Chapter 8
Dragan Kovac came into the library with rain on his shoulders and the smell of the night behind him. He was wearing the same charcoal suit, or one exactly like it, and his gray eyes moved once around the room — Eleanor, Theodore, Clarissa, Oswald, Nadia in the chair — and settled.
“Mrs. Hawthorne,” he said. “Theodore.”
“Mr. Kovac.” Eleanor’s voice was calm. “I apologize for the hour. There is a matter I would like you to settle.”
Theodore looked between them. “Mother, this is a family matter—”
“It is a matter of truth,” Eleanor said. “And Mr. Kovac was present for part of it.” She turned to Dragan. “On Tuesday, were you in the orchid house?”
“I was.”
Clarissa’s hands tightened on the arms of her chair.
“Tell me what you saw,” Eleanor said.
Dragan did not look at Clarissa. He looked at Nadia, and then at the fire, and he spoke in a low, even voice, as though he were describing a ledger.
“Two women held her by the shoulders. Your son’s fiancée had a pair of shears. She cut the girl’s hair while she was on her knees. She said, ‘Now let’s see how special you really are.’ Then she told her to say she had asked for it.” He paused. “I heard that too.”
Theodore’s face had gone pale. “Nadia said—”
“Nadia said what she was told to say,” Dragan said. “I’ve heard a great many lies in my life. That one was not difficult.”
Clarissa stood up. “This is absurd. He’s a stranger. He has no reason to—”
“I have a reason.” Dragan’s voice did not rise, and somehow that made it worse. “I don’t like people who hurt the powerless. I never have. It’s a rule I keep.”
Clarissa turned to Theodore. “You’re going to believe a gangster over me?”
The word landed like a slap. Theodore flinched.
“Watch your mouth,” he said, and his voice was not the voice Nadia had heard in seven years.
Eleanor opened Oswald’s notebook. “Sit down, Clarissa.”
Clarissa did not sit.
Eleanor read aloud. Dates. Incidents. The study. The dye. The teapot. The canceled appointment. The household account. And then, from the folder Clarissa had brought, the transfers — money moving out of the household budget into accounts that belonged to Kind Beauty’s suppliers, invoices for cosmetics that had never entered the house.
“The missing money,” Eleanor said, “was never missing. It was yours.”
Clarissa’s face changed. For a moment, the beautiful mask slipped, and Nadia saw what was underneath: not grief, not shame, but calculation, running fast.
“You have no proof,” Clarissa said. “A notebook from a servant and the word of a criminal.”
“I have the accounts,” Eleanor said. “I have my son. And I have a witness who has no reason to lie.”
Theodore was looking at Clarissa as though he had never seen her before. “The teapot,” he said. “You told me she broke it.”
Clarissa’s eyes filled with tears. It was a beautiful performance — Nadia had to give her that. “Theodore. You know me. You know who I am.”
“I thought I did.”
The silence stretched. Then Theodore turned to Nadia. He looked older than he had that morning.
“Nadia,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She could not answer. Her throat had closed.
Theodore stood. “Clarissa. Leave this house.”
Clarissa stared at him. Then she laughed — a real laugh, ugly and short. “You’ll regret this. You’ll come crawling back. You always do.”
She gathered her bag. At the door, she stopped beside Nadia’s chair. Her perfume filled the space between them, sweet and expensive.
“You think you’ve won,” she said quietly. “You’ll always be the girl who cleaned their floors.”
Nadia looked up at her. She did not say anything. She did not need to.
Clarissa walked out. The front door opened and closed, and the rain came in for a moment and then was shut away.
Theodore sat down heavily. Eleanor poured herself more tea.
And Dragan Kovac, who had not moved from his place by the fire, looked at Nadia and said, “You spoke.”
May you like
“Yes,” she said.
“Good.”
