CHAPTER 7: LITTLE CRACKS
2016 Words
She was at her desk by six with the notebook open and a cup of tea that had gone cold twenty minutes ago because she kept forgetting it existed. She was staring at what she'd written the night before.
*Maya knows something.*
Two words that had no business being on that page.
She closed the notebook. Opened it again. Closed it.
Went to get ready.
Damien was in the hallway when she came out of her room.
Not waiting. Not walking. Just standing there reading something on his phone with the focused stillness of a man who made standing in hallways look like a boardroom decision.
He looked up when she appeared.
"You're up early," he said.
"I could say the same."
"I have a call at seven."
"Then why are you standing in the hallway."
He looked at her for a moment. "I heard your light on at three."
She said nothing.
"And four," he said.
"I was reading."
"You were thinking."
"Those are the same thing."
"They're really not." He put his phone in his pocket. Looked at her properly. "Cecelia spoke to you yesterday."
It wasn't a question.
"She found me in the library," Eloise said.
"What did she say."
"That she knew my father."
Something shifted in his face. Not surprise. The specific stillness of someone receiving information they already had and were watching to see how much of it you knew.
"Did she say anything else," he said carefully.
"She mentioned the painting."
Complete silence.
Damien looked at her with an expression she couldn't read and she was getting very tired of not being able to read his expressions.
"Come," he said.
"Where."
"My office."
"You have a call at seven."
"It can wait."
He closed the office door behind them.
Stood at his desk without sitting. Arms crossed. The specific posture of a man having an internal argument he hadn't finished yet.
Eloise sat without being invited. Obviously.
"The painting," she said. "2006. Same year as my father's company."
"I know what year it was."
"Then tell me what it means."
"It's complicated."
"I have time."
"Miss Barker—"
"Eloise," she said. "We're engaged. Fake or otherwise. Use my name."
He looked at her. Something moved across his face. There and gone.
"Eloise," he said.
First time he'd said it like that. Without the distance of formality sitting between them. Just her name. Plain and direct and somehow completely different from every other time anyone had said it.
She kept her face perfectly still.
"The painting," she repeated.
He was quiet for a moment. The kind of quiet where you can almost hear someone deciding something.
"My father hung it there in 2006," he said finally. "After the deal with Barker Industries collapsed."
"Collapsed," she said. "That's an interesting word for what happened."
"Eloise."
"My father didn't collapse. He was pushed."
Damien held her gaze. "I know."
The room went very quiet.
"You know," she said slowly.
"I was sixteen in 2006. I didn't know the details then. I found out later." He moved to the window. Stood with his back to her. "What happened to your family wasn't right."
"Then who."
He turned around.
"That's what I've been trying to find out," he said. "For two years."
She stared at him.
"You've been investigating."
"Someone inside this company orchestrated what happened to yours. Used the Ashford name to cover it. I don't know who yet. I have pieces. Not enough."
"You have pieces," she repeated. "Two years of pieces."
"Yes."
"And you didn't think to mention this when you hired me."
"You came here to destroy my family."
"I came here for the truth."
"Same destination. Very different routes." He looked at her steadily. "I needed to know if you were going to burn everything down before I had the answers or work with me to find them."
She looked at him for a long moment.
This man. Who she had researched for three years. Who she had walked into this house to dismantle. Who was standing in front of her telling her he'd been looking for the same thing she had.
She didn't trust it.
She didn't trust him.
But she filed it.
"The painting," she said. "What's behind it."
A pause.
"Documents," he said. "Old ones. My father's. I haven't been able to access them. He changed the combination after I started asking questions."
"Your own father locked you out."
"My father," Damien said carefully, "is not who I thought he was."
The sentence landed in the room and sat there heavy and complicated and she understood suddenly that Reginald and the garden and the two cups of tea and the shoulders that moved were all part of something much larger than she'd mapped.
Her notebook felt inadequate.
"I need to think," she said.
"Take your time."
She stood. Walked to the door.
"Eloise."
She stopped.
"Don't tell your friend," he said. "About any of this."
She turned slowly. "Maya."
"Yes."
"Why."
He looked at her with those grey eyes that gave nothing away and everything away simultaneously.
"Because I don't know her," he said simply. "And right now I don't know who in this house I can trust."
She looked at him.
Thought about last night.
*Some of them were put there specifically for you.*
"Neither do I," she said quietly.
She left.
---
Maya was already in the kitchen.
Of course she was.
She was sitting on the counter eating toast and talking to Sebastian who was leaning against the fridge with his arms crossed trying very hard to look like someone who wasn't hanging on every word she said.
He was not succeeding.
"Eloise." Maya pointed her toast. "Tell him. Tell him that pineapple on pizza is a completely valid choice and anyone who disagrees is operating from a place of fear."
"It's not a valid choice," Eloise said.
"See?" Sebastian said.
"I don't need her I need justice," Maya said.
"Those are different things."
"Are they though."
Sebastian laughed. Actual laugh. The kind that happened before you could decide whether to.
