Chapter 14 - The Key Turned in Front of Us
We stood in the upstairs hallway where the light went blue and cold. Mr. Balanki held the card between two fingers. Lily stayed back by the stair rail where I'd left her, her white socks bright against the dark carpet, her pink dress pale in that light. She had one hand on the rail and the other clutching my apron string that I'd given her to hold, so she would feel close without being too close.
Selene stood on the other side of the locked door, her black satin gown catching the hallway light. The diamonds at her throat moved when she breathed. Her clutch was gone now. The card was in Mr. Balanki's hand, not in her purse. He didn't look at her yet. He looked at the lock.
"I want you to watch," he said to me, quiet. "Both of you stay there."
Lily nodded. I put my hand on the back of her head for a second. The lock gave a low click when he slid the card. It wasn't loud, but in that hallway it sounded final. He pushed the door open a few inches and the warm air from inside met the cooler hallway air. Dust and paper and cedar. No one had opened it in days except whoever had.
He flicked the switch. A single overhead bulb lit a narrow room with built-in shelves and a dark wood desk against the far wall. I had never been inside. I had dusted that hallway a hundred times and walked past like the door was just wall. Now I saw the boxes stacked neat on the left, labeled in black marker, and a file cabinet with the top drawer not quite shut.
Mr. Balanki stepped in but left the door wide so we could see. "Stay at the threshold," he told me. I nodded and kept Lily behind me.
The desk told the story before anyone spoke. Papers that should have been squared were fanned. A leather tray that held pens was empty, one pen on the floor. A small wooden box with a hinged lid sat open, the felt inside dented where something heavy had been lifted and set back wrong. On the shelf above, a row of binders leaned, one pulled half out. The file drawer hung open two inches.
He didn't touch anything at first. He just looked, slow, his jaw working under his beard. His watch caught the bulb light when he lifted his hand to the desk edge and stopped before touching it.
"Someone went through this," he said.
Selene laughed, a short sound that didn't belong there. "You're being dramatic. It's a storage room. Maybe the cleaning—"
"I don't have cleaning in here," he said. "Only me."
I felt Lily press her forehead against my back. Her curls brushed my hands when I folded them in front of my apron. I didn't speak. He had asked me to watch, so I watched.
He pointed with his chin at the file drawer. "That was locked. That drawer locks when the door locks. It doesn't drift open."
Selene stepped closer, her heels silent on the runner. "I was curious, okay? This house is going to be my home too. I wanted to see what you keep locked away from everyone. That's not a crime."
Mr. Balanki turned then. "When?"
She blinked. "What?"
"When were you curious?" His voice stayed low. "Be specific."
She glanced at me, then at Lily, as if we were the problem. "Yesterday afternoon. Before dinner. I borrowed your spare. I put it back."
"You don't have a spare," he said. "There's this card and there's one in my safe downstairs. Which one did you borrow?"
A pause stretched. The bulb hummed. "I meant I used the one you leave—" She stopped. "I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything in there that could embarrass us. Family reputation matters. You have business papers, personal things. I was protecting you."
Mr. Balanki looked at the open wooden box. "By opening this?"
"I didn't open that," she said quickly, then, when his eyes stayed on her, "I mean I might have glanced. I don't remember."
Lily's fingers tightened on my apron string. I bent just enough to murmur, "Stay still, baby," so low only she heard.
Mr. Balanki walked to the shelf and pushed the half-pulled binder back with one knuckle, careful not to disturb prints. "You told Lily at my table that this table's for family, not the help. You said it loud enough the whole room heard."
Selene lifted her chin. "She needed to learn manners."
"You said it," he went on, "right after she asked to sit. And then when she said you came out of this room with this card, you called her confused. A mistake." He turned to face the doorway, to face us. "You needed her to be wrong in front of everyone."
My throat burned. I kept my hands clasped. I didn't correct him or add to it. Lily stepped half out from behind me, her eyes on the desk, then on him.
"Mr. Balanki?" she whispered.
He crouched a little, though he stayed inside the room, to get level with her across the distance. His suit pulled at his shoulders. "Yeah, Lily."
"She had it in her hand," Lily said, pointing at the space where the card had been, now in his hand. "Like that."
Selene's voice sharpened. "She's five. She points at everything."
Mr. Balanki stood slowly. He looked tired in a way dinner had hidden. "She pointed at this door from downstairs and got the door right. She described the card before she ever saw it up close. And now the drawer I left shut is open." He held the card up. "This is my card. It was in your clutch."
"I told you, I was protecting—" Selene started.
"Protecting what?" he cut in, still quiet. "Papers you had no reason to read?"
She had no quick answer for that. She smoothed her gown over her hips, a small useless gesture. The diamonds swung. "We can talk about this alone. Send them downstairs."
He didn't move. He looked past her to me. "Maya, did you send her up here? Did you tell Lily to say anything at dinner?"
"No, sir," I said. My voice shook once and steadied. "I didn't know about the room until she pointed."
He nodded, like that settled something heavy. He glanced back at the desk, at the search laid out plain under the bulb. "Nobody cleans this chapter up yet," he said. "Door stays open until I say."
Selene stared at him. "You're choosing this? Over me? In front of them?"
May you like
"I'm choosing what I see," he said. He slipped the card into his inside jacket pocket and buttoned it. "We'll finish this downstairs."
Lily let out a breath she had been holding and leaned hard into my legs. I rested my hand on her curls. The blue hallway light felt colder now, and the warm light from the little room spilled across the carpet between us and them, showing every footprint in the dust.
