Chapter 28
28
JONATHAN
I hardly sleep, worrying about Mal and how I’m going to broach the subject with Adam.
When I left Mal, I found the rest of the children in Enrique’s room. They’d rallied and Ben was babbling excitedly about the light mirror while Enrique was zooming around the room with his cars. Adam was nowhere to be found. I have to speak to him about Mal. I can’t keep this sort of thing a secret. What if Mal has kleptomania and needs help?
In the few hours of sleep I finally manage to find, I have unsettling dreams and I wake often to the sound of the wind and the rattling of my windows.
Sunday morning dawns cold and wet. The house is dark with oppressive cloud cover and even the children’s happy chatter over breakfast isn’t enough to lift my own dark mood.
Of course on this particular morning, Adam doesn’t join us. He’s probably still upset about how our surprise was received. The cigarette case is heavy in my pocket and my heart is heavy with dread. How do I do this in a way that protects Mal while still ultimately ensuring his wellbeing? Surely Adam won’t reject him like his adopted family did? No. The man I saw with them last night, the one I’ve gotten to know these past few weeks, would never do something like that.
I cling to that thought as I seek him out. He isn’t in his control room, or the foundation offices. I go down to the greenhouse, but Adam isn’t there either. A wicked wind sweeps across the grounds and a light rain sprinkles my shoulders and hair.
I return upstairs. I won’t be able to relax until this is dealt with, but maybe I’ll be able to settle to a book for at least a while, or… a movement catches the corner of my eye as I hit the landing.
The door to the West Wing is hanging ajar.
Highly unusual.
Adam must have recently stepped inside. I just missed him.
“Adam?” No response, but the door swings open wider.
Not a ghost inviting me in. This weather is making me see things. It’s just some rogue wind current as it always is in this old house.
I go right up to the threshold and call again, louder, “Adam? I need to speak with you.”
Nothing. Just the drumming of the rain on some far window.
I know the rule. The one rule. But it’s as simple as this: Either Adam is somewhere in there and will respond to my calls so we can have this conversation that we really need to have. Or Adam is not in there and he won’t know I trespassed. Besides, we’re friendly now. Maybe he wouldn’t mind. The door was standing open.
My stomach doesn’t seem to agree as I step over the threshold. It’s clenched tight, like my hand in that boxing glove when Geoff says those things about being a beta man. But I press a little further in. And stop.
The passageway is done in the same beautiful wallpaper for about a meter. And then it’s just…drywall. There are no fancy light fixtures, just exposed bulbs and hanging sheet plastic. The air is frigid and it smells like concrete. Is Adam renovating?
My feet move of their own accord, taking me further in. Because there’s no way he can be renovating during a pandemic. No, the person who was renovating died. Died before he could finish the job. Died fourteen years ago.
“Adam?” I call again, but my voice is constricted. I peek into a side room. Plastic sheeting hangs from the ceiling, the floor is dusty with concrete and wood shavings. This room doesn’t even have a door yet.
Please let him not be sleeping in a room like this. Please let him not be living in this abandoned dream.
I pass a second room. This one is at least carpeted—in the same red as the playroom—and there’s a serviceable fireplace and a battered upright piano. There’s still music in place on the stand. Scribbled notes in a shaky hand that only fill half the page. If it weren’t for the thick layer of dust over everything, I’d think Lloyd just got up to make a cup of tea.
The only decoration in this room is a silver vase on the mantlepiece and… No. My heart shudders and starts beating double time. Not a vase. An urn.
I know I shouldn’t—if I wasn’t trespassing before, I certainly am now—but I step closer. Beside the urn, there’s a photograph of Adam and Lloyd together.
I lift the silver frame for a closer look at Lloyd. I feel like I understand him so much better now than the first time I saw him in a photo. So maybe that’s why this time I notice that even though he’s smiling, his eyes look sad.
I set the frame back in its place. There was something else on the mantle here too. There’s a rectangular space in the dust. Could it be…?
I reach into my pocket and withdraw the cigarette box. It’s the exact right size. Did Mal sneak in here? Did he see this cold, abandoned space? I carefully set the box back. As I do, I notice a yellowed note sticking out of the picture frame. It’s so out of place that I find myself reaching for it. To slide it back into the frame? Maybe. I’m sure I don’t mean to read the top edge.
Please don’t be sad, mon cher. All the great musicians die at 27.
My heart stutters again. Does Adam know this is here? He must. It surely hasn’t been hidden all this time? As I lift the picture frame, it slips further out and I catch the next few words.
I know this will be hard for you, but don’t think of me as gone, think of me visiting Paris on tour. This will be difficult, but it won’t destroy you the way the illness would.
What illness?
“What are you doing?”
I spin. Adam is standing in the doorway. He’s half naked—there’s a towel slung low on his hips—but my gaze locks on his face. Hurt. Betrayal.
“I—I called you?—”
He strides towards me, brow furrowed, searching my face.
“I’m sorry, I?—”
He snatches the frame from my grip and I jerk in fright. “How many times have you come here?” he asks. His voice cracks with anger or pain.
I step back automatically. My spine hits the mantle.
“What are you doing here?” He bears down on me.
“I— I— I was looking for you.”
“Were you?”
I don’t understand the question.
“Were you looking for me, or were you looking for information? Something you could sell? To the tabloids perhaps?”
I open my mouth to try to answer, but the breath is frozen in my chest.
He slices the air, sending the picture frame across the room. I jump as the glass shatters. He doesn’t even look in its direction. Instead, he pins me—hands on the mantle on either side of me—his gaze boring into mine. And I understand for the first time why everyone still calls him The Beast.
“Why are you here ?”
Where is Adam? Where is the man who made puns and opened up to me about his childhood?
“I trusted you.” It’s a whisper, soft but pierced with emotion. “I am such an idiot. You were just waiting until my guard was down, weren’t you?”
I don’t understand his reaction. “No, I?—”
“— Who the hell are you? ”
And then I do. My head fills with a buzzing sound like thousands of tiny wings. He knows. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten to even worry. He knows the truth about me.
All the warmth that was left in my body drains away. “I wasn’t… I was trying to…” My tongue is thick and uncooperative.
“Trying to what ?”
It hardly matters. What he caught me doing was reading Lloyd’s letter. What he caught me, the impostor in his home, doing was sneaking around and discovering the last words his husband left for him.
“I— Adam—” How many times did I think about what I’d say when he discovered the truth? But now, staring up into his hard gaze, I can’t seem to form a single word. I can’t imagine what he must be thinking, what he must be feeling right now. “I’m so sorry. I never meant—I never wanted to hurt you or to lie to you.”
My eyes sting, my heart aches. I never imagined Adam could look at me with such disgust.
“Tell me who’s paying you!”
I’m so thrown by the question, I don’t know what to say. He drops his face closer. “Must be a pretty sweet deal. A generous salary from the foundation and a nice kickback from your sponsor. The promotion? The press? Who are you working for?”
“No one!”
“And the old man? How does he fit in?”
My limbs are shaking, this feels like a nightmare. “He’s my father.”
“Oh, that much I know. You thought I’d let someone near these children without a thorough background check? I know that you’re an imposter and a fraud. I was starting to think it might not matter. But it’s all been a game to you, hasn’t it?”
“No!”
“ Why are you here? ” He barks again.
“Because my father’s dying! Because there wasn’t another way to stop him! I was never going to stay, but they needed me. I thought— I thought you needed me. I’m sorry!”
The adrenaline flooding my veins tells me to go, go, go. Get away. I duck under his arm and race from the room, blood roaring in my ears too loudly to hear if he comes after me.