CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next week proceeds without major incident. I manage to sleep through the night without my wanderlust dragging me through the house, and as far as I know, I am plagued by no more nightmares of my sister. The children respond beautifully to their return to school, and while they're not exactly happy at the prospect of catching up on all their homework, having something to do that takes their mind off of Johnathan's death is healing.

Elena's visits have stopped, and from brief conversations with Cecilia, I glean that the board did indeed support her, and Elena is no longer a threat, at least for the moment. Doctor Harrow calls twice, but they are phone calls, thank God, and directed to Cecilia, not me.

I feel my anxiety decrease considerably. Theresa and I see each other occasionally, but she always pales and rushes off hurriedly. That proves to me that she is more afraid of me than I am of her. Javier does scold me for taking the car, but it's a light scolding, and I get the sense he's impressed with my boldness more than he's angry. Paolo begins to join Cecilia and I for coffee, and while I enjoy the chance to talk more with him, it's the change in Cecilia that really catches my eye.

She dresses differently now. She's never dressed poorly, but prior to this, she's always dressed plainly. She's worn sneakers and jeans or occasionally modest professional dresses. Her hair is either left down or tied in a ponytail and I didn't see any makeup on her face for the first week I was here.

But in the past few days, it's as though she's become a different woman. Or more likely, the woman she always was returns, and I have a chance to see her for the first time.

She wears skirts now, not immodest by any stretch of the imagination, but far from plain. The long-sleeved t-shirts are replaced by handsome blouses that, while again not immodest, are far more feminine and complement her figure. Her hair is teased into an attractive style, and she wears a tasteful amount of makeup. Gone are the sneakers in favor of pumps and boots, and one evening, she dons nylon stockings and a pair of jet-black heels underneath the shortest skirt I've seen her wear so far.

She goes out that evening, and while I don't ask what she's doing, it's difficult to imagine she's doing anything other than meeting a man. It's been two months since Johnathan's death. While that's soon, I wouldn't fault a still-young woman for choosing to seek some casual company, but with her children still mourning their father's loss?

The confusing part is that I like her this way. She's bright and cheerful and funny, a joy to be around, frankly. I just can't get past the sneer I see on her face when she thinks of Johnathan and the joy she expresses now.

This isn't damning in and of itself. She could very well have felt like that bird in a gilded cage. Many wives of the wealthy feel this way. Many wives of any man feel this way, and I'm sure quite a few husbands do as well. You marry someone you think you love and perhaps do love. Then time passes, and the weight of eternity stretches before you. Your love fades, and maybe you still hold affection for your partner, but you understand finally how much you sacrifice by remaining with them. Everything is a compromise, every dream modified to include this person, and soon you realize that the life you once wanted will never be yours.

It's human nature to want to escape such a union. It's even human nature to fantasize that by some accident, that person you're tethered to will disappear somehow, and you'll be free to pursue a life of your own. Most people will never and would never act on such a fantasy. Many people will come to terms with their life as it is and find joy or at least contentment in their current circumstances.

But others will kill their spouses and create their own freedom. I hate that I can't tell which one of those people Cecilia is.

My chance to discover the truth comes the following Monday, my seventeenth day with the family. Cecilia announces over coffee that she will be away for the day. She will drop the children off at school but asks that I pick them up with Javier. I agree, of course, and when they leave, I take advantage of their absence and, for the first time, travel to the top floor of the central building of the house.

This is the riskiest thing I've done since I've been here. No doubt Theresa will jump at the chance to inform Cecilia of my invasion of her privacy. I'm gambling that her own fear of exposure will overcome her hatred of me. I suppose we'll see.

Despite the nobility of my purpose, I feel a touch of guilt when I enter Cecilia's bedroom. This is the private sanctum of the lady of the house, and while I'm not accustomed to a life of service, I was raised with a solid upbringing in manners and propriety.

Of course, that upbringing did exactly nothing for my family.

The room is massive. I'm fairly certain it's larger than my entire apartment in the city. The bed is a custom design, larger than a king, and topped with gold-embroidered silk sheets and comforters. The pillows alone are as thick as the mattress in my room, and the headboard is finished with opulent red calf-leather.

The bedframe is of richly oiled dark mahogany, as are the armoire, the chest of drawers, the twin dressers and nightstands, and the entertainment center. This last sports an obscenely massive tv nearly as large as that in the family room. What on Earth can a single family want with a full-size movie theater and a television in every room?

