“Mother, I’m surprised at you.” Evan turned his head slowly and looked at the woman shaking with anger in her wheelchair. “I would have thought you would have shared my little demonstration, such as it was, with everyone. Oh, wait. I get it,” he said interrupting her response. “You were hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he waved his hands at the scene. “I would have to agree, Mom. Who knew we had such daytime-talk-show-behavior bottled up in this family? See, that’s just it, isn’t it? We have a lot of shit bottled up in this family. No wonder Meg walked out when she did.”
“Evan, why don’t you come inside so we can sit down and talk this through,” Theo offered the olive branch, one hand resting on Margo’s trembling shoulder.
“Thanks Theo,” Evan chirped in a fake happy tone. “But I’m pretty sure that’d be a bad idea.” He nodded obviously toward Alik, Cole and Creed who stood fists clenched and huffing.
Evan started to saunter away, but stopped and turned back halfway so his profile was visible to the shocked Winter family.
“So let me ask you a question before I go—and this is going to be the question that’ll bake your brain if you let it: Why didn’t I tell you all this before you went searching for her three months ago?” Evan tapped his temple with a finger of his still glowing hand, nodded softly, turned and walked back down the alley, the same way he’d come.
Chapter 57 Morning at the House of Arkdone
Meg was awakened from a dead sleep by a soft but persistent knocking at the door.
She opened her eyes to look around, completely disoriented not only by the unrecognizable room, but by her position on the bed in which she lay. She was fully dressed except for her shoes and had no memory of how she got there.
“Who’s there?” Meg called, still trying to piece together the last thing she remembered.
“Eloise, Miss. I’ve come to help you start your bath and brought you fresh towels.”
Meg looked around herself, frantically trying to rub her eyes hoping it would clear the fog from her brain.
“Come in,” she answered, finally.
The door opened and in walked an older woman who wore a very old-fashioned apron, stockings and old-lady shoes. Her salt and peppered hair was pulled back tightly into a pristine bun at the back of her head. Seeming to come from a different era entirely, she strode in the room without making eye contact with Meg, curtsied respectfully then hurried into the bathroom. Meg heard her start the bathwater, open what sounded like a cabinet and shuffle through the content of a drawer before emerging. When she did, she came to the bed and laid out a simple white sweater dress, leggings, undergarments, black knee-high boots and a matching belt.
“Breakfast will be served in exactly forty-five minutes, Miss. I will come then to retrieve you. Will you require anything else before I go?”
Meg, who had been sitting up in bed watching Eloise perform her tasks as though she had stepped right out of a black-and-white movie, shook her head no before realizing the woman wasn’t looking up at her and wouldn’t have seen her answer.
“No, thank you Eloise,” Meg managed.
The older woman, who just embodied everything stereotypical about a “housemaid,” bowed even more deeply, turned and left the room, closing the door securely behind her.
Meg stared at the closed door for a moment while the haunting melody of “Moonlight Sonata” began to echo around the chamber. The rendition was so crisp, Meg’s eyes widened in surprise thinking it was her vivid imagination dictating a malevolent theme song at that moment. Then she realized the music was actually coming from outside the room and not in her head. Someone was playing the piano near enough that the tune sang through the walls.
Feeling like a prisoner preparing for the gallows, Meg shuffled off the bed, noticed her boots waiting side by side at the foot of the bed and walked toward the bathroom.
By the time she walked out of the steamy room towel drying her hair, the music had changed to a piece she didn’t recognize. She glanced at the wall clock and grimaced when she saw she only had seventeen minutes left before Eloise showed her creepy self again.
Meg had just slipped the sweater dress over her head when there came a soft rapping at her door. Her eyes darted to the clock. She should still have fourteen minutes. Still pulling her long, damp locks from the loose turtle neck, she yanked the door open wide. “It’s not time El—”
She swallowed her words mid-sentence when she saw who was at the door.
“Gideon?”
“We only have a few minutes,” he whispered, dark circles painted like bruises under his haystack-colored, bloodshot eyes.
“What happened to you?” she asked, stepping back to let the soldier into her room. He ducked behind the wingback chair and crouched. “Why are you hiding?”
“This room has cameras monitoring you. Just keep walking around getting dressed and keep your back to the camera.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Meg muttered between her teeth feeling a deep blush crawling up her throat and bursting at her bright-red ears. “Where is the camera?”
“At your six o’clock, so stay looking away from that corner as much as possible when you talk.”