Chapter 3 - Leo muttered from the hallway, “Badly socialized wolf was accurate.”
“Leo.”
“I’m leaving.”
The second week felt entirely different.
Not easy.
Liam Mercer was never easy.
But the mansion no longer felt like a fortress.
I began eating breakfast in the kitchen with Rosa, the housekeeper, who had worked for the Mercer family for thirty-two years.
Rosa knew everything.
She also shared almost nothing.
“He ate?” she asked every morning.
“Yes.”
“Complained?”
“Yes.”
“Good.
When he complains, he is himself.”
One morning, I asked, “Was Liam always like this?”
Rosa smiled over her coffee.
“No.”
“What was he like?”
“Trouble.”
“That sounds the same.”
“Different kind.”
She looked toward the window.
“When he was young, he climbed trees in expensive shoes.
Broke windows playing baseball.
Brought stray dogs home.”
I tried to picture it.
Failed.
“He smiled more?”
“All the time.”
“What happened?”
Rosa’s smile faded.
“Life.”
That was all she would say.
On Tuesday afternoon, Liam’s orthopedic surgeon arrived.
Dr.
Kaplan was in his sixties, impatient, brilliant, and apparently unimpressed by organized crime.
“You look terrible,” he told Liam.
“You say that every time.”
“Because every time, you look terrible.”
He examined the fixator.
“Swelling’s down.”
He inspected my notes.
“Antibiotics?”
“Completed tomorrow,” I said.
“Fever?”
“None for six days.”
Kaplan nodded.
“You might keep the leg.”
Liam looked at him.
“That was in question?”
“Everything is in question when patients refuse medical advice.”
Kaplan turned to me.
“Whatever you’re doing, continue.”
“Mostly insulting him.”
“Excellent.
Evidence-based medicine.”
When the doctor left, Liam looked offended.
“I’m surrounded by disrespect.”
“You cultivated it.”
That night, rain struck the windows.
A storm rolled over the estate.
Around midnight the power flickered.
I woke immediately.
Old nursing reflex.
I pulled on a sweater and walked down the hallway.
The mansion was illuminated by backup lights.
I checked Liam.
He was awake.
Not unusual.
What was unusual was where he was looking.
At the blinds.
Lightning flashed behind them.
For a second, white lines appeared around their edges.
“Can’t sleep?”
I asked.
“No.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
I checked anyway.
Pulse slightly elevated.
Breathing controlled.
Too controlled.
I sat in the chair.
“You’re scared of storms?”
“No.”
“Darkness?”
“No.”
“Windows?”
Silence.
I waited.
Rain tapped steadily.
Finally he said, “The accident happened in daylight.”
There it was.
A tiny opening in the wall.
I stayed quiet.
“We were driving back from Lake Geneva.”
The photograph.
My chest tightened.
“The woman and girl?”
His eyes moved to me.
“You saw the picture.”
“Leo dropped it.”
He didn’t seem angry.
Just tired.
“The woman was Elena.”
“Your wife?”
“My fiancée.”
“And the little girl?”
“Her daughter.
Sophie.”
I waited.
He looked toward the blinds.
“We were supposed to be married in October.”
“What happened?”
“The car went off the road.”
His voice remained even, but his fingers tightened on the sheet.
“I was driving.”
My stomach dropped.
“Liam…”
“Elena died.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“Sophie?”
“She survived.”
Relief came too quickly.
Then I noticed his expression.
“Where is she?”
“With Elena’s sister.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where she belongs.”
“Does she?”
His gaze sharpened.
“Don’t.”
I leaned back.
“All right.”
He stared at the ceiling.
“Sophie was seven.”
“How old is she now?”
“Ten.”
Three years.
The dark room.
The sealed blinds.
A man staring toward every thread of sunlight while insisting he hated it.
“You haven’t seen her.”
It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time she saw me, she woke in a hospital asking where her mother was.”
His voice cracked almost imperceptibly.
“I was the one who told her.”
I said nothing.
“She looked at me…”
He stopped.
Rain filled the silence.
“What?”
“She looked at me like she wanted me to explain how the world could change in one afternoon.”
He turned toward the window.
“I couldn’t.”
“Liam, she was seven.”
“I was driving.”
“You said that.”
“I should have—”
“You should have what?”
His jaw tightened.
“Seen it coming.”
“What caused the crash?”
He looked at me.
Then away.
“I don’t remember.”
Something about the answer bothered me.
Not because I thought he was lying.
Because he sounded genuinely uncertain.
I thought about the photograph.
Leo’s reaction.
Rosa refusing to speak.
The rules.
The darkness.
And Liam’s injuries now, three years later, severe enough that someone had needed to hire round-the-clock nurses.
“How did you get these injuries?”
His expression changed.
“We’re done.”
“Was it another accident?”
“Anna.”
“You have surgical abdominal wounds and a fractured leg.
