The lake met its fate because a famous physic had called the New York Times and told a reporter that Alice Ellingham had never left home at all; that she was at the bottom of the garden lake. Albert Ellingham did not believe in psychics, but after four sleepless nights, he told Mackenzie to call up the engineers and drain it anyway. This was not hard to do. The lake was fed by a series of pipes that brought water down from a higher point on the mountain; another pipe ran downhill and into the river. All that needed to be done was to close the feed and open the drain and . . . good-bye, lake.
As went the lake, so did Flora’s life, drained of beauty and fullness. Wherever Flora went, she was “that woman who was there that night,” or “a speakeasy hostess known to the family.” Never what she was—a friend. The friend. Iris’s best friend in the world. The one who actually mourned her. The world may have seen pictures of Iris’s New York relations as they made public spectacles of themselves at the funeral service at Saint John the Divine, of the greenhouses’ worth of roses and irises and the great bunches of lilacs (her favorite scent) that filled the church. There were movie stars who flew in from California to pay tribute to the wife of their employer. Members of the New York Philharmonic played by her casket, and the mezzo-soprano Clara Ludwig sang “Ave Maria.” Everyone wept.
Many photographs were taken of the cortege of Rolls-Royce Phantom limousines with black crepe that wound through Central Park to the luncheon at the Plaza. From there, the mood turned over countless glasses of champagne and towers of finger sandwiches. It was a fulsome summer’s day, with the hot breeze coming in through the windows. The mourners compared dresses and stock portfolios and vacation plans. So many of them had come in from their summer houses. How terrible to face the city in this heat!
Flora moved like a ghost. She did not eat finger sandwiches or drink champagne. She wore black and sweated in it and twice went to vomit. When the show was over, she and Leo walked numbly through Central Park. The day was endless, refusing to give way to the evening. The sky seemed to swell overhead, and a small pack of photographers trailed them at a distance until they left the park and escaped in a cab to Leo’s studio. Leo gave her something to help her sleep.
Months later, she was still that ghost. Now she watched the last of her friend’s lake disappear into a pipe, leaving a big, empty cup of rocks. She shivered and shut the curtains. She turned to George Marsh, who was sitting on the other side of the room, reading a newspaper. He folded back the top and looked over it at Flora.
“Is it done?” he asked.
“It’s done.”
“I was already out there twice. We’ll go over it inch by inch, but I don’t think there’s anything to find in there.”
Flora went into the great hall, where Leonard Holmes Nair was sitting on a divan by the large fireplace. A novel dangled from his fingertips, but he didn’t seem to be reading. His focus was on the second-floor balcony.
“Something’s going on.” He nodded toward the balcony. “For the last few hours there’s been a trail of crates and boxes coming in. Albert’s supervised them all, and they all went to Alice’s room. Some of them were massive. I went to go see what they were but he shooed me away from the door. It’s the most excited I’ve seen him in ages. He was smiling.”
Flora sat next to her friend and looked up. This was a strange, not entirely welcome development. Albert Ellingham soon appeared, leaning over the rail.
“Flora, Leo, come see. Bring George. It’s ready.” Albert was almost giddy. “Come to Alice’s room.”
Flora had not been in Alice’s room since the kidnapping. It was perfectly kept. The lace curtains were drawn every morning and closed every night. Fresh sheets and blankets were regularly put on the bed. The stuffed animals waited in a line. The dolls were dusted and settled in their chairs. New clothes in larger sizes had been brought in every season to be ready for Alice’s reappearance. All of that, Flora knew about. But there was something else now, something that dominated the center of the room, almost filling it. It was a replica of the house she stood in—the Great House, rendered in miniature.
“It was made in Paris,” Albert said, walking around the house and looking in the windows. “I had it commissioned two years ago, and it’s finally arrived. Marvelous, isn’t it?”
Leo tried to mask his horror with a blank stare, but he wasn’t able to pull it off. Albert didn’t seem to notice. He went to the side of the massive toy house, flipped a latch, and swung it open. The interior of the Great House was spread out in front of them, like a patient on a surgical table, insides exposed.
“Look,” Albert said. “Look at the detail!”
There was the massive front hall, shrunk down, its stairs and marble fireplace faithfully re-created. Tiny crystal knobs gleamed on hand-sized doors. There was the morning room with its silk paper and French decor, the ballroom with its motley walls. In Albert’s office, the two tiny desks had stamp-like papers on them and telephones that Flora could have balanced on her thumbnail. Upstairs, the same—Iris’s dressing room in morning gray. Room after room, including the one they stood in now. The only thing the dollhouse missed was a miniature of itself.
“I had them work from photographs, and by God, what a job they’ve done. I told you, Leo. I said when she was born that I would get her the best dollhouse in the world.”
“You did,” Leo said, his voice sounding dry.
“What do you think, Flora?” Albert asked.
“It’s a marvel,” she said, fighting down the rising bile in the back of her throat.
“Yes.” Albert stood, his hands on his hips, regarding the sight as a whole. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Something in his elevated manner suggested that this dollhouse would somehow change things. Alice was not here, but the dollhouse had come—and if the dollhouse had come, Alice must follow. Giddy, funhouse logic, distorted.
