Chapter 7
The way Byron had lingered after their discovery at the desk had initially annoyed her, but ever since he left two days ago, she had felt weirdly alone in the house. She had been alone before he arrived, but it felt different, and she didn’t quite know how to explain it.
She had focused on cleaning up the old study, purposely avoiding the desk and focusing on the nautically themed half-sitting room. It was definitely weird, she decided, but with the right amount of mental gymnastics, she could see a property manager deciding to decorate one half of a room to avoid unbolting a desk from the floor... the mental gymnastics only worked as long as she didn’t think too closely about the desk or the hidden compartments. She glanced over at the desk from her perch atop the step ladder, where she was almost finished wiping down the grimy window glass. As much as she wanted to open up that envelope and see what was inside, every time she thought about it her mind whirled with everything it could possibly be.
Liam had always teased her about becoming something so boring—in his mind—as a consultant and glorified adult babysitter when she had the imagination to be a trash TV plot writer. He wasn’t wrong; she had a wild imagination. In her various daydreams, the envelope had contained—amongst other things—an alternate last will and testament which left the house to a long lost secret sibling who insisted she be sent to jail for inheritance fraud, a map to her dad’s secretly embezzled millions, and a signed confession from some holiday renter that he was actually the Zodiac Killer.
Her phone pinged, and she brightened. It was nearly time for her video chat with the girls, and she needed to make herself look at least a little less haggard.
As she rushed through washing her face, her phone screen lit up, and she squinted at the screen through a painful layer of cleanser foam. It was a text; she tapped it open with her knuckle and tried to read.
How about a call around five minutes?
As soon as she saw that it ended with ‘five minutes’ she tapped the little microphone and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Sure thing girls, ready when you are.”
The cold water that she splashed into her face was refreshing and slightly painful. She wasn’t quite used to the lower water temperatures she was experiencing in Newport. Her phone began to ring as she patted her face dry.
“Five minutes or five seconds, jeez,” she muttered to herself before answering and switching to her bright Mom voice, “Hello my lovelies!”
“Hi Mom!” the twins chorused.
Abigail smiled broadly—even after a decade, she wasn’t quite used to their synchronicity, “Let me just get set up in the kitchen; what have you been up to today?”
Tales of teenage woe and laughter exploded from both of them, leaving Abigail feeling entirely ancient and out of touch.
“Wait, what’s a follow train?”
Hannah rolled her eyes, “It’s a thing where everyone in a group follows each other’s social media accounts, but they didn’t ask me because they know I don’t have social media—Mom, I need at least three accounts!”
“You know our policy on this,” Abigail replied, “no social media until your thirteenth birthday—and then your father and I will be logged into both. Anyone you actually know can text you—”
“Mom, you don’t understand!” Hannah wailed, “This isn’t FOR me! Every single person in this summer school has accounts for their music! If I don’t have a social media presence, I’m much less likely to get chosen for anything cool!”
She pursed her lips as she watched Hannah’s face contort through a series of emotional expressions.
“When you’re chosen, it will be based on your skill and talent. Not your follower count—”
“Ugh! No, Mom, I won’t be! Not because I’m not good enough but because symphonies are struggling, and if they can sign someone with a following, then they get free advertising!”
Abigail sighed. It wasn’t untrue in other areas of the arts, so why would music be any different?
“I’m not making the call on this right now, okay?” she said, fully anticipating what came next.
Sid’s jaw dropped, “MOM! If she gets social media for music, why can’t I have one for my art!?”
“Girls,” she said calmly, “this is precisely why I’m not going to have a conversation about this right now when everyone is clearly upset about it. Let’s take a few days and come back to it. Both of you—”
A loud knock on her front door interrupted her carefully constructed and calm argument.
“Hang on a second,” she said, getting up and heading down the hallway.
“Who’s visiting you?” Sid asked, leaning as if peering past her mom.
Abigail swung the door open to see Cleo standing on her doorstep, her bicycle leaning against the porch column behind her.
