Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Later that morning, I’m scrubbing breakfast plates when Blanche’s voice cuts through the kitchen like a rusty blade.
“Burlington.”
My back stiffens. I don’t bother looking up from the sink. She hasn’t spoken to me directly since the incident with the champagne. Barbed comments don’t count when a bitch is too cowardly to say something to my face.
“Edward sends a message.”
I turn around to meet dark eyes glittering with satisfaction.
“Our bathrooms need scrubbing,” she says with a smirk.
My jaw clenches. She’s enjoying this petty power. Making me clean up her messes while she gets to play lady of the manor. Payback for humiliating her in front of her little friends.
“Break anything, and it’s coming out of your wages,” she adds.
I roll my eyes. Thanks for giving me ideas, bitch. I’ll make sure you won’t see the damage coming.
Blanche floats away without another word, leaving me alone with dirty dishes and the bitter taste of defeat.
Twenty minutes later, I’m hauling cleaning supplies into Blanche’s room with open windows overlooking the gardens. Laughter floats up from the patio, where she’s entertaining her friends. I brace myself for hearing all kinds of slanderous shit about me.
She’s left the bathroom in absolute squalor. Towels scattered across the marble floors, makeup smeared on gold fixtures, empty champagne bottles lying like fallen bowling pins. I can’t tell if rich assholes live like pigs all the time or if she’s staged this mess for my benefit.
I start with the towels, cramming them into a basket. Then I pick up a pair of piss-stained panties with the toilet brush to dump on her pillow. That’s when I spot Blanche’s Louis Vuitton vanity case sitting on the bed, wide open without a single trace of cosmetics.
My hands freeze. I shouldn’t. But the bag sits there practically begging me to dig through her crap.
I creep toward the bed, my pulse trying to burst free from its cage. The bag is stuffed with rolls of cash, credit cards, and baggies of coke. But buried underneath, something catches my eye.
Lots of pills.
Prescription bottles with handwritten labels. I recognize Xanax, OxyContin, Adderall, and Ambien. And enough sedatives to knock out a horse. I pick up one bottle, squinting at a long chemical-sounding name when the hallway echoes with footsteps.
Shit.
I drop the bottles back into the bag and dive under the bed, just as the door creaks open. The space is narrow as a coffin and filled with dust. My heart thrashes like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest.
Heavy footsteps cross the hardwood floor, slow and deliberate, belonging to a man. I hold my breath, repeating the same mantra until one word blurs into the other: Don’t come closer. Don’t come closer. Don’t come closer.
Each step makes my vision tunnel until all I can see is the man’s shadow moving closer. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse in the full-length mirror across the room.
It’s Rochester.
No, no, no, no, no.
His polished shoes stop beside the bed, near enough that I could reach out and touch the leather.
The mattress groans as he sits, springs squeaking under his weight.
Every part of me wants to bolt, to run, to scream, but there’s nowhere to go.
He’d drag me out by the ankle. Demand to know why I shut him out of my room.
I freeze in place, my breaths shallowing, but dust tickles my nose. A sneeze builds up in my sinuses, threatening to betray my hiding spot. Squeezing my nostrils between my fingertips, I bite down on my bottom lip until I taste blood, desperate to stop the urge.
The bed dips lower as he leans to the side and reaches for Blanche’s case. Every rustle of fabric grates on my nerves, and every clink of pill bottles rattles in my ears. My lungs scream for air, but I don’t dare exhale.
What the hell is he doing?
Through the mirror, I watch him picking up each pill bottle, studying the labels.
He settles on one container, unscrewing the cap.
The contents rattle as he empties them into a white handkerchief.
Then he pulls a small plastic baggie from his pocket and pours a different set of pills into the vacant bottle.
Oh my God. Oh my God. He’s poisoning Blanche.
Blood roars in my ears. I want to scream at him to stop, to warn her, but I can’t even breathe. My vision goes gray at the edges and my eyes sting with tears.
He’s going to kill her. And if he discovers where I’m hiding, he’ll do the same to me.
The mattress shifts as he leans forward, and I squeeze my eyes shut, certain he’s about to peer under the bed. If he sees me, he’ll drag me out by the hair. Slit my throat. Bury my corpse in the woods. Every muscle in my body trembles so hard the bed frame might rattle and give me away.
He’ll kill me, he’ll kill me, he’ll kill me.