“You know,” he said, “I was building something quite wonderful for Iris as well, for her birthday. She was so enamored of what we saw in Germany, I thought . . . Well. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that Alice’s gift is here.”
“You know, Albert,” Leo said, looking to Flora and Marsh for support, “I think this calls for a celebration. Why don’t we go downstairs and have something to eat? What do you say?”
“Yes,” Albert said. “I suppose I should eat something. Montgomery can scare me up a ham sandwich or two.”
He clapped Leo on the back to usher him from the room. Flora wanted to leave, but the presence of the dollhouse transfixed her. George was squatting, examining the small furniture from the office.
“Be there in a moment,” she said. “I want to look some more.”
“Do . . . do!” Albert said. “Look away!”
When Albert and Leo had gone, George Marsh straightened up and turned to Flora.
“Look at this,” he said, pointing at the top bedroom.
Sitting on the bed, neatly and in a row, were three china figures—one of Albert, one of Iris, and one of Alice, sitting between them.
“Dear God,” she said.
“Yeah. I wish I could set fire to this thing.”
He must have been feeling the same queasy strangeness, this mockery of reality. That must have been it—this warping—that made her speak so suddenly.
“Alice,” she said. “Do you know? Did they ever tell you?”
“Tell me what?” George replied.
Flora rubbed her hand across her brow.
“It’s a secret, but I thought you would know. They never said?”
“Said what?”
“She’s Albert and Iris’s child, but she’s . . .” Flora waved her hand in the air for a moment. “Iris didn’t give birth to her.”
“Who did?”
“Me,” she replied.
She waited a moment as this information made contact. George cocked his head.
“Think about when she was born, George,” Flora said. “Think. Four years ago.”
G
eorge blinked once, very slowly, then turned back to the dollhouse for a moment.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“There’s no doubt,” Flora replied. “One morning I woke up, and I threw up right into the wastepaper basket. I hadn’t been out the night before. I went to the doctor, and he confirmed it. I told Iris. She had always wanted a child, but she hadn’t been able to have one of her own. It was the perfect solution, for everyone. The child would want for nothing. So we all went to Switzerland together. There are clinics there—private ones—where everyone knows how to keep a secret. It wasn’t that there was any issue with Alice being adopted. They just wanted privacy. They didn’t want the whole world telling her. It was all so perfect.”
The tiny chandeliers twinkled as a stray beam of sunset struck its crystal droplets. George sank his hands into his pockets and looked at the house, not moving or speaking for some time.
“I would have married you,” he finally said. “That’s what you do.”
At this, Flora laughed—a strange barking sound.
“Did it ever occur to you that I wouldn’t want to marry you?” she said. “We had fun, George, but you were never seriously interested. Neither was I.”
“I have a daughter,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “I have a daughter. And I made sure she was safe. Or I tried to.”
She wound her arms around herself and rubbed at her sides. She felt cold and confused. She had never meant to have this conversation. Now that she had spilled the knowledge, she had nothing more to add. She walked out of the room, her heels clicking hard against the wooden floor.
George stood alone, staring at the dollhouse. He reached inside, like a giant, and removed the tiny porcelain Alice. Even in this form, he could see the resemblance. She had his eyes.
He had let his own child be kidnapped.
She was missing, somewhere out there in the world, with the men he had hired. The men who had killed her mother.
George Marsh had always wanted to find Alice, but in that moment, that task became the sole focus of his life.
10
THERE HAD BEEN SEVERAL OCCASIONS IN THIS MATTER WHEN ONE OF the King family—either Edward or David—decided to turn up suddenly in Stevie’s life. Each time, she felt like metal clamps came out of the floor and wrapped around her feet, locking her in place.
“Who are you?” David said. “We met, right? Are you the new me?”
This was to Hunter, who was staring at the person he had last seen getting his face bashed in on the street in Burlington. The bruises around his left eye were still dark and angry, some green, some blue-black. The cut that ran from his temple to his cheek looked like it had needed stitches but had not gotten them, and it gaped a bit where the new flesh was knitting itself together. But his wide smile was the same, and the bruising brought out the deep color of his eyes.
“Yeah, I have no idea what’s happening,” Hunter replied.
“What are you doing here?” Janelle asked. “I thought you left.”
“I came in through the bathroom window,” he said, as if this was obvious.
“Oh, the last thing we need today is your bullshit.”
“Normally, I would agree. But today I have something that’s really important, and we need to talk fast, and not here. Upstairs.”
“The school is closing,” Janelle said.
“I know. That’s why I came. Seriously. Can we go upstairs, right now? You can yell at me or whatever, but I have something really, really important to talk to you about.”
“We need to—”
“I’m not sure if Stevie told you this, but Edward King is my dad.”
This was a surprise to Vi, and certainly to Hunter, who was having a strange introduction to life at Minerva.
“Shut up,” Vi said.
“I’m serious. Look at my face.” David ran his finger along his noninjured jawline. “See it? See the resemblance?”
“Oh my God,” Vi replied.
