It was his face that entranced her, though. She wasn’t used to seeing anyone so calm. So very composed and buttoned-up, unbothered by what was happening around him.
“There’s extra blankets in that trunk, if you need them.” He drew up in front of her, lamplight wavering, gilding his nose, his forehead, those sharp cheekbones. He stared down at her a moment, expression inscrutable. “Do you think you’ll be comfortable for the night, Rose?”
Up close like this, he smelled like the tea he’d brewed, and the lavender soap they’d used on the dishes. Not like blood. Not like Miss Tabitha’s body, sitting in its own blood, slowly rotting a few streets over.
The blood was still on his nose, barely visible. Little flecks. She resisted the sudden urged to reach up and scrape at them with a fingernail; clean the marks of her foster mother from him. See if his skin was as smooth as it looked beneath the evidence of his violence.
Her pulse fluttered in her throat, nearly choking her, but she wasn’t afraid. Not at all. “Yes.” The word came out a whisper. “I will be. Thank you.”
He smiled, faintly, close-lipped, and it didn’t touch his eyes. “Sleep well, then. Breakfast is seven sharp.”
He stepped around her, out into the hall.
She stood a long moment, leaning against the doorjamb, breathing through her mouth, listening to his soft footfalls fade down the carpet, and then hit the wood of the stairs.
“She’s dead,” she whispered, when he was gone. She felt a smile split her face, and tears sting her eyes. “She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead.”
Whatever happened now, she’d never have to see the inside of that pie safe again.
THREE
Rose didn’t expect to sleep through the night, but once she settled between the sheets, soft from many washings, cool, the mattress plush, sleep dragged her under, and the next thing she knew she was blinking against a silvery, rainy dawn. She lay still a moment, getting her bearings, watching rain sluice down the bit of window she could glimpse through the curtains.
A small, old-fashioned clock on the bedside table informed her that it was six-thirty.
Breakfast was at seven. Sharp.
In the bathroom, she found the promised soap and towels – a bit musty, yes, but cleaner than anything she’d had at Miss Tabitha’s – along with shampoo, and bath salts, disposable razors, deodorant, and moisturizer. The deep-bellied claw foot tub was clean, with only a thin film of dust that she rinsed away before she started the shower. The water was deliciously hot, and the soap smelled like herbs.
It was the most luxurious experience of her existence. She lingered, and felt like a thief for it; felt like Miss Tabitha would come banging in at any moment, screaming, and drag her out by her hair, add to the welts on her back. She shivered at the thought, and shut off the taps.
She’s dead, she told herself. She can’t hurt you again.
Dead because Beck had killed her. Beck of the tea, and sandwiches, and the herb-scented guest soap.
There was a hairdryer under the cabinet, too, and she stood in front of the mirror wrapped in a towel while she used it, running a borrowed comb through the heavy dark mass until it was mostly dry. It would take too long to dry it all the way, and breakfast as at seven sharp, after all.
She didn’t have a change of clothes, and so she pulled her old things back on, grimacing at the feel of sweat-stained fabric clinging to her clean, warm skin. But there was nothing for it.
She examined herself critically one last time – still pale, still with shadowed eyes, still bony-thin – and decided her hair was clean, and that was at least something. Beck hadn’t been bothered by pulling her out of a pie safe, so it was silly to want to impress him now.
6:58, the bedside clock read.
She hurried downstairs.
The scent of bacon frying reached her before she reached the kitchen; real, fresh bacon, savory and hissing. She found Beck standing over the range in the island, dressed in a thick, olive turtleneck, jeans, and cozy-looking socks. His hair, shiny and gleaming under the lights, fell forward in his face as he turned bacon slices with a fork.
She paused partway across the room, staring at him, an ache building in her chest. He was beautiful, and this couldn’t be real, absolutely couldn’t. He would take one look at her, and boot her out into the rain. Or he would pull one of the gleaming knives from the magnetic strip beside him and turn it on her, spill her blood all down her front, and freckle his nose with it. He would…
He lifted his head, shook his hair back from his eyes, and offered another of those small, enigmatic smiles like he had last night. “Good morning, Rose. Did you sleep well?”
