Chapter 7 - The Bedroom Watch
My bedroom door was closed but not latched, and Ellis stood just outside it where the hall light made a thin line on the rug.
I sat on the edge of my bed with my feet not touching the floor. My dress felt loose in the back. I reached behind me and felt the bow hanging, the strings untied, the fabric slipped down a little where Lorraine had tugged me past the chair at dinner. I hadn't noticed it until then. I just kept touching the loose ends with my fingertips.
Ellis knocked once, soft. "Emma?" he said. "You okay in there?"
I nodded before I realized he couldn't see me. "Yes," I said. My voice was small.
He stepped in just enough to keep the door open with his shoulder. He didn't turn on the overhead light. The lamp by my bed was on and that was enough. He looked at my back and then at my face.
"Your bow came undone," he said quietly.
I twisted a little, trying to pull the strings myself. My hands didn't reach right.
"Can I?" he asked.
I nodded. He came closer and knelt a little so he wasn't looming over me. His hands were careful. He'd done this before at school pick-up when my ribbon slipped, not like Lorraine did it. Lorraine pulled tight and fast and made it perfect. Ellis just looped it gently and left it a little soft, like it was supposed to move.
"There," he said. "Better?"
I touched it again. It was even now. "Thank you," I whispered.
He didn't step away right away. He stayed crouched beside the bed so we were eye level. Down the hall I could hear my dad's voice, low and even, and Lorraine answering, sharper. I couldn't make out words, just the sound of it through the walls.
"Did I do something wrong?" I asked him.
"No," Ellis said. He shook his head once. "You didn't."
I stared at my hands in my lap. The pearl trim on my dress caught the lamplight. I remembered why I'd been upstairs in the first place.
Lorraine had sent me up before the donors arrived. She'd been at the vanity in the private suite, putting on her earrings, and she told me to fetch her diamond bracelet from the upstairs dressing room. She'd left it on the dark wood table, she said. Be quick and be staff about it, she told me. That was what she said when she wanted me not to be seen.
I'd gone up the back stairs with my shoes quiet on the carpet. The dressing room door was already open. And she was there. Not gone to the dining room yet. She was standing by the closet with her black clutch open on the shelf, and she had a silver card in her hand. Not hers. I'd seen Mrs. Whitmore use one like it at the foundation tower when Dad took me there, the one that let her sign things. Lorraine slipped it into the inner pocket of the clutch and pressed it flat, then tucked the clutch under a folded scarf like she was hiding it. When she turned and saw me in the doorway, she smiled but her eyes didn't.
"Didn't I ask you to wait downstairs?" she said.
That's why I knew it was upstairs. That's why I told Dad that.
Ellis was watching me, and I realized I was breathing faster.
"You saw something earlier," he said. It wasn't a question.
I swallowed. "I saw her with it."
He looked down at his hands for a second, then back at me. His earpiece was dark, no light blinking.
"I saw her too," he said quietly. "This afternoon. She asked me to drive her to the foundation tower while your dad was in meetings. She said she was dropping off donor cards. She went in with her clutch and came out without going to the front desk. I didn't ask."
He said it like he was admitting something he should have said sooner.
"My dad didn't know," I said.
"No," Ellis said. "He didn't."
Down the hall a door closed, not slammed, just firm. The voices stopped for a moment, then started again, lower.
Ellis glanced toward the hall, then back at me. "What you told your dad before — upstairs — that was important. But if you know exactly where she put it, you need to tell him that part too. Not just upstairs. The place."
I thought about the scarf. The shelf. The closet in the dressing room where her winter coats hung even though it was warm out.
My throat felt tight, but differently than at the dinner table. Not like I was going to cry. Like I was deciding.
"I can show him," I said. My voice steadied. "I remember the shelf. Under the blue scarf."
Ellis nodded slowly. Something in his face shifted, like he'd made a choice about who he was listening to now.
May you like
"Okay," he said. "When he comes back, you tell him just that. Exactly what you saw. I'll make sure he hears you."
I sat up straighter on the bed. The bow stayed tied. The hall was quiet except for the low sound of my dad's footsteps coming closer, and this time I didn't want to hide when the door opened.