“Uh... my friend Cleo, hang on a second, please,” Abigail said down the phone. To Cleo, she pointed to it and mouthed the words, “My kids in London.”
Cleo’s expression shifted, and she pulled out her phone, pointing to a text message thread that Abigail leaned in to read.
“Hey Hun, how about I call around in five minutes?” she muttered. “Sure thing, girl, ready when you are.”
The pieces clicked into place and she laughed, “I really need to be more careful when I read texts.”
She was about to say something along the lines of ‘sorry but I need to talk to my kids can you come back later’, when there was a crack of thunder overhead and a torrent of rain began to fall from the sky. Despite being undercover, both women winced and looked up towards the sky. Abigail gestured for Cleo to come in.
Turning her attention back to the call as they made their way down the corridor towards the kitchen, Sid picked up right where they’d left off—but the girls had clearly been conspiring in the brief interlude.
“All right, I have a proposal,” Sid said, “on our call in three days, we will each present an argument to you and Dad about why—as creatives trying to make it in uber competitive industries—we need social media accounts. We can all say our pieces and then discuss the outcome... like a courtroom.”
Abigail couldn’t help but smile; it was typical for Sid to come up with something like that. Cleo gestured to the teapot and cups, and Abigail nodded.
“All right, on two conditions. First, no yelling or crying during the discussion. Second, our decision is final, and should the answer be no, you won’t raise it again until you’re thirteen—agreed?”
After much grumbling they did actually agree. The call came to a convenient end at almost the same time that Cleo’s tea was ready to drink.
“Sorry, I was preoccupied when I got your text—thought it was the girls,” Abigail said. “It’s good to see you though.”
She hoped that she sounded convincing; there was nothing worse than very obviously interrupting someone and having them bend over backward to make it seem like you didn’t.
“Oh right!” Cleo said, “That explains the total confusion on your face at my entirely randomly showing up on your doorstep and acting like you were the weird one.”
Her warm laughter bubbled up and dissolved the anxiety Abigail had been feeling. Cleo had always been easygoing, and it was great to see that she hadn’t changed that much.
“So, how’ve you been?” Abigail prompted, wondering what had instigated the visit with so little preamble.
Cleo looked awkward, “Well... it’s a bit weird but I wanted to check up on you.”
“Uh... I mean, thanks but why?” Abigail asked.
“I bumped into Byron this afternoon. He mentioned that you’d found a bunch of weird stuff in a secret room?”
“Secret room is pushing it,” Abigail said, “more like a hidden compartment, but yeah—I was poking about in the study and found that the draws on one side weren’t decorative. The whole front piece opens like a cabinet.”
She felt herself hold her breath slightly as Cleo leaned closer across the table. ”He said you found cameras!”
“Good grief! Is Byron this town’s worst gossip?” Abigail exclaimed, “We found a bunch of blank DVDs and a security system. I don’t think the cables are even connected to anything.”
Cleo recoiled like she had been slapped, “You haven’t checked! You don’t know who put it there or why! Have you even looked to see if it’s recording or transmitting!?”
The look on her friend”s face was pure horror, and slowly, Abigail realized why.
“Oh I don’t think I’m being watched!! The system is ancient—I don’t think Wi-Fi was a thing when it was manufactured—and anyway, at the very least, it hasn’t been running in a decade. I turned the power off when I came up to sign the papers. I wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with any of it right then.”
She watched as Cleo stood up straight, her tea in one hand and the other pointed at the door to the hallway.
“Nope,” she said, “too creepy, too weird, we’re checking right now.”
Cleo didn’t even wait for Abigail to reply. She just marched out of the kitchen and down towards the study. Abigail rolled her eyes as she sipped the hot tea, but she wasn’t actually annoyed. She briefly considered leaving the tea behind, but to her surprise, it was genuinely delicious, so instead, she sighed and followed Cleo out of the kitchen with her tea in hand.