She started moving again, creeping really, drifting toward the island, feeling pulled along by his silken voice. “Very well. Thank you.”
His smile widened the tiniest fraction as he plucked the bacon out onto a paper towel. “Wonderful. How do you like your eggs?”
“Oh. Um.” She only ever had eggs the way Miss Tabitha wanted them: hard boiled. And before that, however her previous foster parents prepared them. No one ever asked her.
As if he sensed her predicament, Beck said, “How about if we try them a different way each morning, and then you can pick your favorite?”
She nodded, a lump forming in her throat. A simple kindness. An unbelievable kindness she’d never hoped for. “That sounds good.”
“We’ll tried fried today, I think. Fetch the juice, please.”
The fridge wasn’t new, but it was spacious, and clean, and, when she opened it, full of a shocking amount of food. She’d never been in the home of someone not living week-to-week off allotment coupons. There were meat and produce shortages in the city, but no one would know it looking in Beck’s fridge.
She grabbed the carton of juice, and turned back for the island – and saw that they were no longer alone.
A woman had entered, silent on slippered feet, wrapped in a floral bathrobe, her iron-gray hair in curlers. She was a tiny, elderly thing, with a full face of makeup, and a cigarette smoldering between two fingers.
Rose drew up alongside Beck, who was cracking eggs into the skillet he’d cooked the bacon in. “Rose,” he said, “this is Mrs. Kay. My third-floor tenant. Mrs. Kay, this is Rose.”
The woman waved a dismissive hand and blew out a stream of smoke. “Just call me Kay, honey. I ain’t been anybody’s missus in a long time.” She chuckled, the sound dry and crackling. She wore deep wrinkles and laugh lines, and the triangle of chest visible showed old sun spots from years outdoors, but her eyes were flint-sharp and Rose could tell they missed nothing as they shifted over her, assessing. “Aren’t you a pretty thing? What’s your story?”
A story that Rose neither wanted to relive nor give voice to. Awful, she thought, stomach churning. Awful, until Beck killed Miss Tabitha and I fell into this strange dream.
Before she could scrape together an answer, Beck said, “She was one of Tabby’s.” His expression didn’t change, but his voice hardened noticeably.
“Hmph,” Kay said on another drag, brows jumping. “Was?”
“Past tense.”
“You took care of it, then?”
“Yes. Rose, the glasses are in that cabinet over by the sink.”
“Good,” Kay said, nodding.
Rose went for the glasses, glad for a moment to turn away from them, to think. Kay knew what Beck had done to Miss Tabitha? And approved?
By the time she returned to the island juggling three glasses, she hadn’t found any trepidation beyond the vague social sort, wanting not to say the wrong thing.
To her surprise, when she glanced up, she found that Kay’s expression had softened, and grown serious. “You okay, honey? You get out without being too beat up?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Kay’s gaze narrowed. “She get you with the cigarettes?” She waved her own, smoke curling off the cherry in ribbons.
Admitting felt like weakness, but Rose said, “No, ma’a
m. The belt.”
Beck flipped the eggs in the pan and turned to her, honey eyes glittering, not smiling now. “Where?” It wasn’t an order or a threat; his voice was soft.
But she didn’t feel she could lie. “On my back. But it’s fine–”
He took her gently by the shoulders and turned her. The lightest touch, but she could feel the strength of his fingers; a strength he didn’t need to use. His fingertips skimmed down her back – she shuddered in automatic reaction – and came to rest at the hem of her shirt. “May I?”
She nodded.
Slowly, with a care that she could feel in every tiny tug of his fingers, he peeled her shirt up. Not all the way, just far enough to reveal the welts that now seemed to throb beneath the scrutiny. Far enough for Kay to hiss and say, “Goddamn. Good riddance to that bitch.”