Maya looked at him when he laughed.
Something in her expression — just for a second — went somewhere Eloise couldn't follow. Something soft and complicated that disappeared the moment Maya felt her watching.
"Sit," Maya said, patting the counter beside her. "You look like you've been thinking too hard since approximately midnight."
"I slept fine."
"You slept terribly. Your eyes say so." She handed her a piece of toast. "Eat something."
Eloise took the toast.
Sebastian poured her tea without being asked. Slid it across the counter. She looked at him.
"Damien does that," he said simply. "Notices when people need things before they ask. Runs in the family apparently."
She wrapped her hands around the mug.
"Sebastian," she said.
"Mm."
"How long have you known Damien."
"Since we were seven. He punched a kid who took my lunch. Didn't even know my name yet." He smiled at the memory. "Been stuck with him since."
"Does he talk to you. About things."
Sebastian looked at her carefully. "Depends on the things."
"About his father."
The kitchen went a degree quieter.
"Not really," Sebastian said. "Not since two years ago when something changed between them. He won't say what."
Two years ago.
Same time Damien said he started investigating.
She filed it.
"Why?" Sebastian asked.
"Just curious," she said.
Maya was watching her over her toast with the expression she got when she was paying attention to more than one thing at once.
"You're doing the thing," Maya said.
"What thing."
"The thing where you ask questions that sound casual but aren't." She tilted her head. "What happened."
"Nothing happened."
"Eloise."
"Maya."
They looked at each other.
Something passed between them. The particular silent language of people who had known each other long enough to have one. Eloise was saying *not here, not now.* Maya was saying *I know, I see you, tell me later.*
Then Maya's eyes did something.
Just briefly.
They moved to the window. The east wing. The third floor.
And back.
So fast Eloise almost missed it.
Almost.
"More toast?" Maya said brightly.
"No," Eloise said.
"Sebastian?"
"I'm good," he said.
The kitchen settled back into its normal rhythm. Maya talking. Sebastian responding. The easy back and forth of two people who had somehow become comfortable with each other overnight.
Eloise drank her tea.
And thought about the window.
And what Maya had looked at.
And why.
---
She went to the library at noon.
Stood in front of the painting for a long time.
She didn't touch it. Didn't go near the frame.
Just looked.
Documents. Behind there. Old ones. A combination Reginald had changed when his own son started asking questions.
She thought about Damien saying *I don't know who in this house I can trust.*
She thought about Cecelia saying *some of them were put there specifically for you.*
She thought about Maya's eyes going to the window.
The east wing.
The third floor.
*Why did you look there Maya.*
She heard footsteps in the corridor.
Moved away from the painting. Picked up the nearest book. Opened it somewhere in the middle.
The door opened.
Reginald.
He looked at her. At the book. At the shelf she was standing near.
She waited for him to say something.
He walked to the chair by the window. Sat. Picked up the book on the side table like he'd left it there yesterday. Maybe he had.
"You couldn't sleep," he said. Not a question.
"I slept fine."
"Hm."
That single syllable again. The one that said everything.
She closed her book. Sat in the chair across from him.
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Lord Ashford," she said.
"Reginald."
She paused. "Reginald."
He looked up from his book.
"The painting," she said.
He looked at it.
Long and steady. The look of a man revisiting something he'd looked at too many times and couldn't stop.
"What about it," he said.
"Why that wall."
"Why not."
"There's no natural light on that side. It's not the best position for it."
"No," he agreed. "It's not."
Silence.
"It was my wife's choice," he said finally. "Originally. She liked that wall."
Eloise looked at him.
"And when she was gone," he continued, "I changed what was behind it." He turned the page of his book without reading it. "Things you want to keep safe. You put them somewhere that meant something else first."
She said nothing.
"She would have liked you," he said quietly.
She wasn't expecting that.
"Your wife," she said carefully.
"She had no patience for performance either." He looked back at his book. "She said exactly what she meant and made everyone around her feel stupid for saying anything less."
Eloise looked at the painting.
At the frame.
At the slight asymmetry she'd noticed on day one.
"Reginald," she said.
"Mm."
"What's in there."
Long silence.
He turned another page he hadn't read.
"Things that should have come to light a long time ago," he said. "Things I was too proud and too afraid to let out."
"Afraid of what."
He looked at her then. Really looked. The full weight of whatever he'd been carrying for however long he'd been carrying it sitting right there in his eyes.
"Of what it would mean for my family," he said. "When everything came out." He paused. "And it will come out. I've known that for two years."
Two years.
Everyone in this house had a two year clock running.
"Does Damien know what's in there," she asked.
"He knows some of it."
"And the rest."
Reginald closed his book.
Stood.
Walked to the door.
Stopped.
"The combination," he said to the wall, not to her, "is my wife's birthday." A pause. "She would have wanted you to have it."
He left.
The library was completely silent.
Eloise sat in the chair for a long time.
Then she stood up.
Walked to the painting.
Looked at the frame.
Put her hand on the left side.
Pressed.
It swung open.
- Writer
