Page 111 of Bombshell

Where would you hide? Sterling asked me.

I stop and close my eyes. Where would I feel safe? Where would I go? And suddenly, I’m pressed safely in a dark corner, cloaked in soft cashmere as the smell of my mother’s perfume blossoms around me. Daddy never went there when he was angry. It was her place. It was safe. It was always safe.

I run towards the house, stumbling in the dark but never falling. Throwing open the door to the kitchen, I hear yelling upstairs. Ginny’s voice cuts through the air. She’s yelling at someone. Felix? I don’t stop long enough to know for sure. Instead, I seize my chance to get upstairs, past her, past her devious plan. Taking the servant’s stairs, I wind my way up to the second floor. My mother’s room is now Ginny’s. She pretends to sleep in Malcolm’s room, but she took over the space as soon as my father died, boxing up my mother’s scarves and dresses, taking down her curated collection of art in the corridor. But despite her changes, my mother’s presence lingers in the space. Ginny’s make-up sits on her vanity. The bedding has changed. All of these small changes might not add up too much, but they feel wrong, like the room itself is slowly rejecting each one like a heart transplant that doesn’t take.

My mother’s clothes are gone from the closet, replaced by Ginny’s, and the comforting sensation I once felt stepping foot inside has vanished. Even when the clothes and shoes shoved inside, it feels sterile and empty. I force apart the hangers, hoping to find Ellie hidden amongst the clothes, drawn to the safety I once found here. But she’s not here. I slump against the wall.

Through the years, it’s been harder and harder to hide how much my daughter takes after me and her father. Fragile like a bomb, passionate, strong-willed. They’ve tried to stamp it out of her, chipping away at her like a piece of granite, determined to make her into their vision of the perfect child to fit their perfect life. She’s resisted it at every turn, becoming something more beautiful, more fitting of the raw material she was born with—something that looked dangerously like me.

Me.

She’s like me.

I’m in the corridor, passing the main stairs, ignoring Ginny’s voice calling after me as I rush by to the opposite wing of the house. My wing. My room. My daughter.

There’s nothing left inside my quarters now, even the few boxes I’d left behind that day have been moved. The room sits hollowed from the inside with no sign of life.

“Please,” I murmur, running to the closet. Malcolm emptied it already. There’s not a single bit of me in the large space my own mother so carefully planned in anticipation of her little girl. But as soon as I flip on the light, a small bundle stirs on the floor. Sitting up, Ellie rubs her eyes, blinking from the sudden brightness.

“Did I win?” she asks sleepily.

“Ellie, oh my God.” I lift her into my arms, pressing her tiny body closely to mine, burying my face in her hair and breathing in her soft, perfect scent. She still smells like my baby, even after all these years. “What are you doing in here?”

“Mommy told me we should play hide-n-seek with you,” she says, her voice smothered slightly by how tightly I’m holding her. I loosen my grip only a little, so I can see her face.

“You were playing a game?” I ask.

“Yes, but it wasn’t any fun. It was dark,” she says, her lower lip beginning to tremble, “and she told me you would come and take me for a sleepover, and I tried to wait...does this mean I don’t get to stay with you?”

“You aren’t in trouble,” I kiss each of her cheeks. “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.”

“I didn’t like where mommy told me to hide,” she says in the hushed tone of a child confessing to a crime, “so, I came here. I always feel safe here.”

“You’re safe,” I whisper to her, “but we need to go tell everyone that, okay?”

I take my time walking out of the room. When I reach the corridor I see the faint flashing of blue and red lights, and it feels as if a hook pierces me through the chest, trying to drag me back in time. It’s different this time. I have to believe that. It’s the only reason I can keep putting one foot in front of the other. I block out the shouts of people below and focus on Ellie and how her thin arms twine around my neck.

“Oh thank God!” Felix’s voice is the first to break through the protective bubble I’ve cast around us.

The next is less comforting. “Give her to me!”

Ginny blocks me on the stairs, snatching at her, but Ellie cries out, refusing to let me go. There’s a cluster of police officers in the foyer along with Sterling and my brother. Everyone is frozen for a moment, each processing the scene before them. Then, all hell breaks loose. Ginny uses this to her advantage, reaching for Ellie again.

“Don’t touch her,” I say in a lethal whisper.

“We found your bag,” Ginny says, holding up the black canvas duffel from before along with Ellie’s bear. “You were going to kidnap her!”

I’d been so focused on finding her that I’d forgotten about the planted evidence.

“What is she talking about, Adair?” Malcolm demands, moving toward the base of the stairs.

I force my way past Ginny, edging away from Malcolm at the stairs to move in the direction of where Sterling stands with the police.

“You need to start explaining what happened now,” Malcolm continues. “I never thought you would stoop as low as taking her in the night.”

Sterling tenses next to me, moving to stand between me and my brother but I step forward, choosing my words carefully. Thanks to Ginny’s game, Ellie is scared enough. I don’t need to add to her confusion. “Do you really believe that?” I ask him quietly. “Have I ever done anything to put her in jeopardy?”

“The courts thought so,” he says, but he sounds uncomfortable. He knows the truth. He’s watched. Maybe Malcolm once believed all the lies Ginny and my father spun to get custody of Ellie, but that’s the thing about spinning deceit, one wrong move and everything begins to unravel.