Page 19 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
The only thing I know for sure is that we’re in big trouble.
It’s like trying to crack a modern-day bank safe with a hammer and a pick. It’s technically possible but only if you have eternity. That’s how Dr. Stanhope has taught me to think—in abstract absolutes.
Meanwhile there are two lines of text that have a very real application.
I’m used to late nights with my head bent over my paper, but my neck aches by the time I turn off the light and climb into the cot. It’s surprisingly comfortable for what amounts to a pad of cotton—or maybe I’m too exhausted to care. It seems like a hundred years ago that I stepped into a cab at the Emerald’s staff driveway to head to the airport.
My view isn’t so different from the one there. A small rectangular ceiling on top of a small rectangular room. That’s how I justify my decision to stay. I couldn’t go back to Daddy’s apartment, not with the lock busted. And I don’t have money to blow on even a cheap motel.
That reasoning worked for me when I sat down to work, more focused on the code than my sleeping arrangements. It feels a little more sinister as I look at the door that leads to Damon’s bedroom—the only way out of here.
He was a gentleman when I used the bathroom to change into a loose T-shirt and sweatpants. When I brushed my teeth. How long will that last? What if I have to get up in the middle of the night?
There’s plenty of room in the bed with him. Would I have felt safer if he expected me to sleep beside him? No, I wouldn’t. But I would have felt more like his equal.
With this move he’s making it clear that I’m not.
The small silver dome of the bell barely glints in the darkness. What if he rings the bell? Am I supposed to answer it? I definitely couldn’t sleep through it if he tried. And what would he ask me to do? To get him a cup of water? What did rich people need at night that they can’t do themselves?
My cheeks heat as I think of a darker purpose for that bell.
He might want a different kind of service.
I won’t do that. I won’t. But I can’t deny the way my body responds to the idea. It always seems to get warm when he’s around, my skin flushed, my clothes suddenly chafing.
That’s how I fall asleep, imagining the bell ringing, thinking of Damon’s heavy-lidded look, pretending that he wants me for something more than solving a puzzle.
I push out onto a rough-water dreamland, every wave a dark reminder of what’s underneath the surface. Memories mix with a dangerous future, until I’m not sure what really happened.
I’m back in our old apartment, the one I share with Mama and whoever she’s seeing at the time. My small clock with the kitty whiskers says it’s morning, but my head is pounding. It’s hard for me to sleep over the music she plays. I push the sheets off my legs and cross the carpet.
Her bedroom door is open, her sheets rumpled and empty. I want to check for her in the kitchen. Sometimes she makes French toast, if she’s feeling good. I hope there’s French toast.
I start to walk that way, but the bathroom light is on, the door cracked open.
And there’s a weird smell in the air. Not the sweet stuff she smokes or the heavy scent of alcohol. This is something metal, like the way my hands smell after going across the monkey bars.
My heart pounds as I take a step closer.
Close enough to push the door open…
I sit up in bed, gasping. Only a dream. Another dream just like all the others. And it always ends before I see Mama in the bathtub, floating in a pool of pink water, eyes open and still. It’s a blessing that it stops before then, but also a curse. I can’t move past what I can’t even see.
My bladder is heavy, which means I’ll have to find a bathroom, sooner rather than later.
There are only a few seconds of deliberation—what if he’s out there? What if he’s not? The body doesn’t have much patience. It could be two hours since I turned off the lamp—or twenty. There are no windows, not even a small one like in my room at the Emerald. My room there overlooks the delivery alley, the steady stream of bakers and farmers and laundry trucks a comfort I don’t have now.
I push open the door to a room that’s quiet… except for a faint snore.
It’s almost sweet, that snore. It makes him seem more human.
The room is too dark to see him clearly, but I can tell he’s in the bed. Light frames the curtains, saying we’ve reached tomorrow already. I use the bathroom and brush my teeth, things that might seem mundane if I didn’t see Damon Scott’s razor right beside the sink. Completely ordinary if I weren’t in a bathroom made of marble—white stone with large cool pieces and deep gold striations.
