Chapter 7: The Key

By sunset the lawn was empty.

Bruce's men carried the chairs away in stacks of ten.

The quartet left in a van.

Two staff in white gloves lifted the roses out of their vases and laid them in crates.

"Where are they going?" I asked.

"Back to the florist," Bruce said. "Unpaid. They'll keep better in a cold room."

He stood beside me at the terrace wall with his hands in his coat pockets.

Down on the drive my father's sedan was pulling away with Lorenzo at the wheel.

Rocco had gone with them.

Ethan had gone first, with Claire and the baby, in a taxi he had to borrow money to pay for.

Nobody looked back at the house.

"My mother is still inside," I said.

"I know."

"She can't leave the island."

"I know that, too. She can have the east wing until she works out how to be alive."

"That's generous."

"It's practical," he said. "She's your mother."

"She buried me in a crate of sandbags."

"She buried herself," he said. "You're the one who walked out."

I didn't answer.

A gust came across the lawn and knocked a glass vase off the wall.

I grabbed it and it shattered against the stone.

A long edge opened my palm.

"Don't move," Bruce said.

He was beside me before I felt it.

He took my wrist in one hand and turned my palm up.

Blood ran down to my sleeve.

"It's fine," I said.

"It's not."