I shake my head. I suppose I'm just old.

The room is floored with granite tile rather than carpet. I find that odd until I realize the tile is heated. I don't go into the bathroom, but from the outside, I can see that the granite tile extends throughout, and there's a hot tub nearly the size of a swimming pool in place of an ordinary bath.

Oh, to be rich.

Well, I'm not here to envy the lifestyles of billionaires. I'm here to find… something.

I purse my lips. The problem is that I have no idea what I'm looking for. I'll know it when I see it, but without knowing what "it" is, I don't know where to start searching.

I decide to start with the nightstands. In my experience, it is women who usually take advantage of the small drawers afforded by these pieces of furniture, but Johnathan appears to have been in the habit of writing down his thoughts, so perhaps the habit is reversed in the Ashford's case.

The nightstands reveal nothing, however. I find a pair of red lace panties in Cecilia's size that cause me to blush and momentarily regret my choice to snoop, but nothing naughtier than that.

Though I fear what naughty things I'll find in the dressers, I start there next. They contain only clothes, and while many of them are far from chaste, none are as slinky as the red lace panties I find in her nightstand.

This will be a rather disappointing search if I find nothing more revealing than underwear.

The chest of drawers comes next, and I'm not surprised to find it empty. I guess this was where Johnathan kept his clothes. I check for scraps of paper or hidden compartments and even get on my hands and knees to look under the furniture, but I see nothing.

The armoire is next. Here, I find some utterly stunning dresses and in the drawers, jewelry that makes what Theresa has stolen look like second-rate fakes bought in bulk from a pawn shop. Part of me understands why Theresa might have convinced herself they wouldn't be missed.

When I finish searching the armoire, I have to pause for a moment and process what I've just seen. The jewelry drawer alone contains perhaps thirty carats worth of diamonds and fifty pearls of near-perfect luster and quality. There are numerous other gemstones: emeralds, rubies, sapphires, fire opals and black opals among stones of a lesser rarity but equally superior quality. Each piece of jewelry is set in the purest gold, silver and platinum. The other drawer contains no fewer than ten luxury watches of the finest Swiss and Austrian brands.

It hits me viscerally how different the lives of the very wealthy are. I couldn't even begin to put a value on what I've just seen. It's enough that I could buy myself a gorgeous townhome in Hudson Square, a car as nice as the one I borrow the other day and still have enough put aside to take a yearlong sabbatical before I get back to work.

And yet they are still capable of so much misery. Johnathan was not a happy man before he died. My brief glimpses into his psyche show that much.

I decide I've spent long enough envying a wealth I'll never have. I stand and head to the closet. It is, of course, enormous. I've seen studio apartments smaller. There are more dresses and clothes here. Nothing so opulent as the gowns reserved for the armoire, but clearly expensive and well-tailored. I can't help but wonder when Miss Cecilia will feel the time is right to don some of the more flirtatious ones and how it will affect the children when she does.

I nearly give up when my eyes are drawn to a plain box in one corner of the closet. Its plainness is what attracts me. In a closet full of items screaming for my attention, it's the only one asking that I look away.

I stoop down and open the box. It contains a stack of documents about twenty pages thick and nothing else.

I lift the documents and begin scanning through them. When I get to the eleventh page, I gasp and nearly drop the papers.

I read it several times to make sure I'm not mistaking what I'm seeing. I even touch the small adhesive note stuck to the page to make sure it's not a hallucination.

It's not. What I'm holding in my hands is real and is both the most convincing evidence of foul play in Johnathan's death and the most damning proof of Cecilia's involvement in that foul play.

The document is a copy of the official declaration of death of Johnathan Ashford. It lists the cause as a massive ischemic event but lists the reason for that event as severe poisoning from cyanide salts.

The note on top is written in Cecilia's handwriting. It says only one word, but God, what a word.

Suppressed.

The page creases slightly, and I realize my hands are shaking. I quickly rearrange the documents and place them back in the box, then put the box back where it belongs.

I rush from the room and head outside. When I reach fresh air, I gasp for breath, and it takes an effort for me not to collapse to my knees.

Then a thought stiffens my spine. Johnathan said that he must protect Isabella. Why? Did he know what Cecilia planned for him? Did he fear she would do the same to his children?

Something cold and wet alights on the tip of my nose. I look up to see a cloud of white flakes drift gently down from the sky. The snowfall has finally come.

It brings none of the calm I hope for.