ACE
I walked through the front door, letting the click of it closing behind me echo in the empty foyer. It was quiet and the silence felt wrong. The house had a rhythm, one I knew intimately, and this stillness was off-beat. My eyes immediately found Margaret, standing stiffly near the desk, her posture too rigid, her hands folded too tightly in front of her.
“Where’s Alice?”
My voice was calm, low, deliberate—but the calm was a mask. Beneath it, heat gathered in my chest, a slow, controlled burn that sharpened every edge of my awareness. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.
Margaret swallowed. I watched her throat move, the subtle tremor in her fingers as she tightened her grip on one hand with the other.
“Sir…she… Lily took her out.”
For a fraction of a second, everything ins
