Chapter 8: The Study

Tadeo's POV

I woke at three in the morning with the chain gone from my neck.

I knew who had it before I opened my eyes.

I lay still for a moment and listened to the house.

A door closed softly at the end of the south hall.

My study.

I pulled the tube out of my hand, and I put on a shirt, and I followed her.

I didn't hurry.

I had spent two years wanting her in every room of my life.

I wasn't going to run her down.

The study door stood open a hand's width.

She was at the window with her back to me.

She wore the robe, and her hair was loose, and the key hung from her fist.

The safe was behind the painting on the east wall.

She hadn't looked for it yet.

"You know where it is," she said, without turning.

"Yes."

"You're not going to stop me."

"I'm not."

She turned around.

There was moonlight on her face.

She wore a look I knew from the photographs.

It was the look she wore on the second Sunday of every month, at the grave.

"Open it for me," she said.

"Not tonight."

"Why?"

"Because tonight there's a car at the end of my road," I said, "and I haven't decided what to do about it."

Her eyes went past me to the dark window.

I didn't tell her what I meant.

I had a cousin I had loved all my life, and I had watched him flinch at a white cup that morning.

I wanted to be wrong.

I wasn't going to say it aloud to her until I wasn't.

"Then give me something," she said. Her voice shook. "Anything. One true thing."

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