The Murderer They Brought Home

Chapter 2 The Papers

The debit card arrived three days later. A plain white envelope, no note, just a card with my name on it and a limit that made my hands feel weak.

I took it up to my room and sat on the bed and stared at it for a long time. In my life, I'd never had more than a few hundred dollars to my name at any given moment. Now I had access to thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe.

It didn't feel real.

I ran my thumb over the embossed numbers. The name. Delia Ashford. That wasn't who I was. Not really. I'd been other names, other people, for so long that this felt like a costume.

But it was a costume I could buy things with, so I put it in my wallet and went downstairs.

The house was quiet. Marcus was at work, Vivian was doing something upstairs, Eleanor was in the conservatory with a book. I could see her through the glass doors, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

I didn't go in.

Instead, I walked down the back path to the garden. It was as beautiful as I'd imagined. Roses in every color, hedges trimmed into perfect shapes, a stone path that led down to a small dock on the water. The air smelled like salt and flowers.

I sat on the dock and looked at the water and thought.

The investigation. Henry had run a background check. That meant there were files. Records. Things I'd spent years trying to leave behind.

I needed to know what he had.

Not because I was planning to do anything. But because information was power, and I'd learned long ago that power was the only thing that kept you safe.

I sat on the dock for an hour, then went back to the house.

The office was empty. Henry was at work, like his father. The door was unlocked.

I told myself I was just looking. That I wasn't going to take anything. That I just wanted to know what he knew.

I told myself a lot of things.

Inside, the office was neat and orderly. Bookshelves along one wall. A filing cabinet in the corner. A computer on the desk, password-protected, useless to me.

The filing cabinet wasn't locked.

I opened the top drawer. Family trusts. Account statements. Legal documents.

The second drawer. Insurance. Property records.

The third drawer. Personnel files. Household staff. And a file with a name I recognized: my own.

I pulled it out and sat down in Henry's chair.

Delia Ashford. Born August 14th, twenty-two years ago. Placed in state care at six months old when her mother, Sarah, was arrested for drug possession. Sarah died two years later. Overdose.

I knew that part.

Foster placements: seven. Group homes: three. Juvenile detention: two six-month stints, one for assault, one for theft. Psychiatric evaluation at seventeen. Diagnosis: conduct disorder, antisocial traits. Recommended long-term institutional care.

I didn't remember agreeing to that.

Therapy notes. Summary: patient shows no remorse for actions, limited empathy, history of manipulative behavior. Presents as calm and cooperative but withholds information. Likely to act in her own self-interest regardless of consequences.

I flipped through the pages. So much of it was wrong. So much of it was right.

Then I found something else. A photograph. Me, at fourteen, in a group home, staring at the camera with dead eyes. I looked like a different person.

I turned the page. Another photograph. Eleanor. At sixteen. Walking out of a hospital. The caption: Eleanor Ashford, released after treatment for eating disorder.

I stared at it for a long time.

Eating disorder. Not a weak constitution. Not some mysterious illness. An eating disorder.

So that was the truth behind the blanket, the pale skin, the soft voice. She wasn't fragile. She was sick in a different way. And she'd built a life around being taken care of.

I thought about our conversation in my room. The way she'd looked at me. The way she'd smiled. The way she'd warned me.

She knew what I was. But I knew what she was now, too.

I put the file back and closed the drawer and left the office exactly as I'd found it.

Then I went up to my room and sat on the bed and thought.

I had a plan now. It wasn't a good plan. It wasn't a safe plan. But it was a plan.

I knew what Eleanor was hiding. Not everything, maybe, but enough. Enough to make her think twice about threatening me.

I could use it. If I had to. If she pushed me.

But first I needed to understand what I was dealing with. Who was Eleanor Ashford, really? Not the girl in the blanket. The girl underneath.

I spent the afternoon in the conservatory, pretending to read. Eleanor was there, in her usual spot, and we sat in silence for a while.

Then she spoke.

"You're different today."

"Am I?"

"You're thinking about something. You have that look."

"What look?"

"The look people get when they're planning something." She turned a page in her book. "I should know. I've been planning things since I was twelve."

I closed my book. "What kinds of things?"

"Things that keep me safe." She smiled. "Things that keep me in control."

I looked at her. The pale skin. The thin wrists. The blanket.

"You're not sick," I said.

"We've been over this."

"There's no mysterious illness. There's no weak constitution." I leaned forward. "There's just an eating disorder and a family that feels guilty about it."

Her smile didn't change. But something in her eyes flickered.

"Where did you hear that?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

I shrugged. "I have my sources."

She closed her book. For a moment, she just looked at me. Then she laughed. It was a real laugh, not the breathy one she used in front of her parents.

"I underestimated you," she said.

"Most people do."

"I won't make that mistake again." She leaned forward. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I just want you to know that I know."

"Know what?"

"That you're not weak. That you're not fragile. That everything you do is calculated." I met her eyes. "And that if you ever threaten me again, I can return the favor."

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she nodded.

"Fair enough," she said. "We understand each other."

"I think we do."

She picked up her book and started reading again. I did the same.

We sat like that for an hour, two people who had just declared war without saying a word.

I went to bed that night feeling something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Not fear. Not anger.

Power.