Chapter 7: What Allison Remembered
Julian called the hospital at 3:15 a.m.
and was told that Allison Reed was stable, awake, and refusing to sleep until someone told her she still had a job.
He drove over himself.
She was sitting up in the hospital bed when he arrived, her dark hair loose, a paper cup of tea on the tray table in front of her.
She looked like someone who had been through something difficult and had decided, with great practicality, not to make a show of it.
When Julian appeared in the doorway she looked at him the way people look at a person they're not sure they're allowed to speak to freely.
"You don't have to sit up straighter," Julian said.
"You were poisoned tonight."
"S*dated," she corrected.
Her voice was still slightly rough.
"Same result." He took the chair beside the bed.
"How do you feel?"
"My hands are still a little shaky.
They said that's normal." She looked at him carefully.
"Is it over?"
"Getting there."
She nodded once, accepting that as the complete answer it was.
"I need to ask you something," Julian said.
"The photograph Victoria dropped.
The boy's picture.
You said it had the name St.
Anne's Children's Hospital on it."
"Yes.
And a room number.
I only saw it for a second before she picked it up, but I remember the number because it was the same as my daughter's birthday.
February fourteenth.
Room 14."
Julian sat back.
"You have a good memory."
"I remember things I'm not supposed to see.
It's an occupational habit." She paused.
"I'm sorry about the party.
I know it was an important night."
"Not in the way anyone expected." Julian looked at her.
"Victoria threatened you.
Yesterday."
Allison's hands tightened around the paper cup.
"She told me that if I mentioned anything I'd seen or heard near the records room, she would have me reported for theft and make sure I was blacklisted from every domestic staff agency in Tampa." She said it simply, without drama.
"I have a daughter.
I can't afford to be blacklisted."
"She threatened you to protect a forgery and a sick child she was using as leverage."
Allison looked at him steadily.
"I know."
"You called me from this room anyway."
"You seemed like someone who wanted to know the truth." She paused.
"And she had already put something in my water.
At that point, staying quiet didn't feel very safe either."
Julian almost smiled.
"That's a practical way to look at it."
"I'm a practical person." She set the cup down.
"Is the boy all right?
The one in the photograph?"
"He's going to have his surgery.
Within the week."
Something in Allison's face relaxed.
It was the particular release of someone who had been carrying a worry they didn't think they were entitled to show.
"Good," she said quietly.
Julian reached into his jacket and removed a folded document of his own.
He set it on the tray table beside her tea.
She looked at it without picking it up.
"What is this?"
"An employment contract.
Full-time household manager for the Ricci estate.
Salary, benefits, housing allowance, and a school fund for your daughter Lucy, contingent on nothing except your continued employment." He stood.
"You don't have to take it.
But you should know it exists."
Allison picked up the document.
She read it slowly, the way someone reads something they want to make sure is real before they let themselves react to it.
Her hands were still slightly shaky from the s*dative.
They steadied as she read.
When she looked up, her eyes were bright.
She blinked once, hard, and then her expression returned to its characteristic composure — practical, clear, direct.
"You'll want references," she said.
"I have all the references I need," Julian said.
"You called me from a hospital bed to tell me the truth when you didn't have to.
That's the only reference that matters."
She looked at the document again.
Then she placed it flat on the tray table with both hands, the same way someone places something they have decided to keep.
"I'll need Thursdays off," she said.
"Lucy has swimming."
"Thursdays are yours."
She nodded.
And for just a moment — not long, just a moment — the composure shifted, and she pressed her lips together and looked at the ceiling, and Julian looked at the wall and gave her the privacy of that.
When she looked back, she was herself again.
"Thank you, Mr.
Ricci."
"Julian."
She considered that.
"Thank you, Julian."
He left the room and walked back down the quiet corridor toward the exit.
Outside, the first gray suggestion of morning was beginning at the edge of the sky.
Not dawn yet.
The hour before dawn, when the night has not quite finished and the day has not yet begun.
The hour when decisions made in the dark are about to meet the light.
May you like
He had several more calls to make.
He made them from the parking lot, standing beside his car, watching the sky.