It was only a moment, and then Beck smoothed her shirt back down.
But he didn’t pull away immediately. Lingered, just a moment, fingertips splayed across her back: ten points of burning contact of which she was hyper-aware.
When he exhaled, his breath shivered; she felt it at the back of her neck, raising the fine hairs there. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Nothing like that will ever happen again.”
Then he drew back, and when she turned, he was fussing over the eggs, steady again.
~*~
Rose was put on toast duty while Kay set the long, scarred plank table over by the fireplace – where a fire crackled merrily, pushing back the gloom of the rainy morning. Beck sliced a cantaloupe, and then a handful of green onions that he sprinkled over the eggs, fried up with lots of pepper. To Rose, it all looked like a feast.
When they carried the serving platters to the table, she realized that Kay had set three places close together, and was already stationed to the left of the head of the table. Rose’s first instinct would have been to sit at the far end, so as not to crowd these kind strangers. No sense bothering them; presuming and wearing out her welcome.
But moving a plate would look like avoidance, and that was its own kind of presumption. It would look like fear, ungratefulness. Bad manners.
She settled in across from Kay and watched from beneath lowered lashes as Beck set down the platters and then slid elegantly into his own seat; he flicked open his napkin and spread it across his lap with a flourish. “Rose, if you’ll start?”
The heaping platter of bacon was right in front of her, and the idea of serving herself from it, taking however much she wanted…
A glance revealed a small smile from Beck, and again he seemed to read her thoughts. “There’s plenty.” Same as last night.
She let out a breath, shifted three pieces onto her plate, and passed the platter across to Kay.
When they’d all filled their plates, and Rose was trying not to inhale her perfectly fried eggs, Kay said, “Okay, honey, if you’re gonna be staying with us…”
A glance proved that Kay was shooting a questioning look toward Beck, fork in one hand, a fresh cigarette in the other.
Beck offered a barely perceptible nod, and Rose felt something unclench in her stomach. A flutter of hope and nerves and that same disbelief that had dogged her all morning.
“…then we’ll have to get you your own things,” Kay continued. “Did you bring anything with you?”
“Um. No, ma’am.”
Kay set her cigarette down on the edge of her ash tray so she could backhand Beck lightly in the arm. “You didn’t even let the poor girl pack a bag? You pig.”
He shrugged and swallowed. “I don’t imagine there was much of anything in the house she wanted to bring with her. Was there?” He glanced over for confirmation.
Rose shook her head. “No, sir.”
Kay snorted.
Beck’s expression didn’t change, save his brows, which went up a fraction. “You don’t have to call me sir.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Why not?” Kay chuckled. “You’ve got twenty years on her, sir.”
“Eighteen, but who’s counting,” he said crisply, and selected more toast from the platter. “Anyway. We can certainly go back to the house and retrieve anything you’d like to keep. The police will have probably found Tabby by now, but it’s nothing we can’t work around.” Another questioning glance at Rose.
She thought of her spare outfit, as grubby and threadbare as this one; her small collection of oddities: a few pretty, striped rocks, a ball of twine, a glittery hair clip she’d found in the gutter one day. Childish things, useless knick-knacks like a crow would collect. She shook her head. “No, there was nothing.”
Beck sent Kay a mild look that seemed to say see? “Excellent. We’ll go this afternoon and see about getting you a new wardrobe and whatever toiletries you’d like for yourself. A phone, too, probably.” This last as he popped a bite of bacon into his mouth, unbothered, like buying a stranger a phone was no big deal. “I have a spare laptop you can borrow, but you might like your own. One with more storage space.”
Kay was nodding along in agreement.
Rose’s head was spinning.
~*~
After breakfast, Beck excused himself to his office with a quick little bow and a sincere thanks to them for doing the dishes. Rose pushed up the sleeves of her grubby shirt and plunged her hands down into the suds, absolutely bewildered at this point.
