Chapter 3: The Woman Downstairs
I stood at the top of the stairs and didn't move.
Derek's voice carried up from the sitting room, low and clipped, the way it got when he was trying to keep something contained.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Not today.
Not this week."
A woman answered.
Her voice was steady.
Controlled.
"You didn't answer my calls, Derek.
What was I supposed to do?"
"Go home, Vanessa."
"Go home." A short laugh.
"That's what you said last time too.
Right before you proposed to her."
I pressed my back against the wall.
My bag was still over my shoulder.
The cashier's check was still inside it.
My passport.
Everything.
I didn't go down.
I listened.
"This is not the time," Derek said.
"We had an arrangement.
You understood that."
"I understood that you needed her money," Vanessa said.
"I didn't understand that you were going to lock her in a bedroom on your wedding day like some kind of—"
"Keep your voice down."
"Or what?"
Silence.
Then the sound of a glass being set down hard on a table.
"Vanessa.
I am asking you to leave."
"I want to know if she's all right."
My chest tightened.
"She's fine," Derek said.
"She's adjusting."
"Adjusting." Vanessa's voice dropped.
"Is that what you call it?"
I heard footsteps.
Someone crossing the room.
I leaned forward just enough to see the edge of the sitting room doorway from the top of the stairs.
Brenda appeared in the hallway below.
She hadn't seen me yet.
"The girl is still upstairs," Brenda said to someone out of my sight.
"Derek has it handled."
"Does he?" Vanessa's voice again, now closer.
"Because from where I'm standing, he has nothing handled."
Brenda's head turned sharply.
"Who let you in?"
"The front door was open." A pause.
"You should be more careful about that."
I pulled back from the edge.
My heart was moving fast but my hands were steady.
Vanessa knew something.
She had called Derek before the wedding.
She knew about the money.
She knew about the arrangement.
And she had come here anyway, on the day of the brunch, while thirty relatives sat downstairs with their champagne glasses.
That wasn't reckless.
That was deliberate.
I looked at my phone.
The message was still on the screen.
*He did it before.*
I typed back one word.
*Who?*
The reply came in under a minute.
*His first wife.
Her name was Miriam.
Ask him what happened to her.*
I read it twice.
Then I put the phone in my bag, straightened my dress, and walked down the stairs.
The sitting room went quiet the moment I appeared in the doorway.
Derek stood near the window.
Brenda was by the door.
And across the room, holding a small clutch bag and wearing a dark green coat, was a woman I had never seen before.
She was looking directly at me.
"You must be Chloe," she said.
"I am," I said.
"And you're Vanessa."
Something moved across her face.
Not surprise.
Relief.
Derek stepped forward.
"Chloe, this is an old family friend.
She was just leaving."
"She doesn't look like she's leaving," I said.
Vanessa didn't move.
"I came to warn you," she said.
"I know that's not what anyone in this room wants me to say.
But I came to warn you."
Derek's jaw tightened.
"Vanessa—"
"I was where you are," she said to me.
"Two years ago.
Different house.
Same family.
Same rules."
The room was absolutely still.
Brenda's voice came out sharp and flat.
"That is enough."
"Is it?" Vanessa didn't look at Brenda.
She kept her eyes on me.
"Ask him about Miriam.
Ask him what happened to the money she brought into this marriage.
Ask him why she left with nothing."
Derek crossed the room in four steps and took Vanessa by the arm.
"We're done here," he said.
She let him move her toward the door.
But at the threshold she turned back and looked at me one last time.
"The name is Miriam Hale," she said.
"She kept his name.
I don't know why.
Find her."
Derek pushed the door shut behind her.
The room held its breath.
Then he turned to me, and his expression had shifted into something smooth and practiced.
Almost kind.
"She has some personal issues," he said.
"She's been difficult for years.
I'm sorry you had to see that."
I looked at him.
May you like
"Who is Miriam?" I said.
The kindness left his face like a light switching off.