The springs creak again as he stands. I hear him brushing down his jacket, then arranging the case exactly as he found it. My vision blurs to black spots, and my lungs sear like I’m drowning.
I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t let him know I’m here.
His footsteps move toward the exit with a leisurely pace as if he’s accustomed to tampering with people’s drugs. Then the door clicks shut, and the sound grows fainter, more distant.
After a slow count to a hundred, I drag myself out from under the bed. I have to crawl to the wall and brace myself as my whole body shudders.
If I think about what just happened, I’ll fall apart. My hands move on their own, clawing up towels, but they’re too heavy. I keep dropping them. My fingers don’t work.
My gaze fixes on the floor. On the mess. I don’t look at the bed. Don’t think about the vanity case. Don’t see his hands opening the bottle.
I’m the maid. That’s all. Just the fucking maid. I have to finish the job. Just finish the job.
My feet carry me to the filthy bathroom. I drop to my knees and scrub at the shit smeared on the floor. My hand shakes so much that the sponge slips.
The marble is cold. Like a slab. Like a table in a morgue.
I keep cleaning. Anything to pretend this is normal.
By dinnertime, my hands still shake. I can’t wash them clean enough. Sweat. Grease. Guilt. I’m as dirty as Blanche’s floor. But if I drop a single plate, he’ll know.
Rochester sits at the head of the table like a king holding court, telling stories about the estate’s history, charming Blanche’s friends like he’s campaigning for office. He talks like a politician, but all I see is the man who swapped her pills for poison.
Every time I glance in his direction, I picture those careful fingers doing the devil’s work. Every smile he gives Blanche feels like a countdown to her demise. I picture the foam at her mouth, the twitch of her limbs. Her final shudder of death.
I can’t look at him. Can’t give myself away.
“Darling, you’re so knowledgeable in local history. I’m so lucky to have found you,” Blanche purrs, reaching across the table to paw at his hand. She beams at him, like a lamb thanking the butcher.
My stomach roils. The poor princess won’t be alive long enough to enjoy him. Or her trust fund.
“I’m the lucky one, my dear.” He kisses her hand like she’s some Renaissance duchess, when he’s really kissing a corpse. “I never thought I’d love again after Celine died, but you’ve made it all possible.”
Now he’s got me wondering what happened to his dead wife. Did he also tamper with her medication?
Dizziness hits me in a wave so violent, I have to grip the edge of the sideboard to keep from fainting on the Persian rug. The guests clap and make appreciative noises, thinking they’re watching true love bloom. I’m the only one watching a murder in progress.
Rochester isn’t just going to kill her. He’s enjoying her ignorance. Savoring her trust. Rolling it around in his mouth like fine wine.
I set down the last dish with trembling hands, swallowing back a mouthful of acid. Every clink of crystal, every burst of laughter, every word of praise for the happy couple rings in my skull like funeral bells. They’re toasting her death and they don’t even know it.
As the applause simmers, his gaze meets mine, and my chest caves.
Heart thundering, I flee to the kitchen where I attack the dishes.
I scrub until my knuckles turn red, but I can’t escape the truth.
Every shadow in my peripheral vision could be Rochester.
Every sound in the hallway could be him coming to silence the witness.
I even flinch at my own reflection in the window.
Does he know I saw? Did he notice the dust disturbed under the bed? Is he watching me right now, calculating when to strike?
I shake off that thought. He can’t know. If he did, I’d already be dead.
When every surface gleams like a showroom, I drag my aching body upstairs.
The socialites continue drinking in the drawing room, but I know better than to serve them.
I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to give him the chance to sneak into my room.
My shoulders feel like someone’s beaten them with hammers, and my hands won’t stop shaking.
But as I reach for my doorknob, movement sounds from inside my room.
My heart seizes. My gut clenches. It’s Rochester. Maybe he did notice me hiding. Maybe he’s in there waiting to finish what he started.
I should run. Find somewhere else to sleep. But where the hell can I go in the middle of the night on an isolated estate on this Godforsaken island?
Without meaning to, I edge closer, my heart pounding hard enough to crack ribs. I push the door open a crack and peer through the gap. But the figure standing in my room isn’t Rochester, it’s Blanche.
She leans against my dresser holding up my bra with the lace trim. All thoughts of her being a victim evaporate under a burst of rage. I fling open the door and charge inside.
“What the fuck are you doing with my underwear?”
“You think men find udders like this attractive?” she says without turning around.