Sold to the Man Who Took Me, but I Hold His Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Key on the Inside

In Declan's bayside house in Brigantine she gets a room with a lock inside and one key; he will be in no room she is in unless she asks, and she overhears him say she decides what she says.

The house in Brigantine stood alone on the bay side, gray shingle with every window dark but one.

Kieran stopped the Corolla at the end of the drive and kept the engine running.

"I'm not leaving you here," he said.

"You are, though," I said. "You've got class at eight and our aunt's clinic at nine. Somebody has to stand in that kitchen and act normal."

"Roz, what did you sign?"

"Nothing. I wrote."

He did not understand that.

I did not explain it, because I did not know how to say the rest of it to him yet.

I kissed his cheek and got out into the wind.

The black car was already parked under the porch light with Augie standing beside it, hands in his coat pockets.

Declan stood at the top of the steps with the door open behind him.

He did not come down.

"Miss Dunleavy," he said.

I walked up the steps on my own feet, past Augie, past Declan, into a hall that smelled of cold wood and bay salt.

Augie followed us as far as the door.

"Brigantine's a good call," he said to Declan, low, as though I were not standing there. "She's better out here. Out of sight of the Boards. Philadelphia hears everything that happens on the Boards."

Declan did not answer.

"I'll keep your books," Augie said. "You keep her comfortable."

He smiled at me again and went down the steps.

Declan shut the door.

I stood in the hall in my camel coat and sequins and waited for it to start.

He did not move toward me.

He stayed where he was, by the door, with the whole length of the hall between us.

"Second floor," he said. "The room at the end. The bed's made."

"Is that where you sleep?"

"I sleep on the third floor." He nodded at the stairs. "There's a bathroom in your room. The door locks from the inside, and there is one key."

He took something out of his pocket and held it out, flat on his palm, at arm's length.

I did not take it.

"Put it on the table," I said.

He crossed the hall, set the key on a small table by the wall and went back to the door.

I got it myself.

It was brass, heavier than it looked.

"I will be in no room you're in," Declan said, "unless you ask me."

"That's convenient," I said.

"It isn't meant to be."

"You'll be in the kitchen at six tomorrow," I said. "Or the dining room, or the hall."

"Then I'll eat standing at the counter at five," he said, "and be out of the kitchen when you come down."

I looked at him.

He was forty, near enough, with black hair gone gray at the temples and a nose that had been broken and badly set.

He had green eyes.

I had not known that eleven nights ago, because I had not looked at his face.

I looked at it now.

"What do you want from me?" I said.

"Nothing," Declan said.

"That's a lie."

"It's the truth, and I know how it sounds," he said.

I turned and went up the stairs with the key in my fist.

The room at the end of the hall had a brass bed, a window onto the bay and a bathroom with a claw-foot tub.

On the dresser someone had put a folded towel, a cake of soap still in its paper and a phone charger.

There was nothing else.

No flowers. No robe laid out. No bottle.

I locked the door and stood with my back against it, breathing.

Then I sat on the bed and took my coat off for the first time in two hours.

My stage ticket was still in the pocket, a little stiff paper tag from the Starlite's dressing room that said RUBY in black marker.

I had worn that name for seven years.

I set the tag on the dresser next to the soap.

There was a knock on the door.

I did not answer.

"Miss Dunleavy," Declan said, through the wood. "I'm in the hall. I won't open the door. I want to say one thing and then I'll go."

"Say it."

"I looked for a Ruby for eleven days."

I stood up.

"I asked every girl in the house. The manager told me there wasn't one."

"You asked so you could do what?"

He was quiet for a while.

"I didn't know," he said. "I'm telling you only that I looked, and I didn't know your name until your father said it tonight."

"That's supposed to help?"

"No."

I listened to him not move.

"Goodnight," he said.

His steps went up the stairs, slowly, to the third floor.

I did not sleep.

At one in the morning I got up and went to the door and turned the key very quietly.

I wanted water, and the bathroom tap tasted of the old pipes.

The stairs were dark.

There was light at the bottom, from the kitchen, and a low voice.

I stopped on the fourth step from the bottom with one hand on the rail.

Declan was at the counter with a phone to his ear and his back to me.

"No," he said. "You don't touch her. You don't speak to her unless she speaks first."

A small tinny voice answered him.

"She decides what she says," Declan said. "To anyone. To Philadelphia, to you, to me. That isn't a vote I get."

The tinny voice said something longer.

"Then I'll have to hope for the best," Declan said, and hung up.

He stood with both hands flat on the counter and his head bent.

I went back up the stairs without a sound.

So he was afraid.

I locked the door, got into bed with my clothes on and the key in my fist, and for the first time in eleven days I almost smiled.

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