Chapter 3: Water Runs Beneath Clara's Hand
The water kept moving after Ethan took the phone. It slipped around the marble seams in thin, shining paths, carrying a faint gray smear from the floor toward the edge of the foyer. Clara’s hand rested in it. Her fingers were spread, as if she needed the marble to hold her steady.
Ethan did not look away from the screen for long. The black phone reflected his face, then Madison’s crimson suit, then the pale blur of Clara falling. His shoulders tightened. He lowered the device carefully, keeping it out of Madison’s reach, and stepped across the wet floor.
“Clara, what happened?”
The question still hung in the foyer, even though he had already seen enough to make the answer dangerous.
I was seven years old, and I held the only thing that showed what had happened.
I tightened both hands around the phone when Ethan moved toward Clara. Its edges pressed into my palms. I wanted to give it to him, but I was afraid of losing it. Madison had already tried to make the room believe her instead of the recording. If the phone left me, the truth might leave with it.
Ethan bent beside Clara. He did not touch her at first. He looked at the blood at the corner of her lip, then at the water spreading beneath her knees. Clara lifted one hand from the floor. It trembled as she pointed toward the dry part of the foyer, away from the water and away from Madison.
Ethan understood. He slipped one arm behind Clara’s shoulders and held out his other hand toward her elbow. When he helped her stand, her shoe skidded slightly. The sound scraped across the marble. I took a step forward without meaning to.
Madison moved too.
Her attention never settled on Clara’s face. It went to the phone in my hands, then to Ethan, then back to the phone. Her chin tipped toward the device as if it were something she could claim by looking at it. She crossed the space between us by one careful step.
“She slipped. It was just a clumsy accident.”
Her voice was calm, but her hands were not. One hand opened and closed beside her crimson jacket. The other pointed toward Clara, though Madison’s eyes stayed fixed on me.
Clara leaned against Ethan. She pressed two fingers to her lip, showing him the blood. Then she lowered that hand and reached toward the wet floor. Her fingers stopped just above the water. She looked past it, toward the quiet stretch of foyer where the documents were hidden.
I followed her gaze. I did not know exactly what she wanted Ethan to see, only that she did not want Madison near that place. Clara’s expression changed when Madison shifted in its direction. Fear tightened her mouth more sharply than the injury had.
Ethan saw it. His body turned, placing him between the two women. Clara remained behind his shoulder, no longer kneeling beneath Madison’s shadow. Water ran beneath her abandoned hand and continued toward the base of the grand staircase.
Madison stopped.
For one second, she looked at Clara. Then her eyes dropped to the phone again.
I backed toward the staircase, keeping the screen against my chest. Madison noticed. Her gaze followed the movement and stayed there. The recording was safe for that moment, but now she knew where I was keeping it.
May you like
Ethan’s hand closed around Clara’s arm as he steadied her. Madison’s weight shifted forward, almost too slightly to notice.
The foyer went still except for the water.
