Two from Vale Meridian's main switchboard, one from his supervisor, and a text from an unknown sender that said simply, "Last chance to stay out of this." He deleted nothing. The bedroom door opened before he could decide what to do. Marin Vale stood in the frame, one hand pressed to the wall, her face pale, her dark hair tangled over one shoulder, without heels, without the architectural dress and the armor of lighting and status.
She seemed smaller than she had on stage, though not weak. Her eyes had cleared. Pain lived in them now, and fury. She scanned the apartment in one swift sweep.
The peeling paint, the drying laundry, the space heater. Lily's drawings taped above the sink. Everett standing barefoot in a wrinkled shirt with a coffee pot in his hand. "You're Everett Cole," she said. "Internal compliance, Midwest Division."
It was so absurdly like her to remember his department before saying good morning that he almost laughed. "Yes, ma'am." "Don't call me that." She winced and touched her temple. "Where am I?"
"My apartment. You told me not to take you home." Her gaze sharpened. "Corbin tried to put you in a car." "He drugged me."
"I figured." "The board meets tomorrow at nine," she said, more to herself than to him. "He'll invoke the stability clause. He'll say grief made me erratic. He'll have doctors, affidavits, security statements."
"He'll tell them I vanished with a male employee after embarrassing myself at a public event." Everett poured coffee into a chipped mug with a cartoon bear on it because all his other mugs were dirty. "That sounds about right." Marin stared at him, thrown for half a second by the plainness of his answer.
Then Lily climbed down from the stool and approached with the solemn hospitality of a child raised by a man who made kindness out of scarcity. "You can have my toast if your stomach hurts," she said. "Peanut butter helps after medicine, except not my medicine, because mine tastes like pennies." Marin looked down at her, and something in her expression shifted so slightly Everett might have missed it if he had not spent years watching faces for danger. "Thank you," she said.
"What's your name?" "Lily Cole. I'm seven and a half." "Marin Vale." "I know."
"Daddy's company has your picture in the lobby. You look meaner there." Everett closed his eyes. "Lily."
But Marin surprised him. A faint sound escaped her, not quite a laugh, too bruised to be one. "That photograph is terrible." Lily smiled, reassured, and reached for her toast.
The silver pendant swung forward on its chain, and the room changed. It was not dramatic at first. There was no thunder, no music, no shattering revelation announced by the world. Marin simply stopped moving.
The coffee mug in her hand tilted. Brown liquid spilled over her fingers, and she did not seem to feel the burn, her eyes fixed on the pendant as if she had seen a dead person step through the wall. "Where did you get that?" Her voice had gone thin.