6. Cyrus #2
She turns, and I step behind her to slide the coat from her shoulders. My fingers brush the collar hidden below the neckline of the dress. She doesn't exactly flinch, but her shoulders go very still.
I let my hand linger. Just for a second. Thumb at the base of her neck where the collar rests. Pressing, just barely. I'm here. You're not alone in this room.
Her breath goes out in a small, steady exhale.
"Your mother is in the sitting room, Miss Riggs. The senator will join you shortly in the dining room. Dinner is at seven thirty."
"Thank you." She starts to walk past me, and pauses like she wants to say something, but doesn't.
I hang her coat in the staff closet to the left of the entry, my fingers gripping the fabric longer than I need to.
I expected dinner to feel like a play, but it's really more of a fucking circus, and Todd Waterson is clearly the ringmaster.
Sit here, move there.
Don't touch that.
I stand three paces behind and to the left of the senator's chair, which is the estate manager's position during a family meal. Close enough to be useful, far enough to be invisible.
I don't look at anyone directly. I look at the centerpiece, at the wine I'm supposed to watch, at the level of water in Marney Riggs's glass.
I refill it twice in the first ten minutes.
She drinks it like she's been in the desert, which is probably a side effect of those pills she pops like Tic Tacs.
Todd Waterson is bigger than he looks in pictures, but he's far less charming. They don't capture the cruel glint in his eyes.
Photoshop is one hell of a miracle worker.
"Eleanor. You look like you've put on weight."
I grip the cloth sitting between my gloves and twist it, imagining it's his neck.
"Thank you, Todd."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"Oh," she says in a tone of innocence I know to be bullshit.
"I hope you're not stuffing your face at that cafeteria. The last thing we need is them having to let out all your dresses before the campaign trail."
"I'll be careful," Ellie says, stabbing a bite of her meat with her fork. "Wouldn't want them to have to roll me out onstage in front of your donors or anything."
Todd's eyes narrow. Evidently his head isn't quite far enough up his own ass to miss that little barb. "I'm looking out for you. You know how your mother worries."
My eyes flick to Marney. She has not, to my knowledge, worried about anything visible in the last twenty minutes. She stares at her place like she's trying to remember how to use silverware.
"I'm eating well, Todd."
"Good." He cuts a piece of the seared duck. "How's the roommate situation?"
"Heather's great."
"Heather." He tests the name. "Last name."
"Lundberg."
"Lundberg." He chews. Swallows. "Swedish?"
"I think so. Haven't asked her to assemble any furniture though, so no way to know for sure."
It takes everything I have not to let my lips move a millimeter.
Todd's brows pinch together. "Parents?"
"I haven't asked."
"Ask." He doesn't look up from his plate. "We should have them over for dinner. I need to make sure they're decent people. At this point in the campaign, we can't risk even the most tangential connection going astray."
"Okay."
I watch her hands. She's got them folded in her lap under the table, out of his sight. The fingers of her right hand are pressed against the fingers of her left, counting. They're still, but I can tell she's counting.
She's nervous, yes, but not for the reasons Kade thinks. Not because I'm watching.
I've gotten good at observing people. Knowing how they tick, what they feel, why they do the things they do. I might not understand on a human level, but I understand the way a predator knows its prey, and Ellie is very much acting like prey tonight.
Just not mine.
"Marney."
Todd's voice cuts across the table after a few minutes of blessed silence, as if he has to reload his passive-aggressive assholery.
Marney jolts like she's just been shot. Her water glass shakes in her hand, and a bead of it spills over the rim onto the tablecloth.
"Yes?"
"You're not eating."
"I had a late lunch."
"You didn't. The chef says you didn't touch anything he brought you today.
You had a pill at one and a pill at three and a pill at five.
" Evidently, he doesn't know about the ones she took right before dinner.
His fork moves steadily through the duck.
He hasn't raised his voice or changed his expression, but the tremor in his wife's hands makes his meaning clear enough.
It's not just the pills. "Eat your food, Marney. "
Marney picks up her fork.
Ellie looks intently at the food she hasn't touched since Todd's shitbrained remark.
I watch her hands disappear entirely under the table. I watch her count again, faster this time, while Marney tries to cut a piece of duck and fails to make the knife work the first time, and the second time, and the third.
Todd sets his own fork down. Slowly.
"Marney. What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
Ellie's face doesn't change except for her lips moving slightly, whispering something silent to herself as if she's forgotten I'm watching. I can make out the words.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
I pick up the water pitcher and step forward to refill Marney's glass. My arm passes between them for the space of two seconds, and for those two seconds Ellie can't see her stepfather and her stepfather can't see her, and I let my sleeve brush the back of Ellie's chair on the way past.
She breathes out.
I step back into position. Three paces behind and to the left, eyes on the centerpiece.
Kade sent me here to watch Ellie, and I'm watching.
I'm not seeing any evidence of what he's afraid of, but my gut tells me the truth is so much worse.