The Noise Upstairs

The floorboards overhead groaned under a heavy weight. Slow, deliberate steps. Someone was in the master bedroom, directly above the library.

I froze, my hand hovering inches from the door handle.

It couldn't be Arthur. He was two hours away.

It couldn't be the guard. The patrol car was still empty at the gate, the engine cold.

The footsteps stopped. A pause. Then they started again, moving toward the stairs.

I looked around the library. There was nowhere to hide. The heavy velvet drapes? Too obvious. Under the desk? A trap.

I killed my flashlight. The room plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the faint, silvery moonlight filtering through the high windows.

I pressed my back against the wall next to the door, listening.

The stairs creaked. One step. Two.

Whoever it was, they weren't trying to be quiet. They moved with the confidence of ownership.

I held my breath, my heart thudding so loud I was sure it would give me away.

The footsteps reached the ground floor. They moved across the marble foyer.

Toward the library.

I scanned the room again, desperate. The fireplace. It was huge, a walk-in hearth big enough to roast a boar. And it was dark.

I scrambled into the hearth, tucking myself behind the iron grate and a stack of unlit logs. The soot coated my hands, the smell of cold ash filling my nose.

The library door handle turned.

*Click.*

The door swung open.

A beam of light cut through the room. It swept over the desk, the bookshelves, the rug where I had just been standing.

It paused on the desk.

"I know you're in here," a voice said.

It wasn't Arthur.

It was Julian.

I clamped my hand over my mouth.

Julian? Here? He was supposed to be at our house, pretending to sleep, pretending to be the innocent husband.

"Elena?"

He stepped into the room. He was wearing his suit, tie loosened, shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked disheveled. Drunk.

He walked to the desk. He ran his hand over the leather surface.

"I saw the bike," he said to the empty room. "I saw the tire tracks in the mud."

He turned, shining the light into the corners.

"Come out, El. I'm not going to hurt you."

His voice was soft, pleading. But I remembered the gun in his hand at the facility. I remembered the look in his eyes when he signed the DNR.

I didn't move.

He walked to the bookshelves. He pulled out a bottle of scotch from behind a row of encyclopedias. He poured himself a drink, not bothering with a glass.

"You found it, didn't you?" he asked, taking a long swig. "The ledger. The safe."

He laughed, a bitter, broken sound.

"He never changed the combination. 0-9-1-8. The day he founded the company. He loves that company more than he ever loved us."

He walked to the center of the room. He stood right over the spot where the safe was buried.

"You think he's a monster," Julian said. "And you're right. He is. But you don't know the whole story."

He took another drink.

"You don't know about the baby."

My breath hitched.

He knew.

"I tried to save him," Julian whispered. "I was just a kid, but I tried. I heard them fighting. I heard Mom screaming. She wanted to keep him. She wanted to run away."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"But Dad... he said it would ruin us. A scandal like that. A fifty-year-old woman having a baby with... well, with who she had it with."

He turned toward the fireplace. The beam of light hit the grate.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"He took him," Julian said. "He took the baby to the site. I followed him. I saw him put the bundle in the formwork. I saw the concrete trucks."

He was crying now. I could hear the tears in his voice.

"I should have stopped him," he said. "But I was afraid. I'm always so afraid."

He stepped closer to the hearth.

"Elena?"

I opened my eyes. Through the bars of the grate, I saw his shoes. Expensive Italian leather, stained with mud.

"Are you down there?" he asked, peering into the darkness.

He reached for the grate.