Riot novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Drawer

Rhys's POV

I woke at five with Joss curled against my side and her hand flat on her stomach.

She was asleep.

I lay still and watched the gray come into the glass wall, listening to her breathe.

I had not slept past midnight in six months.

I had slept six hours.

My phone was lit on the nightstand, face up, and I had not left it that way.

I picked it up.

Art had texted again at three-forty: I asked her. Call me when you're up.

I read it twice.

Then I slid out from under Joss's arm, and I tucked the sheet around her shoulder, and I went to the kitchen to call him.

Art answered on the first ring.

He had not slept either.

"Say it again," I said, low.

"I asked her gently, the way you said," Art said. "She's been your housekeeper for three years. Before that she worked for your mother for twenty. She said the drawer's always been stocked from a box that arrives in a gift basket from Mrs. Ambrose, first of every month. Mrs. Ambrose told her to put it in the drawer herself, and not to bother you with it."

"Why would my mother send me that?"

"I didn't ask."

"What else did she say?"

"She got nervous, Rhys. She said Mrs. Ambrose pays for her daughter's tuition."

I stood in my kitchen with a hand on the cold marble.

The city was turning pink on the other side of the glass.

"Art," I said. "Don't tell anyone you called me."

"I haven't told a soul."

"Don't tell my mother."

He was quiet.

"I've driven you twenty years, son," he said. "I know when not to say a thing."

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