Beside her, Kay had another cigarette bobbing on her lower lip; she tapped its ash out into a crystal tray on the window ledge between drying plates; managing it didn’t seem to slow her hands or affect her ability to chatter up a storm. At some point, she seemed to realize that Rose was staring out the rain-slicked window at the wet courtyard behind the house, and not listening all that well.
The soft press of an elbow in her side brought Rose back to the moment. “Sorry, sorry.” She nearly dropped the plate she was holding, and scrubbed at it vigorously to hide that she’d been startled.
“Poor chickie. Ain’t nothing to be sorry about. If you were with Tabby for a while, it’s no wonder you’re jumpy as a cat. If Beck hadn’t already – well, and if these old bones were up to it.” She coughed a laugh. “Let’s just say it’d be nice to see her back looking like yours did.” She dropped a hand onto Rose’s shoulder, and it wasn’t very hard not to shrink from it; it felt nice there, warm and grounding, like when Beck had gripped her by the elbows last night.
“You’re safe here,” Kay said. “That I can promise you.”
People lie, Rose thought. But no one had ever promised her she’d be safe. Not ever.
She let out a breath. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Here, you done with that? I’ll rinse it.”
It helped to keep working; to not have to make eye contact. Still, she swallowed a lump of nerves. “Yesterday…Beck said he and Tabby – Miss Tabitha. That they go way back. How did he know her?”
Kay chuckled. “That’s not the question I was expecting, kiddo. But it’s a better one. Let’s just say Tabby’s always had a habit of trying to make money off kids in some way or other. And she’s always been absolute shit at it.”
A memory assaulted her: Miss Tabitha’s hand clamped to her chin, squeezing tight enough Rose felt the bones grind together, her foster mother furious and spitting. “You’re damn lucky, you little shit. Three years ago, I would have given you to one of my boys for talking back like that.” Rose had said stop when the belt crashed against her back; a tiny squeak of pain she hadn’t been able to hold in. It was a mistake she hadn’t repeated.
She shuddered.
“No need to worry about that now. Beck’s damn good at taking out the trash.”
~*~
Kay gave her a tour of the first floor. Several sitting rooms, all with furniture in various states of dustiness. A few held showpiece furniture that looked antique and untouched, but one boasted more modern leather sofas that bore the distinct impressions of human inhabitance on the cushions. There was a TV in that room, one Kay waved toward with an explanation ab
out technology and picture quality that Rose didn’t follow.
Beck had a study, its door shut. Kay advised that he needed time alone to work on his “projects,” and that he was best left alone unless the door was open.
Then came the library.
Rose had never seen so many books all in one place. Heavy, leather-bound tomes with gold lettering on the spines. And small, cracked-spine paperbacks stacked haphazardly in every direction on the shelves. The fireplace mantle had been carved with snarling lions, and a hunt scene done in dark oils hung above it. Two chairs were positioned at angles by the hearth, each big enough for two, and with their own tufted ottomans. A table stood by one, littered with a few empty glasses and a small stack of books. The room smelled of dust, and ink, and ash in a wonderful way.
“If he’s not working, this is where he spends all his time,” Kay said, voice fond. “I have no idea how many books there are. Thousands, I guess. I know he won’t mind if you want to read some of them. Heh. Or all of them.”
Rose didn’t realize she’d walked deep into the room until she turned and found Kay still at the threshold. She felt like she’d intruded, but Kay was grinning at her.
“You like books?”
“I never had any of my own.” One of the other girls who worked for Mr. Fisher, Claire, had owned a battered old secondhand Kindle, and she’d read romance novels on it in the break room in back of the grocery store. She always let Rose crowd in close to her, and waited to swipe to the next page when Rose nodded that she was ready. That wouldn’t happen anymore, Rose supposed with a swift tug of sadness…but here was a whole library of books. “But I love stories,” she said, voice hushed against the weight of all the volumes around them.
King Among the Dead (Hell Theory Book 1) Page 2
