Chap­ter 18

That night, I wake up to the sound of shout­ing.

The attic is incred­i­bly well insu­lat­ed, so I can’t hear any­thing being said. But there are loud voic­es com­ing from below my room. A male voice and a female voice. Andrew and Nina.

Then I hear a crash.

Instinc­tive­ly, I roll out of bed. Maybe it’s none of my busi­ness, but some­thing is going on down there. I have to at least make sure every­thing is okay.

I put my hand on the door­knob to my room, and it doesn’t turn. Most of the time, I’m used to the fact that the door sticks. But every once in a while, I get a jab of pan­ic. But then the knob shifts under my hand. And I’m out.

I descend the creaky steps to the sec­ond floor. Now that I’m out of the attic, the shout­ing is much loud­er. It’s com­ing from the mas­ter bed­room. Nina’s voice, yelling at Andrew. She sounds almost hys­ter­i­cal.

“It’s not fair!” she cries. “I did every­thing I could and—”

“Nina,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is my fault! If you were with a younger woman, you could have a baby like you want! It’s my fault!”

“Nina…”

“You’d be bet­ter off with­out me!”

“Come on, don’t say that…”

“It’s true!” But she doesn’t sound sad. She sounds angry. “You wish I were gone!”

“Nina, stop it!”

There’s anoth­er loud crash from inside the room. Fol­lowed by a third crash. I take a step back, torn between knock­ing on the door to make sure every­thing is okay and want­i­ng to scur­ry back to my room and hide. I stand there sev­er­al sec­onds, par­a­lyzed by my inde­ci­sion. Then the door is yanked open.

Nina is stand­ing there in the same lily-white night­gown she was wear­ing the night she caught me and Andrew in the liv­ing room. But now I notice a streak of crim­son on the pale mate­r­i­al, start­ing at the side of her hip and run­ning down the length of the skirt.

“Mil­lie.” Her eyes bore into me. “What are you doing here?”

I look down at her hands and see the same crim­son is all over her right palm. “I…”

“Are you spy­ing on us?” She arch­es an eye­brow. “Are you lis­ten­ing to our con­ver­sa­tion?”

“No!” I take a step back. “I just heard a crash and I was wor­ried that… I want­ed to make sure every­thing is okay.”

She notices my gaze direct­ed at what I’m almost sure is a blood stain on her gown. She looks almost amused by it. “I just cut my hand a bit. Noth­ing to wor­ry about. I don’t need your help.”

But what was going on in there? Is that real­ly why there’s blood all over her night­gown? And where is Andrew?

What if she killed him? What if he’s lying dead in the mid­dle of the bed­room? Or worse, what if he’s bleed­ing to death right now, and I have a chance to save him? I can’t just walk away. I may have done some bad things in my life, but I’m not going to let Nina get away with mur­der.

“Where’s Andrew?” I say.

Pink cir­cles form on her cheeks. “Excuse me?”

“I just…” I shift between my bare feet. “I heard a crash. Is he okay?”

Nina stares at me. “How dare you! What are you accus­ing me of?”

It occurs to me that Andrew is a big, strong man. If Nina made short work of him, what chance would I stand against her? But I can’t move. I have to make sure he’s okay.

“Go back to your room,” she orders me.

I swal­low a lump in my throat. “No.”

“Go back to your room or else you’re fired.”

She means it. I can see it in her eyes. But I can’t move. I start to protest again, but then I hear some­thing. Some­thing that makes my shoul­ders sag…