That doesn’t happen because you slipped in the shower.”
“Enough.”
I stood.
“Fine.”
I walked toward the door.
Behind me, Liam said, “I was looking for something.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Proof.”
I turned.
“Of what?”
His face was pale in the dim light.
“That I didn’t cause the crash.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I don’t remember.”
“You also told me you were driving.”
“I was.”
He looked at his hands.
“I remember leaving the lake.
I remember Elena complaining because I had taken a work call during dinner.
I remember Sophie asleep in the back.”
His eyes closed.
“Then nothing until the hospital.”
“What did police say?”
“That I lost control.”
“Why?”
“Speed.”
“Were you speeding?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you drinking?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“I wasn’t on it.”
“Mechanical failure?”
“None found.”
I moved closer.
“So why do you think you didn’t cause it?”
He looked at me.
“Because Elena sent Leo a message twelve minutes before the crash.”
My skin prickled.
“What did it say?”
Liam’s voice became quiet.
“She said someone had been following us since we left the lake.”
The storm seemed louder.
I reminded myself of everything I had promised the audience this story would be.
Grounded.
Plausible.
No melodrama.
So I asked the most practical question.
“Did police investigate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“No evidence.”
“Then what proof were you looking for when you got hurt?”
He hesitated.
“An old storage building outside Joliet.”
“What was there?”
“I thought someone connected to the vehicle might have kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Repair logs.
Parts.
Anything that could tell me whether the inspection after the crash missed something.”
“And did you find them?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“The floor gave way.”
I stared at his leg.
“You fell?”
“About twelve feet.”
“That caused all this?”
“My leg hit steel.
My abdomen met something equally unpleasant.”
“That explains why no one will tell me how you were injured.”
“I didn’t want questions.”
“Because you knew what you were doing was reckless.”
“Yes.”
At least he could admit it.
I sat again.
“Does Leo know?”
“Yes.”
“What about Sophie’s aunt?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because after three years she deserves peace.”
“And you?”
He gave me a tired smile.
“I’m not particularly good at peace.”
The next morning, I opened the curtains.
Not the blinds.
Only the heavy outer curtains, revealing the pale wood slats behind them.
Liam watched me.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing forbidden.”
“You’re irritating.”
“Also not forbidden.”
A thin line of sunlight appeared along the floor where the blinds didn’t completely meet the frame.
Liam stared at it.
I pretended not to notice.
The following morning, I adjusted one slat.
Half an inch.
Sunlight touched the edge of the carpet.
Liam said nothing.
The day after that, he asked, “Do you enjoy testing boundaries?”
“Professionally.”
“You should have become a lawyer.”
“Too many lawyers.”
On Thursday, I opened one blind two inches.
Sunlight fell across the bottom of the bed.
Liam looked at it for almost a minute.
Then he closed his eyes.
I expected him to tell me to shut it.
He didn’t.
“Too much?”
I asked.
“No.”
So I left it.
That afternoon, Rosa came in with clean towels.
She stopped when she saw the sunlight.
Her hand rose to her mouth.
Liam noticed.
“Don’t.”
Rosa nodded quickly.
But when she passed me, she squeezed my hand.
Friday morning, Liam said, “Open it.”
I looked at him.
“The blind?”
“One.”
“All the way?”
His eyes remained fixed on the window.
“Yes.”
I crossed the room.
My hand closed around the cord again.
One week earlier, that gesture had terrified him.
Now he watched.
I pulled.
The blind rose slowly.
Morning sunlight entered the room.
It reached the carpet first.
Then the bed.
Then Liam.
He shut his eyes.
For a few seconds, his face tightened as if bracing for impact.
Nothing happened.
No ghosts entered.
No punishment came.
There was only sunlight.
Ordinary.
Warm.
Bright.
I stood beside the window.
Beyond it stretched acres of green lawn, trees, and a distant silver lake.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Liam opened his eyes.
He looked outside.
His expression broke my heart.
Not because he cried.
He didn’t.
Because he looked surprised.
As though the world had continued being beautiful without his permission.
“How long?”
I asked quietly.
“Three years.”
“You haven’t sat in sunlight for three years?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He watched the trees move.
“The day Elena died was the brightest day I can remember.”
I understood.
“So you made the world dark.”
“Something like that.”
I leaned against the windowsill.
“You know the sun wasn’t responsible.”
“That sounds stupid when you say it.”
“It was stupid before I said it.”
He looked at me.
I smiled.
After a moment, he smiled too.
Then someone knocked.
Leo entered.
He stopped dead.
Sunlight poured across the room.
For once in his life, Leo Mercer’s calm disappeared completely.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Liam raised an eyebrow.
“Compelling speech.”
Leo looked at me.
Then at Liam.
“You opened them.”
“He did.”
May you like
Liam corrected me.
“She opened them.”
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