Chapter 9: Evanston
Her sister's name was Donna, and she opened the door in a bathrobe and reading glasses without asking a single question.
She took one look at Beatrice's face, at the dried antiseptic on her cheek, at the sleeping child in Beatrice's arms with a stuffed rabbit tucked under one small chin, and she stepped back and held the door open wide.
"Come in," she said.
"I'll put the kettle on."
That was Donna.
Beatrice had spent her whole life being grateful for Donna.
She settled Lily on the couch under a quilt that smelled like fabric softener and old wool.
Lily stirred once, reached for Beatrice's hand, and went back under without waking.
Beatrice sat on the floor beside the couch and did not move.
Donna brought two cups of tea and sat in the armchair across the room.
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"Bad," Beatrice said.
"But it's being handled."
"By who?"
"Leo Rossi."
Donna looked at her over her cup.
"The man you work for."
"Yes."
"The one you never talk about."
Beatrice wrapped both hands around her tea.
"I talk about Lily."
"You talk about Lily constantly.
You never talk about him." Donna set her cup down.
"Bea.
Your face."
"It looks worse than it is."
"That's not what I'm asking about." Donna leaned forward.
"Are you all right?
Not your face.
You."
Beatrice opened her mouth to say yes, automatically, the way she had said yes to that question her entire adult life regardless of the answer.
She closed it again.
"I don't know yet," she said.
Donna nodded.
That was the right answer and they both knew it.
They sat in the quiet of the Evanston house while the city slept around them, and Beatrice watched Lily breathe, and for the first time in many hours she let herself feel the full weight of the day — the cellar, the cold floor, the blue tint of Lily's lips, the way Leo had looked at her afterward like he was seeing her for the first time.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Leo.
*Federal agents executed a warrant on Kensington's hotel suite at 2:10 a.m.
Richard Kensington is in custody.
Victoria is being brought in for questioning.
You and Lily are safe.
Don't come back until I call you.*
She read it twice.
Then she turned the phone over in her lap and looked at Lily.
"Bee?" Lily's voice was small and sleep-rough.
"Right here."
"Where are we?"
"My sister's house.
Her name is Donna.
She makes very good shortbread."
Lily considered this with the gravity of a six-year-old processing new information.
"Better than yours?"
"Absolutely not."
Lily almost smiled.
Her eyes were still heavy.
"Is Daddy okay?"
"He's taking care of some things.
He'll call soon."
"Is the bad lady gone?"
Beatrice looked at the message on her phone.
Then at Lily.
"Yes," she said.
"She's gone."
Lily's hand found hers again under the quilt.
"Good," she said, and went back to sleep.
Donna caught Beatrice's eye from across the room.
She raised her cup slightly.
A small, quiet toast.
Beatrice raised hers back.
Outside, the first gray light of morning was beginning to show at the edges of the curtains.
Somewhere across the city, in a federal building Beatrice had never been inside, a man named Richard Kensington was sitting in a room and understanding for the first time that the plan he had built over eleven years had come apart in a single night — undone not by a rival, not by a federal task force, not by Elena Vasquez and her carefully preserved drive, but by a maid in a torn apron who had sat on a kitchen floor and refused to be shoved aside.
Beatrice did not know that yet.
May you like
She would learn it later, in pieces, the way you learn most important things.
For now, she drank her tea and held a child's hand and let the morning come.