“Yeah. My reaction too. Do you want to stop a bad man from becoming president? If you want to know more, follow me. If not, pack your shower gel.”
This resulted in silence from the group.
“I have your attention?” David said. “Good. Upstairs.”
He got up, slinging the massive backpack over his shoulder. It made a loud clunking noise. He went off down the hall, leaving everyone else.
“What is he talking about?” Janelle asked Stevie.
“I have no idea,” Stevie replied. “But I think we should find out.”
Maybe it was the nervous energy of having been told the school had closed, but there was a kind of group movement—a magnetic pull to stay together. They went one by one up the curved, creaking stairs, Janelle looking after Vi, Stevie still thrumming at the sight of David, Nate because . . . well, because the tide pulled him. Upstairs, in the dark hallway, David unlocked his door. Everyone followed him inside. Stevie had been in David’s room before. It was stark, full of expensive but impersonal things. Gray sheets and bedding. Nice speakers that he didn’t use. Some gaming systems. She had been on that bed, up against the wall. They had . . .
She couldn’t think about that.
“No one knows I’m here,” he said, sitting on the floor.
“No one knows?” Janelle said. “What about all those security cameras your dad put in?”
“Ah,” David said, smiling. “I shut those off for a while. I can explain everything but—”
“You just . . . shut them off?”
“Here’s the thing about my dad you need to understand,” David replied. “He seems like the big bad, like he’s scheming all the time and knows exactly what he’s doing, but a lot of his solutions are quick and dirty. The security system isn’t that good. And the installation wasn’t great either.”
Stevie felt his gaze linger on her for a moment, so she looked down to examine her shoes.
“It was a good system,” she said. “He came to our house and showed us the information on it.”
“What information was that?” David said, cocking his head slightly to the side.
“I saw . . . the specs,” Stevie said. She used the word specs because it sounded technical but immediately regretted it. She had not seen specifications. She had no idea why she’d said it. Stick to the truth.
“He had all these . . . shiny folders.”
“Oooh. Shiny folders, huh?”
Stevie’s face flushed.
“To get the system up and running in a week, they used a plug and play,” he said. “It’s not hardwired. The day they brought it in, I lifted a base station when they were unpacking. I stashed it and set it up.”
“Where?” Janelle asked.
“Doesn’t matter for the purposes of this conversation. I hid it. All I had to do then was establish myself as a system admin. Since he bought it, he had user profiles made for himself and his staff. So I set up additional identity on his staff server. My name is Jim Malloy. I’m from the Boston Malloys. Went to Harvard for my MBA. Very impressive. All I have to do is log in and switch the network over to the other base station, which does nothing at all. System goes down. Easy. Easy for me to come and go. I went home because I needed to get these.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of flash drives.
“Behold,” he said. “The keys to the kingdom.”
“What’s on those?” Janelle said.
“No idea. But these drives were in the safe in the floor under our dining room table, the one he thinks no one knows about.”
“You broke into his safe?” Stevie asked.
“What I have on these drives is information regarding my father’s campaign activities. I need help reading it all. Which is why I came to you,” he said to Janelle.
“First of all,” Janelle said. She was the only one who seemed willing and able to steer this conversation. “Whatever you have there has got to be illegal.”
“Illegal how? Is it even stealing if
I took it from my house?”
“Yes,” Janelle said. “That’s campaign information. People go to jail for things like that. It’s not a box of cereal or a TV.”
“What, are you a lawyer?” he countered. “And how did you know about the cereal?”
Janelle seemed to rise from the floor a bit.
“Kidding. You think my dad could afford those cereal carbs? That guy lives on hard-boiled eggs and human misery. The legalities of it aside . . . the risk incurred is my own. All I’m asking is for help looking at it. Looking at something is not a crime.”
“Yes, it probably is,” Janelle said. “I’m going—”
“Nell,” Vi said. “Wait.”
“Vi,” Janelle said. “No. We can’t.”
“I just want to hear,” Vi said. “If we have to tell the police, the more information we have, the better.”
“Vi is correct,” David said, waving his hand graciously. “When you narc on me, be in possession of all the facts! Hear me out.”
“You’re suggesting we stick one of those radioactive things in our computer and . . .”
“I would never,” he said, putting his hand to his heart. “What kind of monster do you think I am? I have with me . . .”
He opened the massive backpack, pulled out some rolled, soiled clothes, including some checkered boxers, which Stevie tried not to look at. (God, it was so hard to look away from someone’s underwear when it was stuck unexpectedly in your field of vision. Especially this underwear. Why, brain, why?) He pulled out a small stack of banged-up laptops and two tablets, plus some kind of router or base station.
“All freegan or fifty bucks at most. I’ve disabled their network connectivity. You couldn’t get online with these pieces of junk if you tried. I will put the content onto these devices, and I will set them down roughly in the range of your vision. I’ll even scroll the pages if you want. All you have to do is read, which all of you can do, very fast. I’ll wipe these things down and dump them in Lake Champlain when we’re done. I’ll strip them to parts. They never existed.”
“One problem,” Nate said. “We’re leaving in, like, an hour.”
The Hand on the Wall Page 10
