Chapter 5: Say My Name

I did not sleep that night.

Lydia's whisper kept coming back.

Ask why they chose me.

I lay in the hotel bed and could not make it mean anything.

Edgar texted me at seven on Friday morning.

"Please come to the house. Just you. I'll tell you everything."

I texted back one line.

"I'll be at the gate at nine. Tell them to say my name."

He didn't answer.

At five to nine, the hired car stopped at the outer gate and I stepped out into the cold.

The guard hall sat behind the gate, a low stone building with a window.

Four men in dark jackets stood in front of it.

Torsten was one of them.

My father stood on the drive behind them in a coat thrown over his pajamas, with Edgar at his shoulder.

He had come down to stop whatever was about to happen.

It was too late for that.

I walked up to the thumb scanner and pressed it.

The gate began to swing open.

"Good morning," I said.

Nobody said anything.

The youngest guard looked at the gravel.

My father cleared his throat.

"Nobody here will speak to that woman," he said.

"You know your contracts."

"Mr. Thaxton," Torsten said.

"Yes, Rhodes?"

"Good morning, Miss Kerensa."

My father's face went white, then red.

"You will not say that name."

"I've said it," Torsten said.

"It's a good name."

Beside him, the oldest guard looked at my father and looked at me.

He had been on the estate since I was twelve.

He had once carried me in from the driveway when I broke my ankle.

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