Page 56 of The Last Dance

It was not a large room, not by the standards of the estate, but every surface was covered in books: shelf, table, ottoman, even one on the armrest of the reading chair, open and face down like he’d been interrupted in mid-sentence.

On the floor, near the window, was a book splayed open, the pages ruffled as if it had been dropped. I picked it up. A dry history of nineteenth-century anarchist movements.

Not his usual.

The gym: empty. Bedroom: empty, sheets rumpled, the black hoodie he wore most days dropped in a puddle beside the hamper. I called once, just to hear the echo, “Iren.”

The room did not answer. I checked the en suite. The toothbrush was dry, towel stiff, air still damp from a shower but not recently. Maybe an hour. Maybe two.

The east wing sitting room was last. He hated it—the décor was funereal, the chairs made for torture—but sometimes he’d squat there with a mug of something he didn’t want to explain.

I opened the door. The mug was on the side table, still steaming, the scent of ginger and maybe lemon, but no sign of him. I left the door open, walked the length of the corridor, checked the windows.

Each time I said his name, the volume dropped. Each time I failed to find him, my stride lengthened, my posture went from calculated relaxation to the automatic, involuntary parade-rest I fell back on when something didn’t add up. My jaw tightened so hard my ears rang.

I did not like this.

I did not like what it made me.

I found Lin in the east corridor, between the guest wing and the old servants’ stairs. He did not startle when I came up behind him. He did not need to. He read my face in a single glance: the flatness of my mouth, the unblinking stare. He stood with hands folded, almost an invitation.

“Is he with you?” I asked.

Lin shook his head, once. “Not since afternoon.”

“Report,” I said.

He gave it, as if waiting for the question. “Last visual at 5:11, atrium. He crossed to the west hall, then entered the staff kitchen. He did not leave by the door or by the service stairs. At 6:08, the camera at the south vestibule registered a shadow. Negative confirmation on who.”

I stared at him. “Did you see it?”

“No,” he said. “But there is a discrepancy in the log.”

Lin was too precise to allow a discrepancy. He would log an earthquake as “vibration, source unknown,” then correct it once the planet stopped moving. A discrepancy meant he had already rechecked the footage and found nothing to fix.

I walked past him, toward the atrium.

It was still empty.

I went to the main boardroom and pulled two guards off the perimeter, the men on first rotation. They did not question the order. I told them to sweep the upper floors. They did. I waited.

I did not pace, because pacing is a form of weakness, but I did tap the second finger of my left hand against my thigh, counting out the steps I would take when I started pacing for real.

They came back, both empty-handed.

I went to the stables. The night air stank of hay and ammonia, the horses restless but not frantic. No footprints in the sawdust, except for mine. I called once, low, “Iren.”

Even the horses ignored it. I checked every stall, every loose tack room, every inch of the hayloft. No one.

I doubled back, cut through the pool room, checked the spa, the showers, even the fucking sauna. He wasn’t there. I hit the command center next. Yuri’s chair was empty. I scanned the log. No unusual entries. The monitors were calm, every camera showing the same blank, anonymous landscape.

I tried the utility corridor behind the east wing. It was silent except for the hum of the electrical lines and the soft, nearly subsonic tick of the backup generator. No one. Every door I opened and closed was one more confirmation.

He was not in the house.

I have lost men before. I have sent people into situations where I knew they would not come back, or would come back in a form that required a closed casket and a new line in the ledger. I have executed those men myself, when the situation demanded it. I have never lost a person I intended to keep.

My chest did not know how to process that.