Chapter 8: Do It Again

Yvaine's POV

At breakfast Hamish's chair was empty.

Nobody would tell me where he was, and his boots were gone from the mudroom.

That told me what I needed.

He wasn't in the house, and Beatrix was in the dining hall holding court with six of the pack elders around her.

I touched the brass key in my pocket.

Then I walked up the back stairs to the second floor, one hand on the wall, and my arm throbbed under its gauze.

The study door opened on the first try.

The room was cold and smelled of lemon polish.

There were iron shutters on the window, a dark desk, and a wall of locked file drawers.

I started with the desk.

Burial ledger, in her tidy hand.

The entry for March 11th said: child, stillborn, sealed box, family lot.

There was no name for the healer, and no name for whoever had dug.

I put it back and pulled the second drawer.

It held a stack of receipts held with a clip, and I was about to push it closed when I saw the word clinic.

It was a private fertility clinic in Salem.

The invoice was dated March 12th.

It was for a surrogate arrangement, paid in full, and the line where a name should have been had been inked out with black.

The signature at the bottom was Beatrix's.

I stared at the date.

March 12th was three days after the night I'd given birth.

It was the week I had left.

My heart began to pound against my ribs.

I picked up the paper and I read it again, and a voice behind me said, "Put that down."

Beatrix stood in the doorway with her cane planted, and behind her stood the six elders from breakfast.