her.

"What's going on? Did you break out?" she asks.

"No- um, Thomas is letting me walk around," I admit.

When we got back from the boutique yesterday and he brought me back to my room, there was another moment when I thought he might stay, and I had been tempted to ask. But instead he told me that since we were allies now, he could stand to show me a bit more courtesy. I was free to roam the house, but for security reasons, I wasn't allowed to leave the estate without him at my side.

It's the closest I think I'll get to an apology for all his false accusations, but I'm so sick of staring at the walls of my room that I'll take what I can get.

"Oh," is Raleigh's entire response, and I blink. She doesn't sound all that happy about my newfound freedom. Then again, the last few times we've crossed paths haven't exactly been a good time. I try to push that aside, but my stomach still flips with nerves.

"Well- first off, I wanted to give this back to you," I say, holding up her daypack.

Raleigh frowns down at it. I wonder if I've insulted her by returning something she put together for me. But now that I've decided to work with Thomas, I can hardly keep a bag ready like I'm going to run away again.

"You should hang onto it," Raleigh says, keeping her arms crossed. "Just in case you get another opening. After last time, I don't think I'll be able to help you again. Tommy and Iris are watching me like suspicious hens."

I hate that I've brought so much down on her. I want to apologize, but she's already told me not to say sorry. Instead, I let her bag fall back to my side. "Can we get some breakfast together?" I ask uncertainly. "It'd be nice to talk without being on the run."

Raleigh's frown doesn't fade, but she nods. "I can ask Eaves to order us something. Let me get dressed, kay? We'll eat out back."

Once, we wouldn't have blushed at changing in front of each other. As kids, we slept in each other's beds more often than not, even bathed together. But that innocent intimacy is lost now. Raleigh closes her door in my face, and I make my way down to the enormous patio behind the house alone.

It takes nearly an hour for Raleigh to appear, but when she does, she's dressed for a day on the town. And she's not alone. Iris is at her shoulder, three enormous bags of takeout in her hands. Thomas's right hand woman sets the bags on one of the round patio tables, then retreats to a rattan seat nearby with a tablet. I realize with a little trepidation that she's here to keep an eye on me and Raleigh. No doubt she'll report everything we say back to Thomas.

Raleigh notices me watching Iris and rolls her eyes for me. "Babysitting's not below her pay grade, I guess," she says, loud enough for Iris to definitely hear.

I wince, but Iris only holds up her middle finger, not even looking up from her tablet. Raleigh sticks her tongue out in return, then throws herself into a seat beside me and starts unloading styrofoam cartons of food from the bags.

There's quite a spread. Thick slices of toast slathered in cream cheese and topped with salmon, fruit tarts dripping with glaze, quiches stuffed with spinach and red peppers. Thomas's housekeeper, Mr. Eaves, who seems to have aged fifty years in the last ten, pours us both fresh coffee and leaves a tray of sugar and cream, which Raleigh immediately pounces on. I try to dig into the food with equal enthusiasm, but my stomach is still in knots.

Raleigh lost her house trying to help me, and now she's being watched in her brother's home. From what she said when she opened the door to her room, it sounds like she and Thomas have already fought about it at least once. And somehow I have to tell her that I've changed my mind. That I'm going to take a stand against my uncle after all.

I realize for the first time that I don't know how to talk to my best friend anymore. We're ten years removed from being attached at the hip and synced up down to our souls. I never would've hesitated to tell her what's on my mind when we were kids. Now I struggle to string words together at all in front of her.

I push a bit of quiche around my plate until I feel Raleigh's eyes on me. When I look up, she's halfway through a fruit tart and frowning suspiciously at me. I put on my most apologetic smile.

"So I… I've been talking to Thomas," I start, and Raleigh snorts.

"Not a whole lot else to do when you're locked up in this place," she says.

I expect Iris to say something about Raleigh's open derision for the estate, or Thomas, or both. But Iris's expression doesn't so much as twitch.

"I guess," I hedge. "But, well I mean, we've come to an… agreement."

Raleigh's eyes narrow with suspicion. "What agreement?"

I lick my lips. "Well… he told me that he planned to destroy my uncle's businesses, and that if Uncle can't afford to chase me anymore, I'll actually be able to live the life I want to live. So… I'm going to try to help him."

My mind shies away from the most direct confession- I agreed to help Thomas kill my uncle - because I still can't accept that it has to end that way. We can ruin his businesses but leave him alive. We can get him imprisoned on one charge or another, if Thomas is making the alliances he's hinted at. This doesn't have to end in death, I lie to myself over and over.

Raleigh's face has gone stony. I feel Iris's attention on me too, but I don't dare look away from my friend.

"You're kidding me, right?" she asks. "After everything you said the other night- about not wanting to live the mafia life anymore- you're just going along with Thomas's plans?" I open my mouth to explain, but she barrels on. "He said he was trying to get you involved, but I didn't think you'd actually go through with it." Her eyes, so like her brother's, pin me to my chair. "People are going to die, Clara. You realize that, right? And you're suddenly fine with being responsible?"

"It doesn't have to be like that," I say desperately, even though she's saying aloud what I've been terrified of for two days. "So long as he doesn't have the assets to use on tracking me down-"

"Do you hear how naive you sound?" Raleigh demands. "There's no fighting the role you were born into. You either accept it or you run. Do you not even care about being an artist anymore?"

"Of course I do," I insist, stunned by the vitriol in her tone. "That's why I'm doing this! I can't be free of my uncle if I just run. That was naive to think. But if I play the game for just a little while, I don't have to run ever again."

Raleigh barks a laugh. "Sure. That's realistic."

"Raleigh-"

She shoves back from the table, abandoning her half full plate. "You know what? Do what you want. Give up on all your plans- at least you had plans, right? That counts for something. At least I tried to move out on my own, even though I didn't get very far, right?"

I flinch. If it weren't for me, she'd still be living in her own house, whether Thomas was keeping a close eye on it or not. But no, maybe what she's truly upset about is the inherent helplessness of our lives, how pathetic it is that we keep trying to gain our own autonomy and keep losing it. Maybe I'm just the only one she thinks will listen to this rage bubbling inside her.

My eyes sting with tears. "Raleigh," I try again, my voice trembling. But she's already storming back toward the house.