CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Javier looks at me and says drily, "Are you sure you want me to come with you? You could joyride in the Corvette if you'd like."

"I prefer Mercedes," I reply, "and get over it. It was one time. Forgive me if I didn't want to wait on a chauffeur on my day off."

"Hey, that's uncalled for," he counters. "No one ever has to wait for me. I'm always there when I'm needed."

We're on our way to pick up dinner. The children decide on Chinese food instead of pizza, and since the only Chinese restaurant in town doesn't deliver, I've been sent to pick the meal up.

"Well, Paolo got to you before I did, so what was I to do?"

"How about not risk my job if you get yourself killed in an Ashford car? I'm responsible for all of those vehicles, you know."

"Even the helicopter?"

"Even that." He chuckles. "Stupid impulse buy. Johnathan never even wheeled it out of the garage. I offered to fly him—and yes, I do have a license—but he kept putting it off."

"It must be nice to be rich."

He chuckles, but his face quickly gets serious. "I don't know if I agree with that anymore. After everything that's been going on?" He shakes his head. "I feel like there is such a thing as too much."

I think of Theresa and her justification for her theft. I think of the opulence I find in Cecilia's bedroom and my brief moment of sympathy for Theresa.

Then I think of the letter and decide that if anyone knows who Theresa's enemies would be, it must be one of the staff. "Do the rest of the staff feel the same as you?" I ask.

I get the answer I hope for. He laughs and says, "No. Paolo doesn't feel one way or another about wealth. As long as he can cook, he'll sleep in a tent or a palace. Doesn't matter which. As for Theresa? Well, let's just say she's here to live vicariously. Don't tell her I told you this, but I caught her wearing one of Emily's dresses once."

"Who's Emily?"

"Oh, right. That was Johnathan's mom. She died about ten years ago, shortly after I started working here. I was heading upstairs to give Lawrence—that's Johnathan's father—the title to a Bentley he had bought, and I caught Theresa through the door to her room. She had one of Emily's dresses on, and she was parading around like a teenager playing dress up." He laughed. "I kind of wished I had said something to her."

I try to think how to ask about the subject I want to ask. I start with, "Did anyone say anything to her?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was there anyone who caught her who wasn't happy with her theft?"

He looks fishily at me. "What do you mean theft?"

I backpedal, "Oh, well, I mean that's how they'd see it, right?"

He chuckles. "Honestly, Emily and Lawrence would have just found it funny. They would probably have fired her, but they wouldn't have hated her for it."

"Does anyone hate her?"

He gives me another fishy look. "I get the impression you don't care very much for her."

"I can't say I do," I admit, "but… I guess I just want to know if it's only me or if others find her annoying."

"It's not just you," he replies. "She's an arrogant, bitter, rude woman who is indeed very annoying. But hate is a strong word. Working in service is a different kind of life. Even if you don't like each other, you have to support each other. Your lives are centered around enabling the lives of people who live in an entirely separate world from yours. It's very hard to do this kind of work without letting that affect you, and it's a lot harder when you have to do it alone." He looks back at me again. "You're new. You'll understand eventually."

He's essentially told me that she has no enemies and likely never will. That's the opposite of what I want to hear. I don't know where else to look. I suppose I could look online, but the chances of finding any information on a housekeeper are nonexistent. The only other option is going to the police, but I don't want to do that until I know who the police should be looking for.

It galls me, but I may need to make some sort of overture to Theresa and get her to confide in me. Maybe now that she knows it's not me, she'll have some idea who it really is.

We return home with the Chinese food and fill our conversation with small talk. He tells me of the time he thought he had blown the transmission on Johnathan's Corvette only to realize he had shifted to neutral and not drive. I share an anecdote of my first Christmas party at the school in New York when one of the teachers gets so drunk she vomits on the principal.

One of these days, someone will have to explore why it is that so much of human interaction is based around laughing at misfortune—ours and others. Are we such fearful creatures that we must force laughter into every event to make it small enough not to be terrifying?

It's moments like these that I'm grateful I choose to forgo that career.

It seems Samuel won the movie contest. We end up watching Godzilla Vs. King Kong. Not a cinematic masterpiece, to be sure, but seeing Samuel smile makes it worth the watch. Isabella seems to agree. She looks at him with such love that it sets my heart aglow.

Cecilia pays more attention to Elijah, but she is met with stony silence. My heart breaks for her, but once more, I can't be sure if she's simply a struggling widow or a murderous one.

When the movie ends, the younger children go upstairs to shower and head for bed. Cecilia remains downstairs for a few more minutes, but when it's clear she won't get any conversation from Elijah, she heads to her room.

I wait until I hear the door to Cecilia's room close before I speak, but it's Elijah who breaks the silence.

"I think she killed Dad."

Hearing my own darkest suspicion come from his lips startles me. I stammer for a moment, and he smiles tightly. "Crazy, right?"

"Yes," I say honestly. "Very. What… what makes you say that?"

"She doesn't love him. Never did." He cocks his head. "I take that back. She did love him for a while, but that changed about five years ago."

"What happened five years ago?"

He lifts his hands. "I don't know. I just know that she used to smile when he was around. Then she just… stopped. She would look at him like she… not like she hated him, but like she hated that he was around. Like he was a stain, she couldn't wash out and was just forced to live with. I kept telling myself that they'd make up eventually. They were just fighting like all married people fight. But they never made up. When they told us he was dead, she didn't even cry. She just nodded and started making arrangements like it was just another day."

I feel like I should say something, but I have no idea what. Everything I think to say falls flat. I could tell him that she loves him, and that's true. In fact, that's what I should say.

But she also killed his father.

Possibly not. I suppose all I know for sure is that she allowed the true cause of his death to be hidden.

It's a testament to my affection for Cecilia that I grasp at that straw so desperately. She loves her children. She didn't love Johnathan. So when he was murdered, rather than fight for justice for a man she didn't love, she chose to protect the children she did love from the truth. A poor choice, to be sure, but an understandable one.

Thus emboldened, I say, "She loves you three very much, Elijah. You and Isabella and Samuel. Romantic love is a fickle thing. People grow and change, even as they get older. It's very difficult for two people to grow and change so many times and still retain the same love they had when they met as two much younger and very different people. Some couples are able to navigate that change. Others aren't.

"But the love of a mother for her children is eternal. It's fierce and unshakeable. You three are the most important things in her lives, and always will be."

As I say that I think of my own mother and remember that it's not always true that the love of a mother is unshakeable. Not for all her children anyway. But that's not helpful to Elijah right now, and anyway, the one thing I am sure of is that Cecilia loves her children—all of them.

Elijah doesn't seem to think so. He looks up to where his mother is now in bed and says, "Mom loves herself. I think she wants us to love her, but I don't think she cares about us. I get that she didn't love Dad, but to be dating already? Even if she didn't care if I knew, what about Isabella and Samuel? They're not stupid. They know what she's doing when she goes out dressed like she's going clubbing. When Samuel asks me if Mom's trying to marry someone else already, what am I supposed to say? When Isabella asks me why she doesn't miss Dad, what do I tell them?"

"You tell them that she loves all of you very much, and that's what matters right now."

He searches my eyes. "You don't believe that."

"Yes, I do. I very much do."

"And if you find out that she did kill him? What then?"

His face still carries the marks of youth, but his eyes are strong and steady. My gaze falters, and he says, "Exactly. She could have divorced him. But she killed him."

"You don't know that."

He shrugs. "Maybe not. But it's convenient, isn't it? She gets to keep the house, his money, his business."

"She doesn't want the business. She's only trying to keep Elena from taking over."

He smiles bitterly. "I know you like her. I don't blame you. Mom's always been good at making people see her as the victim. But I've known her a lot longer than you have. I know what she's like when she doesn't need to hide. Stick around long enough, and you will too." He stands. "I'm going to bed."

"Elijah—"

"Don't worry. I'm not going to accuse her of anything. And I won't tell Isabella or Samuel either. But you said you'd help me find out who killed Dad. If it's Mom, then she needs to answer for it, whether she really loves us or not."

He leaves without waiting for a response. That's good, because I don't have one. I can only sit and try to convince myself that the story I've become a part of has a happy ending.

One that doesn't end with the empty eyes of a lost loved one drawing this family into insanity.