Chapter 1: The Suitcase on the Brick Street
The wheels of my suitcase caught on every brick on Camden Ridge Road and I let them. I didn't lift it, didn't hurry, even though the late afternoon sun was hot on the back of my neck. My left hand was still in the yellow rubber glove from the upstairs bathroom I'd been scrubbing when she told me to pack. I'd only taken it off on the right so I could grip the handle.
That was the contradiction that kept playing in my head as I walked right to left past the Mercers' lawn — I was being thrown out for stealing while the woman who'd accused me stood at the peak of that house in her white silk blouse, watching from the second-floor window with her arms crossed.
My name is Emily and I was the Mercers' housekeeper for eight months.
That morning had been Tuesday at 8:14. Victoria had called me into the primary bedroom while Daniel was supposed to be in Charlotte until Thursday. She held up her diamond tennis bracelet in its open velvet box and then snapped it shut. She said she'd counted it last night and now it was missing and I was the only one with access to that dresser. She didn't raise her voice. She told me to have my suitcase out of the house by four or she'd call the gatehouse and have me escorted. I didn't argue. I went to my small room off the laundry, pulled my worn brown suitcase from under the bed — scuffed at the corners, the metal corners dented — and folded my two jumpsuits and my t-shirts inside. I kept my breathing slow because Milo and Lucas were supposed to be at the kitchen island doing their workbooks and I didn't want them to hear me cry.
I was halfway down the brick street toward the pedestrian gate, the houses all that identical gabled Colonial style with perfect lawns, when I heard the side door slam behind me.
Footsteps slapped fast on the bricks. Small, uneven.
"Miss Emily, wait! Miss Emily, don't leave us, please!"
Lucas hit me at full run. His dirty light-colored t-shirt had a tear at the sleeve and his face was wet, his cheeks and forearm marked with those reddish patches I'd noticed that morning but hadn't been allowed to ask about. He wrapped both arms around my navy jumpsuit and locked his hands around my yellow glove, his whole body trembling with those hitched breaths kids get when they've been crying too long. I froze with my suitcase handle still in my hand. I could feel his tears soaking into the fabric at my waist.
I didn't know what to do with my hands. I let the glove stay where he held it.
Then I heard different footsteps. Heavier, fast, on the cobblestone.
Daniel Mercer was running toward us up the street in his dark navy blazer and white open-collar shirt, his bag still slung over his shoulder like he'd come straight from the airport. He hadn't been due back for two days. His face was tight, his arms pumping, and when he saw the suitcase and Lucas clinging to me he slowed hard, his mouth already opening.
"Boys, what is the meaning of this?"
He was staring not at me but at Lucas. His eyes went from my suitcase to the yellow glove Lucas wouldn't let go of to the brick street itself, like he couldn't place where he was.
Lucas didn't let go. He turned his head just enough to look at his dad while his cheek stayed pressed to my side.
"Daddy, Miss Emily didn't take it."
Daniel's brow pulled together. I could see his chest rising and falling fast under that white shirt. He took one step closer and then stopped.
Lucas's voice dropped smaller, but he got it out in one rush.
"Victoria made us stay hidden."
The words landed and Daniel's face changed. His eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly and he just stared. I watched the micro-shift there — the quick blink, the way his jaw locked and then loosened, like he was processing something that didn't fit with whatever Victoria had told him on the phone that morning.
I hadn't said a word yet. I could hear my own breathing and Lucas's breath against my jumpsuit and the faint tick of the suitcase wheels settling on the brick.
Then Lucas whispered the last part, his fingers tightening on my glove until the rubber creaked.
"She said she would send us away forever."
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Daniel didn't move. He stood frozen three feet away on the warm brick, his bag slipping an inch on his shoulder, his eyes fixed on his son's tear-streaked face and on me standing there with that scuffed brown suitcase at my side. Behind us, the front door of the Mercer house was still closed. No one had come out.
And in that held second before anyone could decide what happened next, I realized we were all waiting for the same door